Holiday Gift Guide, The Green Living Edition
On the first day of Christmas (or Hanukkah, Bodhi Day, Kwanzaa, Samhain, Winter Solstice) my true love (mate, significant other, friend with benefits) gave to me… Oh, you know the rest. What do we all want this holiday season? Eco-friendly gifts for a more sustainable future. EcoStiletto delivers with Fashion, Beauty, Living and Jewelry Gift Guides publishing all month long, featuring the crème de la (organic) crème in each category, plus more than $100 in weekly giveaways for Members from now thru February.
Wanna know how to score all this swag? If you get the newsletter, are a member of our Facebook Fan Page or an EcoStiletto Member or follow us on Twitter, you’ll get the deets.
How’s that for a season that keeps on giving?
With their bright rainbow colors—love the Tiffany blue!—and beautiful shapes, Green Cooking Pots are the perfect addition to any kitchen. Chefs love that their enameled cast iron construction absorbs heat and distributes it evenly, making for truly efficient cooking; gourmands appreciate the absence of toxic chemicals seeping into their food. 1.27 WIN ONE 10” $47.98 GREEN COOKING POTS SKILLET, plus 15% off with “ecostiletto” at checkout through December 31st. Recipes not included.
Don’t forget your best friend! Get Lick’d Organic Dog Treats are perfect for stuffing Fido’s stocking, and Greener Pup’s got dog beds made from rescued overstock fabric and a filler made from recycled plastic bottles—up to 120 in just one bed. Plus, a percentage of profits go back to saving homeless dogs through designer Kari Whitman’s Ace of Hearts Foundation. 12.4 WIN ONE LARGE $85.99 DOG BED MADE FROM RECYCLED MATERIALS, plus get 20% off with “EcoStiletto” through December 31st.
Anna Getty is always inspirational, but never as much as this season, when she brings us our hands-down favorite holiday book, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas: Gifts, Decorations, and Recipes That Use Less and Mean More. With 60 of her favorite projects, plus mouth-watering appetizer and drink recipes, as well as real life advice like how to travel without breaking the carbon bank and whether to go live or fake with your tree (answer: potted and reusable), this book has had us dreaming right along with her. Move over, Martha Stewart! 11.25 WIN ONE OF FOUR $24.95 COPIES OF ANNA GETTY’S I’M DREAMING OF A GREEN CHRISTMAS.
Is there a thrasher in your future? Get him a Couch guitar strap made from vintage fabrics originally destined for old Ford Mustangs, like the ones onstage with Beck, Wilco, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and—oh yeah—in that infamous Beyonce video. (Thank you, Kanye West.) 12.3 WIN ONE RECYCLED FABRIC $44.95 GUITAR STRAP, if you promise not to mic-block while you’re wearing it.
You can’t go wrong with chocolate, especially when it’s one of Nicobella’s utterly decadent yet surprisingly healthy chocolate truffles, which are vegan, gluten-free, sweetened with agave syrup and accented with healthy ingredients like flaxseed and green tea, but taste just as good—or better—than their butter-and-cream cousins.
We’ve been fans of U.K. based Eco My Party for a while now, ever since their totally eco and completely biodegradable party packs made sustainable holiday party planning a reality for everyday ecoistas, and their tagline, “Party like there is a tomorrow,” just plain makes us laugh. To offset shipping across the pond, get 20% off now through December 31st with “stiletto” at checkout.
Forget paper. Inspired by the traditional Korean scarf-wrapping techniques known as “bojagi,” author Patricia Lee wrote a how-to called The Wrapping Scarf Revolution that will have you swearing off paper forever, and gives you Bobos, to boot! 12.2 WIN ONE $112 GIFT PACK: WRAPPING SCARF REVOLUTION BOOK AND THREE BOBO WRAPPING SCARVES.
You could give anyone a KOR reusable water bottle and they’d be happy, but how much happier would they be knowing their beloved BPA-free bottle also donates to water conservation non-profits like The Wetlands Initiative and Blue Planet Run? 12.31 WIN ONE OF FOUR $30 REUSABLE WATER BOTTLES; that’ll quench your thirst.
Give the gift of flowers that you never have to remember to water. An Eco-Artware bouquet of six daisies made from recycled soft drink cans in South Africa is just too pretty not to share. 11.27 WIN ONE OF THREE $24 BOUQUETS OF SIX RECYCLED ALUMINUM CAN DAISIES.
Most holiday cards are such a waste—even if they’re made from recycled paper there’s still the ink, energy and fact that once you’ve read them they’re just clutter on the countertop. That’s why we love Ornament Cards, which not only are hand printed on a letterpress (very little paper waste) from 100% post-consumer recycled paper with veggie inks, but once read you can hang them on your tree! 11.4 WIN ONE OF FIVE $20 SETS OF 10 CARDS.
Gifts that truly keep on giving (in the form of lower energy bills and a happier planet) are PC TrickleSaver (which is also Mac-friendly), TV TrickleSaver and TrickleSwitch, which automatically shut down peripherals (printers, DVD players, etc.) when the main device is not in use. Together, the TrickleStar trio slows your vampire power loss to a—you guessed it—trickle. 2.11 WIN ONE OF TWO $46.85 TRICKLESTAR VAMPIRE-POWER FIGHTING TRIOS, and prepare to receive a thank you on a monthly basis.
That organic sparkling wine will toast so much better in a Green with Glamour champagne glass upcycled from cobalt-blue Breganze wine bottles. 2.4 WIN ONE OF TWO $53 SETS OF TWO RECYCLED CHAMPAGNE GLASSES. Chin chin!
We like recycled newspaper or calendar wrap as much as the next ecoista, but when you’re in a time crunch nothing beats the bag—especially when they’re San Francisco-made Living Ethos bags accented with ribbons made from recycled plastic bottles. 12.11 WIN ONE OF FOUR $28 SETS OF FOUR REUSABLE GIFT BAGS, because we know how crunchy time can be this time of year.
Save a tree and eschew pine for the clean, green statement of this recycled cardboard heart wreath. 1.28 WIN ONE OF THREE $30 ECO-ARTWARE RECYCLED CARDBOARD HEART WREATHS.
And finally, there is nothing more meaningful than helping others this season. We like gifts that keep on giving, such as a donation to a life-changing organization like GirlEffect, in which a simple donation can change the life of one of 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in a third-world country, thus creating a chain reaction that can change the world for ever. Or Heifer International, which helps families in need move towards self-reliance by providing them with animals and training in things like sustainable farming techniques. Forget the sweater, give a $50 share of a $500 knitting basket and you could keep a whole family warm, well and out of poverty for a lifetime. Gifts that keep on giving. Now that’s something to share.
