DIY Recycling

The Skittles Eco Kite is available on TerraCycle's web store

Like many of you (I hope!), we subscribe to the EcoFabulous weekly newsletter. Founder Zem Joaquin puts together a list of green products and initiatives that are always worth knowing about. This week she made a video suggesting a recycling bin in the bathroom. Seems obvious, but I'd never thought of it, and it would certainly make my life easier.

Even better, she introduced us to a program called TerraCycle, which allows you to set up a recycling program for the previously "un-recyclable" in your own neighborhood. You simply sign up on their website, pick the waste you want to collect (plastic bottle caps, perhaps?) and put out a collection box in your area. When your bin is full, you can download a FREE shipping label on their website, and ship the waste off to be recycled. This is an amazing program for areas that don't have exhaustive recycling programs curbside. I encourage everyone to at least check out TerraCycle's website—you can also buy recycled products on their site—and pass it on to all your friends.

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day Sale!!

To celebrate Earth Day tomorrow, Plover Organic is offering 35% off all items online! Enter the code EARTH11 at checkout to receive the discount. Sale ends Monday, May 2, so shop soon!

Plover time on Today

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thanks to Sheila's mom for letting us know that the Plover Organic charm pack sachets were on the Today show this Tuesday. Wow! Martha Stewart featured them as a craft idea using herbs. (You can watch the condensed clip above; the full clip is below.) And actually, the charm packs have been so popular for us, we're considering manufacturing the sachets ourself in the near future. Keep you posted!!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Spectral Fields @ The Pony Club

One of the collaborations by Jennifer Parks and Marty Crandall, up now at the Ponyclub

If you're in Portland, go see the "Spectral Fields" art show at the Ponyclub while you can...only one more week left! It's an eerie, evocative collaboration between artist Jennifer Parks and Marty Crandall. He took some amazing photos with his iPhone (!), she did some amazing illustrations, and then they combined efforts by illustrating select photos. Snatch them up while they're still available!

P.S. Check out this footage of Marty's new band Sad Baby Wolf, playing at the art show's opening in March. I was there and can confirm it was very, very pretty stuff. Can't wait to hear more...!

Plover Flagship Store!

Our shelves are made of wood we "reclaimed" from our backyard

Big, big news from the land of Plover Organic: we've opened our very first retail store, in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle!

Exact address: 5306 Ballard Ave. NW, Seattle WA 98107. (We share a space with the fabulous Cugini Cafe, so don't be confused!)

If you're in Seattle, come by and see us. We've got loads of sample sale goodies, misprints and other deals that aren't available on the website. Fun!

Our "soft opening" was last week, but we'll have an official grand opening party later this summer when we bring in a slew of brand-new merchandise. (Can't say just yet what it will be, but suffice it to say there will be something for everyone.)

It was truly a family affair in getting the story ready and open, and it's hard to believe we did it. Special thanks to Alison, the new addition to our team, for her merchandising expertise and these awesome pics she snapped of the store.

Thank you, Martha Stewart!

There's Plover, top right side!

Very many thanks to Martha Stewart Living magazine and Crafts Editor Blake Ramsey for featuring Plover's new Charm Packs in their April 2011 issue. They sewed the 5" squares together and made scented sachets from them! I'd never have thought to do that, but now I'll have to make them and fill with lavender buds. Lovely. Our Charm Packs are for sale here if you want to follow suite.

April 2011

America, 1939-1943

The cuteness—kids sleeping at a square dance in OK. Photo by Russell Lee

School children in New Mexico singing, 1940. Photo by Russell Lee

This was not at all what I'd planned to blog about, but I was browsing the Hermitage site (you must check out Hermitage if you're ever in the market for amazing, artful wallpaper) and saw a link to gorgeously restored photos taken during the American Depression. I know, I know—they're from last summer, not new—but people are still commenting on them, and I swear, the comments are just as great as the photos. Read them! And I must agree with the folks at Hermitage that the colorful prints and patterns the folks in the photos are wearing are alone worth a look. It was the Depression, and yet there's something about those prints that feels more joyful than what we all wear today.

Chopping cotton in Georgia. Photo by Jack Delano