eco-chic solutions*
my vintage bottles, canon digital rebel xti
There was an article in last months Body + Soul magazine about the many ways we can create eco-chic solutions with recycled goods around our home. One in particular that I was attracted to was placing all of your old bottles, mason jars and sauce jars onto a vintage tray and putting leaves and fallen flowers you find around your home or neighborhood inside of them. I have a plethora of vintage bottles around my home that we started collecting for our wedding decor. I also clean out new food jars and save them for storage. I had them underneath my window or scattered here and there but I forgot how beautiful they look snuggled up together like this.
There were other cool green ideas; Melting the dregs of burned-out candles to make new ones in old flower pots, making napkins out of old business shirts, blankets out of old scarves that you no longer wear all sewn together side by side, making a trivet to sit hot pots on out of tons of wine corks held together with a hose clamp, tying a bunch of eucalyptus on your shower rod to help clear the sinuses.
I'm all about living green but I'm also about keeping it chic.
I'd love to hear some of your own eco-chic solutions for the body and home.
posted by boho girl at 1.4.08
17 Comments:
you are so chic my love. This photo is yumji beyond words.
XO
eco-chic...i love it!!!
gorgeous photo.xo
Rewiring a lamp is actually pretty simple to do. I have an Eiffel Tower lamp that I got from Target years ago and it kept breaking. Before tossing it, I thought, "Maybe I'll just look at the insides and see if it would be easy to fix." I learned that basically the lamp just screwed apart, and that the cord coming out of the lamp was just two wires that twisted around some screws inside a hidden part of the lamp. My local hardware store had the innards for only a few bucks; I ended up taking it to a local lamp maker though just in case I was about to do something wrong. For $6, my favorite lamp was fixed!
I guess this isn't *technically* eco-chic in terms of taking one thing and recycling it into something new, but just imagining that the lamp would have gone into a landfill otherwise, perhaps it fits the bill. I never would have known that fixing a lamp would involve, literally, just twisting some screws and exchanging out some parts.
xoxo
Kate
P.S. Beautiful pictures of you and Thea...so sassy! Makes me want to rock the eyeliner.
Oh, wait, maybe I do know of something that is technically eco-chic--speaking of this lamp maker that I consulted--one thing they did to decorate their store was paint designs on old lamp bulbs and then hang them off of clothes lines. It was very pretty, sort of like stained-glass but lightbulbs instead of glass!
xo
Kate
I love the idea of decorating with jars and bottles. I've got some very old blue canning jars that I'm saving for wedding decorations - I think they'll be perfect filled with garden roses and scattered around the house.
I rarely buy new for my house - things just feel better if they've seen some life. The sharpness of new things doesn't work so well for me.
One of the things I love about making my own jams and sauces (aside from having more control over quality and ingredients) is that each year the jars get re-used. No waste at all.
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Saw this article and can't wait to play with their suggestions.
I am constantly on the hunt for vintage things. So much better than buying new! :)
i make my own cleaner with vinager and water, and clean bacteria places (potties, counters that recently had raw meat on them) with rubbing alcohol. Not very chic. I'm waiting on someone to come out with cute recycled alluminum spray bottles (or plastic). I also use my hubby's old undershirts for dusting cloths (no lint). Again not very chic, maybe I should dye them with blueberries first. :)
i will admit that every now and then I break down and buy windex. Dang stuff is just so fabulous!!
oh, and I buy most of my kitchen stuff from thrift stores. People are always throwing away perfectly good corning!
love all these ideas!
i like to reuse candles too-
i melt them onto cool shaped glass jars,
stick a wick in there and top them with glitter
and shells. i wrap netting around the whole thing and give them as gifts.
:)
i heart your bottle collection!
love
mccabe x
I *heart* vintage glass, especially depression glass but I also love recycling and washing out all of our used jars and glasses from food items as well. I've been making all of our dressings, dipping sauces, etc in the recycled jars and I love it. I'm getting a pretty big supply and I've been dreaming up other ideas for them. I like the idea of gifting someone else with one of your own favourites. A lovely flavoured oil, dressing or yummy sauce from an already used jar.
I, too,really enjoy glass displayed in different spots throughout the house. The tray idea is a good one and I love yours.
The recycling of fabric items is really a big interest of mine too as I recently got a new sewing machine and I've seen some brilliant ideas using old tees and basic things like that to make fun, hip items. It's amazing what on can do with all of the shared ideas out there.
I'm all for being more green and I welcome new ideas. It's not always easy but being more aware helps and ideas like these add up in the big picture of things. They are fun too.
Now if I could come up with a chic idea for all the toilet paper rolls we toss out?
thanks for the tips!
Arlene,
West Bremerton florist
So beautiful, I love little collections.
What can I share that doesn't make me sound too out there :)Like self-taught girl, I use lots of vinegar and DH old shirts for cleaning.
My Mom made my grocery bags out of a beautiful floral sheet and in the summer, we'll do the garage sale crawl for pieces that just need a little love.
Jaclyn
'chic' photo...
Love how you 'quickly' put such a great photo together...I'm can just imagine the love and thougths going into every movement/placement.x.xx
I love making old bulletin boards pretty by painting them (both the cork and the frame). And if you decide to move it to another room, or you change the color scheme of that room, you can just repaint it!
I've also taken to buying mis-matched pieces of silverwear at thrift stores. They look so shabby (and eco!) chic together! : )
Love the other ideas here...
This is so fun! I love repurposing things. I have two vintage wood picnic baskets that I use stacked as a phone table. They hold magazines...and of course, phone books. Another thing I'm going to do is use a couple of beautiful vintage crates,hung on brackets on the wall as bookshelves(I saw this in a magazine...it looked lovely.) We also use mix-matched 30's and 40's china...have made quilts from all my husbands old jeans...and built a little greenhouse from pretty old windows.
We are all about reusing here...
Hi!
I shifted to eco- conscious and safe beauty products after reading "Not Just a Pretty Face" by Malkan. There's a website- skin deep I think it is that goes through levels of toxicity on products for us. I now use Aubrey organic hair products, all natural soaps and Kiss My Face lotions. Even my eyeshadow is mineral based and safer.
I also recycle everything and use a safer clothes detergent for washing- yep, I'm in to it. :)
Eco- chic is definitely the way to go.
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