Last year, I was so lucky to find Juliet Ames and The Broken Plate Pendant Company right before Valentine’s Day. I love finding funky, original and of course, repurposed stuff to make everyone’s day a little brighter - even jewelry wearing types. What I love about the Broken Plate is what is doesn’t have - straight lines and even designs. Juliet takes everything from vintage finds to modern dishware, and through a bit of smashing and soldering, gives it new life.

This past year has been great for The Broken Plate! Juliet’s work has been featured in tons of local (Baltimore area)  and national press, but Rachael Ray even wore a plate pendant on a recent show! Juliet has expanded The Broken Plate to include rings, cufflinks, friendship pendants (affectionately titled “You ComPlate Me”), and new magnetic-backed brooches that are guaranteed to stay on your clothes. She’ll even deck out your bridesmaids, pay homage to your mother’s china or do other custom work to help you bring a little vintage into your jewelry collection.

This year, win something for yourself (or your significant other, BFF, mom, etc.) from The Broken Plate! Juliet handpicked this spring-themed pendant to help you ward off thoughts about winter and snow. The rules stay the same - before you leave a comment here about how lovely this pendant is, please visit The Broken Plate’s Etsy shop, and tell me about your favorite Broken Plate piece! The contest is open until next Monday, Febrary 9th at midnight, PST. The winner will be chosen at random, and is open to US residents only.

Great news! If you’ve been following my articles involving Brita and their Filter For Good campaign, you know about the struggle to find a way to recycle Brita’s pitcher filters. The Take Back the Filter website and campaign has been asking Clorox (Brita’s parent company) to “go further and take responsibility for the millions of plastic filter cartridges that are also land-filled or incinerated each year.” Through everyone’s amazing efforts, diligence and support, not only can you now ditch your plastic bottles, but you can feel better knowing your filters will be recycled as well!

Brita will officially start collecting used pitcher filters at participating Whole Foods starting in January! You can also mail your filters in to Preserve, a wonderful company that creates household products out of recycled plastic (I wrote about their toothbrushes last year). Their Gimme 5 program, which includes all #5 recyclable items, will now take Brita’s filters and put them to good (re)use. It’s a wonderful, cradle-to-cradle effort, and one in which I’m proud to be a part of!

If you do not have a Whole Foods near you, mail your filters to Preserve. They ask that you use ground shipping and used boxes, and to please put your email address in the box so they can thank you! Here’s the Preserve address:

Preserve Gimme 5
823 NYS Rte 13
Cortland NY 13045

I hope this helps everyone feel at ease about buying Brita’s products, and to fully enjoy the benefits of filtering water instead of buying bottled. It’s a wonderful way your eco-efforts can truly bring you peace of mind!

Yesterday, we were getting some semi-annoying squall-like rain bands, which we think came from Gustav passing by Florida. Since our options we so limited outside, I finally decided to get the girls involved in a little project - recycling old crayons!

We go through crayons like crazy, and with a family who knows the girls love arts and crafts, they get new boxes of them a lot. While I try to hold off using new crayons, you know how little ones are - as soon as they’re damaged in any way, whether broken or the paper needs to be ripped off - they’re not as “fun” anymore.

Recycling crayons is a fun and very simple project that kids can help out with almost 100%. It’s also a great lesson in color mixing and dexerity (especially if you put your kids to work pulling the paper off!). Of course, parents should always do the cutting up part!

1.   Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

2.   Peel the paper wrapper off the crayons.

3.   Cut the crayons into small pieces, about a half-inch long.

4.   Place the pieces in a muffin tin. You can line the tin with muffin cups, or just use the tin (but keep in mind you’ll be sacrificing the tin for art’s sake). We used a mini-muffin pan, but you can use any size.

5.   Sort the crayons by color family, or just mix them up! This was one of the most fun parts for the kids. They were so excited to make their own creations!

6.   Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the crayons are melted.

7.   Let the pan cool completely. The wax will be liquid when you remove it from the oven, but will harden as the pan cools.

See above for our finished product! And thanks to Layne for asking how to make these!

My daughter’s preschool always has a yearly drive to help those in need - this year, boxes are around the school asking for first aid and dental kits. Obviously, these are quite a necessity for people, but since our kids are learning about the environment and recycling in the classroom more and more, I asked the school if they would participate in a teensygreen campaign for the month of March. The next step is to extend this call to my readers - so, for the first time in this blog’s history, I’m going to try a campaign for an entire month.

This month, I’m urging all of you to participate in the SolesUnited / Crocs footwear drive to put shoes on the feet of men, women, and children who can’t affort this luxury necessity. There is no money involved except for shipping. Here’s the process. Send in your used, grown out, holey, sunburnt, water-crusted Crocs - SolesUnited cleans them and completely shreds them, so don’t worry about grime and extreme wear and tear. They then make completely new Crocs made out of 20% of the recycled Crocs, called “croslite”, that are distributed to a specific organization. The next 10,000 pairs are headed to Haiti through Yele Haiti, a humanitarian charity established by musician Wyclef Jean.

So, get in your closets and start Spring cleaning early this year! I know my Floridian friends have a few outgrown pairs from their kids hiding somewhere. Get a group of friends together to send in a larger shipment, saving packaging and money! Ask your school to have a SolesUnited drive and really get your community involved. Click here for the addresses of where you can send in your Crocs. Email me at stefani@teensygreen.com when you send shoes in and how many, and I’ll try to keep a running tally on how many pairs of crocs are on their way (this Wordpress outline is a bit limiting, but I’ll do my best!) I’d love to hear how you’re getting people involved in this simple yet revolutionary upcycling process!

We’re going through a “I don’t want to watch ‘baby’ movies anymore Mommy, can I watch Hannah Montana for the three hundredth time today???” phase in our house right now, and I end up staring at a few (dozen) DVDs that have fallen by the wayside. What to do? If your kids have finally outgrown the Wiggles and you need to unload the entire DVD collection, or if you’re wondering what to do with the Dora library you no longer have to read over and over again, Swaptree may be your new BFF. As its name implies, Swaptree creates a network of trades through ‘have’ and ‘want’ lists you compile, using a special algorithm that magically matches what you’re offering with books, CDs, DVDs, and videogames. The more popular the item you’re offering (meaning, the more ‘want’ lists the item is already on), the more choices you have to swap. Swapping is free, except for postage, which usually runs under $3 per trade.

What makes Swaptree even MORE awesome is you can import your Amazon wishlist, or any lists from other websites (I imported the Children’s Bestseller list from B&N) - all you need is the URL with ISBN numbers - to type right into Swaptree, saving you time retyping that ultimate bedtime books list you’ve been compiling. You can also print postage labels right from Swaptree, saving you time at the post office. Goodbye Baby Einstein, hello High School Musical!

Starting tomorrow, when you sign up with Swaptree, you’ll get your first trade postage-free!  The Swaptree links should give you the promo code automatically when you sign up, but if not, type in the code ‘teensy’ when you’re prompted for a promo code.  Happy swapping!

Freecycle is another free offering/taking service, right in your own community. Each group is monitored by a local resident, and has its own set of rules and regulations. I joined my local Freecycle group, which amazingly has over two thousand people participating! Everything under the sun has been offered and taken, all very quickly and discreetly, including books, dollhouses, children’s clothing, even birds and furniture! If you see something you want that is offered, you privately email the person - no money is exchanged, and there’s no mailing of items. You’re responsible for picking the item up.

The tricky part is to keep up with the updating, and to email the offerer quickly if you see something you want - I jumped on some books, but wasn’t so quick on the draw. If you find Craigslist a bit creepy, Freecycle might be the place for you. Either way, with Swaptree or Freecycle, you’re saving money, packaging, gas, and overall making a greener choice to recycle items in your home. I’m sure any one of the Presidents taking refuge in wallets across the country will be pleased…

Ever break a plate and wonder what to do with the pieces? Kids knocked over your favorite vase and can’t bear to throw it away? New mom and crafter extraordinaire Juliet has taken reincarnating dinnerware it to a new, super-crafty level. An all-around crafter (she was the brains behind the Junk Mail Love project), Juliet and her alter ego, fittingly called The Broken Plate, takes everything from vintage and antique finds to trendy Anthropologie plates and breaks them to make beautiful pendants, rings, and brooches. After a bit of smoothing and soldering magic, Juliet’s pendants are transformed into a work of broken-art. She’ll even take broken wedding plates or other custom work (family china, anyone?) and give them new life as jewelry!

This Valentine’s day, two winners can accessorize with their own Broken Plate Pendant necklace! Juliet has graciously created a classic Valentine’s day red and pink leaf pattern plate pendant, as well as a vibrant turquoise Japanese plate pendant. Please leave a comment here with an answer to the following question - which is your favorite Broken Plate Pendant? It’s a tough call, but take your time - it’s worth a look (and planning which necklace will go with which outfit!) You have until Valentine’s Day, Thursday February 14th at midnight PST. Good luck!

This contest is now closed.  Thanks SO MUCH to everyone for entering!  Congrats to Vida and Laura S for winning! 

Stuck at home? The weather has been horrible in many parts of the country this week, so I’ve been searching for good crafting sites for some old fashioned, arts and crafts fun with the kids. Here are a couple of the most inventive, user-friendly places out there…

If you want to take a trip down crafty memory lane, head over to scrumdilly-do! Kid-craft maven Jessica Wilson has simple yet totally fun projects kids of any age can accomplish - no altering the project for little ones. I remember making these black scratchboards when I was in sleepaway camp - they’re gooey, colorful, and like magic for kids! A great project for using the nubs of crayons, or utilizing funky, recycled ones you can make at home as well…

Speaking of recycled crayons, the diy network has a great post on recycling crayons using muffin tins or molds. We’ve only made round, flat crayons at home, but how fun would it be to make letters?

Crafting a Green World is a new crafting website from model/environmentalist/overall green maven Victoria E. The newest site in the Green Options family of websites, CAGW focuses on everything from knitting to notebooks. My favorite post so far is called Junk Mail Love - if you’re like me and have magazines laying around from, well, forever ago, try this instead of recycling the old-fashioned way. CAGW shows you how to many super cool beads (see above) from junk mail to old issues of Nick Jr. Make them as chunky or delicate as you like - great for working on fine motor skills as well as green-fashionista training!

For kids who love making figures, try Paper Critters, the online paper toy creator. Get your post-consumer recycled paper out for hours of critter creating - choose from an almost endless database of cute and creepy characters!

There’s lots more out there - send me your favorite crafting websites, and I may just make this a weekly post! Hope everyone stays warm and dry this weekend…happy crafting!

Photos courtesy of Junk Mail Gems.  Thanks so much!

One great thing about Panama - no junk mail. Well, no MAIL really - they don’t have a well established government regulated postal system, so if you have a PO Box, you get what you subscribe to and not much else. So, I thankfully didn’t need to recycle 100 pounds of catalogs in November and December, but now, I’m already ankle deep in junk mail (and I haven’t even been shopping yet!).

This wonderful service called Greendimes, however, will help eliminate your name and address from all the popular junk mail lists, and reduce your junk mail by, get this, up to 90%! Started in 2006, Greendimes boasts it has stopped over 3 MILLION pounds of junk mail from reaching mailboxes across the country; almost 500,000 unwanted catalogs from being thrown away or recycled; and over 680,000 trees saved from a life of junk mail.

For $20, let Greendimes do all the work, and only find happy, wanted mail in your mailbox. If you sign up, you can even choose which catalogs you want stopped being sent (hellooooo, I haven’t bought anything from that company that makes silk longjohns since I moved from New York SEVEN YEARS AGO). You get the point. Greendimes is a great concept that you can participate in for little money. Think about it as a new waistline for your mailbox! Easier than getting to the gym, for sure…

I’m all about fundraising for my daughter’s school, but it was getting out of control with the cookie dough this month and the candy that month…people got sick of me asking them not only to give money, but for food they probably didn’t want in their house either! Book fairs are a fav, but thinking in an eco-friendly way led me to FundingFactory, a printer cartridge and cell phone recycling program that benefits schools, sports teams, nonprofits, the environment, and everyone’s wallets simultaneously! Sound too good to be true? Seriously, this program is almost too easy to follow - sign up your school or other organization (for FREE) to get a “Jump Start” kit sent to you. There are a ton of resources to help your school get the word out about the program, including posters, drop-off boxes, etc. (again, FREE). You also have on-line tools to help manage the accounts (hello, FREE!), and you can get rewards in cash or through an extensive rewards catalog with school supplies, office supplies, etc. And, landfills will thank you by keeping these items out and keeping the recycling process going!

Also, if you or someone in your family has a business, you can sign up to support a local school or organization you want to benefit from recycling the ink and laser printers in your office. Here’s a list of items FundingFactory recycles, and how much your group can receive per item. Way better than making your kids roam stores with boxes of M&Ms no one will buy and you’ll end up eating anyway…

Toothbrushes are a big, um, target for us at Target. I so many Elmo, Dora, My Little Pony, you name it, if it comes on a plastic toothbrush it sits in the bathroom cup. But when I found the Preserve Junior toothbrush by Recycline, I realized it was time for a change. The Preserve Junior is ergonomic, with soft bristles, and made from 100% recycled plastic - specifically, Stonyfield Farms yogurt cups. The toothbrushes come in packs of four, but if you order through them, you can have one mailed to you every two, three, or four months, so you can actually remember to change your child’s toothbrush. Plus, mail it back to them in a postage-paid recycled mailer (of course) when you’re finished, and they’ll recycle it again for you! Talk about circle of life…

As a fun bonus, each brush features a fun fact about one of three endangered animals: the Karner Blue Butterfly, the Utah Prairie Dog or the Grizzly Bear. A portion of Preserve Junior toothbrush sales goes to the National Wildlife Federation. Find Preserve toothbrushes for you and your kids at teensygreen’s EcoShop!