Tree Hugging Family » recycled paper

Ecosystem earth friendly planners and journals

Jennifer — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:15:15 +0000

ecosystem is a newer line of earth friendly planners and journals (or books as they call them) that are easily personalized. Ecosystem was further designed to empower environmentally aware product owners. Each book has a unique book ID number, which you can use to track a book’s origins, learn how they are environmentally-friendly, and to find out exactly how to recycle each book.

How it works:

You head to ecosystem and choose a book type – ecosystem Advisor, ecosystem Architect, ecosystem Artist, or ecosystem Author.
You choose a cover style.
You choose a size.
You choose the color. Current colors available include the ones shown below.
You customize your book with a variety of insets from calendars to grids to lists and more.
You get to see a picture of the finished product and if it’s perfect you purchase it.

All ecosystem books are made with 100% post consumer waste paper and the following environmental savings are achieved by ecosystem products.

ecosystem is great option if you like to create your own perfect planner or journal.

[images via ecosystem]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Ecosaurus Recycled Wrapping Paper

Jennifer — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:04:32 +0000

With winter holidays already on the brain, you may be thinking about stocking up on gift wrap. The first green rule of thumb is to go used – i.e. wrap gifts in stuff you already have like newspaper, old tissue paper, or even a collage of magazine images. The second rule of thumb is to go with a company making sustainable wrap.

A new eco-paper goods company just appeared on the scene, Ecosaurus, offering paper goods that are 100% recycled, 50% PCW (gift wrap) to 100% PCW (note cards), processed chlorine-free, and printed with vegetable-based inks. No petroleum, and all goods are recyclable – even the gift wrap can be tossed into the recycle bin.

They’ve got some fresh designs too that coordinate well with other designs in their collection.They also carry note cards and have some gift bags coming soon.

Visit Ecosaurus.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

INK + WIT Spooky & Sweet Fall Giveaway

Jennifer — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:00:27 +0000

Yesterday I told you about INK + WIT, a very cool sustainable art boutique. I love their pieces, and I’m thrilled to announce that one lucky Tree Hugging Family Reader is going to win a super amazing prize from them…

What you can win:

One reader will win a spooky set of 10 “Halloween Crow” postcards (shown above) AND a sweet limited edition “Pommebirds” print (shown below). The 10 postcards are 4×6 chipboard kraft 103lb thick, with soy based ink and the lovely print is a letterpress limited edition (one of just 300 prints); 8.5×11 acid free archival Stonehenge printmaking paper and soy ink (frame and matte not include). This is an amazing prize and arrives just in time to perk up your autumn.

How to enter:

Since we’re giving away some Halloween goodies, leave a comment on this post telling me how your family are planning to celebrate a green Halloween this year (no it’s not too early to plan!). Are you handing out Fair Trade treats? Making recycled costumes? What? Let me know. IF your family does not celebrate Halloween, that’s cool too. Instead tell me one thing your family is doing to green your life this fall.

RULES:

If you don’t follow the ONE how to enter rule above I’ll delete your comment. Comments that say, “Hey, enter me” will be disqualified.
Anyone with a mailing address in the U.S. can enter. Sorry, no international or Canadian entries on this giveaway.
Comment entries must be posted by September 11, 2009 – midnight my time (west coast).

I’ll randomly draw one winner on Sept 12th, post the winner here, and send the winner an email with more details.

Good luck!

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

INK + WIT: Sustainable Art for Kids & Other Green Goodies

Jennifer — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:44:14 +0000

INK + WIT is one of my favorite places around for children’s prints with an eco-flavor. Plus, INK + WIT carries oh so much more than just children’s art. In fact, I’ve written about INK + WIT Green Wedding Invites here before.

About INK + WIT:

The company was founded by artist Tara Hogan who also does all the illustration and design for INK+WIT’s lovely products. Her visions and pieces are beautiful and often nature based which I like. About her perspective, Hogan says, “I have a loving appreciation for nature’s intricate beauty combined with modern urban style. I see the world as organic and bright.”

INK + WIT products:

The INK + WIT collection consists of calendars, children’s prints and posters, letterpress note-cards, wedding invites, children’s invites, tea towels, postcards, and more. Hogan even recently partnered with BabyBe Organic Baby Clothing for a line of adorable organic clothing. See a gallery below of some awesome INK + WIT products.

What makes INK + WIT eco-friendly?

The company letterpress and offset print in all of their paper products.
100% cotton paper made from tree free fibers along with 100% post consumer recycled paper is used.
Ink is soy and water based.

All of Tara Hogan’s designs are beautiful, whimsical, sweet, or all of the above as you can see in the gallery below.

Coming up an amazing giveaway from INK + WIT that you won’t want to miss so stay tuned.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Eco Friendly Paper for Your Green Wedding

Jennifer — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:30:21 +0000

If you truly want the ultimate green wedding, don’t bother reading this post. Instead skip back and read:

It’s tough to justify paper, even eco-friendly paper, when there are better, no paper ways to go. However, this is your wedding, and your day, so if you want paper, I’m bringing in some options you can use for invites, thank-you cards, save-the-date cards, and more. The following papers will work beautifully for your wedding needs, while allowing you to still be green.

The basic thing you’re looking for is recycled paper and, or paper that can maybe be put to another use. One other idea is to make your own homemade paper. This could be a really fun sort of pre-wedding get-together. Grab some pals, or your future spouse, some tasty treats for the gang, and spend one nice day making paper. Fun, earth-friendly, and totally custom and unique.

Perfect paper products for a green wedding:

A HUGE selection of beautiful tree-free and post consumer recycled papers for eco wedding invitations from Invitesite. From Invitesite: “These invitations are sold as DIY kits that you can print desktop or we can print for you. (we print in-house with vegetable based inks)” You can read their Eco Policies and Green Practices as well.
Here are three lovely examples from Invitesite but you won’t believe all the colors and ideas available – tons to see.

Angelicia Wedding Invitation – perfect for autumn weddings.

Coco – I LOVE this one.

Sol – very different colors, but great for a modern wedding or maybe one in the heat of summer.

Plantable Seeded Wrapping Paper from Bloom

Seal and Send

Tasha Rae Designs has some absolutely beautiful wedding designs going on – not all the invites at this site are eco-friendly, but you can have anything switched to eco-friendly papers. One note, it was tough to find the eco content for this shop. If you’re interested in how green the papers are, you need to scroll down on this page to the bottom. Green aspects won’t come up if you click on the invite itself.

baron*cards

Botanical Paperworks

There are plenty of earth friendly paper companies around now. Check Co-op America’s listing for stationary and tree-free papers. Just be sure to read each site carefully. “Earth Friendly” at one shop may mean 20% recycled content, and 100% tree-free at another.
Do you have some other ideas?

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Why Buy Recycled Paper

Peggy — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:00:14 +0000

One of the options in our green sins poll in the sidebar is “Don’t buy recycled office paper.” Only a few of you have chosen this option, but it can’t hurt to discuss how essential it is to consider your paper choices.

Some important facts:

•The United States has the world’s highest paper consumption rate.

•Half of the trees that are cut in North America (12,430 square miles worth each year) are used to make paper.

•Making recycled paper produces 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution than producing virgin paper from trees.

(Info source: Big Green Purse)

That’s convincing enough for me. Reducing your use of paper and recycling what you do use is important. After that, buy recycled paper.

And be sure to suggest purchasing recycled paper at your office. You can send a link to this post, or just simply ask, “Would it be possible for us to switch to recycled paper?”

Recycled office paper is available at most office supply stores, and even at stores like Target. Recycled construction paper is available from Office Depot. You can also order recycled paper online at Greenline Paper Company, which sells only recycled and tree-free paper.

Where do you purchase recycled office or construction paper?

To read other posts related to our green sins poll, go to Solve One Green Sin, Tip on Avoiding Recklessly Using the Printer and Reasons to Carpool.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

Image via stock.xchng.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Great Bedroom Print for Kids

Jennifer — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:00:09 +0000

This poster is totally cute and mod, with great colors and it’s printed on recycled paper. It covers the endangered species of the British Isles from A to Z. I just love it. You little might just love it too. Or you – I think this would even look great in grown-up spaces, very soothing. Available at Present & Correct.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

How to Make Paper

Jennifer — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:37:04 +0000

This is a great project for kids – almost easy enough to do themselves (if they’re a bit older). My friend, our kids, and I did this and they LOVED it. We used a blender, to mash the paper, not our hands, but the results are the same. In addition we added stuff like:

Dried flowers – both chopped up in the mix, and we tried pressing some into the wet paper too. Both worked.
Herbs – both dried and ground for color, and some whole dried for looks.
Essential oil (a few drops)
And in one crazy moment dried chili peppers. (Hey, it was New Mexico, they add chili peppers to everything). Actually our chili paper came out looking a bit like icky orange gray – I don’t know that I’d recommend it.

You can experiment. Our best paper happened when we made mixes of recycled colored art paper of the kids, and white paper from old bills. If you use newspaper, it will come out a tad gray, however, if you add some red and blue used construction paper you’ll get a nice lavender. Also, you can use any size frame you like. If you don’t have a frame set-up, another option is to simply press the wet paper mix into a flat (or even curved) strainer – you know the type you set on top of spaghetti sauce. It will work (promise).

Now gather the kids and have fun. See what cool kinds of paper you can come up with.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family