Sale at Greenspace on Saturday!

There is a Customer Appreciation Sale going on at greenspace this Saturday, December 17 from 10am-5pm.

My sister is dropping off more of my upcycled sweater dresses, overalls and sweater hats just in time for the sale.  They also stock my home and travel accessories including picnic blankets, potholders, coasters and shoe bags.

1122 Soquel Ave - Santa Cruz - 831.423.7200 www.greenspacecompany.com Open Monday - Friday 9-6 / Saturday & Sunday 10-5   Holiday Hours & Closure Notice greenspace will close @ 4:00 p.m. on Saturday December 24th and Saturday December 31st We will be closed on Christmas Day (12/25) and New Years Day (1/1) Happy Holidays from greenspace!  This Saturday (12/17) - One Day Only! Customer Appreciation Sale   *may not be combined with other discounts, promotions, etc.     Fresh Arrivals @ greenspace! Tons of new Ribbon Street!  New Shipment: Tea with Iris Upcycled Goods!!  Diamond Crochet Pillow Tree-Top Pillow Seersucker Robe Jersey Robe Purrfect Play Organic Cotton & Wool Pet Toys      Green Gift Ideas for Everyone on Your List Gifts Under $15 Insulated Glass Bottle Blue Lotus Org. Cotton Produce Bags   Gifts Under $50 Stainless Compost Pail Cork Fold-a-Bowl   Locally-Made Gifts

www.greenspacecompany.com

This Weekend...Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Market in Los Angeles

This weekend I will be at the 2nd Annual Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Market in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles State Historic Park.

December 10-11, 2011

10:00am-5:00pm

I'm sharing a booth with my talented cousin, Jackie Sepulveda of Voz Clothing & Art.  

It will be easy to find us because we are BOOTH #1!

FREE to attend and FREE parking as well.

We hope to see you there!


FOR MORE INFORMATION:

FACEBOOK Event Link

Renegade Craft Fair

75 Things You Can Compost, But Thought You Couldn't

Everyone knows I'm crazy about composting so when I discover a new article on composting and it's simplicity, I must share it...


75 Things You Can Compost, But Thought You Couldn't

If you would like to start composting, I offer a very clean and simple composting system that requires very little maintenance...


Tea With Iris Composting Bin

Garden Party this Sunday!

I'm really looking forward to Sunday's garden party!  

It should be sunny and a cool 67 degrees out...that's winter for us in the Coachella Valley. 

This event is also the launch of...

Coachella Valley Handmade

...promoting a healthy planet and lifestyle with sustainable goods made in the Coachella Valley

Our mission is to:

Promote a healthy planet and lifestyle by...

-making products from organic and repurposed materials

-sharing information about organic gardening and cooking

-tips on simple ways to live sustainably

Facebook Event link

La Quinta Fall Family Festival this weekend!

I will have a booth at the 5th Annual La Quinta Fall Family Festival this Saturday, November 12 in Old Town La Quinta from 10am-4pm. 

I will be making plenty of my popular waterproof upcycled picnic blankets this week for the show as well as a few new products.

There will also be a runway show at the event showing my latest upcycled designs for children and women.  The time of the runway show is 12:15pm on the main stage and you don't want to miss it!

I hope to see you there!

For more information on the event visit-

www.lqfallfamilyfestival.org

Space Cowboy Masquerade Fashion Show... TOMORROW!

Three outfits I created will be in this show...

Event Information

www.transmissionjoshuatree.com

Thais do eggplant right!

I'm ecstatic over this new recipe I stumbled upon because I can finally make a healthy eggplant dish that my husband and I love and keep up with eating the eggplants in our garden since they tend to grow faster than the speed of light. It's a little too spicy for our 4 year old but maybe she'll acquire the taste.  It also goes well with sticky rice and on a bed of lettuce which serve as your utensils and makes for less dish-washing!

THAI BASIL EGGPLANT SALAD-

1. 1-1/2 pounds long narrow Asian eggplants (about 5 to 6 medium)
2. 1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots (about 2 large), separated into rings
3. 1/2 cup coarsely torn cilantro, 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves, 2 tablespoons chopped mint
4. 6 tablespoons fresh lime juice
5. 3 tablespoons Asian fish sauce (preferably naam pla)
6. 1/4 teaspoon sugar
7. 1/2 to 1 small fresh red or green Thai (bird) chile or serrano chili, minced (wear rubber gloves)

Preheat broiler.

Cut eggplants diagonally into 1/4-inch-thick slices, discarding stem ends. On a lightly oiled large baking sheet arrange slices in one layer and broil 4 to 6 inches from heat until golden, about 8 minutes. Turn slices over and broil until golden, about 8 minutes. Cool eggplant slices slightly and chop coarse. In a bowl combine eggplant, shallots, cilantro, basil, mint.

In a small bowl stir together lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, and chili and pour dressing over eggplant. Toss mixture well and let stand 30 minutes to blend flavors.

Arrange lettuce on a plate, overlapping leaves, and mound eggplant on tip. Serve eggplant with rice. Lettuce leaves can be used to pick up  salad.

ENJOY!

Desert Community Garden Day on Saturday, Oct. 15

This Saturday is 'Desert Garden Community Day' from 9am-2pm at the Henderson Community Building, 72559 Highway 111 at El Paseo in Palm Desert (next to Cuistot). I'll be attending the Fall Vegetable Gardening talk by Kathy Swanson of UC Riverside Master Gardeners at 9am and the composting talk at 12pm. Meet me there on your bike!


For more information visit the 'Upcoming Events' page at:


www.deserthorticulturalsociety.org

Greenspace

For all of you that are lucky to live in or near Santa Cruz, you can purchase my handmade upcycled goods at Greenspace.

Your Sustainable City Fall Festival

I will have a table at this event in Palm Springs celebrating all things sustainable!

Stomping Grapes in a Tea With Iris reversible hat

I love this photo of my mom at last weekend's grape stomp at Gainey Vineyard in Santa Ynez, CA.  If you get grapes smeared on your Tea With Iris hat, just flip it over for a fresh new and hip look!

Layer your Happy Power Dress!

Just a friendly reminder that you can layer happy power dresses to keep your children warm.  

Upcycled Sweater Hats

This is the time of year when I turn those disheveled, frumpy sweaters into cheery new fall and winter hats.  I look forward to creating these new upcycled threads!

Blue Sage Organic T-Shirts

New organic t's available in my shop

with hand-painted prints of the sage from our garden. 

MY SHOP!

Upcycled Hair Accessories!

I've been wanting to come up with a product to use all of my upcycled fabric remnants and I'm really loving these classic bows that I've been making.  I'm using different types of hair clips to accommodate all of our different hair types.  I hope you like them.

MY SHOP!

Happy Power x 2

Two beautiful girls in happy power dresses!

Local Waste Management starts Restaurant Composting Program

This makes me happy!


http://palmdesert.patch.com/articles/burrtec-spurs-restaurant-composting

It's raining pods!

Our mesquite tree is dropping its pods so I did a little research to see what to do with them besides sending them off with the garbage man...Here's some great ideas from


Flagstaff’s Community Supported Wild Foraging Newsletter

Tommy Bahama's joins the Tea With Iris Composting Program.

Yesterday I met with Tommy Bahama's restaurant on El Paseo in Palm Desert, California to start composting their kitchen waste as part of my Tea With Iris Composting Program.  It is only a couple of blocks from my house so it is a perfect addition to my composting pickup route.  The managers, chef and kitchen staff were all very receptive and enthusiastic about starting the program.  I dropped off a 5 gallon container with lid to start them out with collecting their vegetable waste.  "We are excited to start this new endeavor with Tea With Iris" said manager Waleska Coffman.

The chef just called me an hour ago to pick up the bucket and requested 2 more 5-gallon buckets.  It's great how easy it was to start out with such a large restaurant; it just proves to me that my small business of one can make a difference in reducing waste locally.


Here is an article from Palm Desert Patch on my composting program.

Waste = Food

It's official...I started the 'tea with iris composting program'.

WHY?

• one of my favorite books, Cradle to Cradle, says it perfectly..."WASTE EQUALS FOOD.  Nature operates according to a system of nutrients and metabolisms in which there is no such thing as waste."

• 1/3 of global food production goes to waste.  I want to change this statistic at the local level.

• my biggest success in growing my own food started with home-grown compost.

I plan to hit restaurants within a 2 mile radius of my house and start collecting their food waste and turning it into nutrient-rich compost. I started this week with Keedy's diner, since we practically grew up at the formica counter relishing their chocolate malts.  It was also my father's first job in high school which makes him sort of a VIP if you can say that in a diner. So they were very receptive to my plan of picking up their food waste.  I'm starting small by taking their coffee grounds, then I'll move on to egg shells; I don't want to disrupt the kitchen's whole cooking process overnight.

This is also an open invitation to my neighbors and friends that live near us to bring their food waste to our compost bins.  Here is a helpful link on what you can and can't compost:

http://www.compost-info-guide.com/beginner_guide.htm

UNIQUE L.A. this weekend!

I'm going to visit Unique L.A. this weekend in downtown L.A.  This is for all that like anything but the ordinary and support the handmade movement.


My cousins will be there in booth 124.  Jackie Sepulveda of Voz Clothing & Art creates works of art out of vintage bags and luggage.  Lauren Sepulveda of Rebel Road Designs designs a collection of hand-embroidered vintage menswear and one of a kind accessories.


I hope to see you there!

Garden Party!

Earth Day event at the Green Zone

Last night I attended the Earth on Edge event at the Green Zone in Palm Desert with my sister Meghan Kelly and daughter Elle. There was an exhibit by the Scrap Gallery (scrapgallery.org) showing how creative the local students of the valley are by turning everyday waste into works of art.  

The Green Zone is the first commercial property in the Coachella Valley to be renovated by and leased exclusively to local green and sustainable businesses. I particularly love the recycled red glass used for landscaping the front of the building, as shown in the photo above.  The Green Zone is located at 75-181 Mediterranean Avenue in Palm Desert, CA.  You can find out more about it at

coachellavalleygreen/greenzone

The event also showed the documentary Carbon Nation...

It was so great to meet like-minded people and I hope to be more involved with these organizations so that we can work together to make a bigger difference in the Coachella Valley in protecting this beautiful place we call home.  

EARTH DAY 2011

A history of Earth Day...

One of my favorite memories during my Peace Corps service in the Philippines was being a part of this local outdoor group, SAK-A.  Their motto was...take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time.  Great words to live by this Earth Day 2011.

Here is a local event in the Coachella Valley to celebrate Earth Day...

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=177947822252776&index=1

Meet me at my house and let's ride bikes there together!

Coloring Easter Eggs with Natural Dyes

  

Here's a natural, healthy way to dye Easter eggs plus a few photos from our Easter egg decorating party and hunt with friends in the garden...

Skip the packaged dyes for ones you can make yourself. The prep for this egg-dying extravaganza takes a little bit longer than plopping artificial dye into hot water, but the results are just as lovely and a lot more natural (not to mention safer to eat!). Make the dye ahead of time, or have your kids decorate their hard-boiled eggs with crayons while you cook up the colors on the stove. Once the dye has set on the eggs (it’ll take 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how deep you want your colors).

PINK-

15 ounces of beets

1 cup of water

1 teaspoon of vinegar

Bring beets and water to a boil, let simmer for 5 minutes. Pour through a colander into a bowl to retain the liquid. Cool, then stir in vinegar.

YELLOW-

1 tablespoon turmeric or curry powder

2 cups water

Bring spice and water to a boil, let simmer for 5 minutes. Cool.

GREEN-

1 cup water

3 chlorophyll capsules (available at health food stores)

Bring water to a boil, then remove from heat. Open up the capsules and stir into water. Cool.

BLUE-

2 cups blueberries

2 cups water

1 teaspoon vinegar

Bring blueberries and water to a boil, let simmer for 5 minutes. Pour through a colander into a bowl to retain liquid. Cool, then stir in the vinegar.




You can also experiment with produce in your kitchen. I have used the water from cooking spinach and cabbage, then add vinegar to the liquid.