I want to be in green gift guides!

Would love to get Budcozy in upcoming gift guides. Green gift guides would be especially great. Any advice, leads, contacts or suggestion would be appreciated!

I've had my eye on these and am eager for contacts:

Yahoo! Green Holiday Gift Guide

Treehugger: Buy Green

Etsy: Gift Guides: Environmentally Friendly

Splendora

Design*Sponge: gift guide: eco-friendly

iLounge: All things iPod, iPhone, iTunes

Mighty Goods: Shopping Blog

Branch: Sustainable Design Living

Effects of Composting

image from sfrecycling.com


We shifted our garbage-ing habits a few months back, and the effects have been really surprising. D noticed a blurb in some newsletter or newspaper that SF is encouraging folks to take advantage of the green bin for kitchen scraps and some food soiled packaging. We took their cue on a couple tips and combined with recycling, our regular garbage bag has been reduced to barely anything. SF now has an abundance of new dirt and has started a dirt program where everyone can get get a bucket of new dirt for their yards. It makes me feel like I’m back in little San Carlos circa 1975. It’s a nice feeling that a big city like SF can have small a town vibe.

The best tip I have to share is regarding storing your scraps. Use milk cartons, cereal boxes, and take out boxes to store your kitchen scraps. There is no need to buy composting bags. You’ll find you have plenty of containers on hand. And it makes perfect sense, don’t go buy more stuff just to hold your scraps that eventually goes into a bin anyway. That’s backwards. Just use what you have. We’ve got a pile of boxes under the sink waiting for their big moment.

At some point I’d like to take this even further. This personal composting bin handles pet waste. With Lucy and Depot we have plenty of that. For now we’re using biodegradable bags for both dog walks and cat box. I can't believe I used to mummify all that crap, literally, in regular plastic bags. What was I thinking?

SF Heatwave Strategy: 7 Steps

1) Ride Bikes
Avoid your car, it's evil. Get an early start and get your lazy-ass on your bike and slow the pace down. Buy a cold drink and sit on some steps. Look at the cracks. Talk about how your drink doesn't have high fructose corn syrup and how that's nice. Take a picture.



2) Look At Stuff
Pay 5 bucks to meander along exotic plants and butterflies. Talk to the gardener who is plucking slugs and snails. Bliz: I see you have some friends there. Gardner: Mmm, lunch.

3) Sit On The Edge
Just keep riding until you've reached the edge of the continent. Climb onto the wall and observe Ocean Beach as if it's really a summer beach with people, coolers, kites and dogs. Eat a cookie.

Don't take any more pictures for the rest of the day, leave phone alone.

4) Have A Mission
Need smoothie, must find. Arrive at Fillmore and Lower Haight to complete mission. Be excited that cup is made from biodegradable cornstarch. Remember to visit that Green Cafe Network website, that one we saw on that show. They're cool.

5) Commandeer Best SF Bench With A View
No sunny day should pass without a visit to Dolores Park. Be shocked to find that top-primo bench open. Check out cool haircuts.

6) Suffer The Uphill Ride Home
This basically sucks. Lay on the couch afterwards.

7) Realize Dinner Opportunities
It's early and everyone is still drinking at the beaches and parks. No one is thinking about dinner. Get yourself to that not-so-secret sushi spot that is always too busy, to find it not busy. Sit. Eat. Discuss day.

Reverse Graffiti

Following Laughing Squid on twitter provides a lot of quick access to cool-stuff-right-now. This one in particular is really neato. An eco-friendly cleaning product company teamed up with a graffiti artist to create public murals by cleaning away dirt, instead of using paint. I love this because it gets me to look at the world in a different way, what else can be flipped around like this?

Reverse Graffiti Project
“San Francisco’s Broadway tunnel is a highly traveled thoroughfare in the heart of the city. Over 20,000 cars, trucks, and motorized vehicles pass through it per day. Its walls are caked with dirt and soot, and lined with patches of paint covered graffiti from days gone by. It set the perfect canvas to create a beautiful work of art showcasing the talents of reverse graffiti artist “Moose”, and the power of Green Works plant based cleaner.”

Save Mirador Basin: The Cradle of Maya Civilization

Photo by Susana Alvarado from the Facebook group Save Mirador Basin

Josephine writes, “This project is not just about saving a rainforest. It is about saving one of the most important ecosystems in the world. It is protecting a way station for millions of migratory birds that inhabit the eastern United States. It is rescuing the habitat for countless species, including jaguars, tapirs, toucans, and howler monkeys. It is supporting the largest privately funded archeological project in the world. It is assisting and educating the indigenous people, and teaching them to respect their environment. It is creating a sustainable future for the Mirador Basin so that its riches can be enjoyed forever.”

My friend Josephine Thompson works with Dr. Richard Hansen and over 340 archeologists and tradesperson who are dedicated to permanently preserving the Mirador Basin. Dr. Hansen has made it his life's work and has been at it for 30 years.

Josie started a Facebook group to raise awareness and hopefully come to some collective decisions about how to create a truly sustainable model for energy, communications and tourism.

In particular, Josie is seeking advice on the following:
1) How are we going to change this from an archaeology camp of 340 workers, using 5 generators, to a sustainable energy project?

2) Our satellite dish does not use a fast uplink/downlink and everyone who is stuck in the jungle for 5+ months cannot use video conferencing, IM or Skype. How can we get more bandwidth and add a communication network to a region that is completely off the grid now?

3) Please send links to examples of the best ecolodges in the world and express your opinion.

If you are a member of Facebook, please VISIT and JOIN the group to learn more and to offer advice and support. If you are not a member of Facebook but would like to be involved you can contact me directly.

As an aside, Bliz and I visited Josie in Guatemala earlier this year and took a trip to Tikal (we're planning another trip with Josie to visit Mirador) and did the Tikal sunrise tour. We hiked for an hour in near pitch black to the main temple to watch the sun rise over the jungle. During our hike we could hear the howler monkeys. They sounded more like dinosaurs. Here's an example I found:




I came across this article about one person's experience hiking to Mirador. This is definitely a trip I have to psyc myself up for. 3 day hike in the jungle with heat, humidity, spiders, deadly snakes, ticks, jaguars, poisonous plants, oh my. Josie, are you sure I can handle it?

Eco Friendly Envelopes

Wow, now that's an exciting blog title. I figured that while I patiently wait for the Life Box to be available I could look around for other options available now. Tons of recycled post consumer waste envelopes, which is good and what I'll continue to order. But ideally I'd like find something more than that.

Ecoenvelopes
Ideal for mailing things like bills that include the need to send a reply payment. Made from a minimum of 30% post consumer waste (PCW) content and use soy and water-based inks and bio cell window films. Nice blog. And a nice logo, too.

Brown Bag Envelopes
100% recycled using post consumer waste. I started off mailing budcozy with a batch of similar brown bag envelopes, but the glue was horrible and didn't seal properly. But I'd be open to trying another brand like this one.

Paperboard Mailer
These look interesting. Made from 100 percent hand-sorted, recycled fiberboard (containing 95 percent post-consumer paper). This is a more sturdy almost cardboard looking mailer. Especially good for sending more than one budcozy at a time.

I found these envelopes all accounted for on ActionEnvelope. In the short time I searched, they look to be the online resource for eco-friendly envelopes. Plus they practice what they preach.

Paul Stamets's Life Box Packaging

Life Box video stills from TED|Talks.

I've been wanting to package budcozy with eco-friendly materials that go beyond it's first purpose. Paul Stamets's Life Box is exactly it. When will this be available? Anything else on the market like this?

Recycling Jeans

The Jesse budcozy, coming soon...

I'm looking forward to finding some time to finish up the next limited edition budcozy. These will be made from a bunch of jeans and some vintage-style red buttons. Thinking her name will be Jesse. The jeans shown here are Miss Sixty's. I've also got some Paper Demin Cloth and Sevens ready to go. Might also do a second button option for a more gender neutral look, something along the lines of a metal rivet.

Recycling tshirts, dresses and jeans has been a good way to keep this project interesting. I've been looking at my wardrobe in a whole new way. MJ has been a loyal scissor ninja, keeping me motivated, and supplying her friends with budcozys. One of them even sent me something from their closet to try. I can see this becoming a really fun aspect. If only I had clones of myself and didn't enjoy sleeping so much. Plus, the new-ish day job has been really interesting and keeps me plenty busy by itself.

How It Works

Came across a great series of How It Works videos. Super clever and super cute. Budcozy needs one of these. The video below explains the difference between regular incandescent light bulbs and CFLs.



More videos about things like Social Networks, Wikis, RSS and Zombies here at Common Craft.

Carnival Zona Verde

Hopped off the bus and started on the parade route at 24th street, then walked over to Harrison for the vendors and food. Huge crowds lined the parade route to watch skimpy sequined girls, traditional costume, fire engines, cable cars, vintage cars, dragons, stilt walkers, candy throwers and all. The food was a big component with everything possible being grilled. We got a grilled corn. Yum.



A new addition to this years Carnival was the Zona Verde. It was contained in a parking lot separate from the other vendors and included solar companies, organic food, eco-travel, clothing, art and gifty stuff. It was a small but strong turn out and hopefully it will grow larger next year. Seems like this is a good trend in general for street fairs because it really allows for the public to see and talk to the people involved in eco-friendly businesses. Some highlights:

• Free Adina organic Iced Mayan Mochas.
• We talked to a solar guy about the interesting practices of PG&E's solar installations regarding panel angle optimization.
• Learned about an eco-preserve just outside of Mexico City that is under threat of development.
• Talked to Urban Edibles, a local gardener who specializes in edible gardens (my basil is so sad)
• Got the Nature in the City Map, A Guide to SF's Natural Heritage. It's a huge map that shows 49 square miles of natural areas in the city: view, hiking, picnic area, bird watching, wildflowers, etc. And it's printed on New Leaf Sakura 100% Recycled Paper. We had to promise we'd make use of it before they'd give it to us.
• Bags and wallets made from recycled bike tires and signage, Green Guru.



A few more photos on Flickr.

Things I'm Searching For. Any Advice?

Professional Snapper
Little did I know that most small sewing shops refuse to install snaps. I tried a local button and pleating company for my recent batch of budcozys but this experience was not ideal. After a series of attempts, they ended up doing an acceptable job but it was too painful to work with them.

Organic Cotton Clothing Tags
Do these even exist? Or possibly in some other sustainable fiber? I'm pretty much out of my tags, and before ordering more I'd like to try to get them in an eco-friendly form. UPDATE: A great idea came in via comments. Wanted to explain a bit about the tag. It's an integral and functional element to help pull budcozy up/down, so while there are other great solutions to branding the budcozy I definitely want to keep the tag. But overall something to figure out ...

Urban Goats & Toolboxes

After a recent excursion to Building Resources, we drove out into the desolate wasteland and discovered goats grazing on radio active weeds. And boy, did it stink.

Found a cute recycling idea at BR, toolbox succulents:

To outer space and back to the couch

It was one of those busy-fast weekends and we were excited to get everything accomplished. D has been swamped at work so this was a necessary break to get recharged by seeing some great stuff other people are up to. We started the day off with a hike up to Twin Peaks with Lucy. We are really lucky to be able to walk right out the front door and just keep going up until we've reached the top like the surface of another planet. Spring is so here with butterflies, birds, alien weeds and flowers. It was so windy up there that Lucy's ears flew back like she was riding a motorcycle.

Once we got back down to earth, we bused into town to load up with a super taco and horchada and head to the historic Armory building. It was open to the public for the Mission Bazaar, an exhibition of art, design, music and performance. We drive by that place often and someone usually makes a comment about what sordid things go on in there. In 2006 it was purchased for $14.5 million by an adult production internet company, giving the ominous Moorish Castle style building on a edgy intersection an even grittier presence. So we have been really curious to see the inside. It was like walking back in time into an old airplane hanger, lots of brick and steel and huge windows with bright sunlight streaming into the dark space. Most of the vendors were clothing and accessories, with a burningman-steampunk-hippie aesthetic. I got a super cute red and cream striped wrist band made from a vintage tie, with a single silver snap. D tried on a tiny victorian top hat, which made him look like something out of Alice in Wonderland. I think I should get him one. We bumped into a friend who makes films. A favorite local clothing designer of mine was there, Miranda Caroligne. I'd really love to get to the point where budcozy could be part of an event like this. I was inspired to get back to work on some new limited editions themes. American Cupcake sent me a link to the Union Street Faire in a couple weeks, which happens to be an eco theme, but it's hard to swallow the $650 booth fare. Being creatures of habit and feeling a bit overloaded by the bazaar, we walked over to La Copa Loca for waffle cones of hazelnut sorbet and sat on the sidewalk to charge up for evening plans.

The rest of the weekend went like this:

Wes Scoop at the Marsh
Hard to cover the 90 min show, I kept wanting to write things down but didn't want to miss anything. One thing I remember him saying is the answer to our nations problems is to acknowledge our predicament and engage in an intentional decline with a Reverse Peace Corps, to learn how to siesta and make tasty dishes from rice and beans. Remember to breathe. Unlearn our overachieving.

icanhaz
An honest attempt to icanhazcheezburgers but gravitational pull of the couch won. Instead we went to witness with our own eyes a really big crossover moment between the internets and reality.

Opera.

That butterfly
More collisions between worlds with the butterfly from the hike now firmly embeded in a mural. It stopped me in my tracks.

Free samples
In between giant boxes of cereal, a moment of bliss at Costco: toasted ham-n-cheese croissant sammie samples.

iPhone
A new iPhone case that goes real cute with the Pow budcozy. But I find myself looking at my iPhone wanting to take a picture of my phone with my phone. Need to track down the camera.

Series of amazing events
D got 2 pairs of jeans and 1 pair sneaks, without even trying. Do you know how amazing that is? We were so tired and hungry but you just can't stop when shopping karma strikes. Nutella-banana crepe post spree prepared us for MUNI home. And then the most amazing series of events happened. The J arrived immediately. Only one crazy person on board talking into a cellphone with no one at the other end. It did not break down. I do not kid. Then as we sat waiting for our transfer on the 48 to take us home (estimated 17 min), Hoshi appeared out of nowhere in a skid and waved us aboard to deliver us to our door.

More couch.

Hemp Factoid

Wiki says: "Hemp requires little to no pesticides, replenishes soil with nutrients and nitrogen, controls erosion of the topsoil, and produces lots of oxygen, considering how fast it grows. Furthermore, Hemp could be used to replace many potentially harmful products, such as tree paper (the process of which uses bleaches and other toxic chemicals, apart from contributing to deforestation), cosmetics (which often contain synthetic oils that can clog pores and provide little nutritional content for the skin), plastics (which are petroleum based and cannot decompose), and more."

While hemp is still illegal to grow in the US, I get my hemp fabric (and bamboo and organic cotton) from a local SF importer Pickering International.

Friends of Budcozy

Budcozy is my pet project that I'm having a lot of fun with. I've been inspired by people who have taken a chance on their own ideas and are making a go of it. I have some friends that are up to some pretty cool things themselves that I'd love to tell you about:

American Cupcake
"Not your mother's cupcake"
http://www.yelp.com/biz/american-cupcake-san-francisco

BlinkM
Make crazy LED things.
http://thingm.com/

Love Spirals
Ryan and Anji Bee are uber chilltastic.
http://lovespirals.com/

Sister goes to Uganda
Yes, my sister. She is rad.
http://lorisaltveit.wordpress.com/

Solar Death Ray 3000
"Do not look into beam with remaining eye."
http://people.tribe.net/5969572e-afaf-4c36-97d4-b7be3d08f572

El Grande, Lumia Grande and Thomas Wilfred
Makers of visual music.
http://performinglights.com/index.html
http://www.lumiagrande.blogspot.com/
http://www.lumia-wilfred.org/