2021 Sustainable Holidays Box

Microwave and dishwasher safe.

Rebecca is not your average potter.

She is a mold-breaker driven by intentional choices, client partnerships, and a love of design that functions.

In addition to offering a full line of functional ceramics, she loves to collaborate with other businesses to create statement pottery that enhances their brand.

Good design and function motivate her to keep creating new pottery intended for everyday use. Each choice made during the design process is entirely intentional. Careful thought goes into every detail, like the angle and the curve, the shape of the lip, the way the handle fits your hand, the clay and glaze used. No detail is left to chance because it is essential to her that you love your handmade pottery for years to come, and those little nuances make a big difference.

Her background is varied. This article in Voyage Houston Magazine is an excellent summary of her journey.

Rebecca has been a creator since the age of two. A decade ago, she put her hands into clay for the first time and never looked back.

Gravesco is about handmade pottery and slow living in a hectic world. It’s about a series of intentional choices that begin with a block of wet earth and end up in your hand morning after morning as part of your ritual for starting the day. Pottery is about more than design and craftsmanship. It is about the connection from our hands to yours. We intend to bring functional work to the table that breaks from traditional design and elevates any room of one’s home. We thrive on collaboration that matches the evolving space-making world, giving Gravesco an edge of a pottery brand and a lifestyle.

February 1, 2018, they moved from their little lake cottage in Angola, Indiana, to Indianapolis, Indiana. The new Gravesco Pottery studio is now in the heart of Indianapolis. It has been beyond exciting for them to grow their studio space and live in a bustling hub of creative city life.

When they initially opened the studio in Indianapolis, Mackenzie joined as a part-time studio assistant. Now, they are a team of twelve sending handmade pottery all across the world. Featured in many publications and reviews, including the cover of Edible Indy magazine, on WISH-TV 8, Indianapolis Monthly, Pattern Magazine, Indy Star, Indy Style, and an episode of Good Bones featured one of their mugs. They have many partnerships that continue to grow and evolve. You can find their work in over 500 shops across the United States and Canada.

Great for your kitchen or gifting. Machine wash, tumble dry.  

Lisa is the owner and designer at ellembee! She started her company back in 2008 after being laid off as a bedding designer in Southern California. After losing her job, she moved back to her hometown of Detroit and started ellembee – who knew that getting laid off would be the best thing to ever happen to her!

She’s been in business for 12 years and has a small team of amazing hustlers helping make ellembee the best it can be.

You can find their funny gift products on their website at www.ellembeegift.com and in over 1,600 boutiques throughout the US and Canada.

They have a 2,000 square foot warehouse in Wixom, MI, where they print every towel and zipper pouch by hand, using eco-friendly, water-based ink.

This paper is good to use with:
pen
colored pencil
ink
highlighter
marker
acrylic paints
pencil
computer printer
stamps
glue
watercolor paint

Making paper is a meditative process for the founder and creator, Rocky Lawton. He finds there’s something very relaxing to the straightforward, repetitive process. The result of having a crisp, clean sheet of paper brings to mind for him endless possibilities. Anything that may have been upsetting or stressful before melts away after he opens up a whole world of opportunities with that one simple sheet of paper.
Making paper takes much more time and requires more equipment than just opening a package of commercial documents. You can even buy commercial recycled papers now if you’re worried about the environment. But what you can’t get from all those brightly colored, smooth, textured, thin, thick, and even eco-friendly papers is the human element.
Rocky finds great joy in connecting to a vast web of strangers and friends through his paper. For him, making paper is a time-consuming, repetitive, very relaxing process. However, he finds great satisfaction in taking unwanted office paper, school notes, and household waste papers that have served their purpose and are at the end of their life, saving them from the trash. He envisions his mission as giving those papers a rebirth, bringing them back at the start of a new journey. They still contain the knowledge from their past life as a grocery list or term paper, but it’s all chopped up and no longer readable. So now they are given a second life as a new sheet of paper for someone to write a love note on, write the next great novel on, send a heartfelt card, or draw a stunning picture. The possibilities indeed are endless.
While there are many hand paper-makers worldwide, White Dragon Paper is unique in its goal of providing high-quality handmade papers made from 100% recycled materials in both individual and wholesale volumes.

Rocky Lawton is a single owner/operator who makes handmade paper from recycled and waste materials.

It all started one summer when Rocky Lawton got bored and found a “How to” article about making paper. Soon enough, the fresh sheets began taking over his shelves. He hated to see them recycled just when they had been given a rebirth into new sheets of paper, and he couldn’t use them quickly enough by myself. So he started his Etsy shop thinking maybe someone, somewhere, would have a use for them.

It’s been a few years, and a LOT has changed, but he still loves making paper the same as when it was a hobby in his basement.

White Dragon Paper has become a significant source for high-quality handmade papers for US and international artists, writers, Do It Yourselfers, and crafters. The company caters to both the small-batch crafter or artist and to the large-scale printer or designer that needs a steady wholesale supplier to continue their work. White Dragon Paper prides itself on using recycled, eco-friendly fiber and reducing the amount of paper waste that goes into landfills each year.

White Dragon Paper gives back to the community by volunteering, donating time, supplies, or money as able/needed, and supporting other small businesses and local artists.

Keep dry.

Essential oils may be applied to the raw wood on the back of the ornament to create a diffuser (discoloration may occur).

Green Tree’s Founder, Lance Nybye Jr., started pondering the idea of creating puzzles when his wife and business partner, Autumn, asked him to do puzzles for their son with autism to help with visual reception and fine motor skills. Lance was inspired to design puzzles after crafting a giant puzzle for their son’s school art auction. Since Lance’s father started Green Tree’s parent company over 30 years ago using the same jigsaw machine used to create puzzles, it’s only fitting that Green Tree supplies puzzles today.

Green Tree Jewelry is a family-owned business in San Diego, CA, that proudly designs and crafts lightweight, eco-friendly wood and bamboo jewelry and wooden jigsaw puzzles, wood home décor, and holiday items (also offered in 100% recycled paper) in the United States.

Their jewelry findings are hypoallergenic stainless steel, which is excellent for sensitive ears. In addition, you can find eco-friendly components of their products in their reforestation efforts with all wood used to the water-based dye processes (with over 30 different colors available). They also offer custom designs. With their full-color process, they can print high-resolution images on one side of the wood, leaving the backside natural to double as an essential oil diffuser!

Empty ingredients into stovetop pot, cover with water and simmer* on medium low up to three days to fill your home with the scents of the season. Replenish water as needed.

To enhance, add a sprig or two from your Christmas Tree, fresh lemon peels or a few drops of lemon essential oil.

*Check often to see if water has cooked out, simply add more water as needed. Never leave your stove on when not attended to. Be sure to turn it off before you leave the house and before you go to bed.

Jaime Snell is the founder and owner of ECO CRATES of America.

She has a great passion for clean ingredients and safe products. It gives her great joy to share this passion with her subscribers.

From the founder:

I had so much fun putting these simmer spice jars together for you. Testing might have been the best part. My house has smelled amazing for weeks now, as I played with various spices and oils to find the perfect blend for your home. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

ECO CRATES of America is a luxury subscription box brand, bringing safe American-made products to eco-conscious consumers. We find joy in selecting high-quality products from sustainable brands across the USA. Our stringent ingredient selection process assures safe products for you and your home in every box.

The ribbon was used as ornamental on your Simmering Spice Jars. While this was not an official product in your box this month, her amazing ribbons were worth noting.

To enhance, add a sprig or two from your Christmas Tree, fresh lemon peels or a few drops of lemon essential oil.

*Check often to see if water has cooked out, simply add more water as needed. Never leave your stove on when not attended to. Be sure to turn it off before you leave the house and before you go to bed.

Wrapping paper and shopping bags alone account for about 4 million pounds of trash annually.

Over the holidays, about 227,000 miles worth of wrapping paper get thrown away—enough to circle the world 9 times!

Unacceptable. Most wrapping paper cannot be recycled because it’s dyed, laminated, or contains non-paper additives.

Our gift wrap is printed on local newspaper presses. We get a kick out of finding a new purpose for these old presses.

A piece of newsprint can be recycled up to 7 times! Its printing requires less energy and uses gentler, soy-based inks.

Our paper may be recycled, but our patterns are always fresh! Your gifts will look great, and not at the expense of the environment.

These cards are lovely to say thank you, write a kind note, frame as a keepsake or gift for another to enjoy the beauty.

Ethically sourced. Made in America. Handmade. Letterpress printed in-house. Giving back to fight human trafficking.

The founders are a husband + wife team who love textures, letter pressing, sustainability, coffee, and people. They figured they could make a difference while making cards because they wanted the world to be a better place for their girls. Upcycled cotton rags intended for the dump from the garment industry are used to make their products. Sustainable Environment and Sustainable Living Condition for All is what they stand for.

When their company opened, they began to create products for shops around the US. They learned from fellow peers that to make the margins viable, they needed to source products overseas. However, made in the US meant it would be 4 to 5 times more expensive. The economics led them on a rabbit trail, and they couldn’t unknow what they had learned. Products overseas were inexpensive and easy to come by. But why? This question led them back to tracing their footprint, where they found that they had taken part in modern-day slavery through the supply chain in their products.
Unsure about what our future held, we radically shifted our company to raise awareness of slavery through our products. But, again, making the mission come first and the products be a means to an end, an end to slavery.