When the Lights Go Out Everything Will Be Green!

Earth Hour is March 27th, 2010 from 8:30 to 9:30 pm. This internationally observed event aims to reduce energy consumption (CO2 emissions) simply by switching off lights for ONE hour. Sounds very basic and effortless…but it’s very powerful!

Last year one billion people turned off their lights for one hour. City governments, the Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Las Vegas Strip, and Eiffel Tower all went dark.

Watch the video and see everything go dark! Sign up and make your pledge on the official Earth Hour web site.

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Dresses That Transform People and Fashion

This eco friendly world I am part of never ceases to amaze me! In searching for the perfect dress for the Indiana Green Business Awards dinner, I checked out my favorite haunt, Leslie Jane’s, and found not only the perfect dress but discovered another green spirited designer with so much talent.

Liz Alig creates fashion forward dresses that are eco-friendly and give back to the community…in the case of Liz, a much larger community.

She studied clothing and textiles at Lipscomb University in Nashville Tennessee, but her wandering nature brought her to thrift stores, Africa, Asia and Honduras. This combination of travels and Liz’s need to give back has inspired her 2010 Spring Vintage Collection. For this collection she partnered with Mi Esperanza, a nonprofit who provide skills training and assistance to the women of Honduras. The Village Collection was sewn by women who have graduated from this program and 10% of the sales from my dress will go back to Mi Esperanza which furthers opportunities for these women.

The dress I purchased is one-of-a-kind made from thrift store dresses repurposed by women in Honduras. I love my dress for more reasons than it just looks good….it does good.

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Those Green Girl Scouts!

A few days before Christmas I got a phone call from a friend who has a small but mighty 7th grade Girl Scout Troop. Seems these young entrepreneurs have been sewing and scraping together re-giftable gift bags hoping to save trees and make some “green” on the side.

They came over and gave me a full presentation showing me the variety of sizes/dimensions and different patterns. I chose the Christmas fabrics and plan to reuse them every year under the tree. Birthday and Hostess fabrics can also be collected from scraps at Goodwill, grandma’s attic, or the remnant section at the fabric store. Such a great idea! You sew up three sides and run a ribbon through the top binding seam. The gift cards attached were hole punched old greeting card fronts.

Great green thinking Caroline, Jenna, and Ally! I know that the spirit of one old tree friend is very proud of you right now.

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Big Weekend at Celery Street!

We’ve been featured on www.coolmompicks.com! It's a great site for moms looking to find hip, new, and unusual stuff. We just added a little “green” to their fun website! We included a 15% code for Cool Mom Pick readers. (Check it out to receive the discount code!). Liz especially liked the Metal Pointus jewelry, the Scrappies, and our eco-friendly writing journals and cute rain umbrellas!

Another exciting thing that happened this weekend...

Did you get a chance to see High School Musical 3?! I went with my daughter and our friends. We were THRILLED to see Gabrielle (Vanessa Hudgens) toting our Mielie Bag! Gabrielle (Vanessa's character) is going green! I carried this bag myself for several months this summer and was stopped on the streets for “where did you get that purse?!” requests. I always had my Celery Street business card ready! - e.

picture courtesy of disney.com

Our blog is live, green, and growing bloggets!

We’ve got lots of things going on at Celery Street right now! We have completed the move to our cool new office/warehouse and things are looking very eclectic and 70s ish around here with all the auction and Goodwill finds!

Also…
Celery Street was selected and WE are honored to participate in California First Lady Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference! They selected one of leather writing journals.

We'll soon kick off our Orange Sale, so watch for announcements. Also, keep checking in with us - I’d love some of your comments too!

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A Word or Two on Paperboard

My good friend Gigi just accomplished a very green beautiful thing. Our little community will now have a paperboard recycling bin behind city hall. The closest drop off available to us before this momentous green Gigi moment was downtown Indianapolis…about 10 miles away... very difficult to travel with paperboard boxes tied to your back while peddling your bicycle. Personally I just drive my fuel burning automobile downtown to deliver the paperboard…also a very difficult thing to do, difficult on my conscience anyway.

So what is paperboard? Paperboard is flat, not corrugated like cardboard. We are talking about cereal boxes, granola bar boxes, 6 pack beverage cartons, etc. Not the waxy finished products like milk cartons.

Over 57% of Americans have easy access to paperboard recycling, up from 46% in 2000. Additionally, the number of communities collecting paperboard for recycling increased to 41% in 2005. Paperboard is circling back around.

Paperboard is rather green since it is 100% recyclable. The extended list of brands using recycled paperboard is as obvious as Tom’s of Maine all the way to giants aka Xerox Corporation. See www.rpa100.com.

Better than plastic? Paperboard Materials are made of sustainable materials using specially-raised crop trees, waste products like sawdust and wood chips, and recycled paper/paperboard fibers. Sustainable wood fibers from farm-raised trees are the primary raw material in paperboard packaging. The forest products industry plants 1.7 million trees a day – which exceeds the number of trees harvested.

I have to mention the reuse factor of paperboard too…those school projects…the mock up cereal box villages with double-decker buses created out of animal cracker cartons and Creamette Thin Spaghetti smoke stacks.

When will a generation of children consider the smoke stack a relic synonymous to a phone booth? I don’t have the answer to that question…yet.

UBS (United Bicycle Service)…We Don’t Do Brown

UPS discovered that waiting for left-hand turns cost its delivery truck drivers huge amounts of fuel and time (idling). By creating routes that led to an average of four right-hand turns for every left, the company saved 51,000 gallons of fuel and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 558 tons over 18 months. UPS tested this strategy with everyday people running a series of errands, and it still worked (excerpt from National Geographic).

Burning a gallon of gas produces about 25 pounds of CO2, right? Right.

A few days ago a very dear friend of mine placed an order with CeleryStreet.com. It was Saturday, it was a beautiful sunny day, and I felt like riding my bicycle…and so did my daughter. This friend lives about three miles away. So my daughter suggested United Bicycle Service, the green deliver service. We filled up backpacks with the Celerystreet order, put on our green shorts, shirts, and socks (just kidding) and used peddle power to deliver the order (including a metal water bottle and a blank leather journal). I didn’t have to track percentage of right turns versus left turns. That was one of the best bike rides I have ever had. And the look on my friend's face when we arrived with all her goodies was priceless. We won’t be doing this for all of our orders, but it was a very unique green experience which I hope to try again.

Did I mention the wind in my hair, sun on my face, and bonding with my daughter part of this? Okay, a little corny maybe. But, green is good.

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Christie Matheson’s thoughts, my thoughts, cool thoughts… on Cars, CO2, and Fatalities

Back to the book…green chic by Christie Matheson. Christie points out an interesting fact…for every mile you don’t drive (assuming you’re the typical 21 MPG driver), you keep almost one pound of CO2 out of the atmosphere. You can have fun helping our dear mother earth shed pounds of CO2! I make a game of putting my planet on the “green diet”. Significantly more amusing than that cold, steel scale tracking my pounds and counting my Ben and Jerry’s by the spoonful …at least mother earth is my friend.

I have more good news. Last week the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan reported that because of the high gasoline prices, people are driving less and fatalities will hit the lowest level since 1961. The Federal Highway Administration said Americans drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than a year earlier, the biggest monthly decrease in a downward trend that began in November of last year. Mother earth is smiling. Understandable, considering that she didn’t put on another 12.2 billion pounds and more of her little human children are staying alive.

Track pounds with your kids to practice math homework and find interesting new ways to get someplace. A carpool can be a bonding experience (or not), trains can be an adventure, commuter rail systems are great for catching up on work or reading, try biking, or walking, or how about that golf cart? I’ve heard some cities are having issues with golf carts driving down Main Street. I’d be lousy at parallel parking a golf cart but it sure sounds like fun.

Enough thoughts for today Pedestrians. Put mother earth on a green diet. Save lives. Walk.

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Greenest of the Green Alternative

Hello Celery Street Pedestrian,

I am so not a crafty person. When I was in a MOPS program (Mothers of Preschoolers) the craft leader always ended up

finishing my craft project, since I was too thrilled enjoying my hour and half of adult

conversation. When Julie handed me the completed project I was amazed and proud by what I had accomplished…thank you Julie. I would carry my prized craft home in Audrey’s diaper bag to become a regular functioning part of my household. Tonight at dinner we used the salad serving set that I had decorated in 2003.

What is my reason for bringing this up? If some of you have not found the greenest of green perfect thing that you were looking for on our web site then I have another suggestion for you. Crafting is another way of going green.

Kathy Cano-Murillo with the Arizona Republic did some research on Recycled projects and came up with a very clever and functional idea. A recycled grocery bag tote… Now promise me you will use those last left over plastic bags on this project. The plastic bags you still had tucked at home before you said “paper please” or started using your styling new shopping bags.

RECYCLED GROCERY BAG TOTE

Take all the those plastic shopping bags from the store or mall, cut them up and sew them together to make sturdy totes that you can use at the grocery store or farmer’s market. Make several of these so you can keep them around for your next food run.

Supplies

About 36 plastic bags (if you are going to be a walking billboard, I would use your favorite and hottest stores’ bags)

Scissors

Sewing machine

Canvas tote (to use as a pattern)

Directions

Flatten the bags into stacks of six. Cut across the top to remove the handle portion. Cut the stacks of six into strips or squares, and sew up all the sides. For a quilted look, sew lines in the center.

Make enough of these thick squares or strips until you have plenty of pieces to create a bag that is the same size as the tote, and sew the pieces together. For handles, cut the thinner strips and sew inside the top panel on both sides.

There you go! As for me, I don’t sew and I don’t do crafts…but I love this idea and wish I were more artsy and not afraid of my mom’s sewing machine.

If any of you attempt this cool green project send me a picture and your comments.

I promise I won’t have any more craft projects on this space for a while.