How often do you make or buy homemade Halloween costumes that are used only once because they are too scratchy and uncomfortable to ever wear again? Too often I would imagine. Are you left with a pile of pirates, princesses, and various ghouls and ghosties with no little kiddy to make them come alive once the candy has been consumed and the pumpkins have been turned into pie?

If you'd rather your kids could make use of those homemade Halloween costumes and their imaginations year round let me introduce Sarah's Silks. Sarah's Silks is a company started by Sarah and Mike Lee from Sonoma California who are dedicated to helping create a better world through imaginative play.

Sarah's Silks offer a large selection of delicately delightful "quality play silks, toys and dress-ups for boys and girls between the ages of 3-10, that ignite the imagination, and capture the magical soul that lives in young children."

How are Sarah's Silks Homemade Halloween Costumes Made?

Silk is a natural fiber and renewable resource so it falls into that eco-friendly pile of playthings we so love here at Earth Friendly Goodies. Besides the eco-friendly nature of silk all the handmade dress-up silks use non-toxic vinegar-based dyes and are hand made by home based seamstresses in Shanghai China then shipped to Sonoma California where a group of women working in their homes finish sewing, ironing and packaging them.

Our daughters love playing dress-up year round and will break out the princess costumes any time day or night (princes need kissing and dragons need slaying at all hours it seems).

If you are looking for a unique fairy tale themed Halloween costume or a Halloween costume you can make at home Sarah's Silks has several homemade Halloween costumes and silky accessories to choose from including dragons, unicorns, knights, mermaids, and of course princesses and fairies. Not only does Sarah's Silks sell completed costumes they also sell many fun flavors of play silks that you can use however you like to make your own homemade Halloween costumes.

Find a large selection of Sarah's Silks homemade Halloween costumes for sale at Amazon as well as individual play silks for your own creative play below.

Default By Relevance Bestselling Price: low to high Price: high to low Newest arrivals On sale

Silk Rainbow Streamer List Price: $16.95 Sale Price: $12.55 You save: $4.40 (26%)   Eligible for free shipping!

Sarah's Silks Play Silk Sale Price: $17.95 - $21.99

Sarah’s Silks Natural Homemade Halloween Costumes is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

Includes organic fair trade coffee, three organic fair trade chocolate bars and is rounded off with a box of fair trade chocolate-covered Brazil nuts - well on second thought maybe you'd rather just keep this one for yourself - I won't tell...

I stumbled upon this fun handmade gift basket while looking over the fine selection of eco goodies on eBay's World of Good - if you aren't familiar with it stop by and take a peek. There are plenty of fun eco-friendly gift ideas.

This particular fair trade coffee and chocolate gift basket is sold by EcoExpress Gifts which has the Green America Goodprint verification on World of Good. Which means this business adopts principles, policies, and practices that improve the quality of life for their customers, their employees, communities, and the environment.

At the time of this post this fair trade coffee and chocolate gift basket is on sale for $47.05 with only 4 remaining.

Find more fair trade and organic gifts from EcoExpress Gifts for sale below.

This Post Shared on Real Food Wednesday

Fair Trade Handmade Gift Basket with Organic Coffee and Chocolates is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

The Rodelle headquarters in Fort Collins Colorado it turns out is 100% powered by wind or alternate energy sources. And to sweeten the pot they are very active in local and international efforts to improve social and environmental standards such as emergency relief efforts and working toward sustainable growing practices in Madagascar and Uganda where the vanilla bean growers are.

It is heart warming, on a cold pre-winter day especially, to find companies quietly improving the world we live in with something as simple as the vanilla extract we bake with.

Rodelle makes a wonderful line of gourmet baking ingredients and spices including many types of gourmet vanilla extracts and beans upon which the company was founded. If you are looking for high quality organic vanilla extract, alcohol free vanilla extract, some delicious Madegascar bourbon vanilla beans, or just good old fashioned pure vanilla extract give Rodelle a try - and help spread the warmth this holiday season.

I don't recall which grocery store I found my vanilla extract at but it looks like Amazon has a selection of Rodelle Products for sale from time to time. Also below is the current selection of Rodelle products for sale on eBay as well.

This Post Shared on Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday

Rodelle Gourmet Vanilla Extract: Free Warm and Fuzzies is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

If you wouldn't call yourself a tree hugger (that's ok they don't give very good hugs) you might want to at least give these guys a quick pat on the back because tropical forests eat carbon dioxide for lunch - literally. They help regulate the atmosphere and stabilize the global climate by consuming carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen - which of course we can't live without. Not to mention the 23 species of primates, 1000 species of birds and over 20,000 species of plants - including my new favorite the Ice Cream Bean Tree.

Plant a Billion Trees and Save the Ice Cream Bean Tree

So what are we supposed to do fly to Brazil and plant a couple million trees? Kind of, it turns out the Nature Conservancy is working hard to bring the Atlantic Forest back to its glory days by restoring 2.5 million acres of land and planting 1 billion trees over the next 7 years. They call it the Plant a Billion Trees campaign. For every dollar donated they will plant a tree - so empty your piggy banks, dig through the couch cushions, and clean out your cars to see how many trees are hiding in there. You can help plant a single tree, give a recurring monthly donation or even give trees as a gift which includes a quarterly publication to Nature Conservancy magazine as well as a few other fun goodies depending on the gift level.

So help save the Ice Cream Bean tree, and I'm sure they'll have a big banana split party to celebrate the 1 billion mark - you have to bring your own chocolate sprinkles.

Ice Cream Bean Tree Update 9-21-11:

When I wrote this post on the Ice Cream Bean tree nearly two years ago the Nature Conservancy was just getting started with the Plant a Billion Trees campaign. Today I happened to take a look and they are at 9,791,249 trees planted - the one billion mark isn't too far off.

Also, as an interesting side note thanks to the comment from Ed Musgrave I've discovered the Money Tree... Called the French Peanut tree it is a Brazilian tree that produces edible seeds that are similar in flavor to peanuts. Roasted seeds are also ground to make a hot drink similar to hot chocolate. The trees are easily grown in pots, and are cultured in bonsai form as “lucky trees” or “money trees”.

As fate would have it the money tree and the ice cream bean tree both grow in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil and thus would benefit from the Plant a Billion tree campaign. And of course who wouldn't like a nice cup of money tree hot cocoa with their ice cream bean tree banana split?

Save the Endangered Ice Cream Bean Tree – Help Plant A Billion Trees! is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

Have you ever been searching the web and thought to yourself "self, I sure wish I could do more to help the environment, but I'm stuck here at my computer all day and don't have the time to get up and grab an organic peanut butter and jelly sandwich much less do my part to save the planet." Well, that's what I was thinking (work with me here I'm using creative license) just a moment ago when I stumbled upon Forestle.

Forestle is a search engine that donates 90% of its ad revenue to The Nature Conservancy's Adopt an Acre Program each month that uses this money for the sustainable protection of rainforests. Forestle is partnered with Yahoo so all searches are basically the same results you'd get from Yahoo. After doing my part to help save a square meter of rain forest (an estimated 0.1m² of rain forest is saved for each search) it is clear that Forestle is a smooth and effective search engine with plenty of eco-cool features...

First off grab and install the search plugin for your favorite browser (Firefox, Google Chrome, IE, Opera, Safari, or SeaMonkey) along with your country of origin - there are currently 34 countries to choose from - and then test out the cool search feature using custom indicators.

Let's say you want to search for the latest eco-friendly videos on youtube, well just type in videos::eco-friendly and kapow you get results directly from youtube! Pretty spiffy eh? Forestle currently has 19 of these custom "indicators" from Digg, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo Answers and a whole lot more.

Another slick feature is the option to turn on a small thumbnail preview of each search result next to its listing which is surprisingly speedy and quite nifty for the more visual processors among us. Top all this off with a dash of the calming green color palette and the running total of rain forest saved (611,281.6 m² at the time of this post) and you have a fun search engine that helps a great cause.

Save the Rainforest with Green Search Engines is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

Hey eco guys and gals, what do you get when you throw in some funky groovy tunes, a little organic produce, and a dash of salt all whipped up in high speed? Why, it is this little video on how to make Pico De Gallo!

I had to come up with some ideas for supper tonight for a good friend of ours so I thought I could go for some chicken fajitas with a dash of pico de gallo - so I turned to the fine folks at youtube for a basic pico de gallo recipe and then let my kitchen creativity take over... (I like to get a basic recipe and then play with it - and wish for the best)

First a trip to the local farmers market or organic grocery to pick up some organic goodies and then let the kitchen knives whirl into action - or in my case slowly hack at the ingredients and watch out for fingers - eeek!

Here's all the organic goodies you'll need for this Pico de Gallo Recipe:
3 medium tomatoes
1 medium sweet yellow onion
jalapeno or Serrano peppers (1 or more depending on your heat tolerance)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 garlic clove (not a traditional Pico ingredient but I like-a-da-garlic)
1-2 limes
sea salt/pepper to taste

Wave your magic kitchen wand and whallah! Instant Pico De Gallo - oh wait first chop 'em up and mix 'em. Let it marinate in the fridge for a few hours or better yet over night and you have one perfect pico.

This post has been added to Fight Back Fridays for on a wonderful (new to me) blog called the Food Renegade. The Food Renegade and the fine folks who participate in Fight Back Fridays celebrate real earth friendly (and people friendly) food. Food that is locally-grown, sustainably produced and all-around good for us. Stop by Fight Back Fridays to learn how to prepare healthy foods, find new recipes to try, and new ways to be frugal & thrifty while still eating nutrient-dense whole foods.

Pico De Gallo Recipe Update 2011:

I was just making up some pico a moment ago and remembered this pico de gallo recipe I had written about in 2009 - time flies eh? It is interesting to see this was the first time I discovered Fight Back Friday's at the Food Renegade if you haven't stopped by I encourage you to do so - plenty of earth friendly food and natural health tips.

Back to the topic at hand my original Pico de Gallo recipe was made before I learned about fermentation and the wonderful health benefits of cultured and probiotic foods. So what I thought I'd do today was experiment with this Pico de Gallo recipe and see what a ferment would do to it.

How to make Fermented Pico De Gallo

Now traditionally if you are making a fermented salsa or lacto-fermentation as it is also called you would use Whey (the watery substance you see when yogurt separates) however since I didn't have any old yogurt sitting around or a magic whey wand, and since I had just finished making some brine cured pickles I figured I'd try a simple salt ferment with this pico de gallo recipe.

The ingredients are still the same you just need more sea salt. What I would so is after cutting up the cilantro I'd sprinkle sea salt over it, cut up some tomatoes sprinkle more sea salt and so on in layers until all the ingredients were mixed together. All total I used about a half tablespoon of sea salt for the above amount of ingredients. Then it is simple cover the mixture leave it on your counter for a couple days and enjoy your fresh fermented pico de gallo! If you still have any left after the first serving seal it up and put 'er in the fridge.

This post on my Pico de Gallo recipe was shared on Real Food Wednesday.

Organic Pico De Gallo Recipe Earth Friendly Style is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

If you aren't familiar with eBay's new eco-friendly endeavor World of Good be sure to have your laundry basket handy because this place will knock your socks off. I'm sure if you hang around here at Earth Friendly Goodies you'll be seeing a lot of featured eco-friendly products from World of Good.

For example I was in the mood for a few nice aromatic basil leaves to toss into a bit of pesto for my world famous pesto turkey burger recipe (well it would be world famous if the world knew about it) and I happened upon this eco-goody from Michigan Ceramics.

This Basil Amazons Home Grow Kit is one of 5 different herb kits for sale - Cactus blend, Pink Poppy, Italian Basil, Lemon Grass, or Catnip (for gourmet pesto turkey burgers for cats). These little herb planters are hand-painted terracotta pots with a wood finish.  These little herby delights also come with a 100% Growing Guarantee - if your seeds die or don't grow for some reason (like your cat decided to play catch in the middle of the night with the catnip Amazon), e-mail them and they will send you new seeds for FREE! All of us black thumbed gardeners have gotta love that right?

Michigan Ceramics was founded is 2008 with the mission to provide high quality terracotta planters, at the lowest possible price, and to keep its carbon footprint to a minimum. Michigan Ceramics is highly involved with charities and gives a large portion of profits to help those in need, such as sponsoring children from third world countries through Christian Children's Fund, as well as purchasing livestock and helpful products for poverty stricken villages around the world.

Eco-Friendly Basil Grow Kit is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

I was looking through the latest REI catalog adding every other item to my Christmas wish list (the rest of the items went on my birthday wish list) when I spotted the KEEN Oswego bag - a KEEN messenger bag made from re-purposed KEEN shoes and recycled aluminum! How eco-cool is that?

I did a little research and found out that I am behind the times, this KEEN messenger bag was actually released in 2007. (I suppose that is why it was on sale for 28% less than the list price) It turns out that this bag is part of KEEN'S Hybrid.Transport line of bags which incorporate aluminum and rubber materials left over from shoe making. Keen’s Hybrid.Transport line contains 40 percent recycled materials with a goal of reaching 100 percent. That was back in 2007 so I dug a little deeper to see if they were closer to that 100% number by now... My shovel hit hard packed clay though and I wasn't able to find an update.

I did find KEEN's CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FAQ which gives some mighty fine info on, you guessed it KEEN's corporate social responsibility. Which basically gives the low down on all aspects of their efforts to go green and help the community and environment. Good to know the maker of some of my favorite shoes and bags is making such an effort to help the earth their shoes walk on.

Read our Review of the KEEN Oswego Messenger Bag

KEEN Says: The classic messenger bag takes a vertical approach to style with the Oswego shoulder bag from KEEN. The adjustable shoulder strap adapts to your fast-paced lifestyle. Abundant pockets let you organize to your heart’s content.

Dimensions: 11 1/2" L x 14" H x 3 1/2" W

He Says: Earth friendly snuggled up to functionality one night and a new baby was born with this beauty of a messenger bag from KEEN. Here's the low down on this messenger bag that is banging out five star reviews left and right. KEEN has started a new line of bags called the Hybrid Transport. These bags incorporate aluminum and rubber materials left over from shoe making - you know KEEN's signature rubber toe bumper? Well, toss a few of those together wave the magic messenger bag wand and KAPOW you have the KEEN Oswego messenger bag. Made of 100% Recycled aluminum, interior liner, and recycled rubber bottom.

She Says: This bag is well balanced and very functional. I like the Vulcanized recycled rubber bottom which protects the bag from damage. This bag is perfect for an everyday purse, but it is big enough to hold extras for when you're traveling or expect to be away from home all day. Its size is also good for holding magazines without crumpling them, and tall enough to hold a large water bottle inside as well. That being said the only complaint I've heard so far on this bag is that is could be just a little bit bigger - once you have the outside pockets full the inside space is limited somewhat, and it would be nice if the water bottle pocket was big enough to hold a larger sized bottle. Overall though this is a great bag in both functionality and style. Toss in your laptop, and the rest of your personal items and you are ready for just about anything. This ranks up there with my must have gifts of the season.

Earth Friendly Tid Bit: Keen’s Hybrid Transport line contains 40 percent recycled materials with a goal of reaching 100%. The company also packages shoes in boxes made from biodegradable materials, natural water-based latex glue and soy-based inks.

Find a current KEEN Messenger Bag for Sale on Amazon

Keen Alameda 15 Inch Messenger Bag with Laptop Sleeve,Black Olive/Shitake,one size Sale Price: $100.00   Eligible for free shipping!

Keen Alameda 15" Laptop Messenger (Limited Time Offer) - Orion Blue/ Inca Gold List Price: $100.00 Sale Price: $66.11 You save: $33.89 (34%)   Eligible for free shipping!

KEEN Oswego Bag: KEEN Messenger Bag Eco-Friendly Pick is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

Did you know In 2008, the combined fuel efficiency for passenger cars and light trucks in the US was approximately 24 MPG, while it is already 44 MPG in Europe and 47 in Japan, almost double that of the US! (Source: pewclimate.org)

When I read that statistic I almost dropped my shorts and did a hula dance out of frustration, I and my neighbors are glad I did not. It boggles the mind that we in the US can be so far behind EVERYONE in the rest of the world in fuel efficiency.

Granted the awareness in the US for clean energy and fuel efficient vehicles is growing, but we have a long way to go.

One company looking to help spread some eco-cool cheer is MPG Stickers, a company that makes the same style white oval badges you may have seen sporting the "GB" moniker, but with fuel economy numbers that represent a car’s fuel efficiency. So if you drive a vehicle that gets better than 30 MPG show off your eco-friendly pride buy slapping one of these fine stickers on your ride. Only $3.99 plus shipping and handling.

MPG Stickers is a non-profit grassroots campaign which aims to accelerate the adoption of fuel efficient vehicles in the U.S. in order to limit the emissions of harmful greenhouse gases in the U.S. and the world. We aim to do it one sticker at a time!

My Fuel Efficiency is Better Than Yours is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies

Green beer step aside here comes Green Root Beer!

Now I know you've heard of green beer, even those without a lick of Irish blood may enjoy a pint or two on St. Patrick's day, but yesterday we had the joyous surprise of finding green root beer.  Not in the literal sense but just another fine example of green business practices in small town America.

We had plans to enjoy a nice sunny day of hiking in Taylor's Falls, MN but before tackling the rocks and crags we decided to charge up on some grub... to our delight we spotted a little old fashioned root beer drive-in. And to top it off what do we see but a bright colorful sign advertising the fact that "the Drive In has gone green."

On top of that they are giving back to the community through local food shelves and mission trips - Now that is my definition of Earth Friendly business - plus darn good eco-friendly old fashioned frosty mug root beer!

Frosty Green Root Beer Anyone? is a post from: Earth Friendly Goodies