greenlight district

Soo, wrapping paper. Can we recycle it?

I thought it would be easier to find out if you can recycle wrapping paper, too, but it's not as simple as just throwing it in the old blue bin. So here are some helpful hints - super helpful if you reside in one of my two homes, Onondaga County (that's right, bitches, the real real OC) or NYC! You'll have to look up the specifics for your area, but here's a general guideline for a green Christmas (and/or Hanukkah and/um Kwanzaa).

-Check your local government or recycling agency's website
-Use minimal tape when wrapping it up!
-Find wrapping paper made from recycled materials/paper
-Orrr, at least skip over anything with gold, silver, or any metallics or foil in it. Pretty yes, but also not blue bin-friendly!
-Organize the discarded papers in a recyclable bag to be placed curbside with the rest of your recyclable paper products
-And don't forget to recycle gift boxes, any corrugated cardboard boxes, holiday catalogs, and non-metallic greeting cards - you know the drill.

If you live somewhere that won't take any scraps of your wraps, get creative! Rock that brown paper bag with non-toxic, low-VOC craft paints (like these shimmery shades from Earth Safe!) with stencils or stamps. You can also cut back on the trimmings. This year, I tried not to use ribbons or bows (unless they were fabric and nice enough to be reused) and skipped gift tags, writing messages on the packages or using last year's cut up holiday cards instead. Thankfully, I come from a long line of poor and/or cheap people good budgeters so within my family we've been recycling the same 4 gift bags and handful of bows since I believed in Santa.

If you weren't born into such a frugal fam, pack up your totes with these eco-friendly gift wrap items!

Earth Love'n Holiday Elegance, Hanukkah Chicken and Chilly Dog Recycled Gift Wrap ($5-9)

 Yeah, that's right, they make biodegradable ribbons and wrapping paper and gift tags that can be PLANTED. Crazy! These would be a great gift for any ecophile on their own.

Plantable Holiday Gift Tags ($5.75), biodegradable ribbons ($4.80-6), Blooming Wrapping Paper ($19.95)

It may be a little late to wrap it up eco-style this winter season, but keep these green gift wrap sites in mind for your next holiday or birthday! Happy Recycling!

Those Gifts Suck - THESE Gifts RULE.

The warm weather almost makes one forget that Christmas is just about a week away (and don't forget, Jews, and fellow shiksas dating Jews, the Festival of Lights starts at sundown on Sunday!) so you still have shopping left to do. If you were smart like me you went to the Bust Craftacular yesterday and checked off most of your "nice" list, and got books signed by Amy Sedaris (no, girl, YOU "let the good times roll!") and saw a sweet gay chihuahua-toting hipster try to show one of Stella Zotis' fur-wearing workers a video about said fur. But don't fret! There's still more handmade holiday shopping to be had:

Lyceum Holiday Craft Market
Shop local artisan clothing, jewelry, home goodies, antiques and more this Saturday and Sunday (from 11am - 7pm) at the Brookln Lyceum. There will be over 65 vendors, food and drink, and more Christmas-y fun (make a day/date of it and check out the sched) at this Park Slope pit stop for handmade holiday gifts.

Missing the Brooklyn Flea Market??
I know I am - so I'll definitely be checking out "gifted - a holiday market" at the Fort Greene Brooklyn Masonic Temple across the street from where the flea market is during the summer. The last day is this Sunday, so take a look at the vendors and make sure to fulfill your Buy Handmade pledge!

Update: As one of my greenlighters was sweet enough to alert me about - and remind that I have to give Manhattan a little love even though they have the Holiday Shops at Union Square annnd Bryant Park - there is also Jingle at Chelsea Market, an annual festival featuring a higher end, more artsy array of goodies. Hipster chic schmipster chic, as much as I love the shit at the above fairs, sometimes there really are only so many feather headbands and screen-printed American Apparel tees one can browse before they realize their Grandma is just not that into ironic tote bags. AND one of my favorite jewelry and houseware boutiques Jillery will be showing there! Thanks, Chelsea Boy!

So what's on your list and what are you getting for your lovers and friends this holiday season? So far it's been pretty easy for me to get the Grandmas, aunts, moms, and cousins goodies at the fairs - Dads (a Santa's Pipe soap bar from Dirty Loves Clean) and brothers (can't say because he reads the site!) are the toughest, so perhaps an eco-man gift guide is needed?

Let's Get Some Gifts!

For those of you that didn't get all of your holiday presents out of the way on Black Friday (who are those weirdos anyway??) here are some NYC & Brooklyn crafty indie designer markets for all of your local artisan holiday shopping needs:

Bust Craftacular
When: now! Sunday, December 14th until 7:30PM
Where: 125 W. 18th St. (Metropolitan Pavilion)
What: Over 200 designers and Etsy-types are showing off their goodies and making all of your local shopping hopes and dreams come true. There will be food, probs drinks, and even a signing and showing from Amy Sedaris and Stella that "leathaaaah" lady from Project Runway. I am also so in love with Bust (the mag, not my own-although duh, that too) so I'm sure it will be fun as well! They can offer me a job any day now. That would be great. Annnd it's all only $2 at the door.

More to come later right now I'm off to the Bust Craftacular! See you (and Amy Sedaris) there - with your eco-fabulous tote bags, of course!

Etsy Gives Me Multiple Craft-related Orgasms This Week

Thanks to some combination of the brief wet snow we had this weekend, my roommate forcing me to watch Jim Carrey's Grinch (awful,) and last night's snuggly YouTube-ing of the Charlie Brown Christmas, I'm really getting in the Xmas/holiday spirit. I dabbled in starting my shopping this weekend and have decided that I'm going to do all (okay, most, my parents really want a couple months of Netflix, what can I do?) handmade/hipster/local gifting this year. I figure that I'm going to be dropping some cash regardless of my financial situation, so I might as well have it go to a good cause - oo charityish!!

Hey here's something that I love: CRAFT FAIRS. Or any fairs where you can purchase goods that you don't necessarily need. This prob stems from the Santa Shops we had in elementary school. Did everyone have that? Or is that some white trash Upstate, NY thing?? They would basically set up some tables with cheap crafty-type gifts in our gym and my mom would give me $20 and I would knock out all of my Christmas shopping in the hour allotted for purchasing these fine artisan crafts. This is why my mom/aunts/grammas have a collection of things like jewelry boxes made of yarn and shitty Santa pins, and plastic wreathes. 

This past weekend I went to the grown up (and socially conscious, duh!) version of my beloved Santa Shop, Etsy's Handmade Cavalcade. It was wonderful - but I treated the experience more like window shopping as there are a whole slew of similar handmade fairs that will feature NYC indie designers in the next couple weekends. (And the place was PACKED so I didn't feel bad about just perusing for the time being...) After the jump, here's a list of what caught my eye, (and just might catch my credit card)