decor

So you survived Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving retail shopping orgy. Well, today is Cyber Monday, the day that inaugurates the holiday online shopping season. Of course, some say Cyber Monday is a myth, which may be true. (We often wonder the same thing about Valentine's Day.)

But myth or no, this day raises the question for us of which is the greener way of shopping, bricks and mortar or mouse click. Lime and Grist give some space to contemplating that very question this week, musing about such mitigating factors as the distance you have to drive to the mall, and the amount of extra packaging involved in shipping individual items.

Certainly online shopping makes it easier for the discriminating gifter to track down eco-friendly products. But sustainable communities aren't only about carbon; shopping with local merchants can help us build sustainable communities by supporting small business owners. And it's the health of those communities that will ultimately help us drive less.

There are also wonderful online outlets like the crafter's trading floor, Etsy, that make it possible for artisans who use sustainable materials and methods to find a market for their wares--like the handmade recycled Christmas Cards pictured here. The recipient could recycle the card again--or better yet, frame it and have an heirloom-quality bit of holiday decor to enjoy for years to come.

In some ways, we think the most earth-friendly approach of all is to mindfully pick and choose from the best of the web and the best of the village.

For more ideas, EarthEasy has a definitive guide to green gifting, with a sustainable something, literally, for everyone. And if you want to see Kevin's picks, visit our Building Green Online Store at StarStyle.

Zem at Ecofabulous got us thinking about candles today. We were particularly surprised by the statistic she cites stating that seven in ten American households burn candles regularly. Who knew we were such a romantic culture?

Ordinary paraffin candles are made with petroleum byproducts, and produce soot when burned that, while perhaps not a statistically significant factor in global warming, is certainly a lung irritant to those who inhale the fumes. Soy or beeswax candles are the way to go. To read more about the virtues of soy vs. paraffin candles, check out ecomall's shopping guide. But we have a soft spot for beeswax candles, with their heady natural aroma and golden color. Care2 explains why beeswax rules: "Beeswax candle fuel is the only fuel that actually produces negative ions, which not only helps remove pollution from the air but increases the ratio of negative ions to positive ions, the ideal and necessary scenario for clean air."

We love giving--and getting--candles as gifts. Decorative objects that produce hours of sensual pleasure, they are things we tend never to buy for ourselves--at least not the heavenly-scented, fancy kind. Beeswax Candleworks sells every shape of candle you can imagine, from tapers and pillars to tiki idols and christmas trees, at reasonable prices. Kathleen Lewis makes scented beeswax candles that come in jars--perfect for bringing with you to personalize a hotel room with lavender or sage if you're travelling this season. Fusion Home has an assortment of gorgeous candles for holidays and beyond, including the witty pine cone replicas pictured here.

You spent a lot of time, effort and money ridding your home of tacky, toxic carpet, only to have that new expanse of elegant bamboo flooring marred by an unsightly cat tree. You know the kind, a towering series of poles and platforms, slathered in the cheapest shag carpet remnants imaginable.

Fear not. You can order up one of these breakthakingly elegant throne-like, scratchable objects from kittypod. If your cat is a traditionalist, and a scratcher, think about a plain but virtuous sisal hemp scratching post, or an organic cotton Amish pet bed, both from A Natural Home. Or maybe your indoor/outdoor cat would prefer a Rustic Cat Tree from Natural Tree Furniture.

If you're on a budget, try the Nature's Foundation Cedar Pet Bed for $24.99, which is filled with cedar chips to repel fleas and help eliminate odors without chemicals.

Thanks to Ecofabulous for unearthing this splendid stainless steel bar cart from Fusion Furniture Gallery. As novel as it looks, it also comes with an interesting story to share over cocktails. According to Zem: "originally used in Virginia hospitals to store medical charts, these gems have remained untouched 150 feet underground in the Atchinson Caves (former limestone mines of Kansas), where they were stashed when the mines were converted into military storage during World War II."

If you love the look but gulp at the $1500 price tag, you can do what Kevin did when furninshing his closets, and take yourself on down to Home Depot, where you can pick up a stainless steel Husky 8 drawer tool cabinet for about the same as it would cost to ship the Fusion bar cart to your home.

Vintage office furniture can add some retro industrial chic to your home, and you can either find a retailer that specializes in refurbishment, or better yet, hunt down your own pieces in the wild, on craigslist or ebay, or better yet, at a thrift store that's owned and operated by a worthy charity.

By now we have all grokked that compact fluorescents are every bit as warm and flattering as incandescents. But still, sometimes you want lighting to be just a bit less perscriptive and a bit more fun. We laughed at Inhabitat's take on Die Electric's CanDull (pictured), a witty candleholder intended to remind us to power down. Back in college thrift store days, we used an ornate vintage pedestal lamp as a candelabra--it turns out that ordinary tapers do fit into standard light bulb sockets with very little coaxing (tin foil can help, just remember not to forget and plug the lamp in!).

Speaking of lighting, one of the drawbacks of CFLs has been that they do require small amounts of mercury to manufacture--mercury being a toxic metal that is found concentrated in certain fish, including tuna and salmon. Today, we heard a wonderful example of the circle of life in action, or nature's comeuppance. According to EcoGeek: "Recently, Professor Andrew Steckl, a University of Cincinnati researcher, has found that he can improve the efficiency of LEDs by using DNA, specifically, from salmon sperm."

Some things to think about next time you dine on salmon by candlelight.

Who says lighting can't be green--literally? The xDesign Environmental Clinic at New York University has developed the so-called greenlight , a solar-powered planted chandelier made from recycled and recyclable parts.

Designed to improve indoor air-quality, the greenlight features tropical indoor plants that naturally filter toxins from the room. And its low-voltage LED light system, which sits on a disc of blown recycled glass, draws power from a solar awning of Photovoltaic cells. The LEDs naturally nourish the plants.

According to San Diego-based xDesign, which stands for Experimental Design Lab, the greenlight is built to be carbon-neutral. "The photovoltaic panel sitting in a south-facing window can produce 7.5 W on an average of 3-4 hours a day in NYC," it says.

xDesign showed off the greenlight last weekend at the Wired NextFest, a two-day technology conference in Los Angeles. Representatives from xDesign said that it makes each chandelier by custom order, and the price ranges from $1,500 to $2,500. Compared to the cost of standard chandeliers, that doesn't seem like such a bad price to shine some light on your environmental consciousness.

This object may look like a bit of light sculpture you'd pick up at Ikea, but it's actually an energy-saving device. According to Inhabitat, "Southern California Edison power station manager Mark Martinez was looking for a way to get his customers to use less energy, and repeated automated text messages, emails and phone calls were not doing the trick. Then he hit upon the Ambient Orb, a glowing globe that changes color to represents changes in streaming data (weather, stock prices, etc). With a simple hack, Mark hooked the Ambient Orb up to his local grid, and created the Energy Orb, a device to visualize current grid load, and the relative price of electricity at any given moment."

We love the combination of artistry, ingenuity and economy here. Martinex apparently tried and discarded the use of text to alert customers, as verbal reminders quickly became intrusive. The orb, by contrast, is both subliminal and highly effective: customers who use it reduced their peak energy usage by 40%.

Alas, we see no way for you to buy the Energy Orb directly, though you could certainly hack an Ambient Orb the way Martinez did if you have mad DIY skills. You can, however, pick up the Energy Joule, which plugs into a wall socket and displays helpful information (including a color-coded usage indicator) to help you accomplish the same thing, albeit with less artistic elan.

If you're a fan of biomorphic chandeliers, have we got one for you: Green Light, as seen in this month's Design Issue of  Good Magazine, is a self-contained pendant lamp that uses an LED to feed a lovely hanging terrarium of plants that cleanse the air inside your house.

And as you can see, it would make an attractive focal point above any dining table. According to the Xdesign wiki, "Planting strategies can be specified to address particular indoor air quality issues including VOC, benzene and formaldehyde removal." The Green Light is also a prime example of a carbon-neutral system, in that it makes its own energy via its own solar panel. And, it's a work of art, made of hand-blown glass.

The Green Light is available by "perscription" from the Experimental Design Lab (xDesign) at NYU, which is "modeled after a health clinic in which community members can make one-on-one appointments to discuss 'health' as it relates to their local environment. The essential difference is that prescriptions are given for design interventions rather than prescription drugs."

When you subscribe to Good (and you should!) 100% of your subscription fee is donated to the charity of your choice.

I was perusing the WorldChanging site today and came across an item about a cool startup company in Bangalore called Daily Dump that has designed a line of innovative clay pots that double as composters and decorative planters. The ambitious company is selling the pots, and also offering a maintenance service for those who don't want to mess with the resulting compost themselves. The company appears to have franchising in mind--kind of like diaper service, but for household waste.

It's a great solution in a place like India, where the systems for dealing with trash disposal are primitive, but seems like it would be a hot idea right here in the US. Daily Dump's brand-new website doesn't seem to be quite open for business yet, but I'm wondering if they will ship the urns overseas, or if a local distributor is in the works.