If you think Green gifts are cheesy and expensive, well, keep that skepticism front and center and drop down to the end of this post for some UN-green holiday gifts from our friends at Best Buy.

If you really need to cut the Ho Ho HOLY COW No Cash for Gifts, then let’s find a cool way to say I love you when shopping this holiday season. Nothing says I love you like a pallet for your shoes with a new twist to living Green. As of today, consider yourself an Upcycler.

Upcycling is SO much more fun than recycling. Upcycling is taking something that has outlived its intended usefulness and gets converted into something even more awesome.

One of our favorite things to upcycle here at Hart of Green are shipping pallets!

Israeli designers, Junk+Ion, are absolute masters at upcycling shipping pallets and other everyday items into wonderfully useful pieces of art and furniture, like the DIY shoe rack you see here.

So what else can you do with shipping pallets?

Maybe more than wondering what you could build with salvaged shipping pallets, you could find yourself wondering, “Why would I want to use shipping pallets to make anything?”

One user in this pallet project metafilter says,

“Pallet furniture is actually a big deal right now, as used pallets are an endemic disposal problem throughout the industrialized world. But what’s being talked about is recycling the wood and using that wood to build furniture.”

Just as a reminder, when working with shipping pallets (or any lumber, for that matter)…be sure you are using non-treated wood. Pressure  treated wood has been treated with various chemicals to help it resist weather, rot, and insects.

Arsenic is the monster. Yeah, like the poison.

• Who knew that being nice to the environment could look so naughty? by Jerry Hart Is it just me?  It's kind of embarrassing to always end up at the grocery store on the 14th looking at cheesy mylar balloons, bad greeting cards with no matching envelope, and half dead roses. Those mylar balloons sure help me feel green,  yeah right... and to boot, buying anything......
• BE green with humility When you reach milestones that involve a new experience, excitement usually follows. A friend tells me about this article. I think to myself, "Oh lord, not a long interview on some boring website that feels like visual valium..wait, don't judge it. Stop being so negative and BE green with......
• CUTE PICTURE ALERT & My dog's fatal Dysplasia and Green Determination There he is, my sweet Kahlua back in the day. When your dog is German Shepherd, the back legs collapse later in life. Dysplasia has begun for my baby boy, Kahlua. My companion and bright light is dealing with this disease like a true champ. I can tell when I......
• Wal-Mart indicating its product's eco-friendliness by Jerry Hart Last week, Wal-Mart started putting labels on products indicating its product's eco-friendliness. Be honest. Buying green items can be down the priority list when we feel unwilling to pay more for environmentally friendly goods. For you...is the green you care about, the green in your pocket right now? Do you......
• The difference between green and cheap is a slippery slope on the 4th of July by Jerry Hart I gently poke about how smart we use our money, as I know many are under great stress with the economic crisis. That's not funny. Last year's party on this holiday weekend was at a friend's house who was serving appetizers on a reusable Styrofoam steak tray. You know, the......

• RCDL Weekly Roundup - Be Prepared to Get Stuffed Thanks for joining us here at RCDL for another weekly roundup. Hope your Thanksgiving dinners are full of good food, great friends, and lots of laughs. Some new categories are with us this week and some old ones. Easy to find and browse for your weekend reading pleasure. Retirement My......
• Book Review: The Green Beauty Guide By Julie Gabriel. Since my "beauty" regimen consists of a bar of soap and some deodorant, I asked my wife to review The Green Beauty Guide. :-) The Green Beauty Guide by Julie Gabriel could be the definitive manual for any woman who wants to feel pampered and pretty while still maintaining an......
• Understand Return Policies For Gifts The hustle and bustle of the holiday shopping season is almost behind us for another year. While that is a relief for many shoppers, retailers are gearing up for the last minute rush as well as post season returns. With 19 percent of people expected to return a gift after......
• Fertility Issues Linked To Flame Retardant Chemicals Each day we are exposed to chemicals that range from relatively safe to downright harmful. Our natural environment is no longer "natural" and many of the chemicals used in day-to-day products have been found to cause more harm than good. There are many recent examples of the negative consequences caused......
• Greenwash Of The Week: Carbon-Neutral Bottled Water. This week's Greenwash involves one of my favorite subjects - bottled water. Airtran, the budget airline, is now serving Icelandic Glacial in recycled plastic bottles that has been certified "Carbon Neutral"; by the bottler itself. While it seems that Icelandic Glacial has taken some steps to green up their product,......