This Haitian Flower Votive Holder is available at UncommonGoods. These are handmade votive candle holders made from recycled steel oil drums. 

Do-Goodie Brownies are delicious and fresh brownies from Greyston Bakery. They’re individually wrapped to seal in the gooey chocolatey freshness. You can choose assorted brownies, consisting of chocolate fudge, walnut fudge, expresso bean, and brown sugar, or you can choose all choocolate fudge.

All profits go to the Greyston Foundation, which supports jobs, childcare, healthcare, and housing. The brownies are made fresh by Greyston Bakery Brownie Artisans in Yonkers, New York.

This Recycled Glass Turtle Night Light, available from Uncommon Goods, is beautiful and also goes to help endangered leatherback turtles.

The design of the night light was inspired by the journey of a baby sea turtle from its nest on the sand to the sea. It’s environmentally friendly, made from recycled glass bottles before they hit the landfill. The artistry is astounding; the piece is kiln formed and sparkles from all angles.

Each light comes with a 3 1/2″ x 5″ reproduction of the original watercolor by artist Elaine Hayes-Gray that inspired it, along with her poem “Follow the Moon”.

For every light sold, the artists will donate a portion of proceeds to the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation to help Leatherback turtles.

After years of being devastated by war, hidden and unexploded land mines continue to be a danger in Cambodia, continuing to harm innocent men, women and children.

These unique soaps were designed to bring awareness to this continuing scourge, as well as to raise money for landmine removal and help for survivors. For each soap sold, $2 is donated to The Cambodia Landmine Museum, which houses a school and an orphanage for up to 30 at-risk children.

The goal is cleverly in the shape of a landmine; the metaphor is that as the soap disappears, so do the landmines. The soap is available in Rosemary Mint or Coconut, is made from all-natural ingredients and is never tested on animals. Landmine Soap is available at Uncommon Goods.

City Plates are beautiful dishes which are as beautiful as they are useful. They’re porcelain plates featuring a downtown area of a major city printed on a black background. Cities available are Chicago, Berlin, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Washington D.C.

If you purchase the New Orleans plate, 15% of proceeds will go to recovery and rebuilding of 1300 acres of city parks which were damaged.

Little Squirt Babysuit^TM and Hat is a super-soft baby suit and hat made of 100% organic cotton and designed exclusively by UncommonGoods.

There’s an oh-so-cute line drawing of a whale with the words “little squirt” on the front, and on the butt, there’s the logo of the National Marine Santuaries, a non-profit organization that creates conservation-based research, education and outreach programs for the nation’s marine sanctuaries. Five percent of the purchase price of each babysuit goes to support ocean conservation efforts there.

It’s made in the USA, printed with infant-safe, environmentally-friendly water-based dyes and fits babies aged 6-12 months.

Want a really special gift for that really special someone for Valentine’s Day? Uncommon Goods is selling these beautiful paper roses made out of elephant dung.

What was that?

That’s right. These Elephant Poo Roses are made out of elephant dung. It’s from a company called, appropriately enough, The Great Elephant Poo Paper Company.

You’re either laughing or looking confusedly at your monitor right now, but read on and it’ll start to make more sense.

Elephant dung is one of the best sources of papermaking, because it’s filled with short-to-medium grained fibrous material, from things the elephants eat such as grasses, bamboo and fruit. The processing of the waste material into fine paper is a careful process which results in paper which is COMPLETELY sanitary and completely odor-free. In fact, the company’s slogan is “We take the ‘OO’ out of poo”.

Aside from ending up with very stylish paper, there are other great benefits of this. It creates jobs and opportunity in developing areas such as Thailand, it is about the most eco-friendly recycling there is, and part of the proceeds of each gift is contributed to elephant welfare and conservation programs.

It’s not a gift for everyone, but for the lucky lady who cares about the world, there are few gifts that give more.

Anyone who’s spent time in New York City can recognize these coffee cups. They’re the distinctive blue cups with “We Are Happy To Serve You” in gold faux Greek lettering, once a staple at every corner deli, but sadly quickly disappearing as more and more Starbucks and McDonalds take over the scene.

But you can preserve the memory of these cups for the New Yorker or ex-New Yorker in your life with these great products.

WishingFish has the “Lucky Beggar” purse, a reproduction of the coffee cup reproduced as a leather coin purse with a sturdy zipper. This purse was the work of New York artist George Skelcher, who created the purse after seeing the city’s homeless use crushed coffee cups to panhandle for change. It’s for this reason that part of the proceeds of each purse is donated to HELP USA, an organization that’s been helping the homeless since 1986.

UnCommonGoods also has a replica of the famous New York Greek Coffee Cup, except this one is made of ceramic (bagel sandwich not included). So even as these cups become harder and harder to find in the City, you can rest assured that this one will last for a long, long time. As with all gifts you buy at UnCommonGoods, you can specify after Checkout for $1 of your purchase price to go to Americares, Craft Emergency Relief Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, or Comprehensive Development, Inc.

UncommonGoods is a great gift company that has some of the most creative and meaningful gifts on the Web. This set of four classes falls into that category.

The Protect Our Wildlife Glasses – Set of 4 is the fourth in a set of special glasses that Uncommon Goods sells. As with all the glasses in the set, they’re amazingly made from the bottom of old wine bottles that otherwise would have been taking up landfills or polluting waterways in North America. Instead, they’ve been formed into these great looking glasses, each silkscreened (in environmentally friendly ways) with the images of four different endangered species: the lemur, the giant panda, the tiger and the sea turtle. Each glass has writing on it that says “Save Our Wildlife” in English, Spanish, Afrikaans/South African and French.

$2 from each set will go to Defenders of Wildlife, which is dedicated to the preservation of all wild animals and native plants in their natural community.

When Martha Stewart was devastated at losing her pet dog Paw Paw last month, of course there were those who didn’t understand what the commotion was about.

But any of us who’ve had a pet we’ve loved for many years, who became part of the family, who is remembered in family photo albums and cherished memories of happy times know how devastating it is to lose a pet.

This Pet Life Celebration Kit is a thoughtful sympathy gift for someone who’s lost a beloved dog or cat. Many people don’t know how to grieve the loss of a pet.  This kit will help the pet owner remember their pet’s memory, and start the healing process. It was designed by an artist, Claire Chew, who herself lost her cherished dog Sophie. Aside from volunteering for local animal rescue groups, Claire has committed a portion of proceeds to be donated to various animal charities.

The Kit contains a keepsake bag for keeping the pet’s collar, ID tag, toy, or another memory. It also contains a memorial candle with a comforting scent, and remembrance cards.  It has a gift card that you can fill out, and a keepsake photo frame. 

 It makes a thoughtful gift for someone in your life who has lost their best friend.