Dwr · Eco-Chick

Browsing all posts tagged with dwr

Create a Gorgeous, Sustainable Holiday Table

Environmentally aware party planner Danielle Venokur hosted the “Sustainable Celebrations” event at the new DWR Tools for Living store in Soho. Venokur’s company dvGreen, is a sustainable event design and production company that utilizes organic food, flowers, and table linens, tree-free paper invitations, and more to create incredible events that you can be proud of forever.

At the event, Venokur incorporated items from the DWR: Tools for Living Assortment into place settings for both the adults’ and kids’ holiday table. I thought that the displays were brilliant and full of many great ideas for the holidays.

Venokur shared the following tips that you can use in your home to create a memorable and sustainable holiday meal:

1) Revamp and reuse scarves that you have around your home or found in a thrift shop; use them as is or accentuate them with organic cotton trim to make them your own; the result, unique vintage chic napkins.

2) If you live upstate or near trees, incorporate fallen branches and foliage to create your own custom center piece

3) Use LED candles instead instead of regular candles, they last longer and retain their appearance for many, many years. <

Tips for creating a special sustainable children’s table:

1) Use bamboo flatware for the table setting such as the collection from bambu.

2) Instead of a linen table cloth, line the table with craft paper. The children can draw stencils and color leaves, snowflakes, and other holiday motifs on the table and make it their own.

3) Using organic cotton balls, you can create little snowmen place settings.

4) Reuse craft paper to make a paper flower center piece together with the children before the dinner begins. Place the flowers in a refurbished vintage container and then the children will have something to celebrate- of their own making! during their meal.

adults, dwr, Events, holiday, kids, party, planner, sustainable

Champagne Cork Contest at DWR!

No Comments

by Starre Vartan · 12/23/07

Do you have designing hands? Get some creativity in your holiday (this would be fun to make into a competition among family or friends too!) by creating a chair for Design Within Reach’s annual Champagne Chair Contest! No, not full-size ones….miniatures made from what would normally be thrown away from your celebratory Champagne during Christmas and New Year’s:

Create an original miniature chair using only the foil, label, cage and cork from no more than two Champagne bottles. Chairs will be judged by a panel of industry experts and the winners will embark on a nation-wide tour. The winning designers will receive DWR Gift Cards.
In an effort to minimize the mountains of packaging waste generated in the past, submissions should be made digitally. All entries must be received, via email, by 5pm (PT) on Monday, January 7, 2008.

What a fun idea…and if you don’t win, you can give your chairs to any dollhouse-having kid for extra seating.

car, Christmas, contest, design, designer, designers, dwr, eating, Eco-Chick, Hair, holiday, New Year, New Year's, oil, sales, Target, waste

Mixt Greens: Eco Gourmet

1 Comment

by Ann Benoit · 09/05/07

mg_logo_int mg_seatsimage_int

Eco-gourmet. It’s what you get when a brother who’s passionate about food teams up with his sister and her husband who are passionate about environmental sustainability.

If you’re in downtown San Francisco during the week, make sure to stop at my favorite lunch place, Mixt Greens, a great place to get an organic eco-gourmet salad.

Not only are their salads super tasty and organic, (i’m in love with their berry nutty) but their business practices are environmentally friendly. Mixt Greens’ two locations (both on Sansome in the financial district) were built following the USGBC’s guidelines for green building. In addition, all of their take-away packaging is made from corn (containers, cups, straws, lids and bags), and they compost 80% of their daily waste. Mixt Greens is also a Certified Bay Area Green Business.

Although mainly geared for take-away, both of Mixt Greens’ locations have a fun well-designed atmosphere to eat inside or outside.

atmosphere, bags, business, corn, design, dwr, farm, Food, Green Business, lunch, News, Organic, sustainability, Tea, waste

The Climate Cover-Up

2 Comments

by Katie Kish · 03/26/07

This bit of news is getting up slightly later than I’d like to be getting it up – but I know a few people who will want to read this who may not have read it else where and it is no less important today than it was 3 days ago. News was released Tuesday March 20th by the Guardian that the Bush Administration had taken part in a systematic campaign to “water-down” aka – cover-up, scientifically supported existence of climate change, and also causes of climate change.

On the previous Monday documents were revealed showing that Philip Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist, had made hundreds of changes to scientific reports on climate change which were mandated by the Bush Administration.

The Bush administration has moved to exercise direct control over environmental agencies by installing political appointees including Philip Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist, as chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality, and a 23-year-old college drop-out who was made a public affairs officer at Nasa after working on Mr Bush’s re-election campaign. Mr Cooney told the committee yesterday: “My sole loyalty was to the president and advancing the policies of his administration.”
Documents released yesterday show that in 2003 Mr Cooney and other senior appointed officials imposed at least 181 changes to a strategic plan on climate change to play down the scientific consensus on global warming. They made another 113 alterations to minimise the human role in climate change, and inserted possible benefits of climate change. “These changes must be made,” said a note in Mr Cooney’s handwriting. “The language is mandatory.”

This is the Administration that is leading not only America, but most of the world – keep in mind. Since then I’ve found a recent study saying that the majority of American’s are actually considering climate change an issue just as important as terrorism, if not more critical.

Most dramatically, the survey of 1,000 adults nationwide shows that 63 percent of Americans agree that the United States “is in as much danger from environmental hazards, such as air pollution and global warming, as it is from terrorists.” It reveals growing concern about dependence on Middle Eastern oil, with 96 percent of the public saying this is a serious problem. As a result, the public overwhelmingly supports increasing the use of alternative energy, including solar and wind power, as well as investing more in energy efficiency.
The survey indicates that while 70 percent of Americans believe that President Bush doesn’t do enough for the environment and should do more, many citizens are ready to act on their own. Seventy-five percent recognize that their own behavior can help to reduce global warming, and 81 percent believe it is their responsibility to do so.

But posts like that of Matthew Nisbet’s it may not be the right minds being changed about this issue – Gore’s movie reached a big crowd – likely the crowd that voted for him in the first place. The Democrats are, as it appears, less worried about climate change. I know I’ve given Gore a little bit of flak before, but I think this is a perfect opportunity for me to mention that I do think his campaign to fight climate change is an extremely important one and his testimony was gorgeously delivered and hits a million points about why climate change is important and why cover-ups, like that of the Bush Administration are completely unacceptable…

(So watch it! rather than me typing all the reasons out – Gore is not only smarter than I am [especially on this topic] but much more eloquent as well.) The world is literally in the hands of a government that goes out of its way to skew important scientific information, rather than facing the problem and owning up to some responsibility.

Update: I’d also just like to direct the readers in the direction to an article by Tom Athanasiou who says that a domestic reduction in emissions isn’t going to solve the climate problem. The second thing he suggests, which I find quite hilarious, as a complete ban on the world “truth” and “inconvenient” being smashed together in headlines.

adults, Bush, climate change, dwr, Easter, emissions, Energy, Global Warming, liver, News, oil, Pollution, reduce, Target, Vote, water, wind power

That Herman Sure Knows How to Do it!

1 Comment

by Danelle Brown · 11/02/06

New York City has a new first! Interior Design Magazine just announced today that the Herman Miller National Design Center is the city’s first LEED Gold Facility in the Commercial Interiors sector. The commendable space was designed by Krueck and Sexton, a Chicago based architectural studio.

If you are lucky enough to have a comfy, eco-friendly, and ergonomic task chair or office system at your office, you may be familiar with the Herman Miller Company. I just love their Mirra Chair. It is very affordable in comparison to the rest of the office chairs on the market, has a comfort range that adapts to 95% of the population, and is made of a minimal number of parts so it is easy to disassemble and recycle; it’s 96 percent recyclable. You can purchase this chair from a Herman Miller Dealer or for smaller projects, such as personal use for your home or office, you can get this chair at DWR.

100 percent of the new space’s electrical power is supplied by certified renewable energy sources, and more than half of the construction material was recovered and recycled. This is a remarkable accomplishment and a great way to set the bar for other designers, manufactures, and developers.