Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays! There is so much love in the air and so much good food! In fact, there is so much food, that this is a great time to start composting. Places such as San Francisco and Minnesota all have regular compost pick up with their garbage service. If you don’t live in one of these places, now is a great time to start your own compost bin. Collecting everything from potato peels, egg shells, to scraps of pie dough, composting your leftovers will result in wonderful quality soil for your garden and a huge relief on your weekly garbage can. Its not as hard as it seems! Check out this helpful article on composting to find out more. You can even purchase countertop containers that help get the compost process started… sounds like a good Christmas present to me!!

Another great tip to remember is to buy organic, local turkeys. Actually, shopping locally for all of your holiday food is a great way to support sustainable practices and support local farms. LocalHarvest.org is a great site to find local farms or farmers markets in your area. You can even order organic turkeys and anything else you might need for your holidays!

The easiest of all tips is to remember to bring those grocery bags to the store!! Most stores have reusable bags you can buy, but they make great gifts too! Check out Reusablebags.com or The Inconvenient Bag for wonderful options.

Since this is the season of giving, what better time to start giving-everyday! Click here to learn more about the 29-day giving challenge. A friend recently shared this with me and I can’t wait to learn more. Give a gift to someone everyday for 29-days-anything from clothes, to a hug, to money. Its a very simple lesson and applies to the environment as well as to ourselves…”to see our world change, we have to do something to change our world”. I love this and look forward to signing up for my challenge!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

With school just around the corner, its time to start thinking about school lunch!! Not only is the lunch box important (remember look for labels that say PVC-Free!) but what you pack for lunch and what you pack the lunch IN are just as important!

A wonderful resource for all things related to lunches is a great website called ilunchbox.com. Full of tips, recipes, and ideas, this website makes it easy!

For packing lunches, we love:

Remember, the less plastic, the better!

Other lunch accessories we love:

Little Green Star Lunch Bags -why the cutest ones around and only $6.00!!

Now that my guys are in preschool, we get invited to lots of birthday parties! We enjoy giving the birthday girl or boy a book! My older son likes to pick them out and we usually end up giving one that is a favorite of ours. A lot of our friends do the same for my boys, so its a great way to see what others are reading!

Our favorite book gift has been The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. A wonderful story about a little boy and his garden and how nature can grow in unexpected places! Great lessons on the environment, being a part of a community, and patience. Great for “city kids”!

We then also wrap the gift in one of our eco-friendly lunch bags! Its a perfect fit for a large book! On sale for $6.00, these lunch bags can be used again and again for more than just lunch! They make great toy bags for the car or beach too.

So when you are thinking of gifts for kids, think books! All kids love them and I’m sure the parents will love them too! (Don’t forget to support your local book shops too! Check out Indiebound.Org for links to your local independent book shops!)

I know I’ve had several posts on waste-free lunches, but I just keep finding such great products. I’m obsessed!

To add to my obsession is SnakSaks, which can be found on Etsy. Lola makes all of these adorable snack bags beautifully by lining the fabric with a waterproof nylon which can be easily wiped clean. The velcro closure makes it easy for kids to open and each snack bag can be filled with sandwiches, carrots, pretzels, or other snacks your little one likes to munch on.

So check out these adorable snack/sandwich bags. You just won’t be able to decide which one is cuter! But the bonus is you get 10% off after ordering more than 3 bags, which is not hard to do!

This is a wonderful alternative to plastic bags and your kids will really enjoy them. In fact, you will enjoy them too! I have to order some more for myself! Happy Shopping!!

Here at Little Green Star, we have a mission… to educate kids on the importance of science, nature, and protecting the environment. Not only do our tees reflect this message, but we think of our mission with everything we do from the paper we use in our office, to the inks on our tees and tags, to how we ship our products, and most importantly to the shirts that we use. I guess you can say we want to practice what we preach!!

So in order to be kind to the earth, we use shirts that are made from 100% organic cotton, which have been grown and sewn in the US. Even the organic lunch bags we carry are made in the US. I never knew I was such a patriotic person until I started a business of my own! It feels great to say that our little tees help support organic farms and manufacturers in the US.

So when you can, think local and think USA! If you have a choice between a big box store or your local farmers market, try out the farmers market! If you have a gift to buy, check out our SHOP page or Esty, for handmade and unique gifts! It helps keep your carbon footprint low and helps supports small businesses!

Specializing in unique organic cotton shirts that inspire & educate your little star!

EarthLust is a San Francisco-based company that designs awesome reusable, stainless steel bottles. The designs are so lovely and unique and I want them all! They are good for you and the environment because they are unlined food grade stainless steel, painted with non-toxic inks, and the bottle cap is BPA-free.

There are so many wonderful products to choose from, even cute bags and hats! I love the 20oz insulated mugs too and they even come in 13oz ones for kids. Each design reminds me of the outdoors. So simple, pretty and relaxing, it makes drinking water a breeze!

I think having a reusable water bottle with you is one of the easiest things you can do to be “green”. And especially having a cute and stylish water bottle will make you use it more, which is great for your body too!

So check out EarthLust today! You can find them online and in many retail stores. I found mine at Sports Basement here in San Francisco. They make great gifts too!!

Greeno Bambino is a great destination for non-toxic products for babies and kids. Not only does it have one of the best store names ever… but they carry fabulous products like Little Green Star (hee hee), and tons of the coolest “green” gifts I’ve seen! I’m so impressed with how unique the products are, so keep checking back as it sounds like more products are added all the time. Everything from bottles, to trucks, to wooden blocks, to shampoo, Greeno Bambino is a one stop shop must for new parents or experienced parents trying to find the safest and best products for kids.

Tim is the founder of Greeno Bambino and a dad himself. From speaking with him and visiting his website, you can tell he is 100% committed to finding safe products. He is very passionate about the type of mattresses available for kids too, so Greeno Bambino will soon offer mattresses online, so check back soon.

Please visit Greeno Bambino for great information (its fun to read the site too, very funny!) and great products. Happy Shopping!

Bubble and Bee Organic offers wonderful bath and body products that contain natural and organic ingredients. We are big fans of the Pit Puddy and root beer lip balm! So we are excited to introduce Stephanie, founder of Bubble and Bee, who has some wonderful information to share with us!

Name: Stephanie Greenwood
Place you are livin’ green: The Rocky Mountains of Utah
Environmental Motto/quote/saying: No Bad Stuff!
Favorite Little Green Star design: “Bee Green” of course!

Although there are thousands of chemicals to be concerned about, there’s one group that is particularly offensive to me: parabens. Methyl- ethyl-, propyl-, benzyl- and isobutylparaben to be exact. Parabens are a group of chemicals used in water-based cosmetic items like shower gels, shampoos, and lotions as a preservative. The problem with parabens is that they act like estrogen in the body when absorbed through skin. These estrogen mimicers enter the bloodstream and can interfere with the body’s delicate hormonal balance. In fact, according to the Breast Cancer Fund, all six parabens “have been identified in biopsy samples from breast tumors.” They also “increase the expression of genes that are usually regulated by estradiol and cause human breast tumor cells (MCF-7 cells) to grow and proliferate in vitro.”

Since the year 2000, thirteen studies have been done on parabens that link the chemical to either cancer or estrogenic activity. In addition to reproductive cancer risks, this estrogenic activity can lead to reproductive disorders. According to author and hormone specialist, Dr. John R. Lee, when the body has too much estrogen compounds circulating, it leads to estrogen dominance. This dominance doesn’t allow the body’s natural progesterone to “balance” the estrogen, and can lead to disorders like like endometriosis, uterine fibroids, infertility, ovarian cysts, PCOS, and anovulation.

One of the reasons that I started my company, Bubble and Bee Organic, was because I was exhibiting the signs of estrogen dominance myself. After cleansing my body from external sources of synthetic estrogens and supporting my body with healthy foods, I was able to conquer the symptoms. In making this change I found that it was very difficult to find paraben and chemical-free personal care products in health food stores, so I started making my own. After I realized the drastic change that these pure products had made in my life, I wanted to share them with everyone. My partner Steve and I created Bubble and Bee Organic and haven’t looked back.

Thank you Stephanie for this important information! You can find more information about organic products, the ingredients they use, and more on their website and blog. So please think of Bubble and Bee this holiday season and anytime you need a gift, as they have wonderful gift baskets and special holiday scents! You should even treat yourself to something too!

I know I write a lot about packing lunches, but I just keep finding such wonderful reusable, earth-friendly, and cute products!

My latest fun find is from the wonderful site Etsy.Com on Gopita’s Dolls online store. These adorable sandwich wrap mats come in a variety of adorable prints and fold up with a little tie around the sandwich. When you open it up you have the perfect size lunch placemat! The inside is made from a washable vinyl material so it washes nicely after each use. The boys just love it and its perfect for packing school lunches or going on a picnic!

The perfect addition to your sandwich wrap is still my favorite Fabkins. Kid size reusable napkins that teach manners and reusing! My son loves to remind me to get the napkins for each meal and for his lunchbox. Fabkins even has come out with some new patterns and don’t forget their wonderful fundraising opportunities for your school!

And then to top it all off, my favorite new website is iLunchbox! A wonderful site that features recipes, lunchbox ideas, nutrition information, as well as shopping lists to make it easier when you go to the store!

Have a happy and healthy lunch!

I just ate a sundae. As in chocolate ice cream, caramel sauce, whipped cream and cherries. We went to Mitchell’s Ice Cream and anyone from SF knows that it was good I didn’t need the sundae and I feel a little ill from it to be honest, but after I finished scraping the caramel from the bottom of the cup I realized I was eating from a Greenware biodegradable cup. They look like plastic cups, but they are made from a plant derived resin vs. an oil-based plastic. They are compostable, made from renewable resources, and made in the US.

Its pretty exciting to see the new products coming out that are making a difference in the world. I imagine these are more costly to the retailer, but if more businesses used this type of product it would be really exciting to see the difference it can make. I also think people would be more likely to return to that business as well in order to support a “green” business. SO I guess that means I’ll have to get more ice cream!

But seriously, be on the lookout for Greenware products and feel a little less guilty about what is inside!