Green Blog

The season of Christmas lights is upon us. Streets and homes and entire communities feel festive and joyful. Families are searching for their Christmas decorations. As each year passes the Christmas decorations become more cherished. That is, except for one. Older Christmas lights are being replaced as fast as you can say “Jack Frost”. Out with the old and in with the new is the Christmas lighting exception to the old rule.

At first glance it seems as though Christmas lights and Christmas decorations rarely change. We still use the same wreaths, garlands, mistletoe, stars and angels that out grandparents did. We still hang Christmas lighting from the edges of our roof tops. One of the special things about Christmas is the cherished continuity. It always feels the same. However, in reality Christmas lights have undergone a metamorphosis.

Historically, Christmas decorative lighting was cumbersome. It was heavy and fragile which is always a bad combination. Each individual light was hand screwed into the string of lights. One burnt out light bulbs caused havoc. Each bulb had to be individually tested to find the offending bulb. Each year multiple replacement bulbs were required. In short old fashioned strings of Christmas lights were beautiful and joyous but often a big fat hassle.

Recent lighting technology has made advances in all of the ways we use lighting in our homes. Innovations in Christmas lighting are no exception. These days energy efficient LED lights make up the vast majority of Christmas lights on the market today. These new fangled Christmas lights are durable, light weight, use very little energy, do not create heat, and best of all are very reasonably priced. These lights are just as beautiful as their predecessors but cheaper and more durable.

Given their light weight and small size, these wonderful new LED lights are perfect for creating single standalone focal pieces such as light stars. The addition of a three dimensional light star to your Christmas lighting scheme will be dramatic. Light stars are reasonably priced and come in many sizes.

The season of glorious Christmas lighting is upon us. Embrace the opportunity to decorate your home for the festive season. Feel free to experiment with Christmas lights schemes.

Go to Christmas Lights to find out more about solar xmas lights.

Mother Earth is now vulnerable as a child. Environmental hazards, primarily pollution and improper waste disposal, and global warming have put the planet we call our home at great peril. Things aren’t getting better either. With each day, the environment is getting deeper and deeper in its rubble. It is just right and humane to do our share in protecting the environment. Reusing and recycling are fast becoming popular as more and more people are becoming aware of their importance. Everything starts at home in doing one’s share. Let us then consider an eco-friendly home, more popularly coined as “green home”.

A good way to start off is to look for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or any other appropriate environmentally safe mark on furniture you intend to buy. Buying an item with this mark means that the materials used to make this product have either been recycled or “upcycled”. Upcycled refers to products made from materials that would otherwise have been discarded during the manufacturing process. Ideas here include lampshades made from recycled paper, chairs made from left-over cork or wood, containers made from rubber that were used during the manufacturing of shoes.

But we know, that is easier said than done. After all, the difference between shelves made from the finest mahogany or oak and their “Green” counterparts made from recycled plywood is rather immense. So what do you do?

Wise and proactive thinking, that’s how. Products that are made of used materials means saving a couple more trees from dying. Buying eco-friendly products increase their potential and popularity. Subsequently, the demand for manufacturers to create more of these goods increase. You may only be one person, but you count. If you share this idea with your family members and friends, and they in turn pass the news to their own social circles, the demand will further increase and sooner hopefully, no more trees will be cut down to produce woods, lumber and paper. Furthermore, no more synthetic materials will be added to the humongous non-biodegradable pile hazardously stored in our planet.

Right, moving on to the next obstacle: Even though you would like to do your bit to save the environment, there are just some things you want to buy new. However some of the new products branded with the FSC mark or any other environmentally friendly mark just won’t go with your mahogany shelves. What’s the solution?

There really is no need to panic because there are decorating items that can help you balance out and improve your home’s look even with some out-of-place goodies placed in the corners. One of the best is transitional rugs. Transition is the definitive word - these rugs can change, alter, modify, shift or convert the way your home looks. They have elements of some or entirely all of what your decors have. In other words, you can mix and match items with a transitional rug to boost the look and you can easily blend transitional rugs with other things in your home by their designs, colors, patterns, and shapes.

You can do more for the environment by purchasing transitional rugs made of wool. Getting wool from a sheep doesn’t mean slaughtering the poor animal, so if you’re an animal-lover, you have no reason to ban wool altogether. Think of it as the sheep getting a buzz cut and hair will grow back in no time and fortunately, the environment is not put at risk. Picking out the right rugs will blend all the pieces together, old and new, for a great interior look.

Keep up with current Eco-Friendly Interior Decorating styles and enhance your home with natural flokati rugs online.

categories: interior design,home decor,eco friendly