Say it with me, “Oh, la la.” This is the Buenos Aires studio and office of Lula Aldunate, founder of Lulaland. Last week’s vision of salt soaked pine still has me (literally) pining for a studio; somewhere to create, imagine, escape, and hang a manifesto. Yes, a manifesto – like the gorgeous and glamorous gold-framed wonder above (if I ever take those Spanish classes, I promise to translate this magical string of words for you). Mr. Webster defines a manifesto as, “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.” It seems fitting that any art studio should boast a manifesto lingering vertically on a wall.

The walls of this warehouse can barely contain the color and character brimming inside. The personality of this space draws from the creativity of its designer and the charisma of vintage pieces.

This charming interior bursting of found objects and antiques was discovered among the treasures at Harmoni og Kontrast (another lovely find by Laila Kaldestad). For more blissful images, click through the original article (nestled in the archives of Design*Sponge).

You can bring home a little piece of Lula Aldunate with one of her lovely pillows – embellished with a handmade appliqué and infused with a touch of manifesto.

Since I work from home, I have about a million and one little pieces of paper tacked to my bulletin board: inspirational quotes, photos of friends, birthday cards, ticket stubs, and reminders about my New Year’s resolutions. When I saw this patterned Cedar Record Frame Magnet Board ($7.50) on Etsy, I knew it would breathe new life into my office space.

In fact, I’d actually want to leave a little empty space for a change, and show off the vibrant purple pattern. This magnetic board also comes with five color-coordinated magnets in a handy little tin. (Bonus: you don’t have to poke holes in favorite snapshots or cards and it works with magnetic poetry!)

When I was finished writing this, I noticed that this playful piece of recycled art had sold out (bummer!) But I decided to blog about it anyway, because it seems like the kind of DIY project that even I could tackle in an afternoon. A scrap of fabric, galvanized metal, an old frame, plus a few magnets and an old tin. Who knows? Maybe Polarity (the Etsy seller) will make a few more! She also makes jewelry out of recycled auto parts.

You’ve dug a compost pit, replaced all your light bulbs with the energy-efficient kind, and given up bottled water for good. What about your home office? These five cool office supplies are guaranteed to help keep you productive and planet-friendly all at once.

Sticky Notes – Good things come in small packages, like this pack of 100 percent recycled sticky-notepads. If you use notes all over the place like I do (which is to say, every exposed surface in my home office), then it’s great to be able to feed your craving for stickies without wandering far afield of your desire to be good to the planet.

Handmade Journals – Lots of us use journals to track ideas, plan projects, and collect notes throughout the work day. These beautiful handmade journals are made from 100 percent recycled paper and feature plantable paper covers pre-seeded with poppies, snap dragons, bird’s eye, etc. So when you’ve filled the notebook, just rip the cover off and drop it in your garden or a pot of soil. The annuals and perennials will give you something to look at when you’re on your next boring conference call.

Biodegradable Ballpoint Pens – I’m crazy about these! I have a metric ton of plastic-barreled pens all over my office that seem to materialize from nowhere and never write well. I need to have pens around but I’m not crazy about bringing yet more plastic junk into my house. Paper Mate comes to the rescue with a biodegradable pen that will disintegrate in your backyard compost bin when it outlives its usefulness. Brilliant!

Looseleaf Binders – Whether you use them for work, school, home, or office organization, looseleaf three-ring binders are super handy to have around. The downside is all the cardboard and vinyl components used to assemble them. Earth Binder makes standard and custom looseleaf binders made almost completely from post-consumer material. You can buy ready-made binders direct from the company, or ask them to help you design a custom project at no charge.

Colored Folders – You can’t manage an effective workspace without an efficient filing system. These colored hanging folders from Earthwise are made from 50 percent post-consumer materials and are perfect for getting a mountain of paperwork under control quickly.

Image: Risager

Working from home definitely has its perks. Aside from the lack of soul-destroying cubicles and toxic office politics, it’s also environmentally healthy because it means no commute, no prepackaged snacks from a vending machine or a convenience store, and no giant conference room that sucks up energy and sits unused half the time.

Whether you’re a telecommuter, a freelancer, or a work-at-home entrepreneur, we’ve assembled a list of five products that will help you green your home office. Stylishly, of course.

1. Modella Bamboo Desk No office is complete without a desk and this one is made of sturdy, sustainable bamboo. Its rich, warm finish comes from a non-toxic kiln process. With its ample shelves and surface area for computers, printers, and other essentials, we can’t help but give it a seal of approval.
2. Knú Bookcase
   These bookcases are made from FSC-certified wood when possible and come in six different finishes. We love the clean, simple lines, and the extra deep shelves.
3. MOBOS Modular Storage Bins As Jennae at Green Your Décor points out, these cute, colorful storage units are available in a rainbow of colors and shapes. Plus, they’re made of recycled metal with non-toxic coatings.
4. Bamboo Desk Memo Station With Ballpoint Pen This bamboo memo station features a groove for the included pen. And for each desk memo station purchased, the company will make a donation to the Arbor Day Foundation, which encourages people to plant trees and protect the rainforests.
5. Pulp Bulletin Board We have a serious crush on this clever little bulletin board. It’s made of recycled magazine pages, so you can attach reminders by sticking them between the tightly packed pages or using thumb tacks. The varied colors of the pages create a cool accent, too.

Image: Knú

Would you drink the condensed breath of your coworkers?

The EcoloBlue 28 Atmospheric Water Generator, which I first saw at Ave Natura, is a marvel of green ingenuity. Using nothing but a tiny current of electricity, it’s an office cooler that fills itself up over time, no water supply required.

That’s because the EcoloBlue fills up by wringing moisture from the surrounding air. The device filters the water, renders it bacteriologically safe (according to the water quality lab reports on EcoloBlue’s website) and gurgles the results into your waiting cup.

So while it’s true that you’d be drinking the expelled moisture of Tom in Accounting’s post-lunch burp, it’s really not so bad. (Depending upon how you feel about Tom.)

Consider:

Water from the EcoloBlue is just like what comes out of your tap, only a lot quicker. It’s nature with a small fire lit under her, hurrying along the natural hydrological cycle.

It’s amazingly cost-effective – no pipes or water deliveries required, and a claim-back rate of around 5 gallons of water for every dollar of electricity spent.

It keeps people away from bottled water – and anything that fights against the growing threat of global water shortages deserves our attention.

It’s upcycling the very air around us – a dazzling technical feat!

The biggest hurdle that EcoloBlue has to clear isn’t a technical issue but a cultural one. It’s how we react to a product that shortens the water-recycling loop so we’re intensely aware that the water in our cup left another human being a very short time ago.

The air expelled from our lungs is at 100% relative humidity (think of how quickly your car windows fog up and run with condensation on a cold day). Sweat evaporates off our skin – where does that go? In this instance, into someone else’s next sip. Condensing our office air into drinking water is a kind of refreshing honesty about the way the world works already. We just may not want it poured down our throats.

Images: Clearly Ambiguous and Amazon

In an ideal world, I’d live a paperless life. But so far, that’s not happening. In fact, there are days when my desk looks like it’s going to collapse under the weight of all the books, magazines, and sheets of paper that have somehow landed on it.

Pure chaos which, in all honesty, does not help get the work done. In fact, I’m starting to believe that clutter can serious inhibit creativity. So I relocated all the books, papers, and magazines to the dining room table. But that’s not really an ideal solution. I need something to help organize all the loose paper that’s lying around. I need something to help straighten things out.

Enter The Naked Binder, the greenest, most eco-friendly binder around. Made from consumer post-waste, it’s free of any plastic, vinyl or toxic chemicals and is totally recyclable. No decorations. No color. Not ugly, just unclad. They are simply bare board naked binders, strong, attractive, and built to last – an unusual feature in our throw-away society.

The Naked Binder, by the way, is part of the “1% for the Planet” organization and donates 1% of their net sales to organizations working to preserve the environment.

For those of us who haven’t succumbed to the Palm Pilot or Blackberry, it’s time to shop calendars and datebooks for 2009. I found some cool green options for your kitchen, home office or desk at work that contain images and information to raise eco awarness. Yes, you have a date with ecology. Take a look:

From Calendar Club, helpful reminders every month that our planet needs saving. The 101 Little Ways to Save the Planet is a pocket wall design, $21; The Living Green is a daily desk calendar, $14; the Deluxe Ecological calendar for the wall contains panels that put us in touch with the cycles of nature and the seasons, $15.

Soy-based inks on cotton paper are used to produce 12 gorgeous sheets of soft, seasonal illustrations in this delicate Letterpress Calendar (below) from See Jane Work, $35.

We’ve hooted plenty at EcoSalon about the artistry of the Night Owl Papergoods products, and it extends to the sustainably harvested wooden calendar (below), featuing the medallions and other illustrations of the company’s talented artists, $31.50 at Delight.

Downloaded onto your desktop, the wallpaper used as a monthly calendar enlightens little computer users about everything from Human Rights Day to what polar bears like to eat. You can find it at Eco Kids. (Shown at top.)

My name is Luanne and I’m a webaholic. Okay, now you say “Hi, Luanne” cause you should probably be in a meeting, too.

If you’re like me, you’d wear a cyber patch if there was one on the market. For instance, right now the old cat is howling cause she’s starving and craving her morning salmon, but I’m busy writing this blog so she’ll just have to wait.

While I’m not prone to immoderate gaming (why bother when you can amuse yourself with Craigslist ads), I do exhibit several of the symptoms experts identify as an increasing computer dependency.

When I return home from a long day, I rush to greet my best friend and check new messages, even before greeting my husband. “Hello, lover,” I say to P.C. “I’ve missed you sooo much.” One time, when my best friend got a nasty virus, I  just about lost it, feeling completely detached from the outside world. I regarded the technician who repaired it as a superhero, as valuable as an organ transplant surgeon. I kept telling him he saved my life.

Also, because of my dependency, I have cast aside invaluable resources of the past, such as the dictionary, maps, paper invitations and thank-you notes, the Yellow Pages, city newspapers, daily calls to friends and photo labs. Enter Google, Mapquest, Adobe, Huffington Post, Facebook and Evite. Lazy, hurried people unite!

While there are scant Betty Ford-style clinics for people like me, it’s clear there’s a burgeoning need. In fact, Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack, Ph.D. of Harvard University, says we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg in society’s dependency on computers for information, fun and entertainment. Anyone who’s visited a computer cafe at night knows she’s right. Guests sit alone, sipping wine or coffee, substituting their notebooks for human dates.

Orzack (above) founded the Computer Addiction Service at Harvard’s McClean Hospital to treat what she calls Internet Addictive Disorder or Cyberaddiction, which she likens to pathological gambling or compulsive shopping. “Like those other addictions, it affects other people – family, friends, and co-workers,” she points out.

The trend, she says, affects all ages starting with computer games for kids (my girls, included) to chats for the vulnerable adult. The darn Mac or PC can even split up a family. She says compulsive use can be a major factor in divorce, especially when couples split because one of them finds someone else on the web. Colleges report excessive computer use is associated wtih academic drop-outs. That’s kind of a catch-22. Who can get through school now without one?

Orzack guesstimates between five and ten percent of Web surfers suffer from a Web dependency. Are you one of them?  Don’t lol. Take a peak at some of the symptoms:

Psychological symptoms

A sense of well being or euphoria while on the computer
Inability to stop the activity
Craving more and more computer time
Neglecting family and friends
Lying to employers and family about activities
Problems with school or job

Physical Symptoms

Carpel tunnel syndrome
Dry eyes
Migraine headaches
Back aches
Eating irregularities
Failure to attend to personal hygiene
Sleep disturbances

Orzack believes that like any addiction, this one can be best treated with Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which provides coping skills to prevent a relapse. Sometimes medication is even necessary. I’m pretty sure that’s the case with my obsessive friend, Diane, who can spend 10 hours hunting down discounted Oilily clothes for her daughter on Ebay. Talk about a gaming problem.

Can Orzack treat addicts on-line? “I’m licensed in Massachusetts, not in cyberspace,” she says. Guess not, unless you live near Harvard.

Still, there are more treatment resources surfacing, such as Internet Addiction Help in Santa Barbara, and  ICA Services (425-861-5504), a 12-step program for computer addiction based on the Alcoholics’ Anonymous approach to recovery.

For me, there’s a bit of irony to all of it. I rely on the computer to connect me to the outside world, yet it is adding to my isolation. I doubt that’s what Bill Gates and his ilk ever had in mind.

Image: Stefan Friedle

Some of the pieces are hauntingly beautiful. Some a bit otherworldly. Either way, the green concept of Britain’s Ghost Furniture is one I feel that more retailers should possess: Help Europe’s sweet vintage furniture come out of hiding.

After 30 years in the ad biz, Di Overton and Harvey Roll moved to the country (Northumberland) and set up shop, using artisans to create specialist paint effects to infuse new life into old relics unearthed from Paris and elsewhere. The company invites collectors to consign their treasures, offering to give them “the Ghost treatment.”

Each piece, such as the lamp, candelabra and tea assortment below, arrives with a tale of its history and Certificate of Authenticity. Ghost will ship its spirited goods to you. The accessories, which are fairly reasonable, are easier to ship to the U.S. than the furniture and right cheaper too, mates.

Have a look at the site and you will be delighted with the eco-chic retro revival. It’s flea market gone fabulous!

Blushing Butterfly Lamp      Green Tea         Candelabra Blanc

Shown at top: the artsy conversation piece “Dinner for One“

We all know we need to exercise. And none of us seem to have the time. Even I, who mostly work at home, still find it hard to fit regular exercise into my routine. But human bodies were clearly not made to be sedentary, so here’s how you can sneak some extra action into your life.

Take the stairs. Skip the elevator and climb a flight or two. Sprint the stairs two at a time if you want to make it aerobic!

Park further away. Cruising into the mall or the grocery store can have the added bonus of a little extra walking.

Do office exercises. If you’ve got a private office or access to a conference room, take a few heart-pumping breaks. Whip out a minute’s worth of jumping jacks, run in place (with your knees high!) or do some squats and lunges. Anything to keep your office-bound body from getting too creaky.

Deliver messages in person. Email is easy, but why not deliver a message face to face – and take a quick stroll around the office while you’re at it?

Hide the remote control. It might seem like the ultimate inconvenience, but having to get up to change the channels or adjust the volume gives your body those little spurts of extra movement that you need.

It’s true, nothing can ever replace real aerobic exercise; remember, our not-too-distant ancestors walked, rode horses, and worked the land. Most of us in urban settings won’t have the chance to do any of that, but any extra movement you can add to your life helps. So do it!

Image: fazen