In the new age of blogging, the practice of writing in a journal can seem downright quaint and yet, there’s still something really special about actually putting pen to paper. If you’re looking to write down your thoughts the “old-fashioned” way, but you’re also worried about cutting down on your paper waste, then check out Eco Paper. The great thing about this line is that absolutely no trees are cut down to make their paper. Sounds hard to believe, but it’s true! Eco Paper is made using the waste from bananas, coffee and tobacco. These “agro-fibres” are then combined with a base fibre from post-consumer paper waste (e.g., recycled office paper, tetra pack containers, magazines and news papers) to create Eco Paper. Artisans add the decorative on-lays and labels and help with assembly. The result is a line of environmentally friendly, sustainable and beautifully made paper products that include journals, writing sets, notepads, sketch pads, stationary and more. Their paper products also use organic and vegetable inks rather than toxins and chemicals. Eco Paper may not cause me to close down my blog, but it has inspired me to start journaling again.

Find It Here: Eco Paper

Win It: We’re giving away a lemon paper journal from Eco Paper. Click here to fill out our simple entry form. Just enter “ECO52” as the giveaway name and provide the answer to this question: Other than this journal, what is your favorite product from Eco Paper? Enter by 7/21/08. U.S. residents eligible.

By Cristina, July 14, 2008  
Filed under: Gift, Organic, Recycle, Reduce/Reuse, Sustainable, Win

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rebel. That’s the motto at Reform School, a Los Angeles store owned by two high school friends with a focus on sustainable art, design and crafts. Lucky for us non-Angelenos, these best friends realized that not everyone can’t make it to LA so they started a website (with a cool school theme, natch) featuring one-of-a-kind sustainable and handmade finds. And just to keep things interesting, each month at Reform School, different artist is featured as “student of the month.” Make sure you also take a look at their wide and creative selection of stationery, books, posters, house accessories and unique handmade wares for kids like the Mobilhome Recycled Cardboard Dollhouse or the nifty Optrixx Cameras made from recycled wood. This is one school where you definitely won’t mind staying after class!

Find it Here: Reform School

By Sarah, June 24, 2008  
Filed under: Baby, DIY, Home, Learn, Recycle, Reduce/Reuse, Sustainable

While we’re not normally fans of vinyl for new products, we are in favor of re-using the vinyl that already exists because it does not break down in landfills and thus, it might as well be used again for things that need to be tough and waterproof (obviously not baby/kids products!). What better way to display your fabulous “reduce, re-use and recycle” lifestyle than with a purse, tote or bag made from recycled vinyl billboards? In 2002, the Vy&Elle company (a play on word on ‘vinyl’) started designing and creating women and men’s accessories that were practical works of art. To date, Vy&Elle have reused over 100 tons of billboard vinyl and their manufacturing process includes 100% recycling of all scrap and waste materials, which are turned into garden hoses and flooring by other manufacturers so every bit of those billboards is reused and lives another life as something else — which means LESS NEW VINYL being produced! Of course, we look forward to the day that vinyl is no longer made at all but until then, we think Vy&Elle products are not only good-looking but also gorgeously green!

Find It Here: Vy&Elle

By Sarah, June 7, 2008  
Filed under: Recycle, Reduce/Reuse, Style, Travel, Wear

After a quick Google search, I learned that the average American showers for around eight minutes, which equals about 12 gallons of water/shower. Now, I’ll admit that I love a long hot shower. I do. But I also realize that shaving just two minutes from my shower time wouldn’t be that hard, but would add up to big water savings — three gallons, to be exact. That’s 21 gallons a week or 1,092 gallons a year — wow! Saving water in the shower is made easy with these Digital Shower Timers available from Ripple Products. Available in a variety of designs, these digital timers attach to your shower wall and function much like a stopwatch (also features a built-in clock). Set the timer to the desired amount of time you’d like to shower and a little alarm will sound when your time is up. Of course, you don’t have to get out but think of how totally green and eco-fab it will make you feel knowing you saved 21 gallons of water that week!

Find It Here: Ripple Products

Congrats to Barbara, Laura, Rebecca, Judy and Andrea, winners of a turtle shower timer! 

By Cristina, June 2, 2008  
Filed under: Gadgets, Reduce/Reuse, Win

Replacing blades for my husband’s razor was as expensive as filling the tank — well, until *that* started costing as much as our monthly grocery bill. I decided to nip it in the bud the other day when I discovered this super new recycled-materials razor by Preserve (they also make those awesome recycled toothbrushes). It’s far less expensive for the replacement blades, and you can use the packaging to return the razor handle for recycling (postage prepaid!) when it’s time to send it to razor handle heaven. The husband is pretty pleased — he’s loving it en tandem with this shaving oil — and I’m pretty pleased because hair removal and eco-cool and wallet-friendly all in one shot? What’s not to love?

Find It Here: Preserve Everyday

By Debbie, May 31, 2008  
Filed under: Clean, Dads, Him, Recycle, Reduce/Reuse

Got a teenager with an attitude? Got a tween who loves collecting? Then check out these ATTITUDEsters Monster Pets. Handmade in Thailand, these little cat, dog and bear creatures are made from scraps of material that would otherwise be thrown away. Each one is made with one-of-a-kind fabrics and embellishments and comes with a tag and personalized quotation. They make cool party favors for elementary school kids, while teens can use them as key chains to express their attitude(s) — because teens don’t do that nearly enough :)

Note: These are not suitable for children under the age of six.

Find It Here: Green Party Goods

Congratulations to Ann G., winner of a set of 12 fabric monsters (4 of each character)!

Deal: Receive 20% your purchase at Green Party Goods with code “GREENMOM”. Valid for 90 days.

By Cristina, May 28, 2008  
Filed under: Kids, Reduce/Reuse, Teens & Tweens, Win

Since joining Green Mom Finds, I have made a concerted effort to better my family’s recycling habits. Cutting back on unnecessary printing and paper waste? Not so much. Luckily, I’ve found GreenPrint, which was created as a tool to help households and businesses reduce the amount of paper waste. Why? According to their ecofacts, “In 2004 the United States used 8 million tons of office paper (3.2 billion reams). That’s the equivalent of 178 million trees!” How does it work? GreenView displays and highlights wasteful pages and page elements (like pages with just a URL, banner ad, logo, or legal jargon) and allows you choose to print only what you want. The software then removes images or text, creates a PDF file and has a reporting feature which keeps track of the number of pages and the amount of money you have saved. Once you know how much paper and money you’re saving, it’s kind of hard to imagine NOT using GreenPrint.

Find It Here: GreenPrint

By Liz, May 24, 2008  
Filed under: Office, Reduce/Reuse, Resources

As someone who went camping just last weekend, I am fully qualified to speak about the complete and total annoyingness of dead flashlight batteries. Kind of makes me wish I’d had a ShakeLight flashlight that requires NO batteries at all. Just shake it for thirty seconds and get twenty minutes of light from an LED lightbulb which will last something like 100,000 hours before it needs replacing. As a bonus, the ShakeLight sports an impressive five-year warranty, is waterproof (look at stuff underwater!) and is also, oddly enough, bulletproof — in case you find yourself in the dark with Dick Cheney :)

Find It Here: Greenfeet

By Izzy, May 16, 2008  
Filed under: Gadgets, Reduce/Reuse, Tech

While I dutifully take my reusable grocery bags with me when I go shopping, I still end up taking home plastic bags. Why? Because of all the fruits and veggies I bag with those plastic produce bags! Each time I use one, I cringe. And yet I haven’t had a good alternative - until now. Bag Green’s cute reusable produce bags are the perfect solution to my produce bagging problems! Screen-printed locally in the Seattle area, these bags are the brainchild of stay-at-home mom Heather Hadley of Bainbridge Island, WA whose passion to rid the world of plastic bags led her to start her business. I love the retro designs on her Wilma and Phyllis bags. But what I love even more is that I won’t be bringing home anymore plastic. Considering that I used to bring home at least 5 bags a week, that’s over 200 plastic bags I won’t be using this year thanks to my new best friends, Wilma and Phyllis!

Find It Here: Bag Green

Congratulations to Gina, winner of a 4-pack of Phyllis reusable produce bags!

By Cristina, May 15, 2008  
Filed under: Reduce/Reuse, Win

Ever since the whole lead-in-lunchboxes news came out a while back, I have been avoiding vinyl (and vinyl-looking) lunchboxes like the plague. Lucky for all of us, there are tons of cool, non-vinyl options for packing a lunch. My latest find for kids’ lunches is this 100% organic cotton lunch sack with a robot design. Created by the mom-owned, Massachusetts-based, fashion and design firm toby + rei, these lunchboxes are definitely cooler than those PVC/vinyl/plastic (insert character name here) lunchboxes for sale everywhere. And as a company, toby + rei is committed to using sustainable materials like bamboo and organic cotton throughout their entire clothing and bedding line. We like that. We like their funky robot lunch bag, too. But fun + sustainable + lead-free? We LOVE that.

Find It Here: toby + rei

Congratulations to Ashley, winner of the pictured lunchbox and a matching organic cotton T-shirt or onesie.

By Cristina, May 14, 2008  
Filed under: Eat, Kids, Organic, Reduce/Reuse, Win

Bringing reusable bags to the grocery store is a great way to reduce waste and keep plastic bags out of our landfills. Not only that, but bringing your own bag is just an ultra-hip thing to do; at least we think so! Now there’s a great new board book available to help teach young children about the importance of toting reusable shopping bags - My Bag and Me by Karen Farmer. This adorable board book is shaped like — you guessed it! — a reusable bag and there’s even a kid-sized shopping tote inside the book! But the best part is the simple message it imparts — bring a bag to the store and you’ll be helping to save the planet. It’s a great message for kids to hear early and often so that as they grow older, bringing their own reusable bags will be second nature to them, which is really cool. But can you imagine telling your grandchildren about the olden days when we all just threw bags in the trash? So not cool!

Find It Here: Amazon.com

Congratulations to Jennifer H., Jamie V., Priscilla, Lindsie and Ann, winners of a copy of My Bag and Me!

By Cristina, May 8, 2008  
Filed under: Read, Reduce/Reuse, Toddler, Win

You’re probably thinking we’ve lost our marbles over here at Green Mom Finds. Why on Earth would we be posting about empty toilet paper rolls?? Well, before you have us committed, let me explain. We believe that some of our greatest green finds are right under our noses - they’re things that are lying around the house, and are just screaming to be re-used before heading to the trash or the recycle bin. And what’s greener than finding new uses for old things? So, every now and then, we’re going to feature a find that you already have, but didn’t even know it!

Now, back to the toilet paper rolls. Did you know that there are 101 things you can do with a toilet paper roll before you toss it or recycle it? It’s true! Example - did you know that empty toilet paper rolls are pirates’ telescopes? Yeah, my kid totally played “pirate” with one for 30 minutes yesterday, which is approximately 20 minutes longer (and $20 cheaper) than the last plastic toy we begrudgingly bought him. Toilet paper rolls are also bolling pins, safari binoculars, and whatever else you and your child can think up. All your child needs is his or her imagination and a couple empty rolls. And if you’re lucky, it might be so fun that you even get left alone for a whole half and hour! What could be better than that?!

Find It Here: Your bathroom

[Image source: Inria]

By Cristina, May 6, 2008  
Filed under: DIY, Kids, Reduce/Reuse