Etta's Heart Book

Juana is co-proprietor of the wonderful Etsy shop The Black Lantern Studios along with her husband, Jesse.  She saw my eco-friendly science-themed baby books and had an idea.  Her 4-year-old daughter Etta was born with hyperplastic left heart syndrome and has undergone several open-heart surgeries (you can read about her experience on her blog).  Juana realized that a cloth book about Etta's heart might help Etta process what she had been through, so she asked me to make one for her, and I enthusiastically agreed.  Juana then patiently described the procedures and surgeries to me and I spent some time learning about the heart.  In doing so, I gained a new appreciation for it.  I hadn't fully realized until now that the heart is simply a pump (a very important one) to get blood from the body to the lungs and out to the body again.  I also didn't appreciate heart surgeons the way I should.  They have figured out amazing work-arounds for hearts that don't function properly. 

I loved the challenge of this book and I'm very grateful to Juana for asking me to make it.   I couldn't wait to finish it so I could tell you about it!  Would you like a tour of the book?  Here goes.  The cover shows Etta's heart at birth.

The small light-pink blob is her left ventricle, which should be much larger.  The dark-pink candy-cane is her aorta, which was too narrow at the top.

The first page is a chest x-ray.  Etta had to get several, and for reasons that are unclear to her mother, she was especially unfond of them.  

The next pages show a heart catheterization (left, yellow stitching) and the Norwood surgery with sano shunt and corrected aortic narrowing (right).

The last page combines a couple of surgeries: bi-directional Glenn and fenestrated Fontan.  In effect, this page gives an idea of her heart at present.

Do you see what I mean about heart surgeons?  Amazing!  But what I find even more amazing is the spirit of Etta and her parents, Juana and Jesse.  They have endured so much and yet from reading their blog and from our written communications it is very clear that this family is living with joy and that they are full of gratitude for the blessings they have.  Truly inspiring to me.

When I sent the book off, a piece of my heart went with it.





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Verdant This and Violet That

Happy Friday!  I have some bits of news (no, I'm not pregnant), some thank yous, and other verdant business on my mind so this post is a mishmash of just some of my thoughts to get my mind in the right frame for the weekend.  Come along!

Let's start with some boasting.  I entered the photo above in the February Etsy Upcyclers team challenge.  The theme was "All You Need Is Love", so my offering was the synaptic transmission appliqué from my Baby's First Neuroscience Textbook.  I connected it to the theme by making the case that "All you need is love...and your brain does the rest!"  And it tied for third place in the organic category!  I tell you, there is nothing quite like the feeling of tying for third place.  I intend to enter more of these challenges.  Yet another creative outlet!  I feel like my photography skills could be much better and this might be a fun way to improve.

The best comment-of-the-week shout-outs for the past couple of weeks go to:

"Tanya!"

and

"Kristine!"

Click their names to read their comments.  Thank you, Tanya and Kristine, for making saving the earth just a little more fun!

And thanks so much to Tanya, Jen and Amy for taking the time to write your reviews of my Etsy shop in the Everything Etsy directory! 

Uber-crinkle update: Remember my letter to Sun Chips regarding their compostable bag?  Soon after I wrote to thank them for their eco-friendliness, they stopped using the new bags, apparently because people complained that the bags made too much noise (although I have another theory, based on their reply to me).  Well, I hope you're sitting down.  They are bringing back the compostable bag, with less crinkle this time, and only for the plain flavor chip.  Thanks Tanya for alerting me of this wonderful news. This article says the company (Frito Lay) will wait to hear from consumers to decide whether to use the compostable bag for every flavor.  Guess I will have to write to them again.  

Have a wonderful weekend!  We have a nice, slow weekend in store.  The only item on the calendar is getting together with friends to make prep-and-freeze meals.  What about you?  Any fun plans?


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Verdant Letter #5: Franzia

How do I love boxed wine?  Let me count the ways.

I love the economics of it.  You pay no more than $1.00 per glass, often quite less, and there is less waste because you don't have to pour out what's left of a bottle, or guzzle down more wine than you want.  In fact, it's so inexpensive that I had no qualms about pouring myself a glass at 9:00 Saturday morning solely for use as a prop in the above photo.  You see, the best light for photos in my house is in the a.m. 

I love the convenience of wine on tap.  No need to grab a corkscrew every day and twist and pull - just open a box once a month or so and you're good to go for your glass a day.  Some might say it is a pain that you have to use two hands: one to hold the glass and the other to press the button on the box.  This is a particular problem to mothers of infants, because we often only have one hand free to go about our daily tasks.  To those, I say, use my friend Louise's ingenious solution (photo of inside of Louise's refrigerator used by permission of Louise). 

Brilliant, eh?

And of course, I love the eco-friendliness.  Boxed wine requires less energy and lower carbon emissions to ship than bottled because it takes up less space and weighs less.  The box can easily be recycled or re-used - I'm using one to hold paperwork in my craft studio.  The bag can be re-used as well.  Here are some uses for empty wine bags (read the comments).  You can remove and replace the spigot, which I didn't realize until recently.  The biggest issue is removing the wine smell, which can be done if necessary. 

I love boxed wine so much that I wrote to Franzia.

Franzia Winery

17000 E. Hwy 120 - PO Box 897
Ripon, CA 95366

Dear Franzia,

I wanted to express my appreciation for your wine, and how grateful I am that your company is making an effort to reduce waste from your products. 

My family and I care about the environment, and in the past few years we have changed our purchasing in various ways to reduce our carbon footprint.  One way we have done this is to buy boxed wine.  Back in the 90s, when I was in college, I drank Franzia solely because of the price, but now that I am older and have a family, the price is less important to me than the fact that boxed wine is better for the environment than bottled wine and because I don't have to throw out what I am not able to drink once it is opened. 

When I switched from bottled to boxed wine a few years ago, I tried out several of the newer boxed wines and passed over Franzia at first because I remembered it as a "cheap" wine and I didn't want to give up quality and taste for eco-friendliness and convenience.   Meanwhile, somewhere along the way I learned that wine doesn't have to be expensive to be good.  So, last month I took a chance and bought Franzia again.  I was very happy that it tastes great and thus I can spend even less money on my glass of wine in the evening.

Again, thank you for making an effort to reduce the waste going to landfills and for providing a great wine.

Sincerely,

Eugena Mitchell 

The reply came from The Wine Group, 315 Montgomery St, 9th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104 and was filled with Verdant vibes.  It was a one-page letter with no enclosures.  They state in their letterhead that they are "The World's Most Cost and Carbon Efficient Vintner".  At the bottom of the page it says "Printed on 100% recycled paper".  The letter reads:

Dear Eugena,

Thank you for your letter complimenting Franzia wine.  It's always a pleasure to hear from one of our loyal customers.

At The Wine Group, Inc., we understand the importance of offering consistently well made, high quality wines.  With that in mind, it is nice to know that satisfied customers like you appreciate our efforts. 

We have forwarded your letter to our winemakers and we are glad to know that you enjoy Franzia Winetaps.  Thanks again for writing.

Sincerely,

[signature and name]

Consumer Relations Manager

I waited a while to see if I would hear from the winemakers themselves, but as of this writing, not a peep.  I imagine they are busy making wine. 

What are your thoughts on boxed wine? 

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How to Re-use Very Old Things

Before I tell you about my new favorite way to recycle, I would like to ask a great big favor of any of you who have purchased something from my Etsy shop.  I've listed Verdant Violet in the Everything Etsy Directory, a brand new directory of Etsy shops, and there is an option for customers to leave a review of their buying experience.  I would love to have your review of the Verdant Violet shop!  I am pretty sure you are required to create an account on Everything Etsy to do this, so I would understand if you don't want to go to the trouble, but creating an account doesn't take too long.  Simply click this link to go to my listing, click "Leave a review", and follow the instructions.  If you could let me know how it goes for you, that would be great, so I'll know whether to suggest this to people in the future.  Yeah, that's right, I know people in the future.  They are just like you and me, except they dress and talk funny.

Enough about the future; let's talk about the past.  My new favorite way to recycle is VINTAGE!  I've always liked antiques but until recently I never thought of my antiques shopping habit as eco-friendly.  But what better way to re-use and re-cycle than to buy used items from the distant past (by some standards, 20 years ago, which is 1991, which is crazy!  But I digress).

I went on a one-day Etsy vintage buying spree a couple of weeks ago and I had a grand old time.  First I looked for violet-themed items and found this adorable cup and saucer from mburg236:

It's made in Austria and my husband thinks it was sold as a souvenir - he was clued in by the fact that it says "Made in Austria" in English on the bottom.  It's smaller than the usual cup and saucer - demitasse, as they call it, which is perfect because my baby girl, whose middle name is Violet, is quite demitasse herself.  So when she's old enough to drink tea with grownups, this will be her teacup.  It looks very cute nestled in amongst the normal-sized cups and saucers.

Next, I went spoon shopping.  I wanted some small spoons for serving cream and sugar at tea parties.  I love to throw a tea party.  Dress is always casual and we often sit on the floor but I break out (so to speak) the good china and silver because I have it and it ought to see some use. 

I found just the right spoons from Rustysecrets.  Here is how they looked when they arrived (photo from Etsy listing):

The shop proprietor acknowledged that they needed polishing.  Just today I got out my trusty "Silver Lightning" (TM) silver tarnish remover kit which was passed down to me from my mama and was sold on TV in the late 80's by the late Robin Leach of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous fame (his grinning face is on the product package - brings back memories).  It only took a couple of minutes to take these spoons from drab to fab:

So lovely!  Can't wait to spoon up some sugar!  Note the monogram.  Is it an M or a W? 

If it's an M, I'm thrilled, because that's what my last name starts with.  If it's a W, whatever!  Let's call it a double V and have it stand for Verdant Violet.

My final purchase that day is this vintage flash drive. 

I found it in a shop called Collagical, which offers "an eclectic mix of whimsical, fanciful,
and Collagical elements and objects".  "Collagical" is a mix of the words "collage" and "magical".  The shop proprietor, Cat, among other things, runs a couple of Etsy shops (here is her other shop, I'm Sew Pretty), and she is co-leader of the Etsy team Upcyclers and runs the blog Love2Upcycle.  She had very kind, encouraging words for me when I started Verdant Violet and joined the team late last year, and has been a great help to me and other Upcyclers as we continue to learn about the blossoming world of upcycling for fun and profit. 

I noticed the flash drive a while back but didn't buy it because I don't need it.  But I thought about it often and finally realized that if someone else bought it, I would be sad.  So I took the leap and I'm so glad I did.  The flash drive was made circa 1960.  It has far, far less than 1 megabyte of data storage capacity, but it multitasks as an address book, keychain, and piece of flair, and it requires no batteries!  I love how every address page says "MADE IN U.S.A." in big letters.  I don't know why it has to be in such a prominent spot and repeated 22 times (the number of address pages).  If it weren't there, one could perhaps include the city, state and zip in the contact info. 

I have waffled back and forth about whether I will fill in the pages with data on my 22 favorite people, and I think I will decide when I have a pen in my hand and begin filling them in. 

Do you have a thing for vintage items?  What have you found recently?  And is that an M or a W???

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Verdant Letter #4: Trident Seafoods

Trident Seafoods produces, among other things, imitation crab, a.k.a. surimi, a.k.a. crab delights, a.k.a. the protein in California rolls. 

image via ilovebutter

A while back, I wrote them the following letter.

Dear Trident Seafoods,

Our family often purchases Louis Kemp Crab Delights.  We make California rolls and spicy crab rolls (chopped crab delights, hot sauce and mayo rolled into rice and a seaweed wrap) and we really enjoy these. 

The reason I'm writing is that I recently noticed that the Crab Delights are packaged in a reusable, microwaveable, dishwasher-safe lidded container, and I'm able to reuse the packaging for leftovers and other items.  This is much preferable to a paper container, which we would not be able to reuse, and which we couldn't recycle because our recycling company doesn't allow refrigerated or frozen food boxes.  I want to express how grateful I am that your company is making an effort to reduce waste from your products.  

My family and I care about the environment and in the past few years we have changed our purchasing in various ways to reduce the amount of garbage we produce.  One way we have done this is to buy fewer products packaged in non-recyclable or non-reusable plastic.  Since your packaging is re-usable, we are even more likely to buy Louis Kemp Crab Delights in the future. 

I am curious as to whether you have considered the feasibility of not using a secondary package, but instead selling it directly in the shrink-wrapped package. 

Again, thank you for making an effort to reduce the amount of trash going to landfills.

Sincerely,

Eugena Mitchell 

Here is their ironic, or perhaps just unfortunate, reply.

Click the image for a better view.  It's a vast array of 70+ delicious seafood recipes, $4.00 worth of coupons (not pictured), as well as extensive information on surimi, the Trident Seafood company, and the Alaska fishing industry and its sustainability practices.  From a rather cute booklet called "Alaska Seafood Sustainability in Plain English" I learned that "Alaska is the only state with a mandate for sustainable seafood written right into its state constitution."  I particularly liked the artwork in the book and learned that it is by Alaska artist Rie Munoz. 

There was no letter included with the material, but I think the large amount of information and the $4.00 toward our grocery bill made up for the lack of a personal response. 

I really wish they hadn't sent so much paper.  However, I have a plan for re-using some of it.  A lot of the paper is cardstock, and my Verdant Violet business cards are upcycled from post-consumer cardboard.  Here are some examples of my cards, which are available free upon request. :)



I make my cards this way because I think it makes sense to have handmade, eco-friendly business cards for my handmade, eco-friendly business, and I especially like using easily recognized images and text from large corporations (e.g. the big cereal makers) to highlight the vast difference between their products (mass produced, widely known) and mine (one-of-a-kind, custom, and known to only a lucky few, relatively speaking).  I will make many, many cards with the tree beautifully printed card stock that Trident Seafoods sent me.

And now, the shout-outs for best comment of the week!  Once again, I'm shouting out two different commenters because there was no shout-out last week.  Here they are, in no particular order:

Andrea! 

Andrea is a wildlife sciences graduate student studying the American woodcock (click that link; that bird is like no other bird I've seen), writes the blog Whispering Green, and owns the Etsy shop EarthSense Jewelry.


She gets a shout-out for her comment on my post I've Missed You:

I'm understanding on trying to keep up! I love that little neuroscience book. It is so great, even from being a baby, for kids to get interaction with science. I know that is one of the main problems the environmental world is facing right now... loss of 'appetite' for learning by children. I would recommend you make a baby's first wildlife or ecology book (I know, I may be bias because that is my field). Glad to see a new post (I've been looking) and cannot wait to see more!! :) :)

I like the ecology book idea!  It's fun to figure out how to depict the main ideas in a scientific field with felt and embroidery thread.  Fun for me, at least.  I'm thrilled that you've been looking for new posts!  I've been keeping an eye out for yours as well.  I wish I could blog more often. 

And...

Enviro Granny!

For her comment on my post, How to Re-use Plasticware, Take 2:

Comment on recycling less - For both hand soap and body wash/shampoo you can take your plastic bottle to your local co-op and buy liquid castile soap - reusing your bottle, and saving on the transport of bulk soaps to your co-op. Don't throw away those baby food jars - two uses I've found include: when your little one is a bit older you can use them for paint jars; and, you can paint the tops and fill them with small nails, screws, etc., to keep track of all those little hardware bits one always needs but can never find. Also, the latter make great gifts to friends, especially those just setting up house in a home or apartment. 

Thanks Enviro Granny, great tips!  And I love thinking about painting with my daughter when she gets older!

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My Favorite Way to Re-use Glass

I've been pondering glass.  Most glass that comes into our house is in the form of food jars and can go in the curbside recycling.  But glass is such a great material: pretty, somewhat strong, food-safe, and light-catching, that I like thinking about ways to re-use it before (or instead of) putting it by the curb.  For example, I store display my colored pencils in jelly jars.

When an especially cute bottle or jar comes my way, I save it, and periodically make ad-hoc ad-lib ad-nauseum groupings of glass containers in somewhat random places, such as the kitchen window.  We gave Aubrey a natural colic remedy once.  It didn't work - maybe it wasn't colic.  Maybe she was just mad.  But the point of this is, the stuff came in this adorable and thoroughly re-usable blue bottle. 

Why can't everything come in pretty blue bottles?  I know the answer.  Economics.

Tiffany at naturemomsblog gives 10 more ways to re-use glass jars.

And here are a whole plethora of ways to re-use glass jars from squidoo.com.

A recent CNN story tells of an engineer's idea to build a solar-powered roadway out of super-strong glass that would melt ice and snow and eliminate the need for plowing, sanding and salting the roads during winter.  And do you know what would be great?  If they used post-consumer glass to build those roads.  There.  I've saved the planet.

But I think my favorite way to re-use glass is to dump it, along with all of my other garbage, at the edge of a large body of water.  I then let the waves crash against the pile of garbage for decades, centuries even, breaking the glass into pebble-sized pieces and polishing these pieces into beautiful treasures, after which I go for a stroll along the beach and pick up the pieces that I like.  I'm tempted to tell you my favorite spot to hunt for beach glass, but I don't want to shame one of the many towns that once had its garbage dump at the edge of the ocean, and I don't want you to go picking up pieces of pretty sand-polished glass that were meant for me to pick up the next time I find myself there.

Here is the sea glass that I collected many years ago.

I treasure this stash of glass.  I've used it in many ways, such as sprinkling it on a table like confetti, filling up vases and candleholders, coastifying a mini zen garden, and organizing it into extremely organized, yet beautiful, rows of organizational pretty beachy organization (this is a great way to procrastinate, in an organized way).  I design baby toys by trade, but if I designed jewelry, I would certainly like to try turning sea glass into jewelry.  Deb, shop proprietor of northcoastbeachglass, does a wonderful job of this.   Check out her shop if you'd like to see what other jewelry she has made with beach glass, semiprecious stone, and crystals.

North Coast Beach Glass

How are you re-using glass these days?
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I've Missed You

Hope you all are having a glorious start to 2011.  I'm back from a pleasant vacation to visit family and just trying to keep up with everyday life as things get back to normal.  The fun of the holidays was punctuated by even more terrificness as my Etsy shop caught fire!  Not literally.  My Baby's First Neuroscience book has sold several copies and was even on the front page of Etsy, thanks to a wonderful treasury of items from Etsy Upcyclers, curated by butternutsquash.   If you happened to go to Etsy.com at around 2:00 pm on December 27th, you would have seen this:

There's my little book, in position #7!  That may have been my 15 minutes of fame.  It was glorious. 

By the way, if you go to butternutsquash's shop, you will find many adorable items, particularly (if it hasn't sold yet) a plaque entitled "GOAT AND BEES (and also boy)":


So the uptick in sales forced me to shift into full baby toy production mode,  and so as not to keep my customers waiting, or my baby uncared for, I had to let the blog go, which nagged at me since I have many things I want to write about.  But we will just do what we can, and see the cup as half full, won't we?
  
It's been a few weeks without a Best Comment of the Week, so I'm awarding the shout-out to two commenters this time.

First, Tanya, who writes about yummy cooking and general goings-on in the life of a library information scientist in the blog Chez Cothran.  "Tanya!"

She commented:

What a great post! *

Annie (who asked in a previous comment about tips on how to cut back on paper towels), have you tried using the cloth wash cloths from Trader Joe's? They are sturdy and easy to throw in the wash - and you can buy a pack of them for pretty cheap. I like to have lots of them all around so that I can just use them once (especially if I have to wipe something off the floor) and then wash them.

Another tip: It always feels good when I buy the milk in the reusable bottles. That way I just bring it back to the store and the company washes and reuses it. Another way to cut back on glass recycling is brewing your own beer and reusing the beer bottles. We also used to get "growlers" from the bars in Minnesota and then bring them back to be refilled - that cut down the volume of our recycling by quite a bit, especially since bottles take up so much space.

And the second shout-out goes to Amy, proprietor of the Etsy shop reFinds and writer of the blog of the same name, for her comment about my plan to make a pretend silver set out of plasticware, a box, fabric, and moulded polystyrene:

What a wonderful idea!**  Even if it's been done before, who cares? As a graphic designer, I learned a long time ago that really there are no "new" ideas - just things you haven't been exposed to before. But that doesn't mean there aren't tons and tons of good ideas -- and this is a great one. What a fun way to reuse plastic cutlery! I'll bet there are lots of little girls who'd like their very own "silver" set for tea parties.

Oops, I almost forgot her shout-out.   "Amy!"

* This sentence will always increase your chances to win the best comment competition.
** As will this one.

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