DIY Eco-Gifts For The Zen Mediator On Your Holiday List

The holidays are busy. Busyness is like an addiction. To shed the stresses of a busy life, it’s good to strike a balance. Many of my friends practice meditation to break the busyness cycle.

The holiday festivities are at their peak. Is there someone on your list whose meditation practice brings them comfort and joy? Slow down the busyness of the season with these 5 spirited and grounded DIY gifts.

5 DIY Gifts for the Zen Mediator

Harmony - Make Bamboo Wind Chimes.

Tranquility - Frame soothing images in Repurposed Windows Frames.

Comfort - Sewing a Meditation Pillow not only gives root to restorative positions, store it can be a meditative act in itself.

Peace - Make Shell Candles to give your practice gentle light.

Stillness - Make a Buddha Snow Globe. Inscribe this Buddhist phrase:

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace."

Photo: via Flickr

DIY Eco-Gift For The Traveler On Your Holiday List

It is a nightmarish holiday season for European travelers. A high-octane storm blanketed areas of Europe during the peak of the holiday shopping and travel season. Huffington Post reports that Britain, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark have shut down runways and posted cancellations or delays on many flights.

Scenarios like this can be so stressful for travelers. Stranded for hours and sometimes days, makes packing for the unknown challenging. What do travelers need? Matt Gross, author of the The New York Times blog, The Frugal Traveler believes travelers need to lighten up - "Waste is the antithesis of frugality, and unnecessary belongings can make travel more difficult than it already is."

A gift for a traveler should be: 1. Something that takes up very little space. 2. Something that would be a breeze to get through the scrutiny of airport security. 3. Something easy to carry.

When I asked a master adventure traveler, and the author of Black Smoke, Margaret De Wys what she always takes with her when she travels, her response was, "A journal to write in."

Giving a handmade journal is a thoughtful personalized gift that can be used for the culmination of an eco-globetrotting trip to save the world, or a place to store the utterances and frustrations of a day spent in an airport during a snowstorm.

DIY Travel Journal

Here is a photo journal tutorial from Photojojo (a fabulous resource). It can be made using sugarcane fiber, reclaimed or recycled paper, with inner pockets for storing maps, scraps of fabrics, coins and mementos. I like that the spine opens flat for drawing and writing across the pages.

Here are 10 Reasons To Write In a Journal and for 5 more DIY Journals CLICK HERE.

Photo: Photojojo

DIY Eco-Gifts For The Skier/Snowboarder On your Holiday List

Around here, "'Tis the season" also means, it's time to hit the slopes. We just love winter sports and we all ski and snowboard. What we don't love is the pricey equipment, and an industry that generally gets a thumbs down for eco-friendliness.

Ski, snowboard and skateboarding paraphernalia tends to be highly technical, but damaged skis, snowboards and skateboards make great materials for DIY projects.

When my son was a teenager, skateboards ruled. We created this skateboard bench from a skateboard that he didn't want to toss. The board had seen a fine street life, but it was ready for retirement. With a few screws and four hairpin legs, we upcycled the skateboard into a bench. This is a picture of the underside of the bench (Jimi Hendrix always rules).

Green Mountain Ski Furniture recycles old skis and snowboards into ski furniture in the same manner we did with the skateboard. They provide DIY kits to make chairs, benches, tables, and racks from your old discarded skis or snowboards.

Note about the main image: That is me skiing at Whistler. I have no idea how I made it down that mountain. I went around the turn and I was petrified - it was so steep. Photo: Recycled Skis

First Snow Graffiti

This installation, check by Thomas Voorn via Design Milk portrays all that I love about winter (which is almost everything except shoveling).

This image danced across my computer screen as the flakes began to fall.

Dust of Snow ~ Robert Frost

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued

Solutions For Living With Wood

At the beginning of the heating season, I'm all gung-ho about heating with wood. Hauling wood is exhilarating exercise, and the oh-so-toasty radiance of a wood fire is enchanting. After the initial infatuation wears off, I start grumbling about it…mostly, about the mess.

2 Problems, 2 Solutions:

Problem: There are splintery pieces of wood that gather around the stove which makes walking barefoot treacherous (and messy).

Solution: Remodelista presented a beautiful wall-mounted log holder via Skona Hem. Not only does this wood holder look handsome, it frees up floor space. While it may be an  inspirational solution, I can't read a word of Swedish, and there are no particulars of where to purchase such an item. Has anyone found an off-the-floor solution for the in-house wood stash?

Problem: This morning I piled up a few logs into my arms, stoked the fire, then ran out to have breakfast with friends. Someone commented that my jacket made me look like a porcupine. I looked down and there were spikes of wood embedded into the fleece. Geeze.

Solution: While writing Stalking The Wood Pile, I came across this DIY wood tote on the Whipup site. It’s stylish, functional and easy to make. The creator of the project was in the process of building a house and says, “I made this firewood tote to help move all the logs to the house site. This firewood tote sews up super fast, and will make carrying wood to your fireplace, or building a house just a bit easier.” Brilliant!

Download the DIY pdf instructions and CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Photo Credits: Rais, Remodelista, Whipup