Valentine’s Day is on its way folks, so i’ve put together a little selection of fun, sustainable gifts you can still snag in time for the holiday,… if you act fast!

Metal wall art, made from recycled aluminum cans by Transcendant Treasure.  These pin up onto the wall in any configuration you want.

Love Pillow sewn from recycled plastic bottle felt by Personal Pillow.  The heart is a pocket you can hide a little note or treat in.

Light a torch in your loved one’s heart with this red current scented, 100% soy wax candle from Torch Illumination.

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In honor of this week’s celebration of Chinese New Year (January 23rd), I give you…

Vigor, the seriously awesome, recycled, drag racing steampunk dragon sculpture by Etsy artisans Reclaim2Fame.

Just look at that face! Read the rest of this entry »

Ahh… Las Vegas.  London.  Paris.  Venice…  Ever daydream of traveling to those places?

Okay.  So, let’s go!

Wait a minute.  We’re here to talk about interiors, aren’t we?  And so we are.  Specifically, about a very basic, humble, overlooked bit of interior design, one which certainly could use some glamour and snap:  the shower curtain.

Somewhere in the broad field between the two extremes of utilitarian and opulent lies style, sophistication, and wit.  Check out these travel-themed curtains from the New York-based firm, Izola.

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I’m up to my chin in preparations for exciting new changes for my business, so forgive me for the brevity, but hey…

I found you this recycled t-shirt pillow from Upcycled2, just in time for Friday the 13th.  Figured you could use the extra luck!

Have a great weekend, and thanks for visiting!

Rachel

There are modular homes and modular walls and modular floors…  but have you seen a modular plant?  No?  I hadn’t either.

But the clever folks at DIRTT Environmental Solutions looked into their imaginations and saw a vertical garden: rows and ranks of pretty, VOC-absorbing plants marching up any given wall.  Then Sustainable Industries looked at Breathe and named it one of the Top Ten Building Products of 2011.

So what is this thing? Read the rest of this entry »

This little jewel is already creating buzz, but, in case you haven’t seen the Plantini yet, be prepared to be charmed.

Okay, so I’m a sucker for the Victorianesque.  But isn’t it exquisite?  Thanks to the collaboration of Glasgow architectural model makers Finch & Fouracre and the folks at Another Studio for Design in London, U.K., one needn’t have a grand estate in order to own a beautiful Victorian hothouse… in miniature, that is. Read the rest of this entry »

Since I know that throwing batteries in the landfill just means you’ll eventually be drinking the toxins in them later when they have seeped into the groundwater (lovely thought), I’ve always been a good girl and taken them for safe disposal at a place I found on Earth911.  However, I don’t want to drive to my local battery recycling center every time my son uses up another set of AA batteries in his flashlight (which he uses under the covers to read books at night when he doesn’t think I’m looking – kids never change).  So I let a small stack of them pile up on a back bookshelf until I realize that I no longer have a small pile of batteries, but rather a very large, messy pile of corroding acids and metals.

Not that it’s ever actually gotten that bad.

Not exactly (ahem).

That (not so big and messy) pile of batteries is why I want one of these!  See, those “dead” batteries still have just a little life in them yet, and by combining the power of twelve of them at once, I could not only point out to my son that it is actually past his bedtime (and that I know he has a flashlight and a book under his covers), I would also have a place to store up to twelve batteries before making that trip to the hazardous waste center.  I love stuff that multi-tasks!

The clock will even tell you when a battery is REALLY dead.  As opposed to mostly dead.

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Sometimes a company’s product is difficult to define: I had this trouble while browsing Tim Leefeldt’s RailroadWare website.  Is it rustic?  Industrial?  Modern?  Nostalgic?  Well, take a look.

You decide.

There’s simplicity in these glass and steel designs, a clean look, one that’s versatile enough to be used in any number of decoration schemes.  I think they would complement just about any setting.

As much as possible, the materials are reclaimed objects.  Old glass & ceramic insulators, traffic light lenses, and hardened steel parts – the clips, spikes, and random hardware so abundant along unused rail lines – all hand-gathered by the artist and repurposed into lighting, door & cabinet hardware, and home furnishings. Read the rest of this entry »

First off, I’d just like to say a big THANK YOU to all of our wonderful veterans out there!  We wish you a very happy Veteran’s Day!

In honor of the day, here are a couple of wonderful, recycled Army blanket pillows I thought you might like to take a look at.

Created by Etsy seller Shop at Ten, these pillows are made from old Army blankets that are then hand felted with fun new patterns.

Here, a series of patches added to the blanket over time were surrounded with colorful, needle-felted roving, becoming a wonderful pattern of irregular squares.  What many would see as a flaw has instead become an inspired design.

You can see more of Shop at Ten’s work here.

Thanks for visiting – and don’t forget to give a Veteran a hug today.  They deserve it, and so much more!

Rachel

Be still my heart…

The pairing of artisan ceramics and beautiful textile creations has brought forth the Alabama Chanin Collection for Heath Ceramics.

Like stitches in clay, the patterns quietly emerge from the same soft palette of colors seen in Alabama Chanin textiles.  Both place settings and individual plates and serving bowls are available.  What a pretty table setting that would make! Read the rest of this entry »