Monthly Archives: December 2011
Green Holiday Guide Blog Carnival
| December 5, 2011 | Posted by Lisa Sharp under Green Holiday Guide, Green Holidays |
The holidays can make even the most eco-friendly people struggle to keep the season green. There are issues like real tree or fake tree? What do you do with all the wrapping paper? How do you wrap your gifts? What do you give to people that they will enjoy but won’t hurt the planet? The list goes on and on. Thankfully this carnival has many great ideas for having a greener holiday season. Be sure to check out the posts and leave your comments.
The Sewing Loft shows us how to make a very cute gift card holder using a reclaimed shopping bag.
A Natural Life talks about how you can green your Christmas traditions this year.
Celebrate Green has a great list of free activity gifts for kids.
The Soft Landing shares some great tips on avoiding lead this holiday season.
Groovy Green Livin is helping us stay well naturally for the holidays.
Going Green Mama shares a few great ideas with us; if you live in Indiana you must read this post about local Indiana food for the holidays, here is a great way to use up all the candy canes you end up with and make a great green gift, and finally she also shares how to make a recycled nativity.
My Recycled Bags shares a pattern for a cute recycled bag made out of plarn (which is yarn made from recycled plastic bags), this bag would make a cute gift.
The team over at EcoEtsy has a great green holiday guide with just about anything you would need to help make this holiday season greener.
Ecokaren is having a wonderful series of posts with great green holiday tips. Check out all the posts so far and keep checking for more.
If you have any green holiday posts that you didn’t submit in time for the carnival feel free to post it in the comments below. And be sure to check back here often for more tips and ideas.
Green Gift Guide: Kids
| December 3, 2011 | Posted by Lisa Sharp under Green Holiday Guide, Green Holidays |
This hand knit elephant from Wild Dill, is fairly made by women in Kenyan from naturally dyed wool. At only $22 it’s an affordable green gift. Even better it’s currently on sale for only $18 (as of 12/3/11).
This car from Green Cupboards runs on salt water! It doesn’t need batteries, just magnesium metal sheets (comes with three) and salt water. It will run for about 5-7 hours continuously.
This adorable wooden farmers market stand from Green Cupboards helps encourage healthy eating habits by exposing your kids to fruits and veggies in a fun way. It includes seven food crates, cartons of milk and a variety of fruits and veggies.
Do your kids love arts and crafts? Check out these neat art kits from Artterro. They use eco-friendly materials and there are many different kits to choose from.
If you are looking for natural and safe bath products for your kids check out 100% Pure’s kid’s line. You can get body cream, bubble bath, and 2 in 1 body wash and shampoo.
If you are looking for candy for stocking stuffers be sure to check out the Natural Candy Store. You can find all kinds of natural and organic candy including candy for those with allergies.
These 12 ounce Klean Kanteens from Reuseit are the perfect size for kids. They are very durable and made of unlined stainless steel with bpa-free lids and non-toxic paint.
This is a doll house I would have loved to have as a kid. It’s made of natural rubber tree wood from rubber trees that are no longer producing rubber, has non-toxic glues, water based inks and dyes and uses recycled materials. It’s also a green house and features solar panels, a wind turbine, a rain barrel and more. It’s available at The Ultimate Green Store.
Disclaimer: I was not paid to post this or any other post. These are my honest thoughts and views. I’m an affiliate for Wild Dill, Reuseit, Ultimate Green Store, Natural Candy Store, and Green Cupboards and earn a small amount if you buy from them from my page. However this doesn’t effect my views.
Greener Holiday Cards
| December 2, 2011 | Posted by Lisa Sharp under Green Holiday Guide, Green Holidays |
Americans send out almost 2 billion cards during Christmas! That equals around 300,000 trees. All for something that will likely end up in our recycling bin, or even worse the trash. This doesn’t mean you have to send out e-cards, though that is becoming more and more common and is one of the greenest options. There are a lot of great options to green up your cards this holiday season, here are a few.
Make Your Own
This will be my third year to make my own cards. The first year I had enough things around the house to make the cards without buying anything. Last year I bought envelopes and a small amount of paper from Etsy. This year I had to buy one pack of paper, ink, a stamp, and some ribbon. I will have paper left over, the ink can be used for a long time to come, should have ribbon left over and the stamp can be used forever. This has saved us money and it’s a lot of fun. You can get recycled paper or use things you already have.
Recycled Cards
This card and many like it are from Snail’s Pace. They have a vintage feel and are made from FSC-certified, 100% post-consumer fiber and use soy-based inks.
The Sierra Club has many beautiful cards like the one above. They feature beautiful photographs and are made with recycled paper and using soy-based inks.
Junk mail has never looked so good! These cards from Green Field Paper Company are made from 100% junk mail! Who knew you could send your family junk mail and have them be happy to receive it?!
Like photo cards? Don’t worry Good Greetings has beautiful photo cards like the one above that are made with 100% recycled paper. Use the code MAKEITGREEN to save 15% on holiday cards.
Another photo card option is Paper Culture. Their cards are 100% recycled or made from non-tree sources. They also plant a tree for every order.
Tree-Free Cards
This card from Green Field Paper Company is plantable, it has seeds in it and can be planted when holiday season is over.
These cards are from Sweet Organics and Naturals and are made of Sweetpaper. Sweetpaper is 50% sugar cane bagasse (a waste product of the sugar refining industry) and 50% recycled fiber.
These cute cards are made of elephant poop, yup I said poop! You can get them from Uncommon Goods.
Are you sending out eco-friendly cards this year? Do you have suggestions other than the ones above?
*Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, if you order from them I will receive a small percent but this doesn’t effect my views.
More Giving, Less Stuff
| December 1, 2011 | Posted by Lisa Sharp under Green Holiday Guide, Green Holidays |
Updated from last year.
Think back to last Christmas, what do you remember making you the happiest? Is it the gifts you got? I’m going to guess it isn’t. My favorite memories from last Christmas are the homemade waffles and mimosas we had at my parents Christmas morning, the trip my husband and I took before Christmas, and the NBA Thunder game my family went to after Christmas with my family.
Sure I got a lot of nice gifts and I enjoyed them and I still am enjoying them but those weren’t the best part of Christmas and I would have still had a happy Christmas will many less gifts, but without the time with my family and friends it would have been a sad and lonely Christmas.
I shared this video last year and I’m going to share it again because I think it’s very powerful. It’s a religious video but it fits for all of us, Christian or not.
It’s amazing to think what we could do if all of us brought a few less gifts and used that money to help others. Here are some of my ideas for making your holiday more about giving and less about stuff.
Watch Your Favorite Christmas Movie Together
Growing up my family always watched It’s a Wonderful Life shortly after putting up the tree. My husband and I still make it out some years to watch it. My husband and I also watch a lot of Christmas movies throughout the season, often I bake some cookies or something for us to have with the movie. We always watch the first Harry Potter while we put up the Christmas tree, this year I made Butterbeer (the drink in Harry Potter) to go with the movie.
Bake Together
My husband and I like to make gingerbread cookies each year. I guess I really bake them but we eat them together. Even if only some of the family is doing the baking the smell of the baking is likely to make everyone happy!
Make Decorations
Making decorations can be fun for adults and child. Keep watching here for ideas and also a quick Google search will find you lots of great ideas.
Give Back
Giving back can be very rewarding for your family as well as the one you are giving to. You can sponsor a kid from the Salvation Army Angel Tree, help at a soup kitchen, volunteer at a local animal shelter, make scarves and blankets for your local homeless shelter, the ideas are endless.You can also make sure your gifts give back by donating to causes for gifts. Look for a cause that is dear to the person you are giving the gift to, for animal loves adopt an animal from the World Wildlife Fund or give to a local animal shelter, for the tree huggers you can donate to have trees planted, etc…
Have a Handmade Christmas
Make a rule that at least one gift for each person has to be handmade. This can mean either by the person or from a store like Etsy. It can be fun to see what everyone comes up with. I try and do as much of my shopping as possible from stores like Etsy and also from handmade Fair Trade goods that help those that are making the items.
The traditions don’t even need to be normal holiday traditions. The year before last my family went to a Flaming Lips concert on New Years Eve as part of our Christmas and last year we went to a NBA game. Just do something together and have fun, you will remember the things you did together more than the gifts.
Have you started any green holiday traditions? Will you be starting any new ones this year?
Also here is a beautiful song that goes right along with this topic.
