With our last give away just about done and all the Simply Green items shipped to all the lucky winners, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who stopped by, gave fun comments, and won great prizes. 

SimplyGreen.com is temporarily closing down for a few months, but we’ll be back later this year with even more posts, more prizes, and more chances to win.    We’ll send you a note to let you know when we re-launch.

I’ve had tons of fun interacting with all of you and I hope you did, too.   Remember, you can find lots of eco-friendly items under the Simply Green designation at JCPenney stores nationwide and online at JCP.com.    Feel free to leave comments here on this final posts suggesting what products you’d love to see.  I’ll collect them and share them with my colleagues at JCPenney.

-Danny Seo

Hands down, one of the biggest complaints I hear from people about “going green” is that it simply costs too much.   This is one of the reasons why I decided to partner with JCPenney because we’re able to create high-quality, stylish products under our Simply Green designation that do not break the bank.   Everything from green bath towels for just $6.99 to everyday recycled glass tumblers ($19.99 for a set of four), all of my friends are pleasantly surprised to find very green (eco-friendly) goods that don’t cost a lot of green (cash).   And here’s another example: this set of THREE (yes, three) Cooks bamboo cutting boards for just $19.99.  

In a previous post, I talked about bamboo being a great renewable resource because it’s a fast growing grass that can be made into a whole bunch of products, including the softest sheets you’ll ever sleep on.   It can also be extremely durable and tough, like this tough-as-nails cutting board set which can easily become your everyday choice for dicing and chopping right in the kitchen.   The larger cutting board is perfect for serious chopping; the medium one is great for vegetable prep and the small once could be used as a serving platter on the dining room table.  However you use them, you’ll appreciate the fact their eco-friendly and durable.  In my book, that’s a win-win combination.

You know how this works: leave a comment why you need a set of Cooks Bamboo Cutting Boards and I’ll pick a random commenter to win them all.   

Good luck!

-Danny Seo

CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.  Congrats to Amanda for winning.  She says:  “These would make great cheese serving platters.”

We used a random number generator to choose the winner.

Time to pull out all those extra champagne and wine corks from the holiday festivities. If you only have a few corks, shave off slivers and glue them to the bottom of an uneven chair or table legs. It’ll keep them steady and — since cork is soft and springy — it will protect the floors, too. If you have a bunch of corks, combine them together inside of a large pipe clamp (available from the hardware store plumbing department). Screw the clamp tight around the corks and you’ve made an instant trivet! Use it in the kitchen to keep surfaces protected from hot pots.

-Danny Seo

PS-Got another idea on recycling wine corks? Share it here and I just might send you a JCPenney Simply Green tote bag as my way of saying thanks!

No need to be too picky when donating clothes to charity. Only about 10 percent of donated clothes ever end up for resale in thrift shops; the rest are sold to textile recyclers. Ripped jeans, way-too-faded t-shirts and other worn-out clothes are recycled into cleaning cloths and other industrial items by these recyclers. They pay charitable organizations like Goodwill and the Salvation Army a fee for the old clothes, which adds up to a significant amount of money for their charitable works. So clear your closets clean and give away.

-Danny Seo

PS- Ever score an amazing find at Goodwill?  Share it here and I just might send you a JCPenney Simply Green tote bag as my way of saying thanks!

If you’re like me, then you know there are some real energy hogs in our home: the heating/cooling system, the refrigerator, the washer/dryer and—without a doubt—the oven.    Heating up a whole oven to just re-heat last night’s mac and cheese is a real waste of energy.   The simple solution is to think compact and small: Like this Cooks Convection & Rotisserie Toaster Oven.   

Baking, roasting and re-heating food in a countertop convection oven is a great eco no-compromise solution: it uses significantly less energy than a standard oven and you still get professional, even results in your cooking.    Plus, you can chow down on your melty, gooey, mac and cheese in no time flat because this convection oven cooks food up to 30% faster.  A built-in fan actually blows air around inside the unit. This ensures more even cooking temperatures and results in excellent cooking quality.

Cooking with a countertop convection oven saves energy and gives you better results.   And to help one of you bake up a batch of homemade cookies, a creamy casserole or buttery biscuits, I’m giving a colorful Cooks Convection and Rotisseries Toaster Oven away to a lucky reader.    To Win: Just leave a comment telling me: what’s the first thing you’d cook in your new convection oven?    I’ll pick one delicious idea to win.   Good luck!

-Danny Seo

PS-Check out the bright colors the oven comes in!   So cool.

UPDATE: Congrats to Kristin on winning the oven.   We used a random number generator to choose the winner.   Kristin’s comment was:  Traditional chocolate chip cookies. There’s nothing like that wonderful smell!

Time to water the plants? As your morning shower heats up, fill a watering can with the cold water before it goes down the drain. Let the water come to room temperature and give your thirsty plants a soaking (plants prefer tepid water to bone-chilling cold H2O). What’s that, you don’t have a houseplant? Then go pick one up, because it can help purify the air in your home by filtering out toxins. Foolproof, hard-to-kill varieties include the spider plant and succulents.

PS- Which houseplant do you think is the easiest to care for? Share it here and I just might send you a JCPenney Simply Green tote bag as my way of saying thanks!

The other day, my Blackberry battery was dying more quickly than usual and it wasn’t holding a charge when I plugged the adapter into it.   That’s when I realized the rechargeable battery needed to be replaced.  My uneventful day became an ordeal to find a new battery, recycle the old battery and then power up the whole  Blackberry again.  That’s when I thought how great it would be to have a solar powered phone that never needed a battery to begin with. 

Well, that imaginative product idea may not exist, but the next best thing does: the Citizen Eco Drive watch.    Citizen, which is the world’s largest watchmaker, created ecologically friendly timekeeping with their Eco-Drive collection, which runs continuously on any kind of light (sunlight or artificial) for a lifetime of use.   Fueled by light, it never needs a battery, which means it has no battery that needs replacing.    And the technology is available in a wide variety of styles for both men and women, meaning you can get a classic, timeless watch embedded with this futuristic technology.

Now, you know what comes next: one lucky reader will get a chance to own a Citizen Eco-Drive watch and I’ve chosen one of my favorites from jcp.com.    It’s a classic men’s style and I think can be worn by a man or a woman.    To win, leave a comment giving one easy tip that helps the environment and is quick to do.    For example, I find stuffing my shoes with newspaper helps detox them really well!    Good luck! 

-Danny Seo

Contest is now closed!  Congrats to JULI for winning.   We used a random number generator to choose the winner. Juli’s eco-tip is:

I pack flatware and a cloth napkin with my lunch. No need for plastic utensils or paper towels.

On laundry day it pays to be lazy. Doing several loads of laundry and then drying them batch after batch saves energy. The residual heat from the first batch will help dry the second one faster. Also, pull heavier items out of the dryer while they’re still damp to air-dry, like towels, jeans and sweaters. Just hang them over chairs or a banister. Your favorite clothes won’t shrink and you’ll save electricity, too.

PS- Do you think line drying your clothes is eco-savvy or an eyesore?  Share it here and I just might send you a JCPenney Simply Green tote bag as my way of saying thanks!

Smelly garbage disposal? Keep it clean by tossing lemon wedges (use ‘em after you’ve squeezed out the juice for salad dressing or homemade lemonade) and a cup of ice down the drain and flipping on the switch. As it whirls away, the ice will sharpen the blades and the lemons will disinfect. How easy is that?

-Danny Seo

PS- C’mon, I know you have more secret tips on keeping things clean and green. Share it here and I just might send you a JCPenney Simply Green tote bag as my way of saying thanks!

Shag is back, baby.  And I do believe it is here to stay.

One of the perks of working with JCPenney as their Green Living Partner is that I get a sneak peek at all the new merchandise coming out before it hits stores.   I also style and produce our Simply Green look books, which go to magazine editors to preview so they can showcase the products in their magazines.

This last season, I decided to shoot the look book at my new house in Pennsylvania, which I had restored for the past year and thought would be the perfect backdrop for the products.   The process to produce a lookbook is pretty simple: the design teams at JCPenney send me boxes of product, we use it to style rooms, photograph it, and I send it back.   Unfortunately, mistakes happen and one of these Simply Green Shag Rectangular Rugs by Studio, didn’t make it back.    But fortunately for me, the good folks in our Home Office at JCPenney said it was fine to keep it.

And keep it I did and I love it.   

• First, the eco-attributes: each 5×8 rug keeps 200 plastic bottles out of landfills.    Old plastic water bottles are collected from recycling, shredded and respun into nylon fiber and made into these rugs.      They’re durable, cozy, soft and easy to keep clean.

• The color palette is neutral enough to work in any décor: chocolate, cream mist, mocha, red spice, stone and tarragon.   (Chocolate is what I have and I am literally resting my bare feet on it as I type this).

I think it’s important to buy recycled products made out of plastic bottles as much as possible.  Even though many of us are cutting back on our bottled water use, billions of bottles are still manufactured and just a small percentage is actually recycled.   Keeping those bottles out of landfills by recycling them into beautiful rugs like these is one way we can make a difference.   Correction: a cozy difference.

Fortunately for one lucky reader, you don’t have to style a lookbook for JCPenney in the hopes of scoring one: just leave a comment saying which room you’d put this rug in and why it would look eco-fabulous!      I’ll pick one lucky reader to win a 5X8 rug in the color of their choice. 

CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.  CONGRATS TO “TAMARA” FOR WINNING.  We used a random number generator to choose the winner. 

Good luck!

-Danny Seo