As we transition into 2008, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season! We’re moving the fam back to the US right now, so it’s going to be a couple of weeks of light posts and lots and lots of…moving. Thank you all for making teensygreen’s first few months so enjoyable to write, and look for lots more in 2008! See you next year! - Stefani

Here’s a fun way to play a fast game with your kids online and go a bit of good in the process. Guess the Gift is asking you to - you got it - guess what’s in the big box on the screen. Shake it, X-ray it…you’ll run into some pitfalls, but if you’ve been reading teensygreen, you’ll figure out what’s in there and help disadvantaged kids around the world. I’ve written about this wonderful program a couple of times, and PRIZEY is giving one away - well, now I’ve said too much!

I don’t want to give away even more, but for every 150 guesses made on Guess the Gift, innovative marketing company Resource Interactive will donate an additional one of these amazing products to more deserving kids. So, pass the word along, and keep those guesses coming! You don’t have to be correct for your guess to count, and you can guess as many times as you want!

I have an extra-special giveaway this week, sponsored by another blog I run called The Letter Green. The Letter Green blog is an on-line supplement to the quarterly print magazine of the same name my family and I have created. The first green magazine in English and Spanish, The Letter Green focuses on Latin American green news, innovations in green products, news, and much more. You can read the print edition here, or sign up for a free subscription - our next issue comes out in about a month!

To that end, we’re giving away a copy of one of our favorite ‘green’ books, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. The idea behind Cradle to Cradle is a revolutionary one. The authors call for products and processes not to be ‘less bad,’ but efficient to the maximum. Just as ants or trees take away from the earth, they also give back, to be positively good for the environment. ‘Waste is food’ is the principle - by making products that can be composted, or can be used again without degrading them or the environment, we can acheive true upcycling where the need for more and more and more resources are lessened even further. Much of the book shows how the authors, as consultants, have put such principles into action for large companies, product development, even neighborhood design and actions. It is a true manifesto for change, and an inspiring read!

Aside from Cradle to Cradle’s revolutionary ideas about eco-design and practices, the book itself is innovative as well, and it a true testament to the author’s ideals. This is no paper-shredding piece of literature you’re holding. Cradle to Cradle is a “DuraBook,” a patented, synthetic, tree free, waterproof, tearproof book that is made entirely of plastic resins and inorganic fillers that can be melted and reused over and over again, without toxins or added chemicals. It’s upcycling in the palm of your hand!

Just leave a comment at the post (comment button is at the TOP of the post) for your chance to win your very own copy of Cradle to Cradle! You have until Friday at midnight, PST, to enter. Good luck!

If you’re like me, you’re almost done with Chanukah, stuffed full of latkes and applesauce (I’m a sour cream woman myself), strung out from one too many dreidel games, and about to sit back, relax, and let the millionth holiday commercial on CNN come and go without even a peek. If you’re not like me, you’re still on a countdown of shopping, organizing, finalizing, and wrapping. And herein lies the problem for many of us. I’ve written about what a waste wrapping paper is…all that paper, made to look pretty and then BAM! Instant trash, especially with kids, who will shred wrapping paper until every last glittery piece is ready to be landfilled.

What an amazing find with these box sets from treeo design, resuable boxes that are more like attention-grabbing accents for gifts - and will gladly be used again to make someone else’s face light up. Made from either recycled or FSC certified paper (meaning, no new trees were used to produce them), and using vegetable dyes for printing, the boxes have a funky, totally carryable shape and design to match any gift giver (or recipient)! The boxes come in either a set of three - large, medium, and small - or, a four pack of small boxes for stocking stuffers or ‘good things come in small packages’ gifts. Treeo is a mom/sister/friend-run company out of upstate New York, which gives me the feeling that a lot of heart and personality went into these designs. Guaranteed you’ll find a box set that fits your gift-giving style!

I just so happen to have the pleasure of giving away a treeo box set (3-pack) to one lucky winner this week! Just tell me which design is your favorite, leave a comment here, and you might win it…The giveaway is, as always, open until Thursday night at midnight, PST. Have fun choosing, and good luck!

PS - They make good, old-fashioned recycled wrapping paper too!

This contest is now closed!  Happy Holidays, and look for more giveaways in the New Year!

Since I took the Handmade Pledge, I’ve been trying to find a way to effectively get the word out about craft fairs and crafter’s galore across the country to mobilize you to get out there and buy better gifts. I fit the first puzzle piece from my friend Kelli over at Tangled and True, when she announced Tangled and True’s handmade fair, a selection of ten very special handmade companies offering very special holiday discounts. My personal favorites, blabla handknitted dolls, backpacks, and pillows, and Quilt Baby bibs and burp cloths, join other wonderful designers such as Sarah Jane illustrated prints and intricate, totally girly, indie clothier willarie.

The biggest piece of the ‘keeping up with handmade’ puzzle is the Indie Craft Fair Guide, which is exactly what it says - THE guide to craft fairs nationwide. Listed by date, with many sponsors lining the columns, you’ll find handmade GALORE, from clothing to crafts, stationary to stuffed animals. This is a big weekend, people, so get out there and get crafty!

December 7th:

Boston, MA - Design Nearby Prints Charming
Portland, OR - motokitty, 5 Parties, 10 Artists

December 8th and 9th:

Portland, OR - The Rebel Rabbit Craft Fair
Milwaukee, WI - ARTvsCRAFT
New York, NY - BUST Magazine’s Holiday Craftactular
Des Moines, IA - Craft Saturday!
Sacramento, CA - SellOut BuyOut
Chicago, IL - Handmade Market
Chicago, IL - Renegade Market
Brooklyn, NY - 3rd Ward Handmade Holiday Craft Fair & Open House
Brooklyn, NY - Artists & Fleas Market
Pittsburgh, PA - I Made It For the Holidays
Boston, MA - SOWA Holiday Market
Boston, MA - Bazaar Bizarre
Biddeford, ME - Blissful Revolution Arts & Crafts Bazaar
Pass Christian, MS - Handmade Invasion
Sarasota, FL - Atomic Holiday Bazaar

I didn’t do a big Green Gift Guide this season - since I’m still fairly new to the game, I felt that there was a lot out there already that you all, my faithful readers, are on the ball about as well. I also have to admit, I’m getting a little overloaded myself with almost daily emails about what to buy for whom and where and how much and etc., etc., etc. However, when Gift Rap approached me about being their “Green Gifts Guest Guru” (that’s a mouthful!), I jumped right on it! Check out my five favorite, eco-friendly holiday gifts for kids of all ages. Choosing only five was TOUGH, but I tried to find a good range of ages, interests, and innovation. With all the wonderful gift guides and eco-shops out there, going green for your kids this season is easier than ever!

My husband is not the toughest person to shop for, but since this holiday season he’s traveling to a far-off place, I thought I’d be a bit greener about his gift. Instead of buying something bulky or unneeded for his travels, I decided to offset the carbon emissions from his flights through TerraPass. TerraPass is a carbon offset program that coverts your carbon creating mileage into money towards clean energy and energy efficiency projects, therefore balancing out your bad, evil, greenhouse gas-creating tendencies. Geeky? Of course! But a truly great idea for ‘that which cannot be helped’ situations, like travel or driving to the supermarket at 2AM for ice cream…

TerraPass’s carbon offset system is very easy to use - plug in the make of your car and how much you drive each year, or, if you’re flying, the route of your flight, and TerraPass calculates how much CO2 your trip with emit. It then suggests how much your milage translates into money to donate. TerraPass works with various organizations, using your money to fund ‘three types of leading-edge projects: clean energy; farm power such as dairy farm methane capture; and landfill gas capture’. To date, TerraPass members have reduced over 600 million pounds of carbon dioxide through their trip offsetting. It’s definitely a logical step to being greener and cleaner, and helping to prevent global warming!

If you’re traveling this holiday, TerraPass is an inexpensive way to be environmentally aware. TerraPass also has a College TerraPass to offset a year’s worth of dorm room emissions (if that’s even possible) - a great gift for the budding environmentalist/video game addict in your family. If you’re getting married, plug in your guests’ travel info and hey! Carbon offsets for everyone! You’ll be surprised at how affordable something like TerraPass really is - and how much less guilty it can make you feel about hopping that flight to see the family this holiday season!

Recently, I wrote about Give One, Get One (GOGO), a groundbreaking program that provides child-centered, energy efficient ‘XO’ computers to underprivileged children around the world. For $200, you can send a computer to a child, and for $400, a child in your life gets in the on the fun. I’m pleased to announced that the organization behind GOGO, One Laptop Per Child, is extending the GOGO program now through December 31st! This is a truly unique philanthropic opportunity with a technology twist that benefits many!

If that’s not enough excitement about GOGO, PRIZEY, everyone’s favorite go-to site for wonderful giveaways and contests around the web, is giving away an XO laptop for one lucky winner! The brains behind PRIZEY, Z Recommends, has purchased an XO, and will be testing it out for review before the giveaway ends. The contest rules are as follows, from PRIZEY:

“PRIZEY will accept daily entries for the XO Laptop giveaway from November 20 through January 4. To enter, check the righthand sidebar of PRIZEY each day you’d like to send an entry, where we’ll post a “magic word” to be used in that day’s entry, as well as occasional chances for extra entries. Send us an email to prizey.laptop (at) gmail (dot) com with the word, and you’ll be entered for that day.

The last entries will be accepted on January 4, 2008, and PRIZEY will then select a winner at random from all valid entries. Assuming that by that date ZRecs has received the XO laptop and had two weeks preparing a review, the laptop will be shipped to the winner the second week of January.”

Daily entries!? Revolutionary computer?! Get in on the holiday giveaway craziness while the giving is hot!

Thanks to Jeremiah for reminding me about GOGO, and for hosting this awesome contest!

When it came to baby clothes for my girls, I tried my best to avoid the pinky pastels - a tough, TOUGH feat, especially because there was much less to choose from a few years back (we won’t discuss how much one daughter has made pink her signature color…). Luckily, the trend in clothing has turned a bit for moms who don’t want to go cutesy for their babies, especially for the organic set.

Tomo & Edie has become a huge favorite of mine, and not only because the company is named after two adorable children who are best friends. Tomo & Edie’s kimonos achieve a unique organic style not only by using organic cotton, but also through a dye method called ‘Kusakizome’ - a traditional Japanese dye technique using materials from nature. Each Kusakizome kimono for babies ages 0-6 months are hand dyed with natural dyes such as tea, plants, flowers, as well as unbleached organic cotton for a truly natural look. The result is a tie-dyed effect with vibrant, earthy tones. Of course, each dye signifies a special property - tea, for good health; madder root, for good fortune; indigo leaves for protection; and logwood tree for integrity.

This week, I’m so excited to offer one Kusakizome kimono for a baby you love! Choose your favorite color, and whether you want the kimono in short, long, or combination style. This is a true organic indulgence for any baby - don’t forget, the kimono only comes in size 0-6 months. Same rules apply - leave a comment here, the original post, by Thursday night at midnight, PST, with an answer to this question - what is your favorite Tomo & Edie kimono color? Thanks for entering, and good luck!