Musings about an eco-chic lifestyle from Tread Light Gifts

Cool Savings on Haute Eco Accessories

Summer is the time for friends, sunshine, and fun accessories!  Tread Light Gifts carries the latest accessories from your favorite eco designers.  We have everything from stylish shopping bags to take to the market to fun & funky earrings to finish that perfect summer outfit.   And with SAVINGS UP TO 30% OFF, you can score some eco-fabulous accessories at great prices.

Starting this week, join Tread Light Gifts on Thursdays from 12-4pm PST for our Eco Happy Hour.  During Eco Happy Hour, one item will be available at an incredibly low price. Savings up to 50% off.   Treat yourself or send a gift all while saving your precious dollars.

We are only announcing the weekly happy hour specials online.  Make sure you become a fan of Tread Light Gifts on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to find out the latest deal of the week.

*Item quantities may be limited, so scoop up the savings while they last.

Did you know that current estimated number of fathers across the nation is 66.3 million.Yet, one of the most underappreciated holiday’s on the calender is Father’s Day. This year, let’s honor those millions of dad’s by showing them we care and value them in our lives.

Here’s our top choices for eco-friendly and fun gifts for your dad.

Rock Star Snacker

Your dad can rock on with this all natural and organic snack gift basket. Perfect for the music lover in your life, this gift basket is packaged in a bowl that was created from a single LP record.

Theo Organic Chocolate Beer Pairing Kit

Explore the flavor pairings of beer and dark chocolate with this handsome gift-and-go pack featuring five organic chocolate bars. Theo Chocolate Company choses five of their bars for their flavor balance and their pairing potential with various styles of beer. Their selections prepare you for a magnificent chocolate and beer pairing party.  Beer is not included in this gift set, so you may want to pick up a 6 pack of your dad’s favorite beer to complete the experience.

Bike Chain Bottle Opener Key Chain

This unique and original bottle opener is made of discarded bicycle parts. One sweet extra: it’s also a key chain.  It’s a small and thoughtful gift that will be used often by dad.

Reusable Produce Bag Set

If your dad travels a lot, he will surely appreciate these reusable bags.  Yes, they are great for storing all your produce from the store but we have also found them very useful for packing travel toiletries, shoes, or other little odds and ends.

All of these eco-fabulous Father’s Day gifts and more are available at Tread Light Gifts.

We are so excited to be featured in today’s Seattle Times- NW Source.  Check it out to get the exclusive behind our company!

Every day is Earth Day with Tread Light’s chic eco-conscious gifts

Just in time for Mother’s Day, the arrival of UrthBags at Tread Light Gifts. These  stylish bags are hand-crafted from recycled and biodegradable materials by Fair Trade Women’s Organizations & Artisans. What’s extraordinary about these bags is the recycled materials they are made with are everyday items in your house: juice boxes, magazines, telephone books.

Take a sneak peak:

This bag is made from the inner-silver insulation lining of a juice box.

Old magazines are used to create this fashion forward bag.

Can you guess what materials this one is made from?

Photo by Megan Sukys

We have spring fever!! All the new blooms outside are making us anxious to get out and start our vegetable garden.  Earlier this week, we had the opportunity to talk with Josh Kirschenbaum from Territorial Seeds about starting a garden.  He shared some encouraging advice and suggestions for gardeners of all levels.   Josh inspired us to get out this weekend and put those first seeds in the ground.

Are you starting a garden this spring?  Want some FREE supplies? Enter our Eco-Chic Gardening Giveaway.  One lucky winner will receive an array of gardening supplies to get you on your way to gardening success. Nothing is more eco-chic than serving fresh veggies from your own garden.

The Eco-Chic Gardening Giveaway includes:

• 6 packets of seeds from Territorial Seed Company -1 packet each of Superslicer Bean, Lime Crisp Cucumber, Gourmet Salad Blend Lettuce Mix, Cherry Belle Radish, Black Beauty Zucchini, and  a Plant A Row For the Hungry Carrot package.

• A bag of Peruvian Seabird Guano fertilizer – This organic fertilizer will get all your vegetables off to a great start.
• Territorial Seed company catalog packed with tons of growing information.
• 2 boxes of Garden Bons-Bons by Moulton. – This line of garden truffles is for planting, not for eating. Handcrafted bon bon balls of clay, organic compost and seed wrapped in a lovely presentation package.  The winner will receive a box of Herbal Tea Selections and a box of Italian Herb Selections.

• Reusable Produce Bags – This set of 5 reusable produce bags has everything you need to reign in those awesome artichokes, tangy tangerines, perfect peaches, and more.You’ll find a ton of uses for them outside the market as well. They make the perfect little stashing place for travel toiletries, shoes, or other little odds and ends.

All of these fabulous gardening supplies comes in our exclusive Tread Light Gifts 100% Organic Cotton Bag and completed with a no-waste, plantable gift tag.  Ready for Mother’s Day or a special gift for yourself.

How to Enter:

Visit Territorial Seed Company and tell us in the comment area which vegetable, herb, flower, or fruit you would most like to grow in your garden .

Additional Entries :                                                                                        Please leave a separate comment for each that you do.

• Tweet about the giveaway
• Follow Tread Light Gifts on Twitter
• Become a fan of Tread Light Gifts on Facebook
• Post on Facebook

Deadline to enter giveaway is April 22nd, 2010 @ 6pm P.S.T

The weather is warming up, birds are chirping, and days are getting longer.  Nothing says Spring like new little seedlings popping out of the ground.  Over at Tread Light Gifts, we can’t get gardening out of our minds.  It’s so much fun to put something in the grow and watch it develop into our dinner.  We are not expert gardeners, so when we need advice on what to plant and how to get those nasty slugs out of the garden, we turn to Josh Kirschenbaum, Product Development Director, at Territorial Seed Company . We recently had the chance to talk with Josh about some of our burning questions about seed selection and more.

There are so many places and choices for buying seeds.  How do we know who or what seeds to buy? Are all seeds equal?

All seeds are not created equally! There are several factors to look at when deciding whom to purchase seeds from. First of all, Territorial Seed Company does extensive trialing each year to make sure that the varieties offered in our catalog are the best varieties for home gardeners. Other seed companies might be geared more to commercial growers and the varieties that they offer might not be the best for the home gardener. When we look at varieties in our trials, we look at such characteristics as flavor, ease of growing, disease resistance, and whether the variety can mature in a timely fashion. One of the other things that makes Territorial unique is that we do a lot of our own seed production. In other words, we grow the plants that we harvest seed from, clean the seed, and then offer in packets in sequential years. All of the varieties that we produce ourselves is done on certified organic land. Currently, about 25% of the vegetable varieties that we offer in our catalog are produced at our farm. That is something that we take great pride in.

What are some of the best choices of vegetables to grow for novice gardeners?

When considering the best types of vegetables to grow for the novice, you first want to decide if you will start them from seed or from plant. I think that some beginners are turned off from starting vegetables from seed because they think that there is a great deal of knowledge and specialized equipment/tools needed. The fact of the matter is that starting veggies from seed does require a little bit of know-how but there are so many different resources for people that want to learn. There are a few inexpensive tools that will be helpful but by starting from seed a gardener has so much more choice as far as different varieties go, not to mention how much money that you can save in the long run by growing from seed instead of purchasing plants.

With that being said, a novice gardener might want to start out with seeds that do well being planted directly into the garden rather than needing to be started indoors or in agreenhouse. These include vegetables such as: Root crops-beets, carrots, parsnips, radishes. Legumes-peas and beans. Cucurbits-squash, cucumbers, melon. Greens-lettuce, spinach, arugula, mesclun mixes, etc…

What are some of your new favorites?

This is a really tough question because being a vegetable fanatic means that I have so many new varieties that I love. I will, however, try to whittle it down to my top 3 for the year.

1) Superslicer Bean-this is a romano type of green bean which means that it has a flattened, green pod that is absolutely delicious when eaten raw, steamed or sautéed. These should be planted next to a trellis or fence as the vigorous vines can climb 6-8 feet. The other nice thing about this variety is that typically, when a bean gets large, it will get tough and stringy. Superslicer stays nice and tender even when the pods get large.

2) Cucumber-Lime Crisp-a wonderfully sweet, crunchy slicing cucumber with a very pale, light green skin. Plants are quite productive and disease resistant. I also think that the lighter colored skin may help folks combat certain indigestion issues that can be common on darker colored fruit.

3) Of course I have to include a tomato which is America’s favorite garden vegetable (and one of mine, too). This is a tough decision but my favorite new tomato for the year is San Marzano Gigante 3 . This is a roma type tomato, which means that it has very thick, meaty flesh with not a lot of liquid. These are perfect for using in salsa, tomato sauces, or any other canning recipe that includes tomatoes. San Marzano Gigante 3 is actually a selection from one of our Italian suppliers that truly bears enormous fruits that can get 2 ½ inches wide and 7 inches long. The larger the fruit, the more you can have to use for the above mentioned projects. What’s more, is that typically, roma type tomatoes aren’t the most flavorful (in my opinion) when eaten raw. This variety, however, has a nice balanced flavor of sweet and tangy.

What gardening project in the world most inspires you?

Honestly, any gardening project that involves someone trying to grow vegetables for the first time is what really inspires me. Over the years, I have found so much joy and benefit to growing vegetables (as well as other plants, too) and trying to pass my enthusiasm onto others is one of my personal goals. It sometimes surprises me how few of my peers are interested in gardening thinking that they don’t have the time, space, or energy. The truth is that with just a little bit of know how, anyone can grow fresh produce whether it be in your back yard, patio, or windowsill.

At Tread Light Gift, we are committed to giving back to the environment.  We understand Territorial has a new effort underway to give back to the community and environment. Can you tell us more about Plant a Row for the Hungry?

Plant A Row For the Hungry is a wonderful project started by Jeff Lowenfels and the Garden Writers Association as a way for gardeners to give back to those in need. The idea is to devote some of your garden space specifically for produce that can be donated to your local food bank. This year, Territorial Seed Company is including a free “Plant A Row For the Hungry” package of carrot seed with every order. These packages will contain about 150 carrot seeds, enough to plant a 25 foot row. A 25 foot row of carrots should yield about 25 pounds of fresh, nutritious carrots. If all of the packets that we expect to give away are planted and harvested for this purpose, Territorial gardeners will have donated 2.5 million pounds of vitamin-rich carrots to food banks, soup kitchens, or neighbors by the end of the year!

Look around your community and you are sure to discover that there are people who are doing amazing things to make this world a better and greenier place to live.  Their stories are fascinating and are stellar examples of how we can be more eco.  Over the next few months, we are going out into our community and world and talking with some of these eco-stars.  We will share their stories here at Tread Light Living.

This month, we had the chance to talk with Gina Diamond from Green Diamond Consulting

So you are an eco-lifestyle coach. That sounds pretty cool. What does an eco-lifestyle coach do and how can you help us?

An eco lifestyle coach is a mentor who helps people experience positive change by becoming more conscious and taking realistic and joyful actions that “do the most good and the least harm” to self, other people, animals and/or the environment.

All my work is tailored to the individual, business, or group I am serving.  It is about what is going to work for you, your family, your organization, etc.  I strive to foster reverence, respect and responsibility so that you can be of service and live a fulfilling, healthy and peaceful life.  I can help you go greener at work, at home or on the road and reap the many benefits of doing so including being part of the solution and building community.

You definitely live what you teach. We have seen you biking around the streets of Seattle. How hard was it for you to make the transition to a sustainable lifestyle?

There were certainly challenges – things I would have perhaps done differently, which is a blessing because now I can share those experiences with my clients.  What does work is making one change at a time and when that change becomes habit I move on to the next.  It is all about being realistic with what I am really willing to do and trying to find the fun/humor/joy in it.  When I started biking in the rain, which wasn’t a first step by any means, I hated it but persisted because I ”was doing good.”  but how much good was I really doing if I was miserable.  One day it dawned on me. If I could find the joy in biking like I did as a kid, perhaps I would feel differently about it and I do!

What were some of the challenges of becoming more sustainable in your life? Any surprise benefits?

The biggest challenges is weighing the trade-offs of any given action and knowing which option does the “most good.”  I don’t always know, so I usually follow my intuition.

Surprises – yes!!  I am much healthier.  My cholesterol came down when I began eating less cheese and eggs and more veggies.  I lost weight as a result of riding my daughter to school.  I have a lot more energy.  Going greener has opened up many doors, caused me to build relationships with amazing people and the biggest, I feel totally satisfied that I am doing my part.  No matter what the future holds, I know I am doing my part.  That feels good!

Do you have any eco-heroes or people who inspire you to live greener, cleaner?

I love the guy that wrote the better world shopping guide.  Anyone who does 20 years of research and has a holistic definition of sustainability is a hero in my book.

What are some of the easiest things that a person can do today to be more “eco” in their life?

What is easy for one person can be very difficult for another.  I don’t like giving blanket answers because my work is so individualized.  What I can say is pick one think that you are willing to do and go do it.  Maybe you are willing to eat a little less beef this week.  Maybe you are willing to carpool to your kid’s friend’s b-day party.  Maybe you are willing to visit the Ballard Farmer’s Market this weekend. It doesn’t matter where you start as long as you are taking positive action.

Thanks Gina for sharing your story and advice with us.  To find our more about Gina’s services, visit Green Diamond Consulting

A special gift to our fans and customers, for every service that is booked with Green Diamond Consulting during the month of March, Gina will donate 50% of her fees to Haiti via World Concern.org.

March can be a drab month–waiting for winter to end and the first signs of spring to emerge. That’s why, whether you’re Irish or not, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is a cool idea–especially if you make it eco! Here are some simple, fun, affordable ideas for you and the family that will make those not included green with envy!

1. Gather your friends and neighbors for your own St. Patrick’s Day walking parade. Whether it’s around a cul de sac or down a street or two, you’re sure to have a great time if you dress in green and wish everyone the luck ‘o the Irish as you pass by! Encourage participants to make hats out of whatever they have around the house or before the parade, ask guests to bring an old white/beige t-shirt and meet at your house. Cut shamrock shapes into potatoes and stamp on the shirts with eco-friendly fabric paints.

2. Decorate at least one room in the house with the spirit ‘o the green. Gather everything green you have lying around from books to clothing to flower pots etc., even green sheets. Set the timer for ten minutes and let the kids decorate the room. Then have a party there! Put on some Irish music, learn a jig and celebrate.

3. Skip the corned beef. It’s not really Irish anyway! (According to the History Chanel, no one in Ireland ate this except for a few royals. But when the Irish immigrated to New York’s lower East side, they were looking for a cheaper alternative to bacon and probably learned about corned beef from their Jewish neighbors.) Since one of the most Earth-friendly habits you can get into is eating less (or no) beef, focus on the veggies. Cabbage is great if people like it, but if they don’t, potatoes are usually a favorite.  How about setting up a potato bar and color the taters green with pureed veggies like kale, spinach, arugula, or pea pods. Add spice with green salsa or more interesting taste with sage.

4. End a party or St. Pat’s family dinner with homemade organic oatmeal cookies and pistachio, lime or mint ice cream/sherbert/sorbet.

5. For evening entertainment, borrow or rent A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The story centers on an Irish immigrant family in Brooklyn in the 1900’s and their young daughter’s struggle to stay positive in the midst of poverty. Better yet, choose to start reading the book of the same name on St. Patrick’s Day.

6. If you want to enjoy the occasion with a touch of beer, always a St. Paddy’s Day favorite, check out the many organic alternatives.

Thanks to Corey and Lynn for sharing these amazing ideas on ways to Green our St.Patty’s Day celebrations. Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and co-authors ofCelebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, available at www.CelebrateGreen.net

We love a product that is functional, stylish, and sustainable.  This key chain, now available at Tread Light Gifts, fits the bill.  Made  with discarded bicycle parts, this key chain by Resource Revival not only holds all your keys but also opens all your beer bottles.

Resource Revival creates recycled products with bicycle parts that are unique and original. All of their products are made by real people, not mass produced.  We especially love that resource Revival Revival works with Opportunity Connection, an organization in Hood River, Oregon, that provides jobs for developmentally disabled adults.

Do you have any old bicycle parts sitting around your garage?  Don’t throw them out.  Resource Revival has teamed up with bicycle shops across the country to collect and reuse old parts.  To find a shop near you that accepts old chains and parts, check out Resource Revivals ReBicycler Program.

Just think – This picture frame could be made out of your old bicycle.