last minute no effort green gifts
if you’re in a jam today with no stores open and relatives on the way, here are a couple suggestions for no waste, no (or very little) effort presents on the fly:
- rebate completer: if you’ve ever had to fill out a rebate form, make copies of receipts, and mail them in, you know how appreciative someone would be if you present them with a homemade (a piece of paper folded in half) card offering your rebate completion services. this gift is great for your older relatives who you’ve spent hours trying to differentiate the “x, the square and the line” on your browser’s window to.
- pre-mixed bottle of their favorite booze: you have booze and you have a bottle. i know you do. if you don’t, there are plenty of liquor stores open on x-mas day in my hood. check out your nabe’s regulations here. gin & tonic, vodka cranberry and bailey’s irish cream are always crowd-pleasers. please drive responsibly.
- labeling services: this is a great one if you have a labelmaker. i relish the time that i spend with mine, so making labels for my friends who desperately need them, but either do not own a p-touch or just don’t like making labels is easy and rewarding. you can either make the labels for them in advance if you know what kind they need, or present them with a “card for 20 labels” which then can then redeem either on the spot (fun holiday activity), or in the future.
- recycling or compost setup: a lot of people out there want to recycle or compost, but are just too lazy/busy to set things up. present them with the necessary objects if you have any around the house, or a card offering your services at their own home.
- charity/event marketing or public relations: if you’re a marketing guru, public relations expert, or just someone that a lot of people listen to, give a friend the gift of free promotion for their next charity cause or event! don’t forget to remind them how much you usually charge for your services by giving them a giftcard for $1000 worth of marketing, and running out after a one-hour consultation (just kiddin’).
- you know it wouldn’t be christmas if i didn’t give a shoutout to my own charity cause: http://www.charitywater.org/pages/yukayoneda/
please donate if you have a chance! 100% of your money goes to repairing a well in a village where people don’t even have clean water for christmas. thank you and have an awesome holiday!
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green giftwrapping for the holidays
of all of the inanimate objects i could be, traditional giftwrapping would probably be in my bottom 5 (along with a plunger, those plastic rings that keep beer cans together, and toilet paper). think about it - giftwrapping gets one moment in the spotlight on the big day of the unwrapping and then, in an instant, is thrown away as if it never existed. sure, some people, like my mom, carefully save the paper that their gifts come wrapped in, but then just keep it in the closet forever. is that the kind of life you want your giftwrapping to lead?
this year, i’m switching to less wasteful methods of wrapping my gifts. my favorite, furoshiki, or the art of wrapping items in a large cloth, is easy to do, and your giftee gets to keep and reuse the wrapping so there is no waste!
check out this how-to video from recycle now.
Furoshiki gift wrapping from RecycleNow on Vimeo.
the video shows you how to wrap funky-shaped items like bottles, and even shows how the recipient can turn his/her new cloth into a bag!
some great ideas for where to get cloth are to reuse a piece of cloth that you already have, buy a $5 pashmina or scarf, or even use a shirt or sweater!
check out the link here.
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a peek at simon doonan’s eco-chic holiday windows and a brief history of barneys
barneys unveiled its groovy holiday windows this week as an homage to the 50th anniversary of the peace sign. simon doonan, creative director at the tony department store found his inspiration for the psychedelic 60s vignettes after reading tom brokaw’s new book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the ’60s and Today.
the whimsical windows showcased the work of designers like derek lam, diane von furstenberg, donna karan, doo ri, three as four, and narcisco rodriguez displayed amidst multi-colored afro-piks, hippie flowers and painted butterflies. but the outfits, which were contrastingly neutral and subdued, were not just pretty on the outside - each design was cut and sewn with a clean conscience, using sustainable fabrics from the earthpledge futurefashion initiative.
select designers (three as four, derek lam, rodarte, zero maria cornejo and behnaz sarafpour) crafted their creations using Ingeo™, a revolutionary corn-based biodegradable and sustainable fabric. although Ingeo™ is not a household name yet, its applications are gaining steam in the mainstream. case in point: i recently spotted target bedding that proudly displayed the Ingeo™ name. oh target - be still my heart.
here are some pics of the windows, but i highly recommend that you check them out for yourself if you’re in the area!
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if you’ve gotten this far, you probably won’t mind reading a couple of interesting facts about barneys that i picked up from wiki:
the company began in 1923, when barney pressman (i had no idea!) opened his first store with the $500 raised by pawning his wife’s engagement ring. i certainly hope he bought her a new one after that.
the original slogan was “no bunk, no junk, no imitations.”
barneys was originally a discount retailer.
barney pressman claimed to be the first manhattan retailer to use radio and television, beginning with “calling all men to barney’s” radio spots in the 1930s that parodied the introduction of the dick tracy show.
mr. pressman used women encased in barrels to give away matchbooks with the store name and address. and once chartered a boat to take 2,000 of his customers from manhattan to coney island.
the apostrophe in barney’s was dropped by 1979, and about 1981 the removal became official. (The removal of the apostrophe would be short lived–it was reinserted around the end of the decade.) i think this statement might need to be amended as i have not seen a “barneys” with an apostrophe on the official website or any recent flyers or ads.
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why is this a site?
swyyne has always been an experiment for me. with all of the other super eco sites out there, i've been feeling like i want to contribute something just a bit different. so for now, here are my random musings.
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