Eco-Friendly Dolls
August 31, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
My daughters and niece love their matching Poot & Boogie dolls. They are unique, funky, cuddly, eco-friendly, handmade and colorful. The dolls are individually handcrafted, pre-washed and pre-shrunk, made with 100% cotton and 100% wool materials. They’re stuffed with eco-friendly fiberfill derived from EcoCraft corn. They are “handcrafted with love and smiles” in a small house on a hobby farm in Aldergrove, BC.
Poot & Boogie accepts requests for custom orders– how fun would it be for your child to have a doll with the same features as her own!
Kiwi Magazine
August 28, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Kiwi magazine is my one of my favorite parenting magazines, and here’s why:
“KIWI is dedicated to helping parents raise their children the healthiest way possible. Our charge is to introduce families to the latest in natural and organic living—showing how to practice this lifestyle on an everyday basis.We know that achieving the right balance between the real world and the ideal world is often difficult. Our lives are busy and our family’s schedules are often simply out of our control. So, our mission is to help you make the best choices, with the best information available, in the shortest amount of time.
Look for articles in KIWI on serving the safest and most nutritious foods along with the latest in family wellness—what’s good for your family and what’s not. Our environmental emphasis will help moms and dads raise children with an eye to the future of their planet. We’ll bring to light important social issues that affect our families. And, we’ll help to guide our readers in teaching their kids to care about people in their neighborhood, their country and the world. In short, we hope to inspire parents to achieve new heights in family growth without missing a beat.”
Organic Flower Arrangments
August 26, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
image courtesy of CaliforniaOrganicFlowers.com
We are a family that sends flowers to funerals, mothers in the hospital, for Mothers Day, or just because. To be honest, I still have not found a great online source for ordering and buying flowers. I haven’t been thrilled with any of them and just now realized I should have been looking for an organic flower source. We strive for everything else to be organic. Why not the flowers we send as gifts?
I started browsing the web in search of these companies and am excited to share with you the list I put together:
1. Your local Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market might carry organic flower arrangements. Here in Utah, we aren’t lucky enough to have a Trader Joes and the Whole Foods near me does not carry them. But they do in thousands of other locatinos, so be sure to check that option out.
2. California Organic Flowers is a beautiful and (gasp!) affordable online ordering and delivering service for organic flower arrangements. This is a wonderful company that prides itself on growing and then selling their own organic flowers from their farm. They also go by the motto that, “Flowers are our way of celebrating nature, and celebrating ourselves, so they just have to be grown in a way that cares for the environment or it defeats their whole purpose.”
3. Organic Bouquet is a company that has been around since 2001 and works with their partner farms in providing their customers with organic and beautiful flowers to deliver. The company has played a key role in “the transformation of the floral industry by promoting and living up to the highest social and environmental standards—developing the most eco-friendly floral packaging, initiating the industry’s first carbon offset program, and growing our flowers in a way that is gentle on the earth and that safeguards the ecology and the well-being of wildlife and farm workers”
Be sure to check out these store and online websites the next time you think of sending flowers. Sending flowers is such a beautiful gift, and now you can take it to the next level by sending them in their truest healthiest form.
Art Days
August 24, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
I hosted our first Art Day Outing a while back and it was such fun! In Salt Lake City they have these amazing murals painted by the 377 Project Artists.
The project is called the Urban Gallery and we found it at Neighborhood House (1050 West 500 South), but there’s a good chance it’s no longer there. On June 12th and 13th, ten of Salt Lake City’s best artists were given a garage door and 18 hours to repaint it. The audience picked one artist to win a $1000 prize!
“Altogether, it was one of the most exciting nights of art we’ve experienced, and we’ve put a good many miles into the monthly gallery stroll. Once again the 337 Project has delved into Salt Lake’s underground creativity and brought up gems most of us didn’t even know were there.” –Salt Lake Magazine
If you are in the Salt Lake City area, do a drive-by and check it out. Not in Utah? Find out if there’s something like this in your area and bring some friends along!
Listen
August 21, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
I have a simple to-do list for you to accomplish today with your children:
Image from www.realtater.com
To Do:
- Ignore your other to-do lists for a bit
- Go outside
- Be still
- Listen
- Listen to the wind, birds, crickets, rain
- Listen to the sounds of summer
- Be still
- Listen
- Relax
Mapping Out Your Errands
August 19, 2009 by admin · 2 Comments
(image via ci.wixom.mi.us)
Mapping out your errands with your kids can turn into a fun activity to plan and execute. Make a game of running errands by mapping out the shortest route. Grab an old map of your city or use an online map service to draw your own. Involving your children will help deepen their respect for reducing the pollutant they put in the air to run their errands now and as they grow older. You can also point out that since you took the time to bunch all your errands together you have more time to do things you really enjoy.
To live green means to live a sustainable lifestyle that won’t deplete or pollute the earth’s natural resources–and to find ways to replenish or recycle these resources and materials. To be green means to preserve and to protect our environments and our planet. Even small things like mapping out your errands teaches your children this important concept.
Instead of piling into the car, design a bike or walking route that passes all the stops you need for your errands. Most likely it won’t be quicker but when you plan ahead and put aside a block of time it can become a really enjoyable time for you and your family.
Sure, it can be a fun family activity but do your children know why using a car unnecessarily is hurtful to our earth? Pollutants like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and halons destroy the earth’s protective ozone layer, which shields the earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) rays generated from the sun.
The stratospheric ozone layer makes it possible for life to exist by shielding the earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) rays generated from the sun. There is a substantial amount of scientific evidence that suggests man-made compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and halons destroy ozone in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere). Decreased concentration of stratospheric ozone allows increased levels of UV-B rays to reach the earth’s surface. It also harms us as humans and the environment by increased incidence of skin cancer and cataracts; damage to terrestrial and aquatic plant life; damage to our immune system; premature aging of the skin; and increased formation of ground-level ozone (smog).
If your children understand a bit more of the WHY behind your reasoning they will be more excited to help you!
Cooking with Fair Trade Products
August 17, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
We love to cook together as a family; it is a wonderful way to have fun and spend quality time together. Cooking with your children has numerous benefits: it teaches your children mathematics; gives your child a sense of pride and accomplishment; helps your children try new things; entices them to eat what they help make. In our home we have a silly tradition of “dolling” ourselves up for cooking together. We wear fun, bright aprons, put on our favorite lip gloss and dance around to our favorite music.
We have been using Alter Eco Fair Trade products in our cooking for well over a year. I have been more than impressed with their website, fast shipping, wonderful packaging and quality ingredients. It has also added a new dimension into our cooking because we can teach our children the importance of fair trade products.
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach to empowering developing country producers and promoting sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a fair price as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of a wide variety of goods. This supports a better life for families through fair prices, direct trade, community development and environmental stewardship. In their products chemical fertilizers and pesticides have been replaced with organic fertilizers and natural plant extracts to produce their products.
Kind of makes you wonder why more people don’t cook with fair-trade products, doesn’t it?
Plant A Tree Together
August 14, 2009 by admin · 2 Comments
I have a new favorite book I purchased from The Land of Nod. It is A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry and Marc Simont.
“Trees are beautiful. They fill up the sky. If you have a tree, you can climb up its trunk, roll in its leaves, or hang a swing from one of its limbs. Cows and babies can nap in the shade of a tree. Birds can make nests in the branches. A tree is good to have around. A tree is nice.”
My favorite illustration is the black and white one of the boy fishing surrounded by trees. He looks so relaxed and at peace surrounded by the beautiful trees. When I think of my relationship with trees a similar picture comes to mind.
You can also purchase it through Amazon.com.
Family Activity Ideas
- Read this book and have family drawing time where you draw your relationship with trees or a tree.
- Go outdoors with a field guide to explore different kinds of trees and teach your children the importance of trees.
- Spend some time drawing, reading, talking, resting, playing around the trees.
- Find a place where you and your family can plant a tree!
The Arbor Day Foundation is a great site to do a little research and planning before having your tree family activity.
Not Paper or Plastic
August 12, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Think you have seen every cute, eco-friendly shopping bag? Well, you haven’t! Want to see the cute bags the girls and I carry around our favorite grocery store?
It is estimated that one tote bag saves 1,000 plastic bags in its lifetime.
Dogeared Bags are eco-friendly in and of themselves because they are made from natural cotton. The size is a little larger than most eco-friendly bags and the carrying straps are large enough to throw over your shoulder.
We found ours at Nordstrom but they are also available online for $27 per tote.
Simple Shoes for a Happy Planet
August 10, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Sara Snow from Discovery Channel introduced me to Simple Shoes and we are now huge fans at our house! Simple Shoes is a “nice little shoe company getting in touch with its inner hippie.”
Organic Cotton, I.S.O. 14001 Suede, Hemp, Bamboo, Recycled Car Tires and Recycled Inner Tubes. Simple Shoes are also VEGAN shoes.
Their shoes are made with the above sustainable materials–what could be better than an eco-friendly shoe?
Women’s Toepaz-Hemp–These are the pair I wear out and about; they are unbelievably comfy and fun!
Toddler’s GT Janie - Little Kid’s–Abby wears these and shows them off to anyone who will listen!
Toddler’s Innertube - Little Kid’s–If I had a little boy this is the pair I would pick!
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