I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas

Well, it's officially time: the pumpkin spice lattes have been swapped for eggnog, the preview ads for Black Friday are beginning, and it's getting dark at 4pm. I guess that means we're starting to think of holiday gift shopping!

There are lots of ways to think about reducing your footprint this holiday season:

• choose quality items that will have a long life
• choose gifts with reduced packaging
• buy experiences, such as tickets to a concert or gift card to a favorite restaurant
• do a swap: each person in the gift exchange chooses a loved book or movie to pass on
• shop local

Shopping local not only stimulates the local economy, but also reduces the fuel to move goods from place to place. One of my favorite shops is The Handmade Showroom, located at Pacific Place Mall in downtown Seattle. Open 8am-9pm on Black Friday, they are right in the heart of other conventional retail that you may be visiting on Black Friday, and feature dozens of artisans and crafters from the Pacific Northwest. In addition to the shop itself being a small local business, all of the products within are from small local businesses.

They have a bit of something for everyone on your shopping list: sauces and confections for the foodie, cat beds and toys for your fur-babies, jewelry and accessories, kids dress-up costumes, screen-printed t-shirts, housewares... Want to level-up your conscious shopping? Some of the artisans use reclaimed or recycled materials! Top it all off with a letterpress greeting card.

A glimpse into the kids's section: 

Some of your local small businesses may be participating in Black Friday, but keep in mind that many of these business will taking the day to spend with their families. Small Business Saturday was started by American Express in 2010 to encourage shopping small and local and is observed on the day after Black Friday. Search social media for #‎SmallBusinessSaturday or ‪#‎SmallBizSat‬ to find participating businesses.

Finally, if you are crowd-shy and avoid shops this time of the year, consider checking out online marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon Handmade. These marketplaces feature small businesses and artisans, and highlight where the artisan is based from.

Happy holiday shopping, everyone, and may you discover a cool small business near you!

A DIY Halloween

A few weeks ago I wrote about starting my Ursula costume that I've been dreaming of DIY-ing for a while. Starting with just a black dress and a purple cape from thrift stores, it was time to get down to work.

Step 1: cut the skirt of the dress up to the thighs (however risque you want to go) into 8 strips. These will become your tentacles. Cut the cape into 8 long triangles, a few inches longer than the skirt strips, but tapering to a point.

Lay the purple fabric, back side up, on top of each strip of the skirt, pin in place, and sew such that the tentacle point and sides are sewn shut, and there is an opening at the top of each. There will be extra black fabric from each strip: don't trim this, when we flip the tentacles right side out, this will be part of the stuffing.

 

 Don't forget to have a little four-legged friend observe your work:

 

 Flip the each skirt strip right-side out. The seams will now be on the inside, and the shiny side out.

 

Now prepare some paint so we can add "suction cups" to the tentacles. I happen to have a bunch of craft paint laying around. If you don't, check out thrift stores that are focused on craft supplies like ReCreative.  I like add some fabric medium, which makes the paint a little less crunchy. An old deli container makes a perfect mixing tub.

 

To stamp on the suction cups, no special tools are needed. The top of an old shampoo bottle makes easy circles. 

 

Steps not pictured: to fill out each tentacle and also make them bendable, I stuffed them with the filling from an old pillow (free!) and some 1/8" armature wire. Once stuffed, I sewed each tentacle shut, using the couple extra inches of purple fabric to cover the filling. 

For finishing touches, I purchased a long sleeve purplish shirt ($7.99 at Goodwill), painted a shell gold and strung it from a necklace, and made myself up with bold eyes, red lips, and white hair gel. 

 

And voila! The sea witch goes on to party. :)

 

On Halloween, my co-workers wanted to dress up as Star Trek characters at work, but I couldn't let all the above crafting go to waste. One more piece, and I can be a sea-witch/alien mashup! I purchased this purple sweater (also Goodwill, $7.99), cut the collar off of it, and sewed on a purple dress belt as trim.

 

Not counting the purple tights, which wouldn't be included with other commercial costumes, here's the breakdown. 

Dress, $10, thrifted

Cape, $10, thrifted

Wire, $13.35, new (will reuse)

Purple top, $7.99, thrifted

Total: $41.24

A 50-70% savings over packaged costumes!

Made From Concentrate

We're not talking about orange juice - I prefer that fresh squeezed! Nope, we're talking about cleaners.

Selling dry powder, solid bar, or concentrated products is not a new concept, but let's make it a preferred one. There's bar soap vs body wash, powdered or concentrated laundry detergents, concentrated household cleaners, and those yard sprays that you attach to your hose for full yard coverage.

Why the shift? First, if you can remove water weight from your products, you are literally not paying to ship *water* from the manufacturer to the store or your doorstep. This also saves room and weight on the shipping truck, saving fuel. For concentrated liquids, you will reduce the size of packaging needed for the product, and for dry solids or powders, you may even be able to shift to non-plastic packaging.

So with all the reasons to buy minus the water and all the other products listed above that already have this model, why don't we see it more with beauty products? How many plastic bottles do we have in our bathrooms from shampoos to face wash?

Enter salonsolids. I stumbled across them after being disappointed that I can't seem to find bulk bath and body products in my area. salonsolids is an online store for hair products (shampoo, conditioner, and styler). They are sold as granules, and you simply add hot water to mix them to a "regular" consistency. They come in a variety of scents, naturally fragranced with essential oils like mint, lavender, and lemongrass.

Sarah was kind enough to send me a shampoo sample to try. The small envelope was enough to last 5 washes.Check out this simple paper envelope - no travel shampoo bottles here.

Simply mix in whatever hot-water-safe container you have handy. Hello, mason jar! Or perhaps I'll reuse one of my previous bathroom bottles, cuz I do love a pump or lid to squeeze through.

I was a little nervous because I have frizz-prone, dry hair, and while washing, it felt a little too "squeaky clean". However, when my hair dried, it felt glossy and soft. After 5 washes, I'm pretty confident this formula will work with most hair types despite not having multiple formulas for specific hair types.

The products come in paper tubes that are recyclable or compostable. If you want to take it totally zero waste and reap the rewards, you can send 11 tubes back to salonsolids, and they'll send you a 12th product free.

I'm glad to see there are becoming more options low-waste beauty products. Mail order solids may just be for you!

Halloween is just 3 weeks away!

And with that, I realized that Thoughtful Consumer is 1 year old!! Thank you all for joining me on this ride, and reading the last 57 posts. :)

Every year around this time, I start creating my Halloween costume. Let's be honest, I've been thinking about it for months, but now it's time to get down to work.

I've never been into just picking one of those bagged costumes at a store. I find they usually run small, are poorly made, and cost a lot of money, making me pretty sad when I get home and half of my $59.99 costume sortof fits. Also, you're ending up with a costume that many other people will be wearing.

Last year, I wrote about swaps, which is one great way to mix up your routine. For free, you can mix and match pre-owned items from your friends to create a unique costume.

This year, I'm finally going for a costume that I've had in mind for a few years: Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

This store-bought costume is $89.99 and has no tentacles. :-/

This one is $129.99 and has tentacles, but I think I can do better for less. 

Both of the above are 100% new polyester. I think I can get away with a spending a loss less, and using recycled materials. When you have a specific idea in mind, thrifting + alterations can often be more targeted than swaps.

I'm starting with a $10 black evening gown that I bought from swap.com, an online second-hand store.

This dress is a little loose in the waist and tight in the hips, but no worries, because there are many alterations needed. (It also helps that T said "wow!" before taking this picture. :) It's a good departure from my usual jeans and tee.)

I bought a lavender cape for $10 at Lifelong Thrift that I will use for the lining/underside of the tentacles. Finally, I did buy some new sculptural wire from Amazon ($13.35) that I will use inside the tentacles to shape them. After wearing the costume, I'll pull the wire out for another costume or art project.

I have a long way to go taking these materials into a finished costume. In addition to a fun DIY project, I'll end up with a unique costume, and $90 in savings.

I'll be sure to post a step-by-step and finished pics closer to Halloween. Now friends, have fun at your own swaps and thrifting - can't wait to see what you come up with for costumes!

Reclaimed Materials: Bowling Alley Lumber

So, I'm visiting Detroit on a business trip, and come across something very New York: Shake Shack. Of course, I had to go in.

Yes, that is The Spirit of Detroit holding an ice cream cone and a burger. :) What else caught my eye was some stamping on the table.

Handcrafted in New York from RECLAIMED BOWLING LANES! It's amazing how many materials can be reused when a commercial space is demo'd or renovated. Some municipalities require a certain percentage of materials be recycled, and for others there's ability to sell them or get recycle credits for projects like LEED certification.

But did you know your own home projects can benefit from the leftovers? In the Seattle Metro area alone, there are several stores that second-hand sell building fixtures and materials. They include Habitat for Humanity's Re-store and Second Use Building Materials.

T discovered the Re-store when setting up his office/classroom space. We came across large chunks of granite countertop, cabinetry, and more, that could be rehab-ed or cut to size. What he ended up buying was several boxes of brand new carpet tile, presumably leftover from a project, and 1/4 of retail cost.

You do need to dig through for the right pieces, but these stores have great finds for a unique home reno or Pinterest project. One building's trash is another one's treasure!

Cute as a "Button": Reuse #11

I'm visiting a dear friend in Portland this weekend, and begged her to take me shopping. I desperately need work tops, and Portland had the cutest boutiques.

Our first stop was a cute consignment shop named Button.

If you aren't familiar with consignment shops or know the difference between them and thrift shops, the basic premise is this: the clothes are being sold by their previous owners through the shop for commission. Because the shop wants everyone to make money, they tend to be more curated (higher quality and trendier) than donation-based stores. There are plenty of brick and morter consignment stores, as well as online versions like ThredUp.

I walked out with a cute ruffle-sleeved top from J Crew, in like-new condition. The cool thing about Button's tags, is they list the normal retail price, so you know what a great deal you're getting.

Bottom line: if you are interested second-hand clothes, and want to minimize effort digging through racks of various quality clothing, consignment could be for you. Selling through these stores is also a great way to recoup some costs while cleaning out your closet.

Retail price: $49.50
Button price: $16.95
My savings:  $32.55 (66%)

The previous owner will make $8.47.

Thoughtful Dogs!

Well, dog park volunteers and dog owners, that is... :)

T and I frequent Grandview Dog Park with Meeko. It has some great open space for play, and a grand view (get it?) of Mt. Rainier.

The dog parks in the area are fully run by volunteers via donations. The park has always had some great features, and the most recent group has made additional improvements.

There have always been several stations with rolls of bags to take care of your dog's mess, like this:

One of the recent improvements was the addition of bag holders throughout the park, where patrons can bring their plastic shopping bags:

But, you gasp, I don't have plastic bags! I always remember my reusable grocery bags!

For those who end up with plastic bags anyway, this is a great way for them to get an additional use. Using the collected bags also eliminates the use of a brand new bag for pet waste, which costs the volunteers or donors $$$ and time to stock, saving those resources for other improvement projects.

Next time you head to the dog park, consider grabbing a handful of bags to share at the park!

The other cool feature at the park is the rain water barrels used to collect doggie drinking water.

There are a couple water fountains throughout the park also, but the rain barrels allow dogs to get free water during the rainy and following months of the year. This saves on the water bill and allows the park to shut down plumbed fixtures in the colder months.

What interesting features do your parks have to best utilize resources?