Celebrate Green Blog

by Lynn Wanted to show you that we really do walk the walk and not just talk the talk (though we certainly do plenty of talking too!). Below are five gifts I’ve wrapped for the family. No paper. No scissors. No tape. Nothing purchased new this year by me for any of them. Take that [...]

by Lynn and Corey We’re guessing if you celebrate Christmas, you’re as rushed as we are right now, so we just wanted to offer a quick reminder that it’s never too late to celebrate green! 1. Paper plan. Divide any wrappings into two boxes, one to keep and reuse and another to recycle. Save all [...]

by Lynn, and Marc Stedman I’m not sure what year our tradition started, but I do know that one Christmas eve, after exhausting ourselves helping Santa putting together toys (where are those elves when you need them?), we decided to use the fondue pot we’d gotten for a wedding gift years before, and make a [...]

by Lynn We’ve got a week until Christmas and it’s the weekend. Perfect day for making ornaments to use on the tree, give as gifts, or as place cards for your Christmas dinner. Here are a few I found that are easy to make from what you most likely have on hand,so you can turn [...]

by Lynn and Corey We’re big fans of Abe’s Market, the online green grocer+ (the “+” being all sorts of other sustainably sourced necessities). And when Abe’s asked us to record a video segment for Abe’s In the Know, we couldn’t get out the camera fast enough. Our segment aired yesterday for the first time [...]

by Lynn This past Friday, just as we’ve done for the last three years, we headed up to a salmon-safe, no spray tree farm north of where we live, picked out our tree and sawed that baby down! We got the 9′ Fraser Fir for only $30 because it was “in the way” of little [...]

by Lynn Every year I make at least one ornament for each of our grandchildren that I put at their places at the table Christmas eve as a small gift. This year’s for three of them will be made from tins that once held mints. Inside each I put a small creature, toy or piece [...]

by Lynn Many families are hurting financially this year and others just don’t want to buy expensive toys their kids may or may not play with any longer than Christmas morning. Enter the toy swap. Just like our National Costume Swap Day swaps, toy swaps are becoming more popular, especially before the biggest holidays of [...]

by Lynn Recently when I was in Colorado visiting our new grandgirl, my daughter-in-law and I went to the Denver Botanic Gardens for a walk. While Sam was signing up for a membership (a great present for any occasion by the way), I wandered through the gift shop area and was delighted to see quite [...]

by Lynn and Corey With the end-of-the-year holidays upon us, we’ve noticed some interesting trends happening in favor of the sustainably minded which is becoming a larger segment of our population. Whether pale green or confirmed environmentalist, more people are aware of the greener side of buying and are changing their habits in ways large [...]

by Lynn Being the ardent crafter that I am, I love candy canes as much for their DIY potential as for their taste. But when Tru Sweets sent us some of their organic canes to try, I couldn’t resist. While Tru Sweets candy canes have no artificial colors or flavors and are corn syrup free, [...]

by Lynn Last year I posted about the Christmas countdown calendar I made for our family eons ago and in October, I created a countdown to Halloween one. I not only like the idea of calendars as a decorative element, but as a way to bring families together. A countdown calendar could be used for [...]

by Lynn   Etsy Rain is a collection of Western Washington area artists and crafters who own online Etsy shops where they sell their creations. I joined awhile back thinking that eventually I’ll have enough time to sign up and sell some of the things I make. That hasn’t happened yet, but I was excited [...]

by Lynn If you’ve got grandparents in your life, you know that the gift they love most is spending time with their grandkids. Next in line is most likely pictures of these same special children. Instead of buying frames and plopping in school pictures, why not spend a few minutes creating one-of-a-kind photo memories? In [...]