Blogs

Looking for a water pitcher with a built-in filter but want something with a more beautiful aesthetic than the usual stuff on the market? Look no further!

Design Within Reach offers up this sleek stunner. The Charcoal Water Pitcher uses a mix of Binchotan charcoal and stones to filter and create mineral-rich water. The charcoal works on two levels: to ensure the water is potable (not a problem if you’re using tap water in the first place!) and as a deodorizer, so your water is odour-free – useful if you live in places where the water smells of things like sulphur.

The stones and charcoal last up to six months, depending on how much you use the pitcher, and the real beauty of the system is that that afterward, they can simply be chucked into your garden – no used filters to dump into landfills. Love it!!

Each stainless-steel-and-glass pitcher comes with one charcoal-and-stone set; additional sets can be purchased separately for $25 US each.

Available at: www.designwithinreach.com

Price: $85 US

Do you have a product you’d like to recommend for this blog? Email me at naturalchic@styleathome.com!

Brunswick Hills, Ohio-based artist Mark Langan sent me a comment today on my Brad Pitt-Kiehl’s post (to check out his comment, click here) and he said I would be blown away by his cardboard art and I was!

He was inspired to use cardboard when he noticed the fluted inner layer when tearing apart some cast-off boxes from his neighbours and thought he could create interesting effects by slicing, stacking and gluing it together in different patterns.

For more on his art, which at times has overt messages about recycling and waste, check out his site, as well as a review at www.inhabit.com, a fabulous blog that tracks trends in green products, design and architecture. Thanks for the comment, Mark!

Available at: www.langanart.com

Prices: available upon request

What’s not to love about this smart desk set?

It’s beautiful, with its smashing red colour; the set consists of a magazine/file holder, pencil cup, mail sorter and journal; and the whole shebang comes in a matching box that you can then use to store all sorts of goodies.

And the best thing about it? It’s 100% made from cotton remnants from the garment industry!

Available at: Crate and Barrel, www.crateandbarrel.ca

Price: $39.95 US (regular price $69.95 US)

Do you have a product you’d like to recommend for this blog? Email me at naturalchic@styleathome.com!

I’ve always thought it an incredible waste to throw away an entire toothbrush when just the head needed replacing and now I’ve found Radius, a company that makes two types of toothbrushes with replaceable heads.

My fave is Source, which has a handle made from 50% recycled wood fibre or flax and 50% post-consumer polypropylene. When the head needs replacing, you’re only tossing out 7% of the toothbrush as opposed to 100%. Brilliant!

So brilliant, in fact, I’m giving away three toothbrush sets (each set is valued at $13.85 US and includes one Source Toothbrush with extra replacement head, one Toothbrush Travel Case and one Silk Floss).

To win a set, add a comment on this post before Nov. 24 midnight EST listing the best thing you’ve done in your life to make it more eco-friendly and green. After the contest closes, I’ll pick what I think are the three best tips, and the people who posted those tips get the toothbrush sets shipped to them for free anywhere in Canada, excluding Quebec (see below)!

You can check out the toothbrushes, travel cases, floss and other products at Radius’s website. Right now, Radius is offering a great discount offer of 10% off to styleathome.com visitors; just use code SAH5934 (offer expires 11/17/2008).

Available at: www.radiustoothbrush.com

Open to all residents of Canada, except those in Quebec. Not open to any Transcontinental Media employees, their families, or any other persons with whom they reside.

This gorgeous handmade bamboo platter is one of the many treasures you can find on the Rainforest Site. Buy it and you’ll not only get a great-looking bowl, but will save 2,290 square feet of rainforest!

How does that work?

It’s simple: The Rainforest Site works to preserve rainforests around the world. Go to the site daily, if possible, and hit the “Click” button to fund the purchase of rainforest land worldwide by The Nature Conservancy, The Rainforest Conservation Fund, The World Parks Endowment, and Rainforest2Reef. Or buy one of the products from the site’s shop and you’ll also be saving a set amount of rainforest land.

Some 35,500 people around the world click on the site each day, and, to date, their more than 150 million clicks have preserved more than 40,500 acres of land – impressive!

Make The Rainforest Site your homepage, and clicking on it each day will become second nature – a definite feelgood way to start your day – or make it your go-to-site for at least some of your holiday shopping and do a little good in the world while making friends and family happy.

The Midas Touch bamboo platter measures approx. 15″ x 8″ x 2″ and cleans up easily with a damp cloth.

Available at: www.rainforestsite.com

Price: $24.95 US

Have a room you don’t always use? Running in and out to open and close the vents to adjust the heating and air conditioning? Make life easier and save some energy – yours and the Earth’s – with a Vent-Miser.

This battery-operated, programmable vent has two weekday and two weekend programs. Set it up to turn off the air flow wheneven you want to, without having to always remember to do it yourself!

Best for wooden and darker floors, since, despite my pretty picture, it’s only available in brown.

Available at: The Home Depot

Price: $29.99

Tired of your cell phones, PDAs and cameras sucking up electricity? Check out the Solio Universal Chargers.

The portable solar chargers are petite enough to fit in the palm of your hand and unfold into a flower shape (very pretty! OK, not exactly relevant, but, still, pretty!). They’re portable enough that you can carry them while out hiking, at the beach, pretty much anywhere, or just use them at home.

Stick a pencil in the hole in the centre and position facing the sun, wait a day (maybe more if it’s cloudy) and you’re good to go! I live in a south-facing apartment in Toronto, and I put it in the window, behind the glass and didn’t even bother to reposition it to follow the movement of the sun, and in a single sunny day, it was fully charged. It holds the charge for up to one year.

The Classic comes with a charging cable; suction cup for mounting on a window (great for your car); female and mini USBs; and Samsung, Nokia, LG, and Sony Ericsson adapter tips.

Sadly, I couldn’t use it to power my iPhone 3G (the 3G somehow doesn’t recognize the Solio and after a couple of seconds of charging, shuts down, thinking it’s done), so I passed it on to web producer Lauren McPhillips to try out with her Sony Ericsson cell phone.

She says, “It worked quickly and the charge lasted really long. I loved it!” The Solio does work with the older iPhones, and a new tip should be out within the month to solve the 3G iPhone problem.

And, no, they’re not inexpensive, but they’ll last absolutely forever, and come a power outage, you’ll be laughing as your cell phone will be the only one working for miles around. Now if only they were powerful enough to charge up power-sucking laptops!

Available at: solio.com

Price: $99.95 US

If you were at the Style at Home Show this past weekend and visited our Dream Master Bedroom, you couldn’t miss the stunning Graham & Brown wallpaper that set off the walls in our feature space (beautifully put together by our senior design editor, Margot Austin, with help from the rest of our super-talented design team!).

Home Depot is now carrying Graham & Brown’s five smart and stylish, environmentally friendly wallpaper patterns. Included: the dramatic Heritage in Charcoal (above left) and more subtle Summer in Oatmeal (above right).

Produced using papers made from FSC-certified wood and printed with water-based inks that contain no solvents or VOCs, the wallpapers are recyclable and cleverly packaged in compostable materials made from corn starch.

Click here for more info on G&B’s enviro efforts. And, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, check out our handy story on hanging wallpaper.

Available at: www.homedepot.ca

Price: $36 per double roll

These Accent de Villes frames made from woven recycled newspapers will snazz up your pics pronto!

Available: at retailers across Canada; call 800-663-2384 for a retailer near you.

Price: approx. $12 (3″x3″), $14 (4″x6″), $16 (5″x7″)

Style at Home’s design editor, Samantha Pynn, took to the small screen this fall with her very own TV show, Pure Design, and I’m loving it! (And I’m not just saying that because I work with Sam!)

She’s got great taste, is fun and friendly and tackles the show makeovers with an eye to keeping things environmentally friendly – who could ask for anything more?

In the bedroom pictured, which was made over for one of the episodes, the night tables are eco friendly, the headboard has a soy-based foam core to make it cushy, the lamps are old ones made over with recovered shades, the bedding is all organic, and the walls were painted with no-VOC paint.

Watch for episodes of Pure Design on HGTV Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET (10 p.m. PT); for more info, check out hgtv.ca.

Photo, HGTV, John Queenan.