Babies, babies, babies: I have a lot of friend having babies. It's wonderful! Some are first-time-moms, others have 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 little ones, others are having their first in many years. Some are immersed in a eco-minded lifestyle, others are curious about some of the options. As a naturally-minded mom, the two things that I get asked the most about are babywearing and cloth diapering.  So, today I thought I'd explain a little bit about cloth diapers. We have used a lot of cloth diapers over the years: not every brand (though many), but every category.  At the most...

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Appetizers are my favorite category of food, especially chips and dip. When I switched to a dairy-free, gluten-free diet last year I thought my days of nachos and dreamy, creamy dips were over. It was sad. But, life marches on, and this girl is still grooving on corn and root vegetable chips and finding ways to make the dipping happen. (Nachos with hummus instead of cheese, anyone?) My number one party  favorite was buffalo chicken dip (also known as crack dip in some circles because of the delicious addictiveness). After nine months without this zingy, creamy treat, it was time to...

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Some people call them unpaper towels; some people buy cute ones on Etsy. Some people ditch the paper ones because of cost; some people are convicted about the environmental impact of production, bleaching, shipping, or a lifetime in a landfill. Me? I offloaded paper towels years ago because of cost and environmental impact. As for what I call them, the unglamorous term rags comes to mind. But, really we call them kitchen cloths (to distinguish from the different colored ones we use to clean the bathroom or yet another set we use as diaper wipes). Our are free, because we made...

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I love getting greeting cards in the mail, but when the holiday has passed I'm so the girl who lets the cards continue to sit on the mantle because I  don't know what to do with them next. Tossing then in the recycling bin makes my heart bleed green a little bit; I'd like the ink and the card/pulp/tree to have more life than that before going through the energy-intensive recycling process. Plus, nowadays cards come with all sorts of neat little tchotchkes on them: foam pieces, ribbon, tiny plastic shapes, etc. So, I hoard the cards: first on...

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Let's get this out of the way first: spray paint itself isn't eco-friendly. You're left with that pesky steel bottle and it's rather stinky stuff, too. There, I said it.  Now that we've agreed on  that, let's move on to the idea that spray paint does have green value in that it can impart new life to things that otherwise might just get dumped into a landfill. Here are five ways that we have used spray paint for home improvements: 1. Our old fireplace doors went from smoke-stained and outdated  to simple and lovely. 2. Our retro kitchen cabinet doors had layers of chipping paint and...

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