I’ve got to admit, I’m usually a bit of a scrooge when it comes to the holidays, although over the last few years I’ve found myself looking forward to them more and more. I think I’ve always been sort of put off by the mass consumption and excessiveness of it all, but as I’ve begun creating some of my own traditions I’ve begun to look forward to the holidays more. The boy and I will be throwing our 4th annual Zombie X-mas party this year, which is always a great escape from the holiday madness for us and all of our friends.

I’m also looking forward to the many upcoming shop local initiatives and local art markets and events around town. My fellow New Orleans Craft Mafia members are busy planning our annual Last Stop Shop market.  It’s always such a blast, and something I know we all look forward to each year.  It’s just great to hang out with so many of my favorite local artists in a cool laid back atmosphere.

Once I hit my teenage years, I sort of got tired of decorating for Christmas - probably because my mom tends to go all out with decking the halls and I thought it was a little much.  But decorating the Christmas tree is something my boyfriend really enjoys, as his dad was a bit of a scrooge about the holidays when he was young, so I’ve gotten more excited about it because I see how happy it makes him.  I love the new holiday ornaments by my friend Heather Elizabeth because they’re all inspired by classic New Orleans imagery.

I think the stockings designed by Jen Hopwood of MyPerennial and available at Mahar Drygoods are pretty amazing as well.  Each one is created from layers of appliquéd wool felt by a small cooperative of female artisans in Hungary who specialize in felt work traditional to their country.

I also love the new line of 2008 holiday cards from Redbean. The designs are just beautiful and they’re all printed on high quality FSC-certified 100% post-consumer recycled cardstock with environmentally responsible inks. I’m usually really bad about sending cards, but a design as gorgeous as this one makes me want to give it a go.

Oh yeah… and it’s hard not to get into the spirit of the season when I come home to a “late birthday/early Christmas” present from my boyfriend - a freaking air hockey table!  Sure it’s a tiny cheaop-o, but still, so awesome!  And I even beat him in the first game we played on it!

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The kids at the school around the corner from my house are back in session now, and when I talked to my Little Sister on the phone last night I learned she’s been back in school for two weeks already! (I’m a bad Big Sister, I know - I can’t believe it’s been so long since I talked to her last…)

I’ve been following the Back to School Guide over at Indie Fixx and it’s filled with so many amazing finds that I couldn’t possibly even try to repeat or compete with Jen’s compilation of cool stuff. Seriously, you should go check it out if you haven’t already seen it.

I did find out about these neat school supply kits from The Green Office that are offered for different age groups (there’s a teacher kit too). If you’re the kind that hates dealing with the craziness of an office supply store during the first few weeks of the school year, The Green Office has you covered. The kits are filled with necessities like notebooks and pocket folders made from recycled paper and pencils made from made from 60% post-consumer waste recycled newspaper.

The thing that I really like about this site is that they do a good job of explaining why each individual product is green and they show you just how eco-friendly it actually is. Each product has little icons representing if it’s made from recycled or biodegradable materials (it also shows what percentage is recycled). Even though it’s getting easier to find recycled and eco-friendly office and school supplies at the major retailers, sometimes it’s hard to quickly judge just what makes a product green or not.

It seems like The Green Office does a good job of making the whole process a lot more efficient. Because really… who wants to spend forever shopping for boring school supplies like notebook paper when you could look at fun stuff instead, like one of the reusable lunch kits found in the Indie Fixx guide?

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Even though I’m currently preoccupied with Mardi Gras, the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday hasn’t entirely slipped my mind.

Little Whims on Etsy is stocked full of cute handmade cards perfect for Valentine’s Day as well as plenty of other cards and paper goods for all occasions.

Envirosax, one of my favorite reusuable shopping bag companies, has created two exclusive pink versions of some of their most popular styles just in time for Valentine’s. These bags are very limited and are currently on sale for $8.50 each now through February 10th. Available here.

And remember, the Bleeding Hearts Benefit I mentioned previously is TODAY ONLY! There is still some stuff up for grabs, including two of my neckwarmers: here and here. It’s for a good cause, plus there are plenty of perfect V-day gifts! Check it out.

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Write Robinson is a beautiful line of handcrafted stationary created by New Orleans native Angel K Robinson.

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Angel worked with economic development projects and non-profit groups here in the city. During the extended evacuation, she decided to pursue her longtime dream of designing her own line of stationary.

Angel creates ready to write stationery sets using fine Italian cotton cards and handmade & handmarbled recycled cotton paper from India. She also loves using exotic papers in her work, including bark papers from Mexico and dung papers from Africa. In addition to some beautiful ready to order stationary, she offers custom designs, perfect for adding some personality to wedding or party invites or even thank you cards.

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I had the pleasure of meeting Stephanie of Phantom Limb last spring at the Craft Congress. Stephanie is one of the organizers of the Detroit Urban Craft Fair, and a graphic designer by trade. She utilizes her design skills, focusing on simple shapes and clean lines, and combines them with reclaimed materials to create some wonderful goodies which she offers up in her Etsy shop: thephantomlimb.

I love her original collage artwork as well as these mixed paper notebooks which feature vintage children’s book images on the covers. You can purchase them one at a time or by the bunch…they’d make great unusual party favors. (Or fancy fun Halloween handouts, anyone?)

Speaking of Craft Congress, one of my other new friends from that event, Autumn, is currently busy organizing the second annual Strange Folk indie arts & crafts festival, which takes place this Saturday, September 22 in O’Fallon, Illinois (just outside of downtown St. Louis, Missouri).

Unfortunately, I can’t make the trip myself, but two of my fellow New Orleans Craft Mafia members - Claverie Crafts & Art by Mags! - will be there representing our group. So I’ll be there in spirit…they’ll even have a few of my own designs at the booth!

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Miss Libby at exoskeleton cabaret recently brought to my eye Eberhardt Press, a small anarchist printing press based out of Portland, Oregon. While the internet has become a useful tool for marketing and promotion, in many communities, such as Bloomington (where I’m at), the most predominant and effective way of marketing an event, spreading news about forums, is still through flyers, posters, and postcards. Eberhardt Press gives you the opportunity to capitalize on your community’s most predominant advertising outlet, while still being environmentally sustainable. They offer all of their printing services (which include books and pamphlets!) on a variety of tree-free and recycled papers, employing vegetable and soy-based inks for the process.

For a specific estimate or
more information, contact:
printing@eberhardtpress.org
503-288-4529

Eberhardt Press
3527 NE 15th #127
Portland, OR 97212

Likewise, you can also find a variety of revolutionary out-of-print texts and originals publications from them, as well, by checking out their catalog.

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I just discovered a pretty cool blog called teensygreen…it’s sort of an eco-blog for the whole family and includes some great tips on green parenting.

Anyway, they’re giving away handmade notebook made from recycled paper by Etsy artist subu, like one of her custom notebooks seen here.

All you have to do to enter the contest is make a comment on this post before tomorrow night at midnight!

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I love shoes, I love sending and receiving snail mail and I LOVE this limited edition notecard set by imagine that art studio.

Artist Kristine draws on her experiences as a former graphic designer in the advertising industry to create a wonderful collection of handmade notecards. Her desire is to help preserve the lost art of handwritten correspondence by creating these beautiful, one of a kind cards.

Each series of cards is based on her own original paintings and drawings and then made using a variety of letterpressing, block and screen printing techniques, and often hand watercolored by Kristine herself. These are truly unique works of art.

Find more at her website or Etsy shop.

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I was so pleased to see Tyler Bender Book Co. as the current featured seller on Etsy. I met Tyler at the Bazaar Bizarre a few weeks ago and bought one of his amazing handmade books as a gift for a friend.

What I really love about Tyler’s books is how unique each one is. He takes covers from old books, sometimes leaving them intact and sometimes resizing them, and then fills them with an assortment of mostly recycled papers.

His books make great art journals, because the variety of paper (lined, graph, colored, and book pages with illustrations or text) provides endless inspiration. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping will happen when I give my beautiful purchase to my artist friend.

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Yesterday I had to run to Office Depot to pick up a couple of things in preparation for my San Francisco trip, including a small notebook. I was looking for something cute, but made with recycled paper. I was delighted to discover exactly what I was looking for….it’s called Banana Paper!

The paper is made from fibers collected from agricultural by-products and then processed and combined with post-consumer recycled paper. Using the paper saves trees from being cut down, and there are a ton of cute notebook designs in different sizes.

The notebook I got has an awesome seahorse design on the cover that reads “save the ocean”. I love it!

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How cool is this? It’s a coffee table shaped like a fried egg from edesse designs.

The designer, Erika Walker, contacted me recently. She’s a Mississippi native, just like me, though she now lives in Boston where she creates cool stuff like this, all while working on a PhD in economics. What a busy lady!

I can definitely see a food theme in her work. In addition to this egg table, which is hand cut and hand painted, there’s a table shaped like an orange slice.

Erika also creates yummy looking erasers shaped like little cakes or ice cream sandwiches, as well as notebooks with food-inspired designs. There is a whole collection of notebooks called Southern Comfort, with photographic covers inspired by the Sunday dinners of Erika’s childhood in Mississippi. I’m getting hungry just looking at them!

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I’ve just discovered what is possibly one of the coolest Etsy shops ever. Goodfeets features handmade banjos and guitars made from repurposed materials such as cookie tins and cigar boxes. But that’s not the only incredible recycled product for sale in this shop…there are also lamps made from vintage blenders!

The Goodfeets shop carries plenty of other cool stuff like jewelry, wallets, and hand-rolled paper beads, all created using recycled materials. For that extremely hard to shop for someone on your holiday list, there are gift ideas here that you are guaranteed not to find anyplace else.

Another great recycled Etsy find that would be great for gift giving are these hand bound books with covers made from old board games from Little Put Books. The Scrabble journals feature real game tiles that spell out different messages. There’s no extra charge for custom lettering, which makes these blank books perfect personalized gifts for writers and artists.

Etsy seller Allison Strine also offers a fabulous personalized and recycled product that makes an affordable gift for both guys and girls. These one of a kind pendants are made from vintage license plate letters and numbers, and they can be used as keychains, zipper pulls, necklaces, or anything else you can dream up. Custom letters and numbers are available, and at just $15 they make great unique gifts.

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