Looking to find an eco-friendly treasure for your husband, father or brother? No worries!

If the dear men in your life are still using shaving cream out of an aerosol can, you can spoil them with Taylor of Old Bond Avocado Shaving Cream in a Bowl and and a Tweezerman Men’s Shaving Brush. Taylor of Old Bond comes in a few other varieties and apparently lasts a very long time for even a small container.

For the caffeinated fellows in your life, check out the 5 Lb Organic Fair Trade Green Coffee Sampler by Seven Bridges Cooperative. (Keep in mind that the coffee must be roasted at home before it can be brewed.) Newman’s Own Organic has some great choices that are roasted, ground and ready to brew.

If your husband has been meaning to get around to greening your household but doesn’t have the tools, he may be interested in the Green Starter Toolkit, packed with a surge protector, compact fluorescent light bulbs, reusable tote bags, sink aerators, a shower timer, and tire pressure gauge. (Or, if you have the time you could buy the products individually and put them together in a gift basket for a lot less!)

What are you planning on getting for the men in your life? Maybe you’ll opt for experience gifts over products or donations to green charities. Or maybe you’ll agree just to appreciate one another and opt out of gift giving altogether (which is certainly both eco-friendly and budget-friendly!)

If you’re wondering how to shower the baby in your life with gifts this holiday season, you needn’t look further than last year’s posts on the Green Baby Guide. Here are some of our brilliant ideas, in review:

Green Baby Guide’s Gift Repository—We plug some of the companies we’ve had the pleasure of working with, such as Natural Pod, Pedoodles, and Monkey Foot Designs. We also get practical and suggest buying your bundle of joy bumGenius or Fuzzibunz diapers.

A beautiful Monkey Foot Designs wet bag for those cloth diapers!

Green Gifts for Baby on Etsy—Want a homemade onesie or knit cap without actually constructing it yourself? Etsy is the perfect way to treat your baby while supporting independent craftsters.

Affordable Kitchen Play Set—In this post I showed how I put together a few toys to create a play kitchen for my daughter.

Melissa & Doug Food Groups Set for Your Child’s Play Kitchen

Affordable BPA-free Sippy Cups—Joy finds a few sippy cups without BPA—all for just a few bucks.

Unexpectedly Green Holiday Gifts for Baby—In this post you will discover just how cheap . . . I mean meaningful . . . we can make our holidays.

Gifts of Experience—Do you really need to buy another toy or blanket? Read this post for alternate ideas. 

And more old holiday musings from the Green Baby Guide:

Baked Christmas Dough Ornaments

My Gift Wrap Closet

Vegetarian Holiday Recipes

The Christmas Tree Dilemma

Reusing Baby Food Jars for Holiday Gifts

We hope you enjoyed taking that little trip down memory lane. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The smiles, the coos, the spit up… Let’s face it––babies give gifts year round.  Still, you might like to find a keepsake that baby could give grandparents or other family members this year.

So what does baby have to give?  At this point photos, handprints, or foot casts are the best they have to offer.

If you’re a crafty soul, you can simply use an ink pad to make a print of baby’s foot or hand and frame it artfully next to a photo.  It’s simple, tasteful, and will be treasured by any member of baby’s vast fan club.

For the rest of us, there are kits available that will make up for what we lack in creative skill.  The Babyprints Keepsake Kit comes with a frame and a spot for baby’s footprint.  The kit claims to require no mixing, baking, painting, or mess.  It dries overnight and is ready to go in the morning.  And it’s currently 30% off!

If you’d like something a bit smaller, you can go for the Baby Handprint Hanging Keepsake Kit, which creates a small ornament for the Christmas tree out of baby’s handprint.

Has anyone experimented with using plaster of paris straight from a craft store for baby’s prints?  It would be vastly cheaper than buying a premade kit but I’m not sure how easy it would be.  Any other ideas for simple gifts from baby?

This recipe has changed my life.  Before it, I thought that pie crust was one of those incredibly complicated domestic feats that only Martha Stewart disciples should attempt.  Based on my chewy crusts and flour encrusted counters, I was right.

After several pie crust fiascos, I resolved to chuck those pre-made crusts into my cart while feeling pangs of environmental and economic guilt.  Still, there was no way I had the time or expertise to pull off a perfect crust.

Then a friend introduced me to this recipe that cannot be fouled up.  (Believe me, I have tried!)  You can’t overwork, over-mix, or over shape this hearty dough. And although it is incredibly simple, it tastes decadently complicated.  Also, it just happens to be vegan!

For easy clean up, roll it between two sheets of waxed paper.  You’ll have a perfect crust without the mess.

Simple Pie Crust

• 3 C. flour
• ¾ C. oil
• 1 ½ tsp. salt
• 3/8 C. whole, skim, or soy milk

Blend, form into two equal balls, roll out each ball between sheets of waxed paper.  This recipe will make two pie crusts.

As a child my favorite part of homemade pie crust were the scraps that my mother would sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and bake just for me.  We’ve continued this tradition with my son–which has make him a huge fan of homemade crust as well!

Does anyone else have a favorite crust recipe?  Do you happen to roll out several batches and freeze them between waxed paper?  (I haven’t tried this yet and would love to know if it works!)  Please divulge your pie secrets!

Most of us are faced with an environmental conundrum  when considering an upgrade to LED Christmas lights.  We could save eighty percent more energy with the LED variety, but that would mean tossing our tangled green strings of lights into the trash.  How is that eco-friendly?

Luckily, Home Depot has a deal that will help us save energy and recycle those pesky old ones—even the defunct strands with burnt out bulbs.

Until November 15, take your strings of old holiday lights to Home Depot and receive a $3.00 credit toward a strand of LED lights.  Why would you want to go to all this effort to switch out your stock of holiday lights?  Here are just a few benefits of LED lights:

• They last up to ten times longer.
• Because they’re cooler they pose less of a fire risk on a Christmas tree.
• They don’t have filaments or glass which make them much more durable.
• As I wrote earlier, they use 80% less energy than traditional holiday lights.

Are you even thinking of Christmas yet?  Are you preparing for the season or just bracing yourself for the holiday consumerism?  (I have to admit I’m doing a little of both!)