green & indie finds for your uncommon life - modern handmade + sustainable design

Amy Snider over at Every Little Counts has a great new limited edition collection of tees out just in time for early Valentine’s Day shopping. The collection is called Love Songs, and all the t-shirts are inspired by classic love songs.

Amy has generously offered up a 10% discount to MissMalaprop readers. All you have to do is enter LOVEstyle at checkout to get your discount!

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I’ve been a fan of TOMS shoes from an idealistic standpoint for awhile now.  I love the fact that for every pair of shoes purchased, TOMS donates a pair of shoes to a child in need, and that all of their shoes are manufactured under fair trade practices.  But while I love their mission, I just couldn’t see myself really wearing any of their slip-on shoe styles.  Until now - I just noticed that TOMS is now offering these amazing vegan wrap boots:

They’re available in 5 different colors: rust, red, black, chocolate and olive.  Since they’ve got a 100% cotton canvas body with an EVA rubber sole, they’re a great non-leather, non-PVC alternative for someone in search of a stylish vegan boot. Check out the TOMS shoes website for these boots, plus more styles for men, women and kids.

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set of 5 blank Happy New Year cards, letterpress printed by hand by Maggie Campbell of brooklynbookbinder.etsy.com

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year’s Eve celebration tonight, and I hope that your 2009 is a fabulous year!

2008 was a mixed bag for me… The year started off with my mom being diagnosed with breast cancer, plus multiple other cancer scares among friends & family. 2008 was also a bad year for hurricanes here along the Gulf Coast. But I also had some pretty fun experiences this year, including the Worn Again fashion show, going skydiving for the first time, and a wonderful snowfall in New Orleans!

I’m hoping to start of 2009 with a fresh new look here at MissMalaprop.  You might have noticed that the layout here has changed in recent weeks, and I’m planning to finish tweaking things over the long holiday weekend.  Let me know how you like the new look, or if you absolutely hate it, let me know that too!   What would you like to see more of, or less of, here in 2009?  I’m excited about the new year, and I hope you are too!

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I have a confession to make. I always tell myself I’m going to start running regularly. It’s really meditative, great exercise and stress-relieving to boot. Occasionally I do try, but I never manage to stick with it on a regular basis for long enough to really make it a habit. Hopefully that will change one day and I’ll find the time, because I really do enjoy running.

For those of you out there that actually do run on a regular basis, you might want to look into the Trance 8 running shoe from Brooks Running the next time you’re in the market for a new pair of running shoes. The Trance 8 features the first ever biodegradable running shoe midsole, called BioMoGo. The EVA midsoles found in most running shoes can last up to 1,000 years in a landfill, but the BioMoGo midsole biodegrades 50 times faster than your average running shoe midsole. The BioMoGo midsole contains a non-toxic, natural additive that encourages microbes to help break down the material once it hits the landfill, thus creating less long-term waste.

The Trance 8 running shoe is available for both men and women, and this style has received rave reviews from competitive runners who have left testimonials on the Brooks website. At $140, this shoe is pretty comparable in price to other shoes for the serious runner, although an amateur like myself will probably want to make a real commitment to running before shelling out for this shoe. If I ever do make running a more regular habit, I’ll definitely keep this shoe in mind though.

By the end of 2009 even more of Brooks Sports performance running shoe styles will feature the BioMoGo midsoles, so you’ll have even more options to choose from. Brooks is focusing on sustainability efforts throughout their business, including introducing HPR Green rubber, reducing harmful PVC in their products, and creating an eco-friendly shoe box made from 100-percent recycled paperboard and printed with non-toxic soy based inks. If you’re interested, you can read more about their green initiatives here.

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I love this Naughty Waltz tee from MissWit. The design was adapted from some old sheet music found in a thrift store. Pretty cool, huh?

MissWit is a Brooklyn-based t-shirt line designed by Deborah Goldstein. The tees are all printed on various American-made or fair trade brands, and many of the designs are available on sustainable bamboo or 100% organic cotton.

MissWit also offers custom designs, and she’s got a great selection of tees inspired by the 80s.  I also really love the beautiful Japanese watercolor tees inspired by and dedicated to Deborah’s mother.

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Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you have a great holiday, whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or just a secular day off of work!

My gift to you: a donation in your name of 136 pounds worth of carbon offsets courtesy of Brighter Planet.

They’re doing this in order to promote conservation of resources this holiday season. There are a limited number of these available, but all you have to do is go to their website and claim your offsets, and then you can pass on the gift to your friends & family as well. If you still have some last minute gift giving to do, they also offer gift offsets of different varieties.

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I’ve been hearing a lot within the indie design community lately about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) that was recently passed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) this past August.  This new law came about because of concerns over child safety. (Remember all that lead and other hazardous chemicals found in toys made in China?)  This law aims to protect children under 12 from harmful substances that can be found in toys, furniture and clothing.

Unfortunately the law was written in a way that will make it very hard to continue to buy or sell handmade, as well as vintage or recycled, children’s items within the U.S.  It will basically force every manufacturer (including crafters making things at home to sell) to do expensive testing on every single component of each children’s item they sell.  And the law goes for not only newly made items, but anything made before the law goes into effect (thus impacting vintage & recycled goods).

Connie over at Sweet Figments wrote a really great post on the subject, and she explains a lot of the possible implications this law could have on small business owners and handmade items.  The day this new law will go into effect, February 10th, 2009, has been dubbed “National Bankruptcy Day” by many manufacturers and retailers in the industry both in the U.S. and around the world.

I think it’s important to at the very least educate yourself about how you may be affected by this law.  I think everyone agrees that we need to have laws and standards in place to protect the safety of both our children and ourselves.  It just seems like the lawmakers were very short-sighted in this case and didn’t pause to think about artisan goods for children or the environmental impacts of having to trash all of the pre-existing children’s items that don’t comply with the new regulations.

I feel like there are a lot of problems in general with the way we test for health and safety in this country to begin with and this is just another example.  (Another example would be how bottled water is often much less regulated than tap water, and can often contain significantly more toxins than tap water, which is very strictly regulated.)

Please check out this issue.  If you want to take action, here are some resources found at Connie’s blog:

Sign the petition.

Vote for Change at Change.org.

The Handmade Toy Alliance has provided a sample letter and listed contact info for your Congress Person and Senators.

National Bankruptcy Day Site.

Write to man who sponsored this bill and send him an item of yours that will be illegal to sell after Feb 9th, 2009 in protest. http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5949146

Bobby L. Rush (D)
Washington Office
2416 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
phone: 202-225-4372
fax: 202-226-0333

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I stumbled across this gorgeous porcelain jewelry by Sofia Masri on Etsy a couple of weeks ago by accident and immediately fell in love:

Aren’t all of the earrings beautiful? I can’t even pick a favorite - I love so many of them!

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I’m sad I had to work on Monday when my boyfriend and the Noisician Coalition filmed the 2008 Flanagan’s Pub Christmas Special - Good King Wenceslas.  It sucks that I couldn’t be a part of all the fun, but I think the video came out great!

And check out last year’s holiday special, Little Drummer Boy:

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