FOR THE ECO-CHIC FASHIONISTA

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Because Green is Good

With the holidays just around the corner we have been gearing up for our holiday gift guide (soon to come!) but we just couldn't wait to share this Etsy Designer we came across last week.

Cupcake Mag is a big fan of designers making unique things for us to drool over, especially handmade. Luckily, we found the perfect designer making her own little eco-chic masterpieces. Someone who "plunders" thrify stores and granny's closet really makes scraps into something special. Why we love it? It is seriously eco-friendly and makes a great gift for anyone living fabulously green.

Let’s take a size 8 dominatrix stiletto that has been upcycled into a new life (remove the top of the shoe, sand it, drill holes for drainage) and plant it with something sharp and you’ve got your very own little cacti family looking eco-chic in a stiletto planter ($50). Just remember to add a little water and give it a little light. As the designer says, “It’ll repay you with a stark reminder of how hard it is to … well, to be a woman.”

So what exactly is the designer Rachel's story? We couldn't wait to find out what made her create one-of-a-kind items out of things you might consider disposable.

“Now about me and how these stilettos got started....ahem! I have a friend who is an exotic dancer. She was throwing away a beautiful but beat up pair of clear stiletto boots. I took them home- not sure why. I decided to plant them with sharp cacti plants to show how lovely and painful it can be to be woman. The concept is about hard-working women, the sometimes artificial nature of American feminity, and also about the impossible images that women face in our society. It's a prickly, spiky, sticky situation.”

And we couldn’t agree more. Rachel quotes Faith Whittlesey and reminds us that "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels."

Make sure to stop by the ETSY STORE giddyspinster (dreamy things) to see the many different exotic planters (from cacti to aloe in various price ranges) and make sure to pick one up for the fashinista (or yourself) in your life.