What: Grosche Glassen insulated glass travel mug

Features: This 12oz  travel mug is handmade of double-walled glass which helps keep your beverages hot. It has no metal or plastic parts and is a better fit for car drink holders than a standard coffee mug.

Green Factor: It’s made of glass so there is no leaching of chemicals into your beverages and the lid and grip are made of food-safe silicone. Since it’s reusable, you can also forgo the yucky styrofoam poison cups.

Bonus: Right now they’re 40% off at Amazon.com.

Editors Note: I got one of these for Christmas and I absolutely love it. It doesn’t leak and my coffee stays piping hot!

Find It Here: Amazon

You might also like:

• The Eco Cup
• It’s Not a Paper Cup

By Janet, January 3, 2012  •  No Comments  
Filed under: BPA-free, Eat, Reduce/Reuse, Save Green, Sustainable, Travel
Tags: coffee, glass, mug, reusabe, travel
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What: Green Toys Dump Truck

Features: This award-winning, eco-designed toy truck has no metal axles and a workable dumper that encourages motor skill development.

Green Factor: Made from 100 percent recycled plastic milk containers

Bonus: Made in the USA

Find It Here: Amazon.com

You might also like:

• Super Mod Wooden Tricycle
• Organic Brainbow Nesting Arches

By Janet, December 14, 2011  •  3 Comments  
Filed under: Gift Guide 2011, Kids, Made in USA, Preschooler, Recycle, Toys
Tags: gift guide 2011, green toys, preschoolers, recycled, toy
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Pure and Little, purveyors of organic baby and toddler gear are having a SITEWIDE 50% off sale. It runs through Sunday, December 4th. Score some awesome (and affordable) holiday gifts and if you have any baby showers coming up, this is a great time to pick up something fabulous for the mama-to-be!

Find It Here: Pure and Little

You might also like:

• Big Sale at Pure & Little!
• Great Green Friday Deals

By Janet, December 2, 2011  •  No Comments  
Filed under: Baby, Baby Shower Gift, Gift Guide 2011, Kids, Organic, Sale, Save Green, Toddler, Toys, Wear
Tags: gift guide 2011, gifts, natural, Organic, Pure and Little, sale
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What: Cotton wrap dress

Features: This flirty wrap dress is sewn and dyed by a women’s fair trade collective in Nepal.

Green Factor: Made of certified organic cotton and 100% natural dyes made from bark, roots, and the leaves of plants native to Nepal.

Bonus: Get free shipping and a free scarf with your $100 order from Nancy’s Gone Green

Find It Here: Nancy’s Gone Green

You might also like:

• Love This Lovey
• Organic Catnip Toys

By Janet, November 15, 2011  •  No Comments  
Filed under: Fair Trade, Gift Guide 2011, Organic, Wear
Tags: dress, Fair Trade, fashion, Nepal, Organic
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What: Before chemicals were king, people used natural products like vinegar for cleaning, cooking, preserving and health. This book is a great resource for all the different ways you can use vinegar as a natural alternative to numerous chemical products.

Features: This comprehensive guide covers all types and uses of vinegar. Contains a full index and whimsical illustrations make the book informative and fun.

Green Factor: Any time you can use something natural instead of a potentially dangerous chemical, it’s green. This book gives you over 400 ways to do that.

Bonus: Using vinegar instead of expensive chemical-based cleaners also saves you money!

Find It Here: Vinegar: Over 400 Various, Versatile, and Very Good Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of

You might also like:

• Versatile Vinegar
• One of the Easiest Ways to Go Green

By Janet, November 8, 2011  •  4 Comments  
Filed under: Clean, DIY, Eat, Home, Kitchen, Save Green, Tips
Tags: Clean, cook, Home, natural, preserving, vinegar
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• Get $6.00 worth of Annie’s coupons just for liking their Facebook page.

• Save $1.00 on a 4-pack of Stonyfield Farms YoBaby organic yogurt.

• Save up to $7.00 on Organic Valley products

• Save up to $6.00 on Simply Organic products

You might also like:

• Change Flows!
• Organic Children’s Pillows

By Janet, October 12, 2011  •  No Comments  
Filed under: Eat, Organic, Save Green
Tags: coupons, green savings, organic coupons, organic foods
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In their new report, BPA in Kids’ Canned Foods, the Breast Cancer Fund has discovered BPA in six popular canned foods marketed directly to kids.

BPA, an endocrine-disrupting hormone, leaches from the lining of cans into canned foods and has been found in Elmo, Toy Story and Disney Princess Campbell’s soups, Chef Boyardee products and even in some organic canned foods like Annie’s Homegrown and Earth’s Best Organic.

This is very disturbing when you consider that BPA has been linked to early puberty (as well as breast cancer, obesity, learning disabilities, infertility, and more).

The physical and mental ramifications of early puberty are substantial. Girls who begin puberty at an early age are more likely to experience low self esteem, poor body image, and depression. Physical side effects include an increased risk for breast cancer, endometrial cancer, and elevated blood pressure.

And it’s not just girls who are affected. in 2010 Barack Obama’s President’s Cancer Panel acknowledged the links between BPA and undescended testicles and the penile birth defect hypospadias in newborn boys and infertility and erectile dysfunction in men.

So WHY is this clearly dangerous chemical found in the can liners of foods made for and marketed to children????

I hope you are as outraged as I am and will join us in telling these top canned goods manufacturers to stop marketing the dangerous BPA to our kids.

Let your voice be heard by signing this petition from Momsrising.org and then send a link to friends and family so they can sign it, too!

Learn More: Outrage! BPA is in Canned Foods for Kids, Even Organic

You might also like:

• Your Good Deed for the Day
• Lower Your Family’s BPA Exposure by 60%

By Janet, October 6, 2011  •  2 Comments  
Filed under: Action Alerts, Eat, Kids
Tags: BPA, breast cancer, canned food, Chef Boyardee, children, Disney Princess, hypospadias, precocious puberty, Toy Story
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What: Organic nap mats

Features: Handmade comfy nap mats in fun, hip patterns. They’re on the pricey side but miles better (read: non-toxic) than what you’d get for $20 at Walmart.

Green Factor: Made with natural and organic materials, PVC-free.

Bonus: These fold up to keep the clean side in and the seller will embroider your child’s name on the underside so it shows when it’s folded up.

Find It Here: SewnNatural

You might also like:

• Rosegarden Palace
• Wrap-n-Mat

By Janet, September 8, 2011  •  No Comments  
Filed under: Organic, Preschooler, Toddler
Tags: daycare, nap mat, nap time, natural, Organic, preschool, school, toddlers
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What: Funky, modern room decor by children’s artist, Lorena Siminovich

Features: From the non-profit, Petit Collage, these adorable owls are laser cut from bamboo plywood and handcrafted by adults with disabilities in San Francisco.

Green Factor: Made from sustainably harvested bamboo.

Bonus: These come in several motifs such as zoo, jungle and forest animals, elephant family and retro-style birdies.

Find It Here: Amazon.com or Jillybean Green

You might also like:

• Up, Up and Away!
• Hook It Up

By Janet, September 6, 2011  •  No Comments  
Filed under: Baby, Baby Shower Gift, Home, Style, Sustainable
Tags: baby. nursery, Bamboo, green decor, mobiles, owls, Sustainable
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What: Tutorial for making your own upcycled sweater boots

Features: With a big bulky sweater, some cheap flat shoes, a hot glue gun, some buttons, a sewing machine and a needle and thread you can make your own super stylin’ sweater boots.

Green Factor: You’re recycling old stuff into something new!

Bonus: While these won’t be truly winter-worthy (i.e. snow, sleet, rain), they’ll be adorable for all those cool days between fall and spring and your only limit is your imagination. See other examples here and here.

Find It Here: Instructables

You might also like:

• Upcycled Awesomeness
• The Must-Have Guide to Greening Your Life

By Janet, September 2, 2011  •  No Comments  
Filed under: DIY, Recycle, Reduce/Reuse, Style

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Greener Lunch

• Pack your child’s lunch in reusable containers and use reusable water bottles. In doing so, you can help reduce the huge amount of waste that ends up in landfills.
• Ask your kids’ school to source sustainable foods for cafeteria lunches, including locally grown or Rainforest Alliance Certified™ produce.
• Pack fruit as a healthy alternative to chips, and you also save on the wasteful packaging!
• If your school has a garden, consider collecting organic material in a compost bin in the cafeteria and creating fertilizer from lunchtime waste.

Greener Transport

• Have your kids walk or ride their bikes to school if possible. Not only does this help reduce carbon emissions, but it is also good exercise for all of you
• If you live too far from the school to make walking or bike riding an option, have your kids catch the school bus as opposed to driving them.
• If you have to drive, arrange a carpool with other parents. Not only will this help reduce emissions, but it will also help minimize your gas costs.

Greener Waste

• Remind your children to use both sides of the page when they’re writing or printing.
• Don’t forget to recycle your own paper waste. Ask your kids’ school to start classroom and cafeteria recycling programs if they don’t already have them.

Greener Supplies

• Save money and trees by purchasing textbooks second-hand.
• Don’t throw away old text books — sell or donate them instead!
• Try to use school supplies from last year; your kids don’t need new supplies every year!
• Use refillable pens made from recycled plastic.
• Use pencils made from Forest Stewardship Council certified wood.
• Reuse last year’s backpacks and lunchboxes if they are still in good condition.
• Choose recycled and/or Forest Stewardship Council / Rainforest Alliance Certified paper.

Greener Education

• For fun and educational games, activities, stories and forest facts, check out the Kids’ Corner on the Rainforest Alliance website.
• If your kids love the rainforest, treat them with Rainforest Survival Challenge, a fun and educational iPad app.
• Tell your kids’ teachers about the Rainforest Alliance’s free school curriculum for K-8th grade, designed to help students understand how our lives are connected to forests around the world.

Thanks to The Rainforest Alliance for kindly providing these tips (I added a few of my own)

You might also like:

• Green 101
• Green Round-Up: Back to School Edition

By Janet, August 10, 2011  •  1 Comment  
Filed under: Kids, Recycle, Reduce/Reuse, Sustainable
Tags: back to school
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It’s back-to-school time and for us, that means it’s also time to get more school uniforms. Unfortunately, for the past few years, I’ve been coming across more and more brands of uniforms that are treated with anti-stain chemicals.

While the old formulation of Scotchgard stain repellent was discontinued because it was found to be bio-accumulative, persistent and basically unsafe for living things (as were other similar perfluorochemicals such as Teflon) there is a whole new crop of stain-resistance chemicals that are supposed to be safer. Why? Because they stay in the body for less time—and while it’s great that they stay in your body for less time, it’s still my preference that they not be in my body or the bodies of my children at all.

With that in mind, I always avoid clothing (as well as furniture and housewares) that touts it’s resistance to stains but it still concerns me that a lot of people don’t realize this isn’t necessarily the bonus it’s advertised to be. It’s a chemical that’s not really been proven 100% safe and it will be on your child’s skin five days a week for an entire school year.

Thanks but no thanks…

There are many brands of uniforms out there and I’ve definitely not researched them all but these are the brands I’ve opted not to buy because they have been treated with stain resistant chemicals:

Land’s End
Cherokee (Target)
George (WalMart)
Dickies
Classroom

These are the brands that do not, as far as I can tell, use stain-resistant chemicals:

Old Navy
Izod
Dockers
French Toast  (I saw one pair of French Toast pants being sold by an online uniform store that were treated with Scotchgard but none of the French Toast items I saw in stores or on the French Toast web site indicate any stain resistance treatment)

Recycle Those Uniforms

This spring, once it got warm, I took all my daughter’s winter khaki uniform pants and cut them into shorts and hemmed them with my sewing machine. I knew by the following winter they would be too short for her so this was an easy way to get more wear out of them. If you don’t sew, you can probably find an alteration shop that will do it for just a few dollars per pair.

I also look in consignment shops and thrift stores for gently worn khaki and navy pants and shorts for both kids and when the school has uniform swaps, I bring our too small stuff and trade up for bigger sizes.

While these things all save me money, they also conserve resources by employing the three R’s —reducing, reusing and recycling.

Happy non-toxic back to school!

You might also like:

• Back to School at the Thrift Store
• Green 101

By Janet, August 1, 2011  •  2 Comments  
Filed under: Kids, Recycle, Reduce/Reuse, Save Green
Tags: chemicals, school uniforms, scotchgard, stain-repellent, toxic
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