Name: sara selepouchin
Shop: girls can tell
Website: http://shop.girlscantell.com
Blog: http://blog.girlscantell.com
Location: philadelphia, pa

What do you make, and how are your products environmentally-friendly?
I hand screen-print drawings of everyday things onto everyday things. It's important to me that girls can tell wares are all useful items or made from discarded useful items.

Why did you start making earth-friendly goods?
I began girls can tell by screen-printing on scraps of really nice fabric that were destined for the landfill. Unable to stand seeing such gorgeous pieces headed for a life as trash, I printed them, and made them into zippy pouches (I still have far too many of these pouches that I use to hold little bits of everything). Eventually my love of housewares got the best of me, so I began printing on other (responsibly sourced) materials, like reusable cloth napkins, domestically made floursack tea towels, and coasters made from locally-produced industrial felt.

What is your favorite material to work with? Why?
Industrial felt. It's just amazing—great texture, and it takes ink really well, so my diagram illustrations really pop on it.

What's your favorite thing you've ever made? Why?
oh, gosh! Every time I draw a new diagram design, I proclaim it my favorite! (but that's a good thing, I suppose!) This is the toughest question by far, but I'll choose one of my newest pieces, a tea towel set featuring a diagram of a tea set, which you can find for sale in my shop

Give us a link to one of your favorite resources for running your business:
A few things, really—I absolutely love my Typepad blog—I tell people how great Typepad has been every chance I get. For more information, check out http://typepad.com/go/craft-blog (use the code "girlscantell" for 20% off your account!). Also, I belong to a fantastic Etsy Team (the Full Time Etsy Crafter Team)— forming relationships with your crafting peers is so incredibly important.

Give us a link to one of your favorite handmade artists:
How can I name just one? I would love to fill my house with the work of MonkeysAlwaysLook—such an amazing eye!

What's your #1 tip for living greener?
Right now, I'm obsessed with composting. It's such a simple thing, and keeps so much waste out of landfills. It's just a sensible, practical, easy way to reduce your impact. Also, living somewhere that makes it possible to live without daily use of a car is probably one of the nicest things you can do for the planet.

What's your #1 tip for crafting greener?
Consider whether your work is contributing to the awful amount of waste we, as makes and consumers, produce. Are you selling something disposable, or something that can be used over and over? Consider everything from the materials you work with (for example, can you buy in bulk to reduce waste?) to the packaging you use to ship your items. Thoughtfulness is key to running an earth-friendly business.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
I'd like to be able to magically beam myself places. I usually ride my bike to commute to my studio (it's about 3 miles from my house), but when the weather's not so nice, it's be great to just blink and appear at my studio.

For information on how to be interviewed for this column, shoot me an email at liz at cosaverde.com. Yay!

I love this week's Shop of the Week for two reasons: the clean, elegant lines of the clothes, and the fact that they look so darn *comfy*. This is modern, sustainable fashion at its most wearable.

The organic cotton and soy jersey pieces from Bird Apparel are the kind of thing can be worn just about anywhere. Personally, I'd pair one of the bubbly dresses with jeans and flats and wear it as a tunic, but that's me, and I'm not a skirt-wearing kind of girl. But I love that these clothes are both versatile and sustainable.

Really, I can't get enough of comfy organic jersey turned into awesome clothes... now hurry up, summer weather, because I see some sleevless dresses that need to be worn!

A sustainable little white dress for the onset of spring, and some of eco-friendly accessories to accompany it.

hemp-tencel sustainable fiber dress from ecochic; upcycled newspaper cuff from strapsnw; natural wool purse from MemeGalarce; upcycled sweater pouch from jayteedoubleyou; handmade vegan mary janes from TheGeneration

sourcing sustainable supplies

Sharing leads on some lovely little shops for earth friendly supplies: Seed*Wing*Wonder has some beautiful recycled glass beads for sale from Ghana, and lovely little collections of vintage buttons. Plus, the product photos alone are enough to inspire you to make something new!

Recently I've been playing around with t-shirts as raw material for upcycling, and I have fallen in love. The stores on my thrifting circuit have aisles of unloved old tees that stretch on and on in rainbow-ordered glory... there is a lot of material there for the taking, at less than a dollar a pop. So, what are people making out of all those cast off t-shirts? The answer is a lot of really beautiful work...

t-shirt yarn from Eclectic Notions

t-shirt scarves from janicewallace

braided t-shirt necklace from CrimsonRoses

recycled t-shirt rug from talkingsquid

headband with recycled t-shirt flowers from Marang97

t-shirt pouches from zJayne

upcycled t-shirt scarf from foulard threads

bamboo mini fingerless gloves from heiditheartist

recycled silver sprout earrings from AntiGenre

biodegradable seedling starter pots made from recycled newspaper, from RushofWings

sprout earrings in recycled sterling from onegarnetgirl

new growth: limited edition print n eco-friendly paper from groundwork

New to cosa verde this week: Botanical photographs frames with reclaimed wood by Earth Plus Art. Gorgeous photos, and the frames are recreated from old kitchen cabinet doors, acquired through the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. How cool is that?

cosa verde seems to be having quite the little growth spurt right now, and it seems like all of a sudden we have a bunch of recycled glass work to share! Branscome Glass is a very new addition to the cosa verde family, and one I'm excited about. Jeff and I both looked at the application and just said, "ooooooooooh."

Branscome Glass collects beverage bottles locally from restaurants, bars, and friends. The bottles are smashed, melted and shaped into swirling glass bowls or lacy designs. The end result is something so lovely that it is hard to believe it was once an ordinary old beer bottle.

What I find really interesting is that a few weeks ago, we heard from Brian Western of Western Art Glass about how he turned to using recycled beer bottles in his art because he couldn't get curved glass without a kiln. Now here's Branscome Glass using the same beer bottles as raw material in a kiln, and the end results are two very different, very lovely lines of glass art, both stemming from the reuse of the same material. Hooray for beautiful recycling.