wooden led flashlightby laurie |
Whoever would have thought they would make a flashlight out of wood! And not only is it made out of beech wood, it has an LED light, too.
It would make an awesome present! Battery-operated. – Guest poster Shelby Webster
Price: approx. $53
Available at: www.anthropologie.com
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boomerang reclaimed paintby laurie |
Cannot say enough about the work that Boomerang Paint is doing!
The Quebec-based company takes unused paint and stain (even the hardened stuff!), reformulates it and repackages it, then sells it in a recyled plastic container. In 2008, the company recycled some 4,000,000 litres of paint.
About 1% new material is added to ensure good quality re lustre levels (which are low across the brand), viscosity and drying time. The finishes are washable and the alkyds can be used on exterior surfaces, including wood.
The Boomerang paint colour palettes are shown below; the selection, not surprisingly, is somewhat limited, but for a lot of people who are racked with indecision when faced with thousand of paint chips, that will be a total bonus!
Price: approx. $15
Availability: For a retailer near you, click here.
Do you have a pretty product you’d like to recommend for this blog? Email me at naturalchic@styleathome.com!
eco-friendly school suppliesby laurie |
Back to school always came way too soon as far as I was concerned, but one of the best things about it – aside from seeing school friends – was buying new school supplies.
For your own kids, go natural and eco-friendly this year with this selection of cute goodies from Indigo and Chapters.
Visit www.chapters.indigo.ca for store locations.
Smencils: Yummy-smelling pencils made from 100% recycled newspapers that come in a corn-based biodegradable tube; what a fun idea! $15.
Textliners: Superfluorescent highlighters made with FSC certified wood. They come in yellow, orange, pink, blue and green and won’t ever dry out! $2.50 each.
Staple Free Staplers:You’ll save on steel staples with these wee hardworkers! They come in blue and green (shown), as well as purple, orange, clear and silver. $7 each.
Pistachio Notebooks: Canadian-made from 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper and printed with vegetable- or soy-based inks. I can feel the inspiration coming on already!
Doodle Notebooks, from $6 each.
Be the Change Notebooks, from $6
Punctuate Notebooks, from $6
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cartolina cards recycled notebooksby laurie |
Could these notebooks by Cartolina be any more appealing? I wrote a couple of posts back that I can’t get enough of stationery and these just feed into that addiction with their fantastically exotic graphics reminiscent of lushly coloured botanical studies.
The notebooks are designed by Fiona Richards out in British Columbia. She spent her childhood with her grandparents in Scotland, surrounded by images of their travels as textile dealers in India, and also was influenced by her uncle’s work as an illustrator.
They’re 100% recycled, measure 4″ by 6″ and come in nine different patterns that are printed using vegetable ink. I love the blue ones pictured above, but also couldn’t resist the red-tone ones, so included the pic of them below.
To have a look at more of Cartolina’s products, click here.
Available at: Buk & Nola, Montreal, www.buknola.com; Pistachio, Toronto, www.epistachio.com; Country Furniture Vancouver, www.countryfurniture.net
Price: $4 each, or $12 for a bundle of 3
FYI: Cartolina also does birthday, thank you and various holiday cards that you can find at www.greetq.com, a U.S. company. You can not only buy a card from them, but have them send it to the recipient, with a personalized message in either the font of your choice or handwritten by a member of the GreetQ staff! How’s that for service when you’re pressed for time? I’m impressed!
smock letterpress stationeryby laurie |
I just can’t get enough of fabulous stationery and love journals, paper and cards to the point of obsession.
In particular I love letterpress stationery, which has a 3D effect because the ink is pressed into the paper, and now love Smock stationery, which is based in Syracuse, N.Y.
Its designs have a chic retro flair and are fashioned by Amy Graham Stigler, who was an art historian prior to working at Smock; its papers are pure bamboo – perfect for the letterpress technique, since it’s soft and thick, and, from an ecological point of view, it’s absolutely appealing because it doesn’t need fertilizer or pesticides or as much water as cotton, and it’s incredibly fast growing.
You can get everything from note cards to invitations in all kinds of lovely ready-made designs. Or looking for something more specialized like wedding invitations? Smock will happily handle that, too. They also do gift wrap, which is printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper – sheer bliss!!
Have a peek at some of the company’s work below, or check out their website here.
Fun Canadian connection: Smock owners Debbie Urbanski and Harold Kyle named their son Jasper, after the Canadian national park!
Available at: www.smockpaper.com
going paper-free with electronic billsby laurie |
You might ask yourself, Why bother switching to electronic bills? Well, not only will you save yourself an overstuffed mailbox, you’ll also have to trek less crap out to the curb on recycling day.
And you’ll save tons of time. I can certainly testify to that. Almost all of my bills are paid automatically, which means I now write a total of just two checks a month (those two can’t be paid any other way, unfortunately). So the only time I spend on bills is reconciling my statements, which I would have done anyway, and zero time otherwise. Yes, that’s right, zero, nada, zip!
And, if you need even more incentive, check out www.payitgreen.org. There you’ll find a fun calculator that will tell you, if you enter the number of paper bills you receive and the number of paper payments you make, how much you’ll save on the following if you sign up for electronic bills and payments:
The calculator will also tell you what that amount of greenhouse gases is equivalent to in terms of miles not driven in a car, trees planted and grown for 10 years and the number of square feet of forest preserved.
How cool is that?!
solar-powered radioby laurie |
Sorry I haven’t posted in anything even approaching a timely fashion this week, but I’ve been felled by a super-cold that’s just been lingering on and on. Feeling somewhat better today, though, so fingers crossed the cold is finally on its way out!
I still remember clearly the day in the summer of 2003 when the power when out in the Northeast. We were all sitting around a table in our art department here at the magazine editorial offices and everything shut down and went totally quiet, At first we figured it was just a blip, but it soon became clear it wasn’t.
If only we, and I, had had one of these babies back then to find out what was going on. The FR500 Solarlink from Etón is a feature-packed self- and solar-powered AM, FM and shortwave radio that also has an LED light (including a red LED light for emergencies, along with a siren). It also has cell phone charger (a card is included with the radio; just fill it out with info on what cell phone you have and mail it in and you’ll get the cell phone tip you need!). What more could you ask for in the case of a blackout?
Available at: The Source, Canadian Tire
Price: $80
You still have a chance to win one of the last two kits. All you have to do is be a subscriber to my blog. If you’re not a subscriber already, sign up to have the Natural Chic blog delivered directly to your e-mail inbox for a chance to win. To do so, just click this icon: 
I’ll pick one more winner a week for the next two weeks. Good luck!
Do you have a product you’d like to recommend for this blog? Email me at naturalchic@styleathome.com!
office in a boxby laurie |
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!
pistachioby laurie |
Eco lovers rejoice! Pistachio, a new store from Indigo and Chapters’ Heather Reisman, has opened in Toronto just up the road from the Yonge/Eglinton Indigo. (Another will open on Nov. 15 in Yorkdale, a third some time after in Square One in Mississauga, Ont., and Reisman says that they’ll roll out even more in coming months and next year.)
Reisman says the idea behind Pistachio is simple: “Buy less, buy a little bit better, buy forever.” And buy you will! I became the very first customer because I couldn’t resist the Bruce Mau Optimism spiral notebook, and the buckwheat honey.
All products come from local artisans or are sourced from Fair Trade suppliers, and signs tout impressive eco credentials. Example: gift cards are are made in Canada with soy inks and 100% post-consumer waste fibre, using a chlorine-free process and green-e certified, wind-generated electricity to boot!
Masses of great stuff from face creams to throws, all enviro-friendly, all beautiful, make shopping easy and stylish. (And with Christmas coming, gift-giving will be a breeze, too!)
The stores themselves feature formaldehyde-free MDF, reconstituted wood floors, locally quarried stone, non-toxic resins and zero or low-VOC paints.
Some Pistachio products will also be sold at 50 select Chapters and Indigo stores in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver. Check out www.epistachio.com for more info.
zero voc paintby laurie |
Want to paint but are concerned about VOCs*? Check out Farrow & Ball paints. A number of their products boast zero VOCs, including their Estate Emulsion, Modern Emulsion, Water Based Eggshell, Exterior Masonry, Water Primer & Undercoat, and Stabilising Primer lines.
In addition, their wallpapers are also produced using their zero VOC water-based paints.
*VOC: Volatile organic compounds – including formaldehyde, toluene, benzene and methane – that cause odours (hence the term “off-gassing”) and health problems from eye irritation to cancer.
Available at: 877-363-1040 or www.farrow-ball.com for retailers and to order
Do you have a product you’d like to recommend for this blog? Email Laurie at naturalchic@styleathome.com!
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