Simply Living Well

Simply Living Well is a beautiful and timely motivational guide to living well sustainably and reducing our footprint for the generations to come.

Author Julia Watkins shares rituals, recipes, and projects for living simply and sustainably at home. For every area of your household – kitchen, cleaning, wellness, bath, and garden – Julia shows you how to eliminate wasteful packaging, harmful ingredients, and disposable items. Practical checklists outline easy swaps (instead of disposable sponges, opt for biodegradable sponges or Swedish dishcloths; choose a bamboo toothbrush over a plastic one) and sustainable upgrades for common household tools and products. Projects include scrap apple cider vinegar, wool dryer balls, kitchen bowl covers and cloth produce bags, non-toxic dryer sheets, all-purpose citrus cleaner, herbal tinctures and balms, and more, plus recipes for package-free essentials like homemade nut milk, hummus, ketchup, salad dressings, and veggie stock.  In 2017 Julia started her Instagram account, @simply.living.well, sharing her recipes, projects and thoughts around sustainable healthy living, inspired by wisdom rooted in traditional cultures and that of her own grandparents. Based on her hugely popular Instagram account, Julia’s book, Simply Living Well, is a comprehensive collection of her extensive yet accessible knowledge on sustainable living. Complete with her unique inviting aesthetic, it’s for every parent, millennial or anyone who cares about the health of of the planet we live on.  

Author Biography

Julia Watkinsis a mother and maker who creates and writes from her home in Chicago. A lifelong lover of the natural world, Julia has a graduate degree in conservation science and policy and has worked in environmental and natural resource management for most of her life. Along with her husband, Scott, Julia co-founded Lookfar Conservation in 2016, a nonprofit that supports conservation and restoration projects in Africa and Latin America. Julia hosts the popular Instagram account @simply.living.well, where she shares about living simply and sustainably. She also writes for magazines, including a recent piece on sustainable crafting for kids for House of Huckleberry and zero-waste, plant-based recipes for Plants are Magic.