Jill is the founder of Inhabitots.com, the founder and publisher of Inhabitat.com and a green designer living in New York City. She created Inhabitots 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.
What’s black and yellow and green all over? Why the hand-pump penguin flashlight of course! We recently spotted this adorable eco-friendly flashlight on Babygadget, and we were super excited to read about its environmentally sustainable elements. In addition to being extremely cute, this hand-pump penguin light is batteryless, which means it will keep toxic disposable batteries out of landfills. The versatile light can function as both a nightlight (standing up), and flashlight (when held in the hand), and is charged by repeatedly squeezing the penguin’s wing. One minute’s pumping will produce hours of light.
Here’s something I never thought I’d be writing about on Inhabitots…..I just spotted my favorite brand of pain reliever bashing babywearing in a totally thoughtless and tone-deaf commercial for Motrin. See the commercial here >
Inhabitots recently celebrated its 3 month birthday, and now that we’ve been publishing for a little while, we want to get a sense of who is reading this blog. If you have a minute (and if you’d like to win this pretty eco diaper bag by Fleurville - worth $165), please take our reader survey to tell us a bit more about you. It takes just a few minutes, all information entered is confidential, and we’ll just use this information to determine how to best tailor our content to give you guys what you want to see. TAKE THE SURVEY HERE >
Drumroll please…. And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the announcement of the winners of our Inhabitots Green Halloween Contest! We had a ton of really great creative entries this year. From crafty home decor made from old aluminum cans, to awesome costumes, to clever Halloween treats - the ingenuity of our readers was on full display in this contest. Because the entries were so varied, we’re going to give out a number of different types of prizes instead of just a traditional 1st - 5th place. Without further ado, here are the winners of the Inhabitots Green Halloween Contest…
We hope you had a fun Halloween, and we want to say thanks to all of our crafty readers who sent in images of their cute home-made kids costumes. We were overwhelmed with great entries and were really impressed with everyone who took the time to send us something. We’ve narrowed the costumes down to our ten favorites, but we are having a hard time deciding our top three. Will you guys help us pick our winners? Please vote for your favorite costume below - you can vote for up to 3 submissions. And if you want to see more of the clever costumes that were submitted to us, check out our Green Halloween Galleryhere >
If you were reading the site last week you might have spotted our Green Halloween Contest. We’re giving away a slew of great prizes to the best Green Halloween costume, best Green Halloween treat and most creative ideas overall for making Halloween clean and green.
DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES IS MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!!
Entries have been rolling in and already we’re starting to publish the best ones we’ve received so far in our Green Halloween photo gallery.
For the past couple weeks, we’ve been encouraging you all to get creative and DIY with your Halloween costumes this year. However, we recognize that many people don’t have the time to sit down and make costumes by hand. Happily, we’ve just spotted a great solution for those of you who plan to get store-bought outfits this year. CostumeStudio is a website carrying one of the world’s largest selections of Halloween costumes, and they support children in need around the world with donations to charity. This Halloween, Costume Studio is teaming up with StumbleUpon, MySpace Music, and Invisible Children to donate 100% of profits to help children in war-torn regions of Uganda.
Drumroll please…. We are thrilled to announce our new line of Inhabitots organic baby tees and onesies. Featuring ‘Habby’, our owly mascot, these adorable baby tees are made from 100% organic cotton and are hand-printed with eco-friendly, water-based inks. The tagline (with some fond nostalgia for the 70’s US Forest Service Campaign), reads ‘I give a hoot’. Show your support for Inhabitots and eco design by ordering one today - proceeds go to support Inhabitots and Inhabitat.
Breastfeeding is inherently environmentally friendly. Because of its popularity amongst the eco healthy yoga crowd, it blows my mind that it is so difficult to find organic nursing wear. Why do we need organic nursing wear, you might ask? This might not seem like a big deal to non-breastfeeding women, but I can tell you that when you are spending your days on your couch with leaky boobs, a slew of visitors coming through your house, and your baby permanently latched on - all you want to be wearing is something that is comfortable, breathable, organic, and allows you to nurse your baby while covering the rest of your body and offering some privacy. This doesn’t seem like a tall order, but good nursing wear is surprisingly hard to find. After much frustration trying out different ‘nursing tops’ (some uncomfortable, some too synthetic, some too skimpy), I finally found the solution for organic, comfy, stylish nursing apparel: bamboo nursing gear from Motherwear.
When it comes to feeding your baby, breastfeeding is quite obviously the most eco-friendly choice. It is free, generates no waste, is a renewable resource, and requires no energy to produce (except of course for those calories your body is burning). It is also the most healthy food for babies to be consuming, as it is loaded with nutrients, immunities, and antibodies that can’t be replicated by formula or solid food. What you may not know, however, is that breastfeeding is also healthy for moms. Breastfeeding protects against breast cancer, uterine and ovarian cancer, as well as osteoporosis. Since October is Breast Cancer awareness month, we thought it an appropriate time to highlight the health benefits of breastfeeding for mother and child.
Searching for that perfect Halloween outfit for your wee one, but just can’t bring yourself to spend money on a silly store-bought pumpkin outfit that will only be worn once? Look no further than Speesees organic critter jackets. These eco-friendly animal inspired coats can be worn comfortably all throughout the year (take that silly pumpkin outfit), but can convert to a cute Halloween costume in a pinch. Of course, what tot wouldn’t want to wear these cuddly jackets everyday?
Halloween is one of our favorite holidays, and there are lots of ways to tread lightly on the earth this Hallows Eve with a little ingenuity and crafty resourcefulness. Clever home-made costumes and yummy organic treats are always more fun and memorable than store-bought goodies, not to mention being better for the environment as well! This Halloween we want to pick your collective brains. We want to hear about your brilliant eco ideas - everything from witty home-made toddler and kids costumes to special recipes for organic pumpkin cookies. Inhabitots will be giving away a bunch of fabulous prizes from Oeuf and Nubius Organics to the most creative Green Halloween ideas, so sign up for Inhabitots and enter our contest today! >
When a new baby is born, it seems as if life as you know it will never truly be the same. Gone are the days of heading out on the town, or even shuffling around your house, without your precious cargo in tow. Babywearing is great for babies and parents alike. It brings convenience (not to mention a workout) to parents, and bonding time for babies, which is so important for development.
Here at Inhabitots, we’ve got your back…and your front, and your hips, covered with our in-depth review of the most popular baby carriers and slings.
If you are looking for stylish, contemporary, environmentally-friendly furniture for your nursery, look no further than Oeuf. This Brooklyn-based husband and wife design duo - named after the French word for egg - serve up adorable kids clothing and furniture that are as easy on the eyes as they are on the planet. My favorite design on the Oeuf menu is the ‘Classic Collection’ of baby furniture. Featuring a matching dresser / changing table, a movable changing station, and a crib that convertsto a toddler bed, Oeuf’s versatile 3-piece collection will stylishly and sustainably cover all your baby furniture needs from birth until kindergarten.
You might have heard the frightening statistic that disposable diapers are the third largest consumer item in landfills and make up about 4% of all solid waste. While most of us want to be as environmentally responsible as possible when it comes to diapers; the prospect of spending hours scraping poop and laundering cloth diapers can be daunting when you’re exhausted in your new role as a mom or dad. Luckily, gDiapers have come to the rescue! If you haven’t yet heard of gDiapers, they are the world’s first flushable, compostable diaper, pairing the “green” attributes of cloth diapers with the convenience of disposables. As a new mom of a five week old baby, gDiapers have been a godsend for my time-constrained eco-aspirations. They are cute, comfy and most importantly, easy to use, and I can’t recommend them more highly.
Everyone knows that building blocks make fun educational toys for children, but what if block-toys like Legos could extend their life beyond just playtime and provide household use value as well? Glide’s illuminated LED blocks takes the ’smart toy’ concept to the next level by imbuing their building blocks with LED lights: creating a combination toy / lamp that is as useful as a room illumination as it is fun to play with. These ‘Legos of the lighting world’ are safe, low-power, cool-to-the-touch, and function equally well as a child’s nightlight or a chic living room accent light.
Make baby bathtime more fun and eco-friendly with these adorable organic cotton wash mitt critters from Under the Nile. What better way to entice a reluctant baby into the bath than with a talkie froggie puppet? And as you would expect from eco baby brand Under the Nile, these washcloth-cum-hand-puppets are as environmentally friendly as they come. Not only are they fair-trade and made from the softest organic cotton and water-based dyes, but the biggest green factor comes from the multi-functionality in allowing you to wash, entertain and play with your baby all with one little charming design.
Any parent of a newborn understands the crucial concept of ’swaddling’. Small babies like to be wrapped up like little burritos, because it harkens back to the snug and cozy fit that they experienced in the womb. You can swaddle your baby in any blanket or long piece of fabric, but swaddling is definitely made a whole lot easier with an organic velcro-laden contraption called the ‘Swaddleme’ by Kiddopotamus.
As the proud mama of a nightowl newborn, I’ve suddenly found myself spending more time awake during the night than the day. Nightlights weren’t on my baby gear list, but they should have been. Not only do new moms need a guiding light for all those late-night feedings, but older toddlers and older children like to sleep with nightlights as well to keep the boogeyman at bay.
So what’s an eco-minded mom to do? Seek out solar power and energy-efficient LED lamps of course! Fortunately the two green technologies go hand-in-hand in one cute little package in this Moon Jar solar powered LED lamp.
Every mom knows that a good rocking chair is essential for breastfeeding. But how to find one that is chic, eco-friendly, and won’t break the bank? And as I stare down the barrel of impending motherhood, I am quickly trying to get all my breastfeeding accoutrements together - and for the longest time the rocking chair was the most elusive item on my list. There is a surprising dearth of nicely-designed rocking chairs out there - most seem either to be 80s style leather ‘gliders’ that cost and arm and a leg, or old-school granny wooden rockers that don’t look too comfy for your derriere. So you can imagine my delight when I rediscovered the Eames’ classic chair in rocker form!
The designers of the compellingly sleek (and undeniably boob-like) Adiri Baby Bottle make no bones about taking their design inspiration from the human form. And this makes perfect sense really when it comes to an eco-friendly baby bottle. If ‘breast is best’ - as most people will tell you these days - then surely a baby bottle based on the shape and ergonomics of the human breast would be the next best thing when bottle supplementation is required. Not only do nipples shaped like Mom’s breast help avoid nipple confusion but they make it easier for baby to adjust to bottle feeding.
Or How to Get Through Your Pregnancy Without Having to Purchase ‘Maternity’ Clothes
Although pregnancy is an exciting time in any mom-to-be’s life, the day-to-day logistics can often be quite daunting for a first time mother. For me if was quite an emotional rollercoaster to deal with so many rapid changes in my body — and when all of a sudden my favorite clothes started feeling too tight, I didn’t know where to turn. I just wanted to keep feeling and looking like myself, and the prospect of having to buy a whole new wardrobe of flowy earth-mama dresses to get me through a few months of my life sounded about as fun as labor pain — especially after a google search made me realize that it is almost impossible to find maternity wear in organic or eco-friendly materials.
We’re probably stating the obvious to say that its a goal of most parents to raise creative, ‘hands-on’ children who enjoy art projects, and learning about the world through making things. If you want to encourage the inner Bucky Fuller in a child in your life, here’s an inspirational book that is sure to get those creative juices flowing. D.I.Y. Kids is a crafty, beautifully illustrated how-to book that shows kids how to create new things from common household materials: from book-binding, to making clothes, to making stickers and toys.
My Sust House is an educational green design website for kids and boy does it take the cake in terms of cuteness. We all want to do good and live green of course, but sustainability is made infinitely more appealing by cutey-cute anime style cartoon narrators with charming Scottish accents. Created as an educational tool for teachers and parents, the online game is dedicated to exploring “what sustainability means and how it relates to our homes.”
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