Re-New Beginning: African American Owned Consignment Shop

Today after a 4G (4 generations - grandma, dad, me, son) brunch at one of Cleveland's best brunch spots, The Vine and Bean (also a green restaurant), we stumbled upon a consignment shop, which lo and behold, was owned by a black woman! Nice. I spotted a couple of items that I am going to go back for tomorrow, including a vintage, yellow, gingham shift dress with ruffles on the bottom. Actually my son spotted it as we were heading out (he has a good eye). It reminds me of something you would find at Anthropologie, but without the financial sacrifice and I'm certain, it wasn't made in China. I will take a photo of it for you to see next week. Consignment shops are great places to find shoes, bags, jewelry, hats and evening wear at great prices, in addition to the usual clothing items. This place even had a plus size room with lots of good stuff.

Check out the website: http://www.re-newbeginningconsignment.biz/

Green Christmas Books and Gifts

I browsed through both of these greener Christmas books the other day. "A Greener Christmas" was a little too country and crafty for my tastes, but featured lots of ideas to streamline the holidays and save money. "I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas", by Anna Getty, is a better fit for those of you with eco-urban tastes. Anna was featured on a CNN "green your Christmas, segment this weekend.

The last two photos featured, a picture frame and a clutch/makeup bag are from Two's Company and are created from recycled computers. Eco-cool man.

A Poopy Holiday Gift Idea

These gift ideas are literally full of crap. Really. But in a good way. The company Uncommongoods, scoops up elephant poo from the zoo, cleans and filters the waste and creates crafty, paperlike products from what remains. So if you have a friend that is a Delta (OO-OOP!) with an extensive collection of elephant stuff, this funky gift idea will amaze and surprise her! I found these at the botanical garden gift shop, which featured an extensive array of eco-friendly and fair trade products.

Red Hot Thrift Store Finds

Across the street from one of my best clients is one the area's top rated thrift/vintage shops. Fortunately, I will have to make several calls on my client to keep them happy, which puts me in a great position to visit this fun establishment. Cool 70's soft rock, pop and R&B tunes drifted in the background and the employees had me cracking up during my entire lunch hour there. The gold purses pictured here, were all priced under $19 and the pearl necklaces were a steal! I nabbed two fine necklaces (one made in Japan) for under $8 each. I remember paying about $35 for these types of necklaces at Ann Taylor. It gets better. At the cash register, the wise cracking employee (previously a policewoman), reduced the prices further! Oh yeah, I'll be back.

Pearls, African Art and Nature At The Thrift Store

I picked up this signed eight inch Shona sculpture for five bucks at the thrift store. In addition, I acquired some very nice and unique jewelry at sweet prices. I paid about $30 for all of the items featured here. I'm a believer! The key to thrift shopping happiness for people like me that don't have the time or inclination to pick through unedited stuff or drive around all day looking for bargains, is to find thrift/vintage shops that have received high word of mouth ratings and more frequently today, high published ratings via the web or the local paper.

Thrifty Banker

Sporting my eco-friendly pearls. Thrift and vintage shopping is a great way to save money and the environment.

2nd Annual Very Green Birthday Photos

$18 for this Ann Taylor shift. Michele would be proud!

The Cleveland Shop, with its very neat, clean and well edited display - was closed on Tuesdays. My son wants to go back though, given its apparent wide selection of men's clothing.

Below: Me in front of Vintage Fair Antiques. Picked up a couple of fantastic painted metal rose pins.

The cute little 70's inspired turquoise knit above, was only $10 bucks!

What I really appreciated about each store - no strange musty odors. Thank you Lord!

In the words of Ah-nuld "I'll be back!"

Wanted: Plastic Pots

I was pleasantly surprised to see this sign this weekend at the garden center. It is encouraging gardeners to return their plastic pots and flats. Yeah! Everyone is getting the eco-fever baby!

Shop Green This Spring

Thinking of heading out to the mall for a little (and I mean little in this economy!) spring fashion shopping? Stop!! You must first read my latest article in emPower News Magazine for tips on being eco-fabulous (hint - you may not even make it to the mall). There are some great reads stuff in this week's issue of emPower by the way. I recommend you read everything.

Happy Resurrection Day and Passover!

Refuse Recycling Stove Saves Lives and Environment in Kenya

I am seeing many more stories recently about the benefits of converting waste to fuel, including in my own state of Ohio, where the big electricity generating, coal burning utility is building a huge biowaste facility to replace some of its coal powered energy with alternative energy (whew! talk about a run on sentence!). On a much smaller level, but perhaps 100 times more impactful, a new invention in Kenya will convert waste to energy, thereby saving lives, time, injury, money and the environment. Check it out!

Hey Fellas! It's NBA Green Week!

Okay ladies, having a hard time getting your men to reduce, reuse and recycle? Going green not manly enough? Well this week you have an unprecedented opportunity to green up your guy. How? Make sure he watches NBA basketball. Thanks to the efforts of the environmentally conscious guard, Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns, the NBA kicked off Green Week yesterday. The team hopes to set an example of eco-friendly living and working for its fans. Players from all teams will sport organic gear, use balls made with recycled materials and participate in tree planting and recycling events. The NBA even has a green oriented website. Click here to watch Steve Nash promote the benefits of having a green team. Be sure to share with your guy!

Say It Isn't So Atlanta...One of Americas Most Wasteful Cities?

The bad news is that Atlanta was recently recognized as being one of the most wasteful American cities, the good news is that it has the highest percentage of citizens with plans to improve their eco-friendliness. Subscribing to Black and Into Green by email or RSS feed is a great way to start ATL! I will participate in a TalkBlack panel discussion in May, can't wait to meet you!

The Reluctant Thrifter: Thrift Stores Don't Have Mall Hours

Finally, a Saturday with no obligations, just time to relax, play cards with my son and go thrifting! As you can see from the photo, I was a little excited about my thrifting adventure. My destination for the day was TGP, which supports The Gathering Place (a place for those touched by cancer). Fifteen minutes later, I found myself in front a CLOSED sign. What!? It turns out that thrift stores don't have mall hours. TGP closes at 4pm. But....Thriftique, right next door was open until 5pm. It was 4:45pm, so I had to work fast. Check out my next post for details on my findings. 

The Reluctant Thrifter

Thrifting or shopping at thrift stores is a great way to live an eco-conscious and budget conscious lifestyle. Personally, I have in the past found some great deals on furnishings for my home at various thrift stores. But for some reason, I have avoided these stores in recent years, perhaps I am somewhat of a retail snob -Hello, my favorite store is Anthropologie! For one thing the musty smell of some of these places makes me ill, but the biggest reason is that I am just not familiar with the layout of the stores and the tricks to shopping that make it worth my precious time. Well, after checking out some of the photos of the cool finds in these stores by the lovely ladies of The Thrifty Chicks blog, I became motivated to give thrifting one more chance. Where do I start and what do I do when I get there, I asked myself? Well, God bless The Thrifty Chicks, they actually have several posts that answer those questions! Included in the referenced post is advice on getting your mind right for thrifting. They must have been reading my mind. Be sure to sign the petition to create a National Thrift Store month while you are on the site.

Need to find a thrift store in your area, preferably highly rated? Check out, The ThriftShopper, to search a national directory and get other tips.

Both sites can be found in the Black and Into Green Eco-links section.

I Won't Leave This Cool Bag In The Car

Upon the completion and drying of my pedicure, I walked the entire mall without buying one thing, (this includes a tempting eye-popping display of red stationary, doodads and hearts) until I found this cool reusable canvas bag by Origins! As if it possessed magical powers to induce me to purchase eco-conscious beauty products, I soon found myself enticed to buy a body scrub from the Aveda store. Hey at least I got a ten cents off for bringing my own bag!

P.S. Did you know you can bring your plastic bottle tops to Aveda salons and stores and they will recycle? Cool.

Green Computing or Stop the Techno Trash!

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of kicking off a very green work week by attending a Green Computing breakfast presentation coordinated by One Community in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to attending the event, I thought green computing had something to do with reducing energy use in computers. Well, I was partially correct, green computing is defined by Wikipedia as "the study and practice of using computer resources efficiently." Basically, the attempt to use computers and technology in a way that maximizes the triple bottom line - people, planet, profit. So this would include, energy efficiency, materials recycling and telecommuting. As we have become a nation of gadget-holics, the amount of trash from these mercury and lead laden doo-dads has risen exponentially over the decade. Why is this a bad thing? Click here to read the e-waste post from Ethiorussian and you will understand. This issue will be an agenda item for the House of Representatives in 2009. Anyway, One Community, a technology based non-profit in Cleveland, Ohio has devised a wonderful solution to the e-waste issue that benefits the environment and education. The organization is offering to pick up old computers and related hardware from area businesses and organizations, strip information from the drives and refurbish them to meet the needs of the Cleveland Municipal School District or recycle them with a 100% no landfill guarantee. Is your computer ancient? Don't worry, no computer is too old to serve a child given thin client solutions that enable a central server to do most of the processing. This is a win-win as it enhances the educational experience of our children, unclutters closets and storage rooms of donors and reduces the amount of toxins in the environment. Awesome!! Do you want to help solve the e-waste problem? Check out this Earth911 listing of resources that reuse old electronics. Be sure to go to e-Stewards.org to confirm that the stuff isn't being shipped overseas to poison the lives of others.

Put Eco-Message On Your Old Tee with Fabric Paint

Put Eco-Message On Your Old Tee with Fabric Paint : Planet Green Okay, I am really feeling this one! I used to be the queen back in the day of do it yourself iron-on or markered-on t-shirt design. I have some t-shirts that are in perfectly good shape with the exception of the odd bleach or grease spot. These would be great candidates for an eco-message that I can sport to the gym or on my spring runs.

ecofabulous: Eco-chic Shopping Is So LA

ecofabulous: Eco-chic Shopping Is So LA If you live in or traveling to Los Angeles, check out DecadesTwo, a store that sells celebrity clothing that has been rarely worn. Apparently as more celebrities go green, we can benefit from the recycling of their fashionable sustainable attire.

Reuse: Find a Quality Thrift Store Near You

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I don't know about you, but I am not the kind of person that takes kindly to having to pick through items to find things that I like, so while I have found some good deals at thrift stores in my attempts to save money while saving the environment, I am not too excited by the prospect of shopping at them. I just found this website through the BohoMag page, that will take some of the guess work out of shopping at these stores. The Thrift Shopper is an online directory that provides information about locations and user ratings of thrift stores. There is even a link to a blog that covers high fashion and Goodwill shopping (never thought those two would pair up well). Happy hunting!

Artists Find Treasure Through Landfill Diversion Program

"One man's trash is another man's treasure." There is a program in Cleveland, Ohio that lives that statement. ZeroLandfill NE Ohio, works with companies to provide materials originally headed for the dumpster, to artists in need of supplies. The company primarily works with architectural and interior design firms to transfer items such as carpet, fabric and tile samples, wallcovering books and three ring binders to artists and educators. More than 100,000 pounds of materials have been diverted from the landfill and tens of thousands of dollars in waste management costs and fuel costs have been saved by the design businesses participating in this initiative.

I love how Mike Dungan one of the creators of the program, was able to take something as mundane as a carpet sample and re-envision it as contributing to a beautiful piece of art. I remember as a child in Los Angeles, spending hours playing with discarded wallcovering samples (makes great paper dolls) and telephone wire (colorful jewelry). It is great to know that these kinds of materials are being used on a wider scale for the benefit of young artists today.

Keep up the great work Mike!