Category : Eco Kids Projects
I love a good DIY and the key to successfully completing projects with children is to estimate enough time so the joy of crafting remains until the end. With 10 days to go until Valentines, these DIY projects are great for budgets and they’ve been tested and approved by kids! I also think about teachers and making their life a little easier with holiday card exchanges and this Valentine heart DIY project keeps life easy for teachers because they are not personalized! Instead they are hand sewn and a reusable decoration/card/keepsake that children will love to receive. Here is a picture of the finished project:
Reusable Valentine Instructions:
This is a great DIY if you have oodles of fabric scraps! I only needed to purchase embroidery thread and felt squares so the cost was minimal. Here is what you need: sharp needle with med sized eye hole, your choice of felt, scrap fabric, embroidery thread, lollipops.
First step is to cut out fabric and felt hearts. Remember how you cut out the perfect paper heart by folding it in half and cutting 1/2 the heart on the folded edge? Use this same method for cutting fabric and felt so each side matches. Older children and adults can easily free hand heart cut-outs but to help younger kids, trace out the heart with pencil for them to follow. My example is this great combination of camouflage fabric and brown felt. It’s important to know your audience and picking different fabrics can really help with enticing the boy crowd into participating with this craft. We made combinations that both my sons and daughters gravitated to and the comment from my 8 year old son was “cool heart”!
Second step is to lineup the fabric heart on top of the felt heart and hand-stitch. This is a great tutorial for first time sewers. For younger kids, put them on your lap and help them stitch. You will be amazed how quickly they learn! I purchased a few different colors of embroidery thread to give some pop to the fabric hearts: beige, red, purple, and pink.
Final step for kids is to insert a lollipop into a stitch that acts as a holder. The stitching at the back of the heart actually looks really awesome, but if you want to take this DIY one step further and finish off the back, cut out another felt heart, place against the back of the valentine and machine stitch around the outside. The machine sewing is a nice contrast against the inside stitching on the fabric heart and embroidery thread – and will hide the stitching and tie-offs.
I have to add my personal perspective on this craft. To complete our hearts we loaded up a basket with all the supplies and took them to our after school activities. Children from the hockey rink and soccer gym all came over and commented on which fabric was their favorite, wanting to help push the needle through the fabric, and commented “can you teach me to sew?” It was really lovely to see just how excited kids get with making things themselves and taking a Valentine DIY to the next level to incorporate basic sewing. I’m really excited to know how proud my kids will be to hand out these special Valentines to family and close friends.
Valentine Tableware DIY
If you are hosting a Valentine party or responsible for bringing disposable tableware to your child’s school for Valentine baking or treats, here is a great tableware DIY project! This aspect of Valentines party planning doesn’t have to be toxic for the environment with cheap plastic or styrofoam. Check out this fun, budget friendly, and earth friendly DIY project that looks unique and is fun for kids! If you are in charge of tableware, invest in cups, plates, and napkins that can be composted. Keep dyes and ink out of your compost by stamping these items with beet juice rather than using an ink pad. Here’s how!
Take a plain plate made from compostable materials such as paper or bagasse (sugarcane) and a rubber stamp. Instead of reaching for the ink pad, purchase a beet and slice off a piece. Dab the stamp against the beet juice and use to stamp the tableware. The effect is subtle, fun, and kids understand the concept about only returning organic materials back into the earth. This DIY goes quick and the kids have lots of fun! Keep slicing off fresh sections of the beet for more juice. ** Tip – this is also a great technique for naturally dying home made Valentines play dough **
For more tips for a Greener Valentines and unique ideas, check out the Mommy Footprint fan page or website. Have fun crafting!
As I write this post, I gaze out the window and see branches of nearby trees covered with snow. Nothing is more beautiful than the dusting of white stuff, but when you are snowed in with kids at home to entertain, thinking of activities can be a challenge. I’ve been reminded of how easy it is to romance the idea of having kids at home during snow days <grin> and how helpful it is to have fun activities in your back pocket for when they are bouncing off the walls. Here are two concepts I love – proven time and time again with both my daughters and sons at varied ages: marble runs and bird activities. Each of these activities can fill many hours and inspire nature and building. Bird Activities will be included in the next article: Snow Day Indoor Activities – Bird Fun.
Wooden Marble Run & DIY
Earlier this week I kept my kids home for a snow day. We played in the snow, but when it was time to come in, I had to think of something to keep all four busy. I dug out our wooden marble run and love the creative energy it creates – even for me! It’s very satisfying once you get a run built….and younger kids love watching the marbles race down the track. I also love how my Quadrilla marble run takes any size marble – but a warning, it can be frustrating for young children to build. Here is an example of our finished design.
Don’t have a marble run at home? NP! If you have an empty cereal box and some marbles, you can make your own! With making this Made By Joel marble run, the best part is creating the toy yourself which is always the case with easy and fun DIY projects. The talented dad from Made By Joel provides easy steps for making your own and is the king of fun projects that utilize things you already have at home! Image from the Made By Joel blog with directions here:
I haven’t tried the toilet paper marble run design – but I remember my boys loving a similar (but plastic) model at Science World so I know this would be a hit! There are a few of these on Pinterest that would be easy to do; a magnet version and one where you cut the toilet paper rolls in half and tape the wall! The below picture can provide some inspiration – picture credit here:
Snow, and lots of it seems to be Mother Nature’s way of telling us to stop and play. I try to take my cues from her and hope these DIY marble runs inspire some fun indoor family time!
Have some squirrely kids at home these days? Mine are all climbing the walls and going to school full-day and having physical activities afterwards isn’t denting their energy! I’ve realized this time of year it’s extra important to get that dose of fresh air! We tend to go into hibernation mode this time of year but kids need to get outside even more. Many schools keep kids indoors if it’s raining so they get very little outside time in wet North American climates. I get a lot of inspiration from the websites I’ve listed below – they have amazing ideas for keeping kids engaged with unique activities for encouraging the outdoors! I’ve also teamed up with a new sponsor this season and it’s very exciting. A local mountain, Cypress Mountain has offered my family some excursions on their Mountain to experience this ski season. This is my favorite mountain to ski and I’m so excited to enjoy some bonding time with my children up the mountain. Can I be honest? I went up Cypress Mountain with my boys last winter and it was one of the best days of my parenting journey. I don’t know what happened… could it have been all that fresh air, the memories of skiing when I was a child? I don’t know but some magic clicked that day and the one-on-one bonding time a had with the boys was intense. You want maximized quality time with your children? Take them into the wilderness or up a mountain. Talking while riding up a chair lift, the comradely checking on each other while going down the slope, the exhilaration you experience while enjoying a truly beautiful sport is wonderful and it’s one I hope all parents can enjoy once with their children. If you don’t ski – I would suggest an equally great time is snow shoeing, tobogganing or tubing on a ski slope. It is carefree fun and your kids need to see this side of you, completely relaxed and loving the outdoors.
This is a picture of my sons and I on New Year’s Eve. Our first time night skiing and the city lights in the backdrop were stunning!
Two sites that offer wonderful tips on enjoying outdoor winter activities are:
Let The Kids Play – an blog that is probably aimed at more preschool aged children but their articles are so incredible, order children would benefit for the activities too!
The Grass Stain Guru – helping parents make a resolution to impact physical and mental health for their children – PLAY MORE!
Related Articles:
Resources to Get Parents and Children Outside Enjoying Nature
Summer Fairy Garden and Fairy House
Geocaching – Eco Activity For Entire Family
Greening celebrations & Halloween is a hot topic this year. One aspect of party planning that many hosts struggle to green is when using disposable tableware, specifically at children’s parties and Halloween. But we’ve made advances in biodegradable and compostable disposable tableware options and it’s never been easier to keep the fun and excitement and the environmental impact low at these celebrations. Don’t believe me? Check out the awesome pictures of bagasse plates stamped with beet juice at the bottom of this post.
Halloween parties don’t have to be a wasteful affair – make a goal to host a little or no-waste party. We’ve already talked about Halloween decorating so lets talk tableware. I agree that some of the printed/licensed napkins, plates and cups are adorable for Halloween, but it’s important to green this aspect of party planning. With the proper Eco-friendly tabletop accents**, this is the easiest area to green and guests will love the effect of earth friendly disposable tableware! Using your own dishware is the best way to booster your green with party planning, but this isn’t always a practical option. We host an annual Halloween party and I know with over 20 kids running through my house, there’s no way I’m giving them my everyday dishes. Here are some Eco-friendly options for disposable tableware & some spooky facts you’ll want to learn about traditional cups and plates..
Hot Cups:
Bring out the hot chocolate or apple cider, but make sure you’re using hot cups lined with PLA. Traditional paper hot cups are lined with petroleum-based resin. Ever wondered why you get that nasty after taste after you’ve purchased a coffee or hot drink from a cafeteria or store? This is plastic melting and being absorbed into your body. Compostable hot cups are a great addition to your next party because the interior resin of the cups is lined with PLA (poly lactic acid) which is derived from renewable resources such as sugarcane and starches (corn).
We all know styrofoam cups (styrofoam anything for that matter) are terrible for the environment. But if we truly understood their destruction many of us, including myself, would stand up and make more noise when we see it being used. I ran across this description of styrofoam used by the Wonkette talking about the U.S. Capitol bringing styrofoam back into their cafeteria after banning it for 4 years. Sometimes it’s great to have a description that doesn’t sugar coat to stick into our minds if a business or event service needs a reminder about how bad styrofoam is. Quote from Wonkette:
“Foamed polystyrene” is a miraculous invention that manages to be completely awful through every step of its near-eternal “life cycle” — it is manufactured with petroleum that must be imported from Middle East dictatorships, toxic “styrene oligomers” migrate into the food it holds, it’s highly flammable and produces black poisonous smoke, and most of the 25 billion polystyrene cups tossed every year will take more than half a millennium to degrade.
Sometimes it takes shocking statistics to really reinforce that these products should never been used because of the environmental consequences. Let’s also not forget that polystyrene is a strong plastic that is ‘foamed’ into Styrofoam. I sometimes forget that Styrofoam is plastic because of the different texture but it’s polystyrene created from erethylene and benzine that is inject or blow molded. Do you want to pour hot liquid into this soup of plastic materials?
Plates:
Traditional Halloween disposable party plates hmmmmm pick your evil a) licensed paper plates made from virgin trees and inked with toxic dye 2) Styrofoam plates that are devastating to the environment 3) plastic plates that take forever to biodegrade and often end up polluting our forests and water. Now think about using compostable plates. Not only are they biodegradable, but also compostable as they are made from excess plant materials that otherwise would have gone to waste! The first option for plates is perfect for Halloween, not because they are scary, but fit into the theme of Fall beautifully because palm leaf plates are manufactured from fallen leaves. It is very cool to tell a child that a leaf fell from a tree, was picked up for a villager, cleaned with die, and shaped into a plate. Little children and all party guests will understand this story and love learning how palm plates are made without any disruption to the tree and because they are made without dyes, wax, finishes of any kind ~ they are compostable and a very earth friendly option with party tableware. An other option with biodegradable and compostable plates are those made from bagasse which is a fibrous pulp that is left over after processing sugar cane. A cool story as well because this material would have otherwise been turned into waste and again, no trees are used in the manufacturing of these plates. So although they are stamped ‘tree free’ along the edge, guests may assume they are a paper plate because of the color and texture. Make sure to inform party guests about the bagasse plates so they don’t assume they are made from paper. One way to catch guests attention is to personalize these party plates. I use beet juice to dye the homemade play dough I made my children. This way I get a brightly colored play dough using vegetable dye rather than brightly colored play dough from using synthetic food coloring. Well why not stamp your bagasse plates with a rubber stamp and beet juice? You are using a natural dye to make these plates look different that will create some buzz and questions. It’s also super fun for the kids! My niece and I tried this tonight and the results were fantastic. She also loved learning how an organic substance like beet juice should be used to stamp with because you wouldn’t want any other material like traditional ink a guest’s plate that will contain food. The texture of the bagasse plates is great for absorbing the beet juice and also makes for very strong plates.
** Tabletop accents. We’ve decided on a mixture of ways to dress-up our Halloween tabletop for this year’s party. We are painting little pumpkins and gourds from our local patch and making them into ghosts and black cats. We’ve also sprinkled some pine cones and crazy shaped gourds from the patch. Felt appliques that act as reusable confetti are also a great way to punch up a table.
This post is part of the 2011 Greening your Halloween Blog Tour brought to us by Green Planet Parties, Green Halloween, Green Gift Guide, Surf Sweets and A Little Bit of Momsense.
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Halloween…How Will You Green?
Halloween, pumpkins, leaves – this season represents the best time of year in my house. My children are excited and look forwards to the October visits to local farms, pumpkin patches, or nature walks, and my favorite parenting memories usually contain a swirl of Autumn colors in memory backdrops. Because my family loves the Halloween season so much I’ve had to be creative with greening this month so not to dampen the excitement and energy. We bought a lot of Halloween plastic crap (that would be beloved crap to my children) when the boys were small. It’s not something I would invest in today, being more green-minded, but along the way, I’ve managed to incorporate some concepts with reusing and being creative this time of year and wanted to share. Early. Greening Halloween takes a bit of time which is why this article is being published while we’re still in September. Greening your life takes a lot of impulse control and leaving decorating, costume shopping, etc. until the last minute will have you making rushed decisions without having the luxury of thinking about sustainability with this holiday.
Halloween decor:
Yes, the scariest decorations are not going to be made from felt or organics. If you need to add outdoor Holiday decor – purchase a decoration that will last and can be reused for many years. Many people are looking to downsize their Halloween collections – always check Craig’s List first to purchase decorations that are not made from Eco-friendly materials.
Have a wooden outdoor structure locally made! My favorite decoration sits on our front lawn and is a huge wooden pumpkin (approx. 7 feet high x 6 feet wide) that was made by a local carpenter for my family. Where did I find Randy? I visited our local pumpkin patch the first weekend it was open…they always have the best wooden Fall themed structures and I asked for the contact number of who made it. Voila – I got to work with Randy years ago and it produced a wonderful decoration! It also doubled as a party game when my kids were younger because the pumpkin eyes, nose, and smile had holes big enough that we’d bring it inside for a bean bag toss game. The best thing about this decoration is how I can simply compost it when it starts falling apart. See below picture for an example of wooden decorations found at a pumpkin patch – this would look great in front of a house!
Greening decorations is a big part of making Halloween more sustainable. It’s important to know that the wall decals sold at dollar stores for Halloween for indoor decorating are made from PVC. Yes, these will off-gas when first applied to the wall so we keep these out of kids rooms, etc. when we reuse them each year. I have noticed more options available for wall appliques in stores this year made from non-toxic materials – paper, etc. For decorating a nook in your home or classroom, these garlands from my company Green Planet Parties are sweet and the burlap banners have been very popular to string outside across windows or porches.
Costumes:
We have a fair number of costumes from years of hosting Halloween parties. This year, thanks to the great tips from Green Halloween, I started a Facebook Group and invited friends to join a costume swap. Creating a Facebook Group only took a few minutes and I asked people if they had costumes they want to sell, trade, or lend out to post on the wall. People are enthusiastic and it’s perfect for people like me that are too attached to let go costumes my kids have worn – I can feel good about lending them out so they get used and save a parent purchasing another single use item.
Party crafts:
Halloween crafting doesn’t have to be a wasteful activity. Reusing canning jars around the house makes fun specimen jars (you can get really creative with these). Another way to reduce waste is if you’re purchasing pumpkins early in the month, don’t carve them and keep them off the ground. Painting pumpkins is lots of fun for younger children and the pumpkins will last all month. We have a tradition of making ghost pumpkins from our first visit to the patch each year. My kids LOVE this activity and now that I’ve found earth friendly acrylic paint, I’ll be trying my first every black cat pumpkin this year. . . stay tuned.
Candy:
If you are looking to avoid traditional Halloween candy without artificial ingredients – check out Surf Sweet treats. They are delicious so your kids won’t roll their eyes with these organic goodies. Other great facts about this brand are:
~made with organic sweeteners, including organic fruit juice
~ excellent source of Vitamin C
~ candy made without corn syrup and GMOs
~ produced and packaged in a facility free of the 10 most common allergens
~ socially responsible and my favorite manufactures the candy in Canada and the US! Yes!
Starting early is the key to greening any celebration. Plan your Halloween activities, costumes, decorating early and think about adding locally manufactured and sustainable products if you need new holiday gear this October. Or try making a costume or decoration new again from borrowing from a friend. Please post ideas you have for making this ‘tough to green’ holiday a little more earth friendly.
This post is part of the 2011 Greening your Halloween Blog Tour brought to us by Green Planet Parties, Green Halloween, Green Gift Guide, Surf Sweets and A Little Bit of Momsense.
