Holidays With Compassion Treasuries

Please help to promote Holidays With Compassion by showing these treasuries lots of love! Click on all items featured and leave a comment here, here and here.

Recipe- Penne in Mint Cilantro Pesto Sauce

The following recipe was submitted by Susmitha of Art by Susmitha and Veganosaurus.

Cook 1 Cup of dry Penne in salted boiling water according to the instructions on the pack.

To be blended into a paste/sauce without using any extra water (the liquid from the tomatoes will be enough).

1 C spearmint
1 C cilantro
2 Green chillies
Handful of Almonds
1 T nutritional yeast
1 T flax seed
2 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4-5 Ripe Tomatoes
Sea Salt to taste

How to proceed:

Cut 1 large capsicum (green pepper) into cubes. Put in a microwave safe glass dish, cover and cook on high for 3 minutes. Mix in the blended sauce, cover and cook on high for 3 more minutes. Let it sit for a few minutes.

For the microwave haters, this can also be made easily on stovetop. Just stir fry the green pepper in a dash of olive oil very briefly (about a minute), add the pesto sauce and bring it to a boil and immediately switch off the flame.

Mix in the cooked Penne.

Enjoy! :)

Holidays With Compassion!

Thank you to Susmitha of Art by Susmitha and Veganosaurus for writing the following lovely explanation of the Holidays With Compassion campaign! Please see this post for a list of members that are offering sales and promotions.

The Cruelty Free Etsy Team and the Vegan Etsy Team have teamed up to create the Holidays with Compassion Campaign with the intention to promote Vegan-Handmade gift shopping. Veganism is by default Eco-Friendly! All creations on etsy are handmade with 100% love but what sets the items of the CFE and Vegan Etsy team members apart is that they are made with a 100% kindness too. Celebrate the true meaning of this festive season of love and giving by gifting Compassionate Handmade items. Not only will the receiver love you for it but so will the animals and the environment.

November Team Challenge Winner

Congratulations to Carla of Threaded Smiles for being the winner of November's team challenge! The theme was "Thanks-Living" and the outline was to show what the true meaning of giving thanks on this annual holiday means to you.

Carla's entry is listed here in her shop. This is what she has to say about them-

this is a set of coasters i made for thanksliving, a way to peacefully and compassionately show what i am thankful for this holiday season. the pics of my family and my rescued animal companions are placed on cork and made into coasters. cruelty-free holidays are the best way to spend the upcoming season.

New Shops!

Some existing members have added a second shop. Check them out!

Michelle of Bees Knees Jewelleries has opened Sticks In Stones.
Silvana and Brian of Forest Nymphs and Brisil Handmade Bath & Body have opened Art By Funk.

Please give them all a warm welcome by checking out their shops and hearting them!

Review- For The Animals

I wear a necklace almost every single day and have several that say "vegan" on them that I wear quite often. It's a nice, positive way to show the world that you're vegan and it also generates some discussion. So, naturally, I was thrilled when I found For The Animals.
The best part about purchasing from For The Animals is that all proceeds go to their sanctuary, For The Animals Sanctuary and the anti-fur group that Debbie runs, Caring Activists Against Fur. Here is some information about the sanctuary that Debbie wrote-

My dream was to save a cow and her baby (son) from being exploited and murdered. I met my Vegan husband who also felt the same desires. We saved our $$ bought a house and built a barn and waited. Then we saw Herbie on the news (one week before Xmas) running for his life in Brooklyn. I cried. I called all the sanctuaries to see if he was being saved. Thankfully WFAS was rescuing him but they didn't have the room so we stepped in. At the same time Kevina was born in a dairy farm. The farmers thought she was a boy and they were drowning all the boys. Lucky for Kevina a girl that worked there brought her to WFAS. I named her Kevin (thinking she was a boy) now she is Kevina. Herbie and Kevina just got married on May 31 2008. We had about 65 guests and tons of Vegan food.

Our sanctuary is 8 acres. We are small guys but we do a lot for the Animals!! We just rescued 8 goats. 3 of the goats were really sick needing critical care treatment i.e. blood transfusions, injections and forced oral meds and were separated for 4 weeks from the rest of the goat sisters. They were scouring (massive diarrhea). They are all better now YUPPIE. Our goal for 2009 is to rescue some chickens and focus on Vegan outreach. We have an abolitionist approach to Veganism.

FTA has no volunteers. My husband and I do all the work around the farm. We both work full time in order to keep it running. I am a critical care nurse and my husband works in NYC (5 hour commute every day). We also rescue 11th hour dogs and cats. We lost 6 dogs and one cat over the past year due to health reasons (all old dogs that were going to be euthanized in a shelter). We currently have a 5 dogs one of which is blind. We recently had to put my old boy Corki (blind and had massive cardiac issues) down. That was and still is devastating I miss him so much. We have 8 cats 4 of which live out in the barn. I also run an anti fur group called Caring Activists Against Fur (caaf) www.caafgroup.com . We protest fur in NYC/NJ.

We received our 5013c in July 2008. This will make it much easier to fundraise. Our focus for 2009 will be on fundraising and finding volunteers to help us out on the farm. Its very very hard to find reliable animal loving people. Its also hard to compete with the larger sanctuaries. We try and make it fun to come over i.e. Vegan potlucks with themes like the wedding we had a baby shower when they arrived.....If anyone has ides please share. The more donations we get the more we can do out here in NJ farm land. The awesome thing is i am a nurse in the local hospital. I do Vegan outreach every day I am at work. I wear my jewelry and it get the conversation started. Its awesome.

As you can see, Debbie and her husband are wonderful, compassionate people! If you'd like to make a donation to their sanctuary, please do so through their site. You can also watch some videos of Herbie & Kevina here.

I have now purchased three beautiful necklaces from her shop and will proudly wear each one every chance that I get. The first one that I purchased was a sterling silver drop pendant with a heart-

Nature is as important to me as animals, so I loved that it has a little flower on it, too. The heart brings my two loves all together in one gorgeous little package! Her shop is a regular one I stop by to see what's new, and recently she listed some that I fell in love with, so I just purchased these a few days ago-


I'll be wearing both of these a lot! She also has bracelets, buttons and rings in her shop, all in a variety of designs. There's something for every compassionate vegan out there!

Review- Vegan Dish

The following was written by Roni of Daisy Wares and Daisy's Destash.

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? And I'm not just talking about the cranberries.

One of my most favorite vegans made this for me. Jeanette of Vegan Dish! It actually came from her other shop, Vessels and Wares and she modified it for me by adding, "vegan" and adding the stars. Not that it wasn't perfect without it, it just added that extra umpf!

It's called the Aqua-licious berry bowl. Here is Jeanettes stock picture so you can see the drain holes under it.

This bowl is going to get a lot of use in my house. It is so well made, very professional and will even stand the dishwasher. Jeanette is so very talented. She packs it so well too. You never have to worry about it breaking in the mail.

Now I'm off to boil up these cranberries to add to my Vegan Thanksliving dinner! For Thanksliving I am very thankful that Jeanette has come up with this wonderful idea of vegan dishes so all of our food can taste just that much better.

Team Treasury!

Thank you to Michelle of My Zoetrope for creating such a beautiful team treasury! Please show it some love by clicking on all featured items and leaving a comment here.