Create Eco Friendly Eco Living Holiday Delight

Creating eco-friendly eco-living holiday delight is an opportunity to have a wonderful and memorable holidays that lives well beyond the season.


Designing our holidays to be eco-friendly is not a restrictive guideline, but rather, gives us a chance to open up our creativity channel and let the ideas flow.

Eco-thinking our holiday regime offers us an opportunity to share a deeper level of appreciation for our friends, family and other living things.

So, how do we create eco-friendly, eco-living holiday delight? By understanding what questions to ask and learning what to look for in making choices.

Instead of ringing in the environmental disaster we now create throughout our holiday season, we need to rethink how to create delight.

Your Decorating Fashion: Things to consider before buy

Here are some questions I always encourage people to think about before they buy anything.  Decorating for an eco friendly holidays is a good place to start.

Where 'stuff' comes from? How is it made? Where does it go when we’re done with it?

Do we cut down mountains, forests or dig deep into the earth for the resource? Do we make a lot of pollution manufacturing the product? Does it go to landfill and take thousands of years to decompose, if at all? Does it pollute our air and waterways?

Just as businesses have life cycles, materials and products have life cycles. For instance, in business, there’s the introduction stage, the growth stage, the maturity stage and the decline stage.

For materials and products, the introduction stage would be getting the raw materials or natural resources. The growth stage would be the manufacturing or processing of these materials. The growth stage could be the distribution. The maturity stage could be the use and repair of these materials. And, finally, the disposal would be the decline stage.

We can ask these questions of our retailer or supplier. They often know or they often offer to find out and are willing to get back to you as part of their customer service.

If we just ask those questions and evaluate what we are buying, we can make an enormous impact on the environment, on our wallet, on the amount of stuff in our garages.

Cradle to Cradle

Cradle to Cradle, often referred to as C2C, promotes designing things in such a way that we don’t have to manage waste. Before Cradle to Cradle, we manufactured materials on a one-way path: from producer to consumer to landfill.

Currently, our systems intervene in this process but what we end up doing is making less bad materials and slowing down the process of these things going into landfill.

Cradle to Cradle is a design manifesto to create materials that actually become nutrients themselves to the earth, and therefore, there is not waste.

Materials would cycle through either a biological metabolism or a technical metabolism.

The biological cycle would support the earth, i.e., growth, decay and rebirth. There would be no waste. Waste would equal food or nourishment for the earth.

The technical cycle is a closed-loop system where the high-tech ingredients would continuously circulate, i.e., production, recovery, reuse.

This idea totally changes how we look at things.

William McDonough says, and I’m quoting, “Instead of asking, “How do I meet today’s environmental standards, designers are asking “How might I create more habitat, more health, more clean water, more prosperity, more delight?”

For Eco Friendly Holiday Decorating Tips, check out my BlogTalkRadio interview.  You will enjoy listening to it because we had a great time doing it!

See Your Kitchen Countertop Everywhere You Go?

Do you get tired of seeing the same material used for kitchen countertops everywhere you go?  Oh, it may be a different color or have a larger vein running through or even be the most unique of its type.  It's still the same material. 

Granite Quarry

Countertops used to be lengthy discussions with my clients when I am designing a kitchen.  Most often, their first choice is for what they have seen everywhere, granite.  I am sure this initial reaction is partly the result of a “social proof” characteristic that we humans have and why we follow trends such as this one.

Countertops are trendsetters.  Why, even the type of kitchen countertop used in a home is becomes a selling feature and part of its description  when selling a home.  Imagine, a countertop determining a house sale.  Does that strike you as odd?

After all, when you buy a house, is the countertop the indicator of how well, let’s say, the house is insulated, or what the R-value of the windows are, or how well it is built, for that matter. 

I don't know about you, but I want to know a bit more about a house that I'm going to invest in and live in for some time than what kind of countertop it has.

These days, as the green revolution begins to take hold, I see more hesitation in my clients when we begin discussing countertops.  This is a good thing. 

To me, it means they are becoming aware of the many choices out there and more aware of environmental damage some choices may or may not cause. 

Here are a few tips that might be helpful next time you’re looking for a countertop, or any surface covering for that matter.

Since granite is a trendsetter for many, let’s start there.

Granite and other natural stone is a quarried material.  That means mountains are taken apart to get the stone.  It is not renewable, and it is a finite resource.  A lot of energy is used to transport it unless you find some that is quarried locally. 

The mining of natural stone impacts the land and water quality.  These stones are durable but do require sealant against staining.

Terrazzo is an aggregate of glass, stone chips, mirror, etc.  Introduced by the Italians, it is a mix of leftovers, and makes beautiful surfaces, countertops and flooring alike.  There are various amounts of recycled content in terrazzo but it can take lots of energy to transport it, so look for locally manufactured products.  Terrazzo resists stains is durable and easy to clean.

Butcher block (wood) does not take much to process, but it’s important to look for FSC certification (Forest Stewardship Council) along with a Chain of Custody certification to make sure it has been managed correctly.  Wood, managed correctly, is a renewable resource.

Sometimes butcher block is pieces of wood laminated together.  Make sure there aren’t any added formaldehydes in the glue.  For sealers and cleaners, look for products that are benign or are low in VOCs.  Butcher block can be recycled.

Paper Composites are also a good choice.  There are many brands available.  This product is made from paper that is held together with a resin binder.  It has a high content of recycled paper, is easy to clean, very durable (after all, skate board ramps were intially made from the stuff) and, it is renewable. 

If you just have to have that granite, look for a salvaged piece and use it as a highlight or focal point in the room.

Want to find out more about how to green your home and lifestyle?  Sign up now for DIY Greenstyle Tips. 

Have questions or don’t know where to begin?  Contact Me at EcoLivingDesign.  Look forward to hearing from you!

Green Interior Design And The Carbon Footprint

As a green interior designer, considering the carbon footprint and health is part of the balance sheet when new projects arrive at my desk waiting to become beautiful spaces. 

Concentrating on sustainable performance of the ingredients and the components that go into the interior spaces of an environment, you can gather knowledge along the way and begin developing a sustainable eco living lifestyle.

There are many reasons to learn more about turning your lifestyle into a sustainable, eco-living lifestyle.  Making good decisions that impact the health, cost, efficiency and beauty of your work, home and play are just some of the reasons.

While there are many places to begin, a good place to start is to understand that there are life cycles that belong to products and materials.  The beginning of these lifecycles are way before the product and material land on the retailer’s shelf ready for you to purchase.

Getting familiar with the life cycle of a product will help you make better choices and what better way to learn than from a master.  Watch this video to learn more.

Sign up now to DIY Greenstyle Newsletter and become part of those in the know.  Get the skinny about a robust lifestyle.  

Save Water With Natural Fiber Fabrics For Home Furnishings

Saving water by choosing natural fiber fabrics may not be at the top of your list when fabric shopping for your home furnishings, but it can be.  Natural fibers like hemp require virtually no water and produce beautiful fabrics.

Hemp is one of those natural fibers that can be made into beautiful home furnishings and beautiful clothing, as well.  Hemp is strong and soft.  With clothing, the more you wash hemp, the softer it becomes.

Of course, you couldn’t stick your sofa in the washer, but you can find easy tips to cleaning natural fiber fabrics by signing up for our DIY Newsletter. 

Hemp is often blended with other fibers for a number of reasons.  One of those reasons is that hemp helps keep items from stretching and losing shape.

It absorbs moisture and has moisture transfer properties that make it an ideal fabric for hot weather climates.  Hemp is also UV, mold and rot resistant.

With all these wonderful qualities, hemp becomes an even better choice for our home furnishing fabric when we look at its growing requirements.

Hemp requires very little to grow.  Hemp is a ‘bast’ fiber which means it comes from the bark of the plant.  Bast fibers are very hardy.  It requires little to no pesticides and no herbicides.

Cotton, on the other hand, requires tons of pesticides and chemicals to protect itself from pests throughout its production process.  Cotton also uses an enormous amount of water to grow.

Check our my video “Eco Living Textiles” to learn more about cotton.

Hemp starts from seed and produces a dense crop with a canopy that keeps moisture in and weeds out.  It provides fertile ground for a diverse population of animals, insects and other micro-organisms. 

Hemp’s root system is deep preventing soil erosion.  The skin of the hemp plant is insect resistant.  Hemp is often used as a rotational crop. 

Hemp has been grown for over 12,000 years.  It’s used in textiles, wood fibers, for paper, biodegradable plastics, construction, fuel and health food products. 

Hemp can produce 4 times per acre what an average forest can yield.  Using hemp in place of some wood products can help save forests, wildlife habitats and increase carbon sequestration. 

Because of the long fibers in hemp, its paper products can be recycled several times over and more than wood based paper.  Hemp is the fastest growing biomass known. 

As a health food, hemp oil is the richest known source of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids and essential amino acids.

Hemp often gets confused with marijuana and is not allowed to be grown in the United States.  Other countries, however, are moving forward and have successfully introduced hemp farming, creating a multi-billion dollar industry.

Just to keep things clear, hemp comes from the same species as marijuana, but hemp contains virtually no THC, the stuff that makes poco loco in marijuana.  Hemp cannot be used as a drug.

Need some questions answered about choosing the right fabric for your next home improvement project?  Creating your eco living lifestyle is easier than you think.

Why That Cheap Fabric Ain't So Cheap

by Donnalynn Polito

Looking for a cheap fabric that will bring the final touches to your living room?  What about a cheap fabric for that dress you’ve been dying to make?  Maybe you’re just looking for a particular fabric that’s beautiful and that you know you can find for a cheaper price than what your designer is trying to sell it to you for. 


We devour bargains of all sorts, and looking for a cheap fabric isn’t any different.  In fact, we devour cheap fabrics because of their pricing and are often willing to sacrifice some quality to save some money.  When it wears out, guess what, we can go out and get another one!


It’s no surprise that the demand for cheap fabric is huge.  This demand, of course, fuels an abundant supply of cheap fabric.  Sort of a whatever-Lola wants-Lola-gets routine (an old but memorable song).

The demand for cotton falls into one of the biggest demand and supply categories.  Cotton has many desirable characteristics.  Among many of its characteristics, it is versatile, stable, naturally comfortable and cheap.  

We’re not dummies.  We all recognize that cheap comes with a hidden cost, but do we really, really know just how steep that cost is?  Really?

You can guess at some of it.  For one, just like we devour bargains, boll weevils devour cotton crops.  So, yes pesticides will be among the first costs we have to factor in. 

Are you ready to factor in another 149 chemicals?  A lack of information has a huge cost. This video will bring you and Lola up to date.  Take a look.





Want to get some great tips on  how you can have that beautiful look at a good price and that keeps you and your family in that marvelous eco living lifestyle you have become accustomed to?