This week’s featured Etsy seller is sjroemer who creates some very functional and amazingly pretty designs from washed pop can tabs.  She has been a crafter for many years who’s creative fires were stoked when she read about a woman’s craft co-operative in Brazil who was making purses out of aluminum pop can pulls.

She definitely seems to have mastered her creative techniques in the variety of purses and coin pouches that she makes out of soda pull tabs and nylon yarn.  The first purse featured on the left, is lined and uses over 400 tabs to make up the exterior and handle of the purse.  The purse has an overall “chain metal” feel while remaining very contemporary in it’s overall appearance.  Regular readers of mine will know that I, a) love Etsy and how it supports small artisans instead of major coglomerates and b) love items that proudly display their former lives.  There’s no mistaking that this purse is made out of pop can tabs once you take a close look at it.  What a great way to start an eco-friendly conversation with someone in line at the grocery store or show people how stylish living green-er can be!

This Etsy crafter sjroemer shows how completely the purse is transformer by a slightly different design and a different color of nylon yarn binding the tabs together.  Here’s the million dollar question though, right?  Where on earth do

es she get all the pop can tabs??  Well, she purchases them from recycling facilities.  Many charities collect them for fundraising and then seel them to the bottle depots.  She in turn, buys the tabs from the bottle depot, sorts them for size and consistency and washes them twice with antibacterial soap before using them.

Need a small gift for your child’s teacher or looking for a pretty way to finish off your eco-friendly wrapping of a gift??  Why not pick up one of her pop tab Christmas ornaments?  They’re only $4 and are a great way to show that you care about the earth and respect other people’s love of the planet as well!  She makes them in a variety of colors and welcomes custom orders.

Looking for a cool gift idea for that preschooler on your list this Christmas?  How about these organic kids shirts from Biome 5?  They’re made from 100% certified organic  cotton that is sweat-shop free and made locally to their company in Los Angeles, CA.  Many products are undyed and unbleached.  The ones that do use dyes use a non-chlorine bleaching process and the lowest impact fiber reactive dyes on the market.

A huge plus to the shirts besides being very environmentally friendly is that they help kids to learn the alphabet and some preliminary words while wearing them.  Having trouble reading what the words on the shirts say?  That’s because they are printed upside down so that the kids can read them while being from the vantage point of wearing them!  Pretty neat…

You can shop online for these products here at Biome5′s homepage or enter a contest at Organic Girl for a giveaway of the winner’s choice of letter!  Each letter displays a different animal so that kids can wear eco-friendly clothing, learn how to read and learn to love the animals in the planet around them.  Does it get any better??  Oh, yeah.  You could win it free by entering OG’s give away.  Don’t enter too many times though, I don’t need the competition!!

Check out these cute and functional wallets made from upcycled cassette tapes by Marcella Foschi.  They’re available for $39 on Design Boom and would make a great Christmas gift for all those eco-friendly girls on your Christmas list this year.  Yes, I know that Christmas is still months away but it really does pay off to shop ahead!

Imagine how many of these tapes have been tossed into landfills around the world with the advent of the CD.  There’s probably enough tapes sitting in the garbage to fill all the purses of even a shop-a-holic purse lover!!  These are definitely worth checking out.  As they are each handmade, each one is different.  You could get anything from an Alvin and the Chipmunks cassette to a Slayer cassette to the Beach Boys!  You’ve got to absolutely love something so entirely random…

Thanks for the link Bibi!!  Check out her travelling adventures blog Flash Nomad.  She travels the world with an eye for style, design, grace and elegance with a camera in one hand and a laptop in the other.