Category Archives: Green Home

Green food, Green Home, Green Living, Interviews, War on waste

Your Green Life: Zero Waste Chef

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Ok, so first things first: a massive apology for how embarrassingly late this interview has come to you lovely people. About 3 months to be exact! But they say you leave the best to last, and I have to say this is a gem of a green life right here! 

Fellow blogger and my ultimate cooking inspiration, Zero Waste Chef, makes living waste free and cooking from scratch seem easier than finishing off a cool glass of white wine on a hot summers day! From buying fresh, local and seasonal; to using up every last morsel of food. Being the lazy old fool I am, I tend to watch with amazement but rarely give her recipes a go; though her ideas and food knowledge never cease to amaze me. 

Alongside her blog, Anne-Marie also hosts regular webinars and workshops to help others learn the skills of waste free cooking where she lives in California (dream home BTW!). In fact, as I will be finishing off my backpacking travels in San Francisco next year; I’m very much hoping I can catch one of these and learn a thing or two myself! 

Continue reading Your Green Life: Zero Waste Chef →

Facts and Stats, Green Home, Green news, renewable energy, Sustainability

Understanding: Fracking

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I’ve been seeing an increase of stories in the news recently about ordinary people rising up, and standing up against plans for fracking in their local area. Using assertive, yet relatively peaceful, campaigning method; I’ve seen everyone from passionate, student activists to concerned, middle-aged housewives taking to the streets with placards, or writing forceful letters of objection to their MPs. This subject is a hot bed for debate in the UK right now, and everyone’s in on it.

But I must admit, until not long ago, I had largely been oblivious to what fracking actually was; simply relaxing into the view that it was something that was bad for the environment but too technical for me to understand. I’m guessing I’m not the only one to shy away from the more industrial side of sustainability, so I thought a “Fracking in a nutshell” post might be helpful! (plus I’m a massive Battlestar Gallactica fan so have been dying to over use the word Frack for years!)

Continue reading Understanding: Fracking →

Green Beauty, Green health, Green Home, Green news, Sustainability, War on waste, What to buy

What’s So Scary About a Hairy Mary?

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OK, prudish people – or potential suitors Brad Pitt and Emile Hirsch – look away now. I want to talk about something controversial. Well, some may think it’s controversial. I prefer to think of it as a very fascinating thing called nature!

Ladies across the world can empathize with the feeling of lazy relief when summer is over, and you are free to enter a new phase of natural body wilderness. By this, I mean a complete carefree approach to hair removal!  As the vest tops get packed away and 90% of our bodies get covered up, many of us have no interest in hairy legs, pits (or indeed wherever nature chooses to hair you up!)

With the exception of those who don’t give a crap all year round ( we salute you..!) and those who continue their waxing regime well into the winter, most of us are more than a little sporadic with hair removal when no one needs to see our bodies. But this begs the question: What’s so scary about a hairy Mary anyway? Continue reading What’s So Scary About a Hairy Mary? →

Events, Green Home, Green Living, War on waste, Zero Waste Week

2015: The Year of the Monumental Clear Out!

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2015 is set to be a very exciting year for me, with lots of planning but hopefully lots of fun too. In June I turn 30, in August I graduate from my (6 years in the making…) History degree and, in October, I am setting off on a 6 month backpacking trip of a lifetime (of which you’re sure to be sick of hearing about over the next few months!)

My travelling plans, however, will be requiring a lot of organising at home, as I’ll need to leave everything behind; living with the bear essentials of which I can happily carry on my back. So aside from 2015 being a big year of adventures, I sense it’s also going to be a year of BIG clear outs as well!  Continue reading 2015: The Year of the Monumental Clear Out! →

Green Home, Green ideas, Green Living, Seasonal, What to buy

I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas

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You may have noticed this past month that I’ve been very careful to limit my festive themed posts; sticking by my belief that Christmas shouldn’t have to take over the whole of December (or in fact November or January either). And all in all it’s been my most relaxing December ever! There’s been no frantic late night shopping or messy weekend baking sessions; and I haven’t even stressed about what colors fairy lights to hand in the window. Success!

Instead, I’ve spent the past month away from my computer, away from the shops and in the company of lots of friends in the great (chilly) outdoors. Don’t get me wrong, I have invested some thought into the 25th December, but only in the way you would organise a birthday party or day out with friends; not a month long build up to a day of excess! A few nice vegan friendly treats, some mulled wine spices and a few inexpensive but thoughtful gifts are all that’s needed to make my day special.  Continue reading I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas →

DIY Beauty, Green Beauty, Green health, Green Home, Green ideas, Nature

DIY Organic Mascara Recipe

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By Nikki Fotheringham

Making up is hard to do when your choices are mostly chemical. Now you can make your own sweet sweet homemade mascara from natural ingredients thanks to this easy recipe from our new book, Greenmoxie’s Field Guide to Green Living. You can engage in some splendid beauty alchemy with things you probably already have in your kitchen. Continue reading DIY Organic Mascara Recipe →

Green Home, Green ideas, Green news, Seasonal, Upcycling

Make your own ‘living’ table centrepiece

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‘Tis the season to sit around the table and share food with loved ones. The one thing about Christmas I can’t be a Grinch about! I love seeing everyone sat around the table, with our personalised napkins (that my mum lovingly sewed for us), and a few candles lighting our smiling faces. We all have our own table traditions; from our “special” cutlery to how we dress it to look pretty.

personal napkin

I love the idea of a big center piece on a dinner table to mark a special occasion, but have always been reluctant to buy anything (and am never creative enough to design something myself) .

But recently my friend Dee at ItDoesTheJob.com told me about their ‘waste free’ living table centerpiece, following one of their successful sustainable suppers. I loved the idea so much I asked if they could share some simple steps to how someone lazy or not very creative could make such a masterpiece.  Continue reading Make your own ‘living’ table centrepiece →

Green Home, Green ideas, Green Living, War on waste

Winter Rest for Washing

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Without the risk of sounding like a bit of a stinker, one of the things I love about winter is not needing to do my laundry as often. In the summer months clothes get sweatier, sandier and generally dirtier! But when it gets chilly outside, and my body turns to an icicle, I can get away with wearing outfits multiple times before they need to go through the washing machine.

A few months ago I swapped my usual washing powder to soap nuts, and have recently been experimenting with eco balls (which are awesome BTW!) to use less chemicals on my clothes. But it’s not just the toxins on our skins, and in our water, that excessive clothes washing contributes to.

It’s estimated that every year UK washing machines use £800 million of electricity, and 500 billion litres of water, just to keep up with our obsession for cleanliness. That’s a lot of time, money and natural resources to be spending on a few scraps of fabric to hide our nudity! Especially when you consider that demand for water has doubled in the last 30 yrs; and that by 2025, two thirds of the world population will face water shortage. Continue reading Winter Rest for Washing →