Eco-Chic Expo Blooms on May Day in Seattle

Extra! Extra! There's exciting news from Seattle’s sustainability community. This May 1^st marks the first Eco-Chic Expo: an interactive green lifestyle event at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center.

Co-founded by Satsuma Designs and two other eco-chic companies, Tread Light Gifts and mamaswap.com, the event is sure to be a great May Day full of tips, tricks and products to live a little greener the event.

Eco-Chic Expo is free to the public and will feature products, services and demos some of Seattle’s leading sustainable lifestyle companies from every part of life: design, home, fashion, food, baby, beauty, and more.

Come join us in May!

C-U-LTR, Gotta Bounce!

Not a Cadillac, more like a tricked out Prius, is one way to describe Bloom Baby's Bouncer Lounger. This bouncy chair screams sidecars and cosmos, from a bottle, bien sur.

It's made of a patented material called stylewood, which basically sums it up. Offered in an excellent array of trend-forward colors, Bloom has upped the standard on baby soothing techniques. My guess is 20 minutes in this and baby is happily dreaming.

Check it out at Best Baby Organics where you can save 15% store wide through 10/30/09 while they're gearing up for the holiday season.

No goods or services provided for this review. Photo courtesy of Best Baby Organics/Bloom Baby

A friend told me about tea tree oil. It's used in aromatherapy and is naturally antiseptic and antibacterial, which makes it a super all natural cleaner. I picked up a 4 oz bottle of NOW Tea Tree Oil from Amazon, but this stuff goes a LONG way so am recommending a 1 oz bottle here.

In an 8 oz spray bottle I mixed 1 teaspoon tea tree oil with a cup of white vinegar to create my new all purpose cleaner. I tackled the powder room first where my preschooler is learning to use the toilet and it works like a wonder! The vinegar and oil make it smell clean and I feel really good about spraying this cleaner in highly kid-trafficed areas.

Word to the wise, tea tree oil comes with warnings because it's so concentrated. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. I wrote Danger/Poison on the outside of mine and put it in our locked closet. And with that paranoid warning, enjoy!

Go Back to School with a Green Goodbyn

I think there could be entire blogs dedicated to greening up lunchtime. Perhaps there are, but I'm too lazy to Google it right now. Enter, Seattle-based Goodbyn, a company that has created an incredibly stylish (kid-stylish) bento-style lunch box that's very eco-responsible. It's the first product from byndoo, a design braintrust developing healthy kid products.

According to the Goodbyn site, they've spent over a year researching best practices for design, production and more and have launched a lunchbox to meet needs the of kids and care givers alike.

For $34.95 you get a high quality lunch box with trays and top for any lunch combo imaginable. What's more is the cool custom art that each Goodbyn Kid can create with three sheets of stickers. And the whole thing is dishwasher safe (remember to only run full loads).

They also have a school fund raising program that gives almost 15% of the purchase price to your school. Consider looking into customizing stickers for your own school.

Neat (and tidy)!

Photo from Goodbyn

Milk it! BPA-free, Glass Baby Bottles for Green Babies

Let's face it, plastic is getting a bad, bad rap especially when related to baby bottles or how about Chinese Baby Formula and for good reason. So to stop the maddness and scare tactics, it's best to just look for a tried and true alternative - glass bottles for babies.

It's likely that you baby's health is the top priority when choosing nursery and feeding supplies, but glass bottles can be expensive. Baby Grows Green did some price checking and here's what we found.

Evenflo - 3-Pakc 8-Ounce Glass Bottles - A steal at $6.99 from Bed Bath & Beyond

Nature Pure - 3-Pack 8 oz. Glass Baby Bottles - $10.99 Direct from the Manufacturer

Dr. Brown - 2-Pack Natural Flow 7 oz. Standard Neck Glass Baby Bottle - On Sale for $12.99 at Drugstore.com

Born Free - 2-Pack 9oz. Vented Glass Bottles - $19.99 Direct from the Manufacturer

babylife - Single 9 oz wee•go™ bottle - $18.00 Direct from the Manufacturer - Expensive!, but definitely the cutest of the bunch with a bpa-free sleeve to protect the bottle from bumps and bangs in the diaper bag, car floor, etc.