Jill Fehrenbacher

Jill is the founder and publisher of Inhabitots.com and Inhabitat.com and a green designer living in New York City. She created Inhabitots.com in the summer of 2008 as she prepared for the arrival of her first baby. She is an avid idealist, modern design junkie and believes firmly that becoming a parent doesn't have to mean sacrificing style or ideals. Follow Jill on Twitter @jillfehr

HOW TO: Make Delicious & Healthy Raw Vegan Almond Cranberry Christmas Cookies

by Jill Fehrenbacher, 12/24/11

Looking for a holiday cookie recipe that is easy-to-make, healthy and delicious? Look no further! This fabulous almond cranberry cookie recipe is vegan, raw, with no added sugar, fat or anything bad — and it is a cinch to make, since it doesn’t require any baking. All you need is a food processor, some dried fruit, and nuts. Making quickie raw cookies is a fun project to engage in with kids, and these cookies are so healthy, you won’t worry about how many your kids eat (hint: they will eat a lot). With just pure fruit and nuts as ingredients they pack a mean anti-oxidant punch, as well as adding healthful nut oils to your diet. Best of all, they taste delicious and won’t make you feel sick if you eat too many! Read on for the recipe…

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VEGAN BAKING RECIPES: Petey’s Almond Cookies

by Jill Fehrenbacher, 12/14/11

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PRODUCT REVIEW: Wawabots Personalized Photo Water Bottles

by Jill Fehrenbacher, 11/30/11

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HOW TO: Make Scrumptious Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin Cupcakes

by Jill Fehrenbacher, 11/22/11

As the weather starts to get chilly and pumpkins seem to be congregating on every corner, this vegan pumpkin cupcake recipe will satisfy the heartiest fall sweet tooth. Why should pumpkin pie get all the attention at your Thanksgiving feast? Show your appreciation for pumpkins and all of nature’s bounty with this amazingly delicious and easy-to-make recipe for vegan pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes that will impress all of your friends, vegans and non-vegans alike. This recipe is so simple and easy that even a 3-year-old can do it – as evidenced by the video above. Baking vegan cupcakes makes a great project for the pre-K set – with a little adult supervision of course. Without frosting (my preferred way of enjoying them), these cupcakes might be more aptly described as “muffins,” but they are majorly tasty and so scrumptiously sweet that they really don’t need the additional sugary slather on top. However, if you are a sucker for the sweet stuff, authors Isa Chandra and Terry Hope provide instructions for a cinnamon icing to accompany these cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (a book I highly recommend as a holiday gift this season).

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Dr Seuss Versus Shakespeare: A Kid’s Lit Epic Rap Battle!

If you loved any of the original Epic Rap Battles of History, or if you’re a Dr. Seuss fan, you’ll want to check out the latest installment of this hilarious video series from Nice Peter, featuring the Doctor giving William Shakespeare a smack down with the help of the …

HOW TO: Fly Cross-Country With Small Children (Without Benadryl) – 6 tips

It's a dilemma that faces every parent of young kids at some point - flying! This quandary is especially problematic for Waldorf-inclined parents (like myself) who are hesitant to try to pacify their tykes with medications or DVDs. How does one get a constantly moving kid to sit still for six hours in an airplane without the use of Benadryl or its TV equivalent Dora the Explorer? Anxiously preparing to fly from NY to CA this summer with my always-in-motion 3-year-old boy and no antihistamines, I decided to ask fellow parents and Inhabitots readers for their words of wisdom. I got a lot of great advice and tested out some of my favorite suggestions on my son during my latest cross-country trip to California. The verdict? Read below to discover my most highly recommended non-pharmaceutical engagement and diversion tactics for your next cross-country journey with a child.

ModTots Adorable Animal Art Lets You Get Cute and Modern at the Same Time

What's black and grey and cute all over? Why it's Rocky Raccoon - an adorable hand-painted critter painting from Modern Bird - makers of a charmingly cuddly yet decidedly modern collection of art for tots called ModTots. If you’re looking for some eye-catching art for your hipster baby's room, look no further than ModTots. This arty new family venture from Gregg and Megan Deal of Modern Bird was inspired when the couple was expecting their first child and couldn't find any art that they liked for their nursery that was both modern and kid-friendly. So Gregg started painting himself, and ModTots was born! Now, with an animal collection, robot collection, sweets collection and even a monster collection, ModTots is rapidly expanding the art options for cool kids and their design-loving parents.

How To Make Healthy Homemade Popsicles With Kids

'Tis the season for popsicles, and nothing is better than the handmade variety. Not only can you get super creative and go in for all sorts of fun flavors, but popsicles are a whole lot healthier when you make them at home, sans high fructose corn syrup and weird artificial food dyes. Making popsicles at home saves money, and it's a great way to make use of leftover fruit, veggies and other food that you want use up. It's also a fun activity to engage young kids - it's educational, thrifty and creative - and isn't nearly as complicated, messy or dangerous as cooking, yet still produces the same kind of satisfaction at the end of the process when the whole family gets to enjoy the frozen fruits of their labor. You can easily make healthy homemade popsicles that look as appetizing and professional as the store-bought variety, and taste a heck of a lot better - you just need to invest in a good, sturdy popsicle mold set (or 3).

Tegu Eco Magnetic Building Blocks Help Honduran Families

What is better than eco-friendly building blocks? How about MAGNETIC eco-friendly building blocks in beautiful vibrant colors! Tegu's gorgeous eco-friendly magnetic blocks have been inspiring kids to play and build since they debuted their clever invention in 2009. Looking at these seamless wooden blocks, you'd never guess that there is a magnet hidden inside, but those carefully concealed magnets make for an addictively tactile building experience where blocks snap together almost by magic. Tegu Blocks' magical magnetic building powers that let kids build cool and complex designs like no other, but the story behind these amazing blocks is even more impressive than their arboreal magnetism.

Genderless Baby Storm Stocker Ignites a Firestorm with Parents, Media

A Toronto couple has ignited a media firestorm after deciding to conceal the sex of their baby, Storm Stocker. Inspired by the 1978 book X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Lois Gould, Kathy Witterick and David Stocker have decided to hold off from letting the world know their baby’s gender and have only allowed their two older sons and midwives look beneath Storm’s diaper since the New Year’s Day birth. For the parents, this is an opportunity to explore gender freedom, and allow their child to develop free from the potentially harmful pink and blue stereotypes. Their email announcing the birth stated, “We decided not to share Storm’s sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a standup to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime.”

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The ABC123 Alphabet Block Chair by BRC Design Inspires Children to Build

ABC blocks are one of the most classic toys for tots, but as any parent knows, sometimes its hard to resist piling up these colorful little blocks ourselves! A clever idea from the inner child of Benjamin Rollins Caldwell at BRC designs, the colorful ABC123 Chairs have been constructed with hundreds of colorful alphabet wood blocks into a distinctly modern yet playful piece. This fun and funny chair is a perfect eco-alternative to the shoddy plastic children's furniture that dominate local stores, and are bound to become enduring classics. Kid tested and parent approved, the charming ABC123 Chair is sure to inspire your children to stack with imagination!

Vote For Your Favorite Green Halloween Costume!

Bummed that Halloween has come and gone already? Relive the excitement and fun by checking out the awesomely cute finalistss of our annual Green Halloween Costume Contest! You, our readers, sent in some of the most clever adorable costumes we’ve ever seen – and they’re all made by hand out of ordinary every day objects. …

VIDEO: Interview With Dr. Alan Greene – REAL Facts About Toxic Chemicals and Your Family’s Health

Dr. Alan Greene is renowned pediatrician and father of four who has written many books on the subject of green parenting, and how to keep your family safe and healthy. He is on the board of Healthy Child, Healthy World and recently published two new books called Raising Baby Green and Feeding Baby Green. I recently had the chance to interview Dr. Greene about some of my most pressing concerns about hidden household toxins and chemicals – check out the video above and the interview below to hear what he had to say on everything from toxic household cleaners, to autism, to concerns about endocrine disruption with BPA and soy products.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY FROM INHABITOTS!

Jill's son Petey with his Grandpa and Dad

Genius Transformer Baby Gear: The Koo Transforms From Bassinet to Rocker

Any one who has ever lived with a newborn knows that the first few weeks of round-the-clock feedings are mind-numbingly exhausting for new parents. The Koo, a new transformer bassinet/rocking chair and late-night feeding system, hopes to make the new parent burden a little easier by smoothing out the edges on the late-night feeding routine, by providing everything a new mom (or dad) needs all in one convenient package. We spotted the Koo at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair this past week, and we could see all the moms in the vicinity fawning over this multitasking superhero of baby furniture.. Built by Lunar, the Koo is a bassinet that turns into a rocker and back again, a genius maneuver that not only eases baby’s transition from feeding to sleeping, but also minimizes both the product’s carbon footprint and its physical one.

Glowing Hexagonal Crystal LED Light is a Lamp, Puzzle, Toy all in one!

We use lamps for illuminating our homes and toys to stimulate our brains, but wouldn’t it be great to find inspired, engaging home decor products that can serve multiple functions (lamp, toy, decor), all in one? We just discovered this awesome new Crystal snap-together LED light from QisDesign at ICFF, and we’re head-over-heels in love with its playful and engaging design. Each LED Crystal Light is an individual glowing icosahedron with magnets in its skin that allows it to snap to any of the other crystals, allowing users to create a wide variety of forms that can be configured and reconfigured over and over. And even when you aren’t playing with the Crystal Light (which is hard to resist), these luminescent pieces do double duty as an eye-catching table lamp and conversation starter.

Hugh Hayden and Katie Vitale’s FRAMEicariums Turn Ant-Farms Into Art

Looking for a fun pet project for your tots that doubles as cool, conversation-starting art? Here’s an innovative idea for the most dynamically ‘alive’ art we’ve ever seen – wall art made out of living ant-farms! We love this idea because it mixes the science-experiment fun of keeping an ant-farm with a cool, clever aesthetic which is sure to turn heads and start conversations in your home.

VIDEO: The Great Green Playdate from Unplugged on a Rug

If you’ve been following Inhabitots recently, you’ve probably heard us rave about the Great Green Playdate which takes place every month in New York City at Kidville. We get together every month with mothers interested in green play for their kids and play around in a fantastically fun musical fete, lead by the two eco super-mama teacher/musicians who make up the organization Unplugged on a Rug. Check out the video that we recently made (above) about our experiences at the last Great Green Playdate!

The next Great Green Playdate is TOMORROW – so if you live in the NYC and you are interested in checking it out – get in touch with Unplugged On a Rug immediately!

Ofrit Peres and Natalie Reyes are great examples of eco-mamas who have managed to start a small business around their kids, and thus find the perfect balance between work and motherhood. I recently wrote a small business profile on Unplugged on Rug here:

What your kids can teach you about growing your business >

5 Green Toys You Can Make Yourself Out Of Ordinary Household Items

Think that “Going green” with your kid’s toys means shopping for expensive and hard-to-find wooden toys? Think again! Some of the most fun, and GREENEST toys are the ones you can make yourself out of common household products and a little ingenuity. If you are the parent of a small child, you probably already know that pots and pans and cardboard boxes are often more captivating to your child than anything store-bought or pre-packaged. The following five DIY toy ideas take the idea of pots and pans to the next level, and were provided to us by uber-creative supermoms Ofrit Peres and Natalie Cronin, the lovely ladies behind the traveling green play event called Unplugged On A Rug.

GREAT GREEN PLAYDATE in NYC!

The Great Green Playdate for a Cause is eco-play company Unplugged on a Rug‘s traveling playdate that caters to families with young children from 0-5 years. Inhabitots editor Jill Fehrenbacher will be on the scene with her own Inhabitot, Petey, so join us for some green play and musical surprises! All proceeds …