Friday Feature - Eco Fabulous Seller Lolaness

Lolaness is an online boutique through Etsy that provides creative, custom Etsy kits and graphic design products created by a professional graphic designer. They sell everything you could think of to make your etsy shop and products as beautiful as can be. From stickers and labels to customized shop banners, this is definitely a shop worth checking out!

Lolaness makes their boutique green by printing every product on a minimum of 50% PCW (Post-consumer waste), and recycled paper. They also focus on offering products that require no shipping at all. If you have a good printer at home, you can "get away with printing your own packing slips and mailing labels from a beautiful custom design that was emailed to you rather than having it printed and shipped. It eliminates all the waste involved in shipping a product."

If Lolaness has to ship something, they always use recycled packaging in the form of recycled boxes and repurposed containers. They avoid using Styrofoam peanuts or other non-biodegradable materials.

Check out the Lolaness blog at
http://www.pixelboutique.blogspot.com/
You can also follow her on twitter at
http://twitter.com/lolanessdesign
And of coarse their shop
http://www.lolaness.etsy.com

Are Fireworks Good for the Environment?

So I went to see fireworks last night in celebration of Canada’s 142nd birthday.
They were so beautiful. I remember sitting there in a daze of complete awe. Just watching the many different colors light up the sky makes the world seem so wondrous. I think it was the best Fireworks display I have ever seen. It was a great show, it lasted about thirty glorious minutes, and when it was over the crowd was cheering, obviously in the same frame of mind that I was.
When the fireworks ended, and hundreds of kids were screaming with excitement running back to their family car, while everyone else was rushing and honking at each other to get out of the parking lot, I patiently waited to avoid any of the thrilling conflict that surrounded me. It was then I looked up into the sky, where to my disgust, I saw firework residue floating around in the air, almost like we were standing under a war zone.
That got me to thinking. As beautiful as the display was, and how it made almost every person watching it feel ‘at one’ with the environment, how harmful was it, really?

Fireworks get their ostentation from various chemicals; chemicals which are toxic to man kind. Fireworks contain metallic compounds which is what makes them colorful. Gunpowder is what makes them explode into what looks like glorious confetti. They often contain radioactive, carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting substances. These things creep into our natural environment, such as soil and water. The residues from our fireworks turn into toxic rain and smog, which get into our lakes, rivers and bays. A lot of these chemicals are relentless to the environment, as they do not break down.
Statistics show that about .03% of the planets toxins come from fireworks, every year. That seems very little, but if you add up all the years fireworks have been available, plus all the years to come, it seems … well… wrong.
Although this bothers me, it probably will not prevent me from going to see them again. Even if I decided to boycott these types of events, I would still see them if I were to stand out on my balcony. So, I doubt I will ever stop going to see them. There is just something too magical about a black sky lighting up at night, plus, it makes me smile.
Happy Birthday Canada. Hope you enjoyed the pollution we decided to get you. I know we did.

How to get stains out of silk

Here is an eco friendly way to get *some* stains out of silk. All you need is
1) 1/2 a cup of laundry detergent
2) 2 teaspoons of white vinegar
3)8 cups of cold water.
Mix the ingredients well. Put the silk in the solution, but do NOT soak it. Rinse it well. Roll the silk in a towel and iron it while it is still damp. Hang to dry.