(NC)—If everyone in Canada wrapped just three gifts in reused paper or gift bags, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 hockey rinks.* That’s a lot of paper! When wrapping your gifts this holiday season, consider making your own recycled or reusable wrapping paper.

“From old scarves to baskets, there are many common items around the house that make great wrapping for your gifts, all it takes is a little imagination ,” says Mary Desjardins, Executive Director, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation. “Not only will Mother Nature thank you, but your loved ones will appreciate the originality and your effort.”

TD Friends of the Environment Foundation (TD FEF) offers the following ideas for making your own gift wrapping this year:

• Recycle artwork—Save your child’s colourful paintings and drawings throughout the year and turn them into holiday gift wrap for grandparents and other family members.

• Photos—Make your presents picture perfect by pasting photos of family and friends on old shoe boxes or reusable bags.

• Wallpaper & newspaper—Leftover wallpaper is easy to work with, is durable and adds a pop to presents. Add some ribbon or beads for a finished look. Do you have a friend or relative who is always telling jokes? Use the comics section of your newspaper for wrapping.

• Fabric—Pick some of your most colourful scarves, festive tea towels or old clothing and get to work. Perfect for wine, any boxed item or clothing, fabric creates a beautiful and simple way to wrap presents. Secure ends with a safety pin, button or knot, and top with a bow or sprig of holly or pine for a seasonal touch. Your fabric wrapping can either be part of your gift (like a tea towel) or be used to wrap presents year after year.

www.newscanada.com

(NC)—This holiday season there are sound environment gift options for every taste.

Choose greener gifts by keeping three guidelines in mind: locally sourced, thoughtfully personal and smart wrapping.

A simple option is to find something grown or crafted in your area. Local wines, cheeses or seasonal arrangements are always a welcome gift. During the holiday season Canadians can take advantage of wreaths or arrangements made from local evergreens.

For a more personal gift, consider the recipient’s interests and hobbies. A great resource is the World Vision Gift Catalogue (online at www.worldvision.ca/gifts). Options include a grove of fruit trees on behalf of an avid gardener, school supplies on behalf of a reader or chickens to provide a family with eggs in the name of a wonderful cook. Gifts are locally sourced and go to help children and families around the world.

Reduce wrapping, or go for recycled or reusable options. Using fabric or a colourful cloth shopping bag is not only an environmentally sound option, but provides a ‘wow factor’.

www.newscanada.com

Come celebrate Raising Spaces 1st BIRTHDAY PARTY and discover fun ways to Green Your Christmas and your home! Join us for seasonal refreshments, a Charity Silent Auction For the ALBERTA LUNG ASSOCIATION, scoop up Green Christmas gifts and ideas, and hear from Office of the Environment’s Stacy Wall (2pm) on fun ways to make the holidays planet-friendly! See you there!

When: Saturday, December 3, 2011 1:00pm until 5:30
Where: Raising Spaces (within Mexx Lighting), 10045-81 Avenue, Within Mexx Lighting, Edmonton, AB

Featured Silent Auction Items Kindly Provided by:
Raising Spaces – www.raisingspaces.com
Mexx Lighting – http://mexx-lighting.com/
Earth Group (Earth Water) – http://www.earthgroup.org/
Frog Box – http://frogbox.com/
Funky Bug Naturals – http://www.funkybugnaturals.com/
Nature’s Corner Store – http://www.naturescornerstore.com/
The Organic Box – http://theorganicbox.ca/
Wild Bird General Store – http://www.wildbirdgeneralstore.com/

WHEN: Wednesday, August 17, 6:30pm – 8:30pm

WHERE: McKernan Community League Hall, 11341-78 Avenue

COST: Pay What You Can

DESCRIPTION: Sustainable Living 101 provides an introduction to some of the key concepts of climate science as well as some of the alarming observations and implications that you need to know about.  Learn about the Greenhouse Effect and how rising levels of Carbon Dioxide put increasing pressure on already stressed and weakened forests and oceans around the World. Each week there has been a story about extreme weather, learn how this affects you, the city and our way of life.

The workshop also provides you with 7-Step strategy that you can use every day to design a more sustainable lifestyle.  Learn how to complete your own personal inventory and use it to create powerful goals that transition your life to the next level of sustainable living!

It also means taking action! At Eco Evolver we are dedicated to engaging people from all over Edmonton so they can step up their game, and get involved in community projects and city-wide initiatives that are transitioning Edmonton away from fossil fuels towards sustainable and resilient communities.  Discover how Eco Evolvers from around Edmonton are transforming their life, one green step at a time!

There’s more to the 3Rs than Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  It’s time to go a step further and really embark on a new phase of the environmental Industrial Revolution.  With Spring around the corner, it may be time to start thinking of household upgrades and renovations.  The times, they are a changing… for the better!  This year, don’t settle for the basics, go for quality products that will extend the life of your home and tell a story of environmental triumph.

There are many myths about environmental products.  Truth is, these products have come a long way, and many have been around for decades, hiding in the shadows of products that have been devastating our ecosystems, adding to the ever-flowing landfills, and making us sick.  Waste from renovations accounts for as much as one third of the 20 million tonnes of Canadian landfill waste.

Flooring is a very expensive piece of renovation.  Flooring can provide many different functions, especially when it comes to natural materials.

Linoleum was first developed in 1860.  It is made completely of renewable resources (jute, rosin, wood flour, cork flour, limestone and linseed oil).  My absolute favorite feature of linoleum, is that the linseed oil in the material has anti-microbial features!  This means that it has the ability to kill bacteria!  Amazing performance for floors!  The brand we sell in the store is called “Marmoleum”.  If you’re looking for flooring that lasts, this is the stuff.  While shopping for linoleum, avoid the PVC (poly-vinyl chloride) poser.

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Since I don’t have a car, I am constantly being asked, How are you going to get it home? Truthfully, non-car-owners have a wide variety of strategies for getting things home: we look for companies that offer low cost delivery options, we rent a vehicle, we hire a guy with a truck off Kijiji, or we just plain carry it, sometimes on our bikes, if weight and weather permit. And more companies are exploring the option of cargo delivery by bike. Continue Reading →

Eco-Chic Home: Rethink, Reuse & Remake Your Way to Sustainable Style by Emily Anderson (2010). Seattle, WA: Skipstone.

When you look at some of the objects around your home or some of the items you have bought on impulse, even the packaging that contained something useful, do you see it as junk or as something useful? Emily Anderson tends to see these items as useful, making magazine filing boxes from cereal boxes, covering an ugly two drawer filing cabinet with cloth to make a sweet end table, transforming CD jewel cases into a lamp, or even sewing pillowcases into a dry cleaning bag that you can ask your dry cleaner to use rather than giving you more plastic drape.

Eco-Chic Home moves from room to room within the home, repurposing and restyling. Each of the projects includes simple, crafty instructions and most, except maybe for drying time on some of them, would take a weekend to accomplish. Continue Reading →

A featured product last week on the Facebook company page for Raising Spaces was the Jade Yoga Mat. I have one and I like it, but I need a way to carry it and protect it from my cat that has clawed her way through two other yoga mats.

The easiest way to carry a yoga mat is to wrap a yoga belt around both ends of the rolled up tube of the mat as a shoulder strap. The Hemp Yoga Strap, which is also available at Raising Spaces, will work but not all yoga practitioners use a strap, which depends on their flexibility or the version of yoga that they practice.

Depending on how crafty you are or the type of craft you are into, you can make your own yoga bag. Continue Reading →

Shift Your Habit: Easy Ways to Save Money, Simplify Your Life, and Save the Planet by Elizabeth Rogers. Three Rivers Press, 2010.

When persuading reluctant family members and friends to a “green” lifestyle, we usually encounter two big objections: money and time. The evidence in the store is that the green option is more expensive and that acting conscientiously, by either making your own, recycling or making a lifestyle change, is a big hassle.

Elizabeth Rogers, the author of Shift Your Habit, disagrees and she has found the evidence to prove it. Shift Your Habit suggests hundreds of simple changes, from opening your blinds and using sunlight to get work done during the day, to bigger changes, such as holding swap parties for clothing and entertainment items like video games. Each of the suggestions is environmentally-friendly and frugal, which overcomes the “it’s too expensive” objection to making a green lifestyle change and some of the tips include a “Good For You” section, meaning that it improves your health or saves time.

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