A Goody Bag For Grown-ups

Yay! I'm so excited because today is A.) Friday and B.) my free gift from Gemma Correll came in the post today along with a few extra little ditties tucked inside. A short while ago I won this giveaway over on Pikaland. The email I received that told me I was the big winner - well let's just say that it was one message I was truly ecstatic to find in my inbox. I have had such a great big artist crush on Gemma and her witty style for some time now. So, I am truly over the moon about my lovely new tote bag! Too bad I'm too old for trick or treating 'cause I'd love to stash loads of sweets inside it. And those few extra ditties I mentioned - two cute postcards of her work. I think they'll look lovely framed and hanging in my hallway.
Wishing you all a fun and safe Halloween weekend full of lovely surprises.

Live Green Without Spending a Ton of Money

Well, as most of you know today is Earth Day. And in honor of such I want to share some of my favorite earth friendly products - things that can be used and re-used over and over again to limit our amount of waste to our planet and our wallets. They also happen to be some of my top pet peeves...

1. There is no reason to use a plastic bag when there are so many cute and storage friendly shopping totes and produce bags available to us. A traditional canvas bag is great and can be found in an array of styles but I prefer to use nylon totes that fold down to next to nothing and fit easily in my purse. That way I always have one handy. This one from ChicoBag is available in all sorts of fun colors and for $5.00 I think its a steal! Also, check out reusablebags.com for great organic cotton produce bags.

2. No more disposable lunches. Just think about all the waste that goes into a packed lunch - plastic baggies, aluminium foil, juice boxes, straw wrappers, paper bags, water bottles. The list could go on forever and it really doesn't have to. You can always use a fabric lunch bag and get creative with plastic containers to find what works best for you. Just make sure that 2, 3 or 5 is on the bottom of your containers. This lets you know that its safe for food. Try this awesome lunch cube with separate compartments for snacks and sandwiches from the container store.

3. What's with you paper towel people? I don't get it. Why use something only once when a dishtowel or cloth napkin can do the same thing. Not only are you adding to our landfills each time you use a paper towel to wipe up a spill but you're throwing your money away! Do our planet and your wallet a favor and start using cloth napkins to wipe your sticky hands on. Besides aren't these cloth napkins from girls can tell way cuter than any flimsy paper napkin you could find? And, hey bike riding - now there's another earth friendly idea.

For the rest of today please just try and consider what happens to something after you're done with it. Can you use it again or does it go in the trash? If you find that you're disposing of a lot of items maybe its time to change the way you're doing things for the benefit of our planet and your bank account.