Make New Friends
Husband and wife team JW and Melissa Buchanan make up The Little Friends of Printmaking and they’re hoping to add you to their “Friends List” tonight at Inkling on Broadway! Join them at Inkling’s July Gallery Showcase with a fantastic collection of silkscreened prints loose and framed. The Little Friends of Printmaking started out designing and printing concert posters but eventually began creating a plethora of prints for everyone from authors, comedians, and anyone else with the cash to pay them! Inkling will also have several new fun and funky new items from their steady display of jewelry, cards, gifts and so much more. Join them tonight in Lakeview at 6pm!
Artisanal Adventures
If you love to travel and are interested in eating local food, exploring new cultures, and staying in sustainable accommodations then cancel your all-inclusive Mexican resort and book a trip with Colibri Culinary Travel instead. Founder Cate Lazen coordinates exciting artisanal adventures for small groups, pairing them up with gourmet chefs and elegant accommodations in historic homes and seaside villas for a truly unique cultural experience. Since you were probably thinking more along the lines of granola and tents, this sounds too good to be green right?
Celebrate the Green Way
Create a beautiful, sustainable event with the help of Chicago’s Greenhouse Loft. Housed inside Chicago’s Green Exchange, the country’s largest sustainable business community, Greenhouse Loft hosts a variety of events including weddings, parties, photo shoots, and more. Located inside a Platinum LEED certified building, the venue features a state of the art green roof, high efficiency heating and cooling, rain cistern, recycling on all five floors, and even a green escalator with occupancy sensors and varying speeds! View their website for more details and contact them today to see how they create the event of your green dreams!
Earth Day Caribou Special
Earth Day is this Sunday, April 22nd and Caribou Coffee has a special deal just for its customers! Caribou is the first major U.S. coffeehouse to source 100% of its coffees and espresso from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms (read more about our post on that here) and they want to celebrate this and Earth Day with FREE coffee. Bring in your own reusable drinkware to any Caribou Coffee this Sunday and get it filled for free with delicious Caribou coffee. In addition, Caribou is also partnering with Project 7 to plant a fruit tree for every pack of Project 7 gum or mints purchased at a Caribou between now and April 30th, 2012. Learn more online and find a Caribou near you!
Green Metropolis Fair
Join your fellow eco-minded Chicagoans this Saturday, April 14th for the Green Metropolis Fair! This family-friendly event is FREE and will take place at The Green Exchange on 2545 W. Diversey from 10am-6pm. This sustainable living and wellness event will host over 100 local businesses and organizations including some of our favorite featured sustainable brands like Bleeding Heart Bakery, Ethically Engineered, and Peeled. In addition to retail booths and the food market, the fair will have presentations from local experts throughout the day and family activiites like a petting zoo, gardening activities and more!
Bikes and Tykes!
Biking season is upon us and what better way to celebrate than to learn all about these wonderful wheeled contraptions?! The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park has a new exhibit “Bikes! The Green Revolution” that teaches you and your kids all about the world of the American bicycle. With an emphasis on Chicago bike culture, the exhibit also showcases all types of bikes, the roots of biking in America, and how “human-powered locomotion” could be the way of the future. Opening March 31st and running until September 9th 2012 “Bikes! The Green Revolution” will inspire, educate, and get those legs prepared to pedal all summer long!
Outstandingly Fresh Dinner
With so many great farms in the greater Chicagoland area why not get the freshest meal possible!? It’s definitely doable with the Outstanding In the Field 2012 North American Tour coming to Chicago this August! This “roving culinary adventure” aims to bring people back to the origins of their food, and honor the local farmers and artisans who cultivate it. Since 1999 this restaurant without walls has brought the indoors outside with unique dinners hosted at local farms. This year’s tour schedule has been announced and tickets went on sale today, so learn more and purchase online now!
The Windy City Turns 175!
Sunday March 4th was Chicago’s 175th birthday and in honor of this momentous occasion our favorite radio station WXRT is celebrating the anniversary today with features from Chicago’s favorite musicians, athletes, and fellow citizens. Hear an interview with Mayor Rahm Emanuel; great blues, folk, and rock from local bands; and sponsorship from local favorite Home Run Inn pizza and Skating In the Sky at the Hancock Observatory. Listen live now! Here at Little Bits we’re proud of our Chicago roots and want you to be too! Happy Birthday Chicago!
Earth Says “Best Dressed”
Sustainability can be high fashion too, and this was proven at the 2012 Oscars by Best Picture actress Missi Pyle from “The Artist.” Wearing a design by Valentino Delfino, the winner of Suzy Amis Cameron’s “Red Carpet Green Fashion” design competition, Missy stuns in an earth-friendly mineral-dyed “peace” silk gown pleated by hand and featuring repurposed zippers, a recycled polyester lining, organic chiffon, and silk from cruelty-free silkworms. The contest was started by Suzy, wife of Avatar director James Cameron, after she realized what a big impact fashion can have on the environment. The “Red Carpet Green Fashion” contest aims to get people to think about all the choices they make and bring attention to sustainable design. Learn more about the contest and how to enter for next year on the RCGF website!
Warm Up With A Coffee Tour
One of my favorite things about Chicago is most definitely Intelligentsia Coffee. You may have seen it around town (it's served everywhere now!), but did you know they give tours of their roasting facility? We took one recently and it was a great way to stay warm, interested and educated during cold temps. Besides their coffee tasting exceptional, Intelligentsia participates in Direct Trade which ensures long-term profitability for the farmers and delicious coffee that is fully traceable for us, the consumers.
