Featured Seller: MarthaHaskins

Today's featured seller Alex Whatton owner of MarthaHaskins. She is located in Milford, CT.

Her shop is MarthaHaskins. Her blog is http://MarthaHaskins.blogspot.com.

Items Sold: Fine Art, Photography, and Surface Design

What makes your shop eco-friendly or organic based?:
I use 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper made with hydroelectric power and/or found paper for all of my ACEOs and since my mother started her own art school, I use-up the left over paints that students were going to throw away!

What do you do everyday that is green?:
Turn off the lights whenever I leave a room (or even use a candle), take quick showers or shallow baths, reuse my shopping bags (I NEVER take plastic bags from stores), and I read the news online!

Favorite Book: "Craft, Inc." by Meg Ilasco
Favorite Movie: "Serenity"
Favorite Color: Orange (at the moment)

Favorite item in your shop: Sally Robot...or the carrot tote!

My Favorite Item in your Shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11492989

An Etsy Shop that you think should be featured that is not your own:
ponyup - I love the idea of bringing your flatware with you!

Thanks for being Green Alex!

Featured Seller: Green Works

My next featured seller is Maura of Green Works. She is located in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Her Etsy shop is http://www.GreenWorks.etsy.com and she also has a flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/people/greenworks/.

Items Sold: Four tshirts so far. We sell organic tshirts with silk screen printed
designs and recycled/re-purposed art.

What makes your shop Eco-friendly or organic based?: Using predominately organic and eco friendly materials, sourcing materials from ethical suppliers who support fair trade and sustainable farming/production.

What do you do everyday that is green? : Don't have a car so we walk, use low energy
lights, buy as much local organic food as we can, use rechargable batteries, recycle household waste, reuse packaging materials and recycle repurpose as much as possible, have a lot of second hand furniture( so do I!) and give unwanted clothes/furniture etc either to friends or local charity to redistribute rather than send to landfill ( I love donating; it's donating is good for the earth and the soul!).

Favorite Book : Alice in Wonderland
Favorite Movie : Wizard of Oz
Favorite Color: Red

Favorite Item in Your Shop: The artwork - Moss is favourite so far - just love the
fact of making something out of scrap materials -
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11048445

My favorite item in your shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11593426

An Etsy Shop that you think should be featured that is not your own: LAVENDERDRAGONHERBS
- http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5158752

Yart Sale and ReUseable products

So the first Etsy Yart sale is drawing to a close. I unfortunately did not sell any of my yart sale items. I did sell one item that was not apart of my yart sale, which made me extremely happy. The item was small but every little sale makes me happy.

The item sold was my Crochetd Brown ReUseable Coffee Cozy(that is one long name for an item).

I thought that this would have been more popular of an item seeing as many people drink coffee and reusing a drink cozy is very eco-friendly. I truly think that Etsy sellers and buyers are not as "green" as one may think. I would hope that the Etsy community would be and would be looking for ways to decrease waste or natural resources.

I do see a great deal of sellers who recycle in their shop, but I wonder how hard core these individuals are about the environment. I hope that they would all be doing their best to preserve our resources.

I understand that some people do not have the ability to partake in certain environmentally practices. My boyfriend and I would love to be able to recycle more, but our apartment complex does not recycled. We have to find a place to drop off our glass and plastics. We already recycle plastic bags by taking them to Giant Eagle and we drop off paper at our local churches and schools that have recycle dumpsters.

The things we don't have control over are the things we can't afford to use or do. We both cannot afford new cars. My boyfriend's gets better gas mileage than mine but we are still using a lot more gas to get from point a to point b than we would like. We not only cannot afford to use solar panel but also are not allowed to add such items to our apartment.

I hope that people who can afford to make changes in their lifestyles do. Even if it is only by not using a new paper cozy every time they order their coffee from the coffee shop.