It’s Father’s Day this weekend and because I’m lucky enough to know some very artistic, resourceful, and Eco minded mamas – I asked for stories to create a group article. My two top father’s day ideas are at the end of this article but thanks to some great ladies, there’s something for all dad’s listed in this post. I would like to thank Lindsay, Fiona, Tracy, Annemarie, & Rebecca for being guest contributors for this special article.
First up is Lindsay, David Suzuki’s Queen of Green. She answers your questions about everyday green living with tips and recipes to make your life a little easier on the environment. It’s all about green living made easy. Lindsay has incredible DIY recipes and is an amazing resource. I love this DIY after shave recipe…just in time for Father’s Day, this Men’s Herbal After Shave only takes 10 minutes to make and it will last about 2 months.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup distilled or sparkling mineral water
1/4 cup witch hazel (make sure it’s pure, without parabens)
2 Tablespoons vegetable glycerin
1 Tablespoon aloe juice or gel
Optional essential oils:
4 drops rosemary
3 drops clove
2 drops bergamot
Add to a bottle and mellow for 2 days. Apply after shaving.
*Note: always try a test patch and omit essential oils if you or someone in your home is sensitive to scents
Our next contributor is Fiona, the owner of Pip ‘n’ Milly Creations. She continues to nurture her love of handmade and specializes in creating beautifully practical, one of a kind handbags, incorporating core product values: Handmade. Well-made. Uniquely you.
After Suzanne asked about the best Father’s Day gift I had been a part of, I spent a fair bit of time pondering. I have to admit that my thoughts kept returning to a gift I had made for my father when I was a child, rather than to something amazing I had done with my own children for their dad. Perhaps it is because they have always made gifts at school and preschool that I have not had to think much about it! Whatever the case, the gift which sprang to mind was a simple embroidered felt bookmark I made when I was 7 or 8. Handmade gifts were a part of my Mum’s upbringing, but not Dad’s, so he never had quite the appreciation for handmade that we might have liked. Or so we thought. Sadly, my beloved Dad passed away 5 years ago at the age of 59. When we were able to come to terms with sorting his belongings, Mum found the bookmark in his drawer. I treasure it greatly for the memory it holds and the reminder not to judge a book by its cover.
Next up is Tracy, the Ops Manager at Mighty Nest that is a store devoted to helping families find safe, healthy, non-toxic products for their home and family.
Since my daughter is 10 months old this is our first Fathers Day! We’ll actually be spending the day at airports/on airplanes on our way to vacation with his family so I don’t have any plans but I am working on a special gift – my husband loves reading to our daughter so I’m making a book just for the two of them. It will contain pictures of them doing various activities together such as eating, sleeping, making funny faces, etc. and each page will have a caption as if it were written by my daughter – I love when my Daddy reads to me. It makes me laugh when Daddy makes funny faces. I don’t like green beans, just like my daddy! Hopefully it’ll be a big hit…and hopefully I’ll finish it in time!
Next is Annemarie – the amazing mama behind yoyomama.ca, an e-newsletter for mums that aims to make their lives less yoyo-like!
I know that all mums secretly (or not so secretly) want to sleep in and have time to themselves on Mother’s Day, which goes against the grain of what the day is meant to be. But I recently read a survey where I found Dad’s also want the same time. The sleeping in I knew, the time alone, not so much! So this Father’s Day I’m going to take the girls out in the morning – if I can pry them away from the idea of making breakfast in bed for their Dad (they’re five and seven so you can imagine what breakfast in bed looks like, though they excel at presentation) – and stay out so he wakes up at home all alone and has some time to luxuriate in silence before we return bearing gifts.
My last guest post is from Rebecca who is just an absolute pleasure to know. Rebecca is the mom of two, a blogger, foodie and social media lover.
Here’s one gift idea that I did the first Father’s Day after my son was born, and again the first after my daughter: For $1.50 at Michael’s I bought an unfinished wooden frame and painted it. I then took the children’s feet (they were still babies), painted them and stamped them on the frames. Then I put a picture of the baby inside the frame. Daddy now has the footprints for each of the kids and a special token from each of his first Father’s Days with them.
And me! I’ve written about it in the past, so there ideas are not originals, but I love having them in my back pocket for ‘Father Day’ emergency gifts. They are right up most dad’s alley & very affordable!
Pick dad’s favorite sports team and purchase a new T-shirt (preferable with a white background). Have your children put hand or foot prints on the back of the t-shirt with their name and age (with fabric paint). I’ve done this gift for the last two world cup soccer tournaments and it’s been a really cool way to document the growth of my family over a 4 year period and just how much they’ve grown. And – Dad gets a great t-shirt that he’s proud to wear with his team on the front and his even more beloved team on the back.
A favorite gift that both my father-in-law, my dad, and my husband have all loved receiving in the past are Shutterfly photo books. This company has the easiest and most attractive design layouts on the market and you don’t have to be a ‘techie’ to figure it out. You simply select a design background, upload pictures, then give the photos captions that dad will enjoy. You may be thinking its too late to order and receive a photo book by Father’s Day. Well you are correct. BUT – you can still make the book, order it, and send dad a link to the album where he can view all the wonderful pictures and captions and enjoy online for Sunday. He’ll be so excited to receive the photo book later in the month to enjoy for many years on his coffee table.
Thank you to all the guests that took the time to share their Father’s Day memories, ideas, and even a recipe! I hope you enjoy your Father’s Day this weekend and remember to relax and just enjoy the moments.
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I’ve often said that if I spent everyday at my childrens’ preschool, I’d be writing daily for Mommy Footprint. The inspiration and wonderful ideas that come from this play-based, magical school have been a wonderful experience for my family over the last 6 years. Two of my favorite ideas that come from preschool have been around forever, but since I setup both in my house last week, I’m reminded just what great ideas they are from the amount of time all of my kids spend playing with them. And both are very low cost to setup!
Wooden Stump & Nails
Ever drive by a house that has cut down a tree and is offering the stumps/logs for free? Well next time, stop and pick one up because your children will love to hammer nails into the stump. Both my boys and daughters have loved this activity at preschool and we’ve recently picked up a stump and ball pein hammer that I picked up at my local hardware store. The ball pein hammer is normally smaller, lighter and has a ball and opposite flat face..much easier for small children. And by small children I mean 3 years olds and up. They are more than able at that age to hammer nails into wood and the stumps help the nails slide in so easily! It will keep them busy for hours and teach them great motor skills. You can teach children to hammer thin pieces of wood to attach to the stump or even cardboard once they get bored of just hammering nails. Also, pickup nails of all sizes to further encourage fine motor skill development.
If you are nervous and think your toddler or child is too young to use real nails, find golf tees and left over Styrofoam packing from large appliances. Using the ball pein hammer, kids can hammer golf tees into the packing material and you don’t have to worry about them using real nails.
Sand Table
It’s a standard in any preschool and there’s a good reason why – sand tables are wonderful. When I received my package of safe sand from Santastik, I knew what I was going to use it for….creating an indoor sand table. The sand is amazing and kids love to play with it. We added some animals, scoops, cups, and the sand into a long flat plastic container and all my kids have enjoyed playing with it. I just put the container on top of their play table and voila…they are all very happy. And unlike the bean table I set up years ago (my husband still curses that idea), the sand table is very easy to clean up. Yes, kids get excited and throw the sand around, but the Sandtastik sand is super easy to vacuum so the mess is a non-issue. To find out why I’m recommending the Sandtastik brand of play sand – check out this article. This sand is made without carcinogens or asbestos which might be found in other brands of sand.
I love my kid’s preschool. We’ve been there 6 consecutive years because of the close ages of our 4 children and although I’m very sad this time is coming to an end this Spring, I’m grateful for the many lessons the teachers have taught me. A parent participation/play based preschool will not only bring your children great memories – but you’ll be surprised how much as parents you will learn.
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It’s no secret I love fairies. I dressed up as Peter Pan last Halloween and I relate to this classic character in so many ways. Being the owner and having a creative outlet like Green Planet Parties has been a gift – the ability to reach a large audience of parents looking to make better environmental choices at their children’s birthday parties is wonderful. I’d like to share the planning and results of my twin daughters greener birthday party and the hope was to capture the magic of a fairy walk, through our nearby woods and test our woodland creativity. I’m writing about this party because when I was researching forest walk party ideas on the internet…I started to feel nervous because the elaborate and beautiful examples I was reading through were out of my budget and amount of time I had to make some magic happen. The results from our fairy party were amazing and although many of the Green Planet Parties fairy products were integrated into the forest walk and eye-spy – I also used my imagination and borrowed items from friends which is attainable for anyone planning a fairy themed or woodland party. A very talented photographer lent her eye and captured some great pictures and her name is Tamsen Ogden. You can view the all the pictures on the updated Gallery page of Green Planet Parties located here.
The forest setup and eye-spy was the best part of my day. I had my sons to help me and it was so much fun climbing trees to string felt garland to mark the entrance way into the forest and the end of the walk. My boys loved helping attach the fairy window and fairy chimney to one of the trees in the forest. These were the first items to spot when the girls would enter the forest. They are such cute items….with the fairies having a window box with flowers and fireplace to enjoy inside the tree.
We collected and setup ‘gifts’ that the fairies might have left in the forest to show they are happy living in the trees and to also work as an eye-spy game to keep the young guests engaged. The length of the trail or forest walk would depend on ages and time-frame…our walk lasted about 10 minutes for each guest which was perfect for 4 and 5 year olds. Every 10 feet there would be a gift left by the fairies. There was a tea-set in an abandoned tree house built into the forest, felt acorn capped ornaments hanging from branches, a beautiful fairy house borrowed from a friend, wooden bird houses hanging in branches, a bucket of wooden wands that each little girl enjoyed keeping, and my favorite – the outdoor fairy door. These outdoor fairy doors have such huge W-o-W factor because they open, are a really big size (11″ high), are handcrafted with amazing quality, and treated so they are can be used in the garden after the party as a year-round decoration. Here are some pictures of these special fairy treasures.
Once the forest was setup, we led party guests to the entrance of the trail. The girls went into the forest in sets of two and were told to look for signs or gifts from the fairies. They had to remember these items and tell the helper at the end of the trail all the things they remembered. My niece helping wrote down the items that they remembered. I loved watching the reactions of party guests finding a hidden treasure in the forest and knocking softly on the fairy door. A few eco-friendly tips for setting up the fairy walk and helped keep things on budget was picking up a new paint can from a local paint store and painting the outside of it to hold the wooden wands. I loved the effect and thought that pinning fabric around the can would be beautiful too. I also wanted an earth friendly glitter to sprinkle and lead guests to magical forest items. Earth friendly glitter doesn’t exist because traditional glitter is produced from plastic and I didn’t want to be putting that on a forest floor so I hoe-punched seed paper. I loved the effect of having something contrasting with the soil that caught their eye (pictured in the fairy door photo). I didn’t have to worry about leaving any of this material behind once the party was finished because the paper is compostable and embedded with wild flower seeds.
My girls wore silk wings that are so incredibly earthy and they loved how the wings floated behind them when they ran through the forest. After the walk they seemed pretty happy with what the fairies created. After we arrived home the fairies were busy with more surprises. The tabletop was set with more earthy fun, starting with compostable heart shaped palm leaf plates, borrowed tea cups for lemonade and ice-tea, cloth tablecloth with acorn appliques, and two toadstool cakes that were made by a local bakery and decorated with wooden toys by the birthday girls. The only party decorations really needed inside were the name banners that are such high impact for adding a festive feel to a room. Both girls picked out their own fabrics and they loved the result – Green Planet Parties banners are a wonderful keepsake and heirloom decoration that will last for many birthday celebrations.
The goodie bags were really well received from parents and party guests. It’s always so refreshing for parents to receive loot bags that don’t contain plastic and dollar store items that tend to break right away. For the girls party I integrated the outdoor fairy vibe by using Toadstool cloth goodie bags containing organic sweets, butterfly kerchiefs, twig inspired pencils, and earth friendly notepads (made from 100% post consumer recycled material). It was wonderful to spend a few hours outside and although parties hosted at home are always lots of work, there is a big sense of pride when they are over. Parties hosted at home are probably a little darker shade of green that most parties because you’re able to utilize your own dishes, tablecloths, etc. I’m hopeful that this party is one my girls will always remember because just like them – it was unique, full of surprises, and a joy to be with!
I’m always in awe of talented people that create incredible hand-made items, but then to blog, design, photograph their creations and share their talents is very special. When visiting the Made By Joel blog, hours will pass and feel like minutes because you just keep clicking to read through his posts and you’ll feel very inspired to try Joel’s creations… even the ‘crafty challenged’. I’m always so motivated to buy power tools after visiting Joel’s blog but back in April when I read his post about Walnut boats I thought “finally, something very attainable for myself! Whoot!” It’s a classic craft perfect for keeping the kids entertained (it does involve flame after all) and the end product is a safe bath toy (harder and more expensive to find that you think). So after 9 months keeping my eyes to the ground trying to find discarded Walnut shells, we tried making walnut boats last weekend and it’s an awesome craft for kids. Even the older crowd that are tougher to entice with crafting enjoy it because mention lighting a candle and zoom – both my boys were in like a flash!
Any nut shell would work with this craft (the deeper the shell the better) even little acorns. But sticking with the tutorial we used walnut shells the squirrels at the park were nice enough to leave us, melted an old candle for wax, stuck in the toothpick and the kids drew really cute pirate skullies for the paper sail. After we had finished, they all immediately went flying off to sinks and the bathtub to try them out and I loved the result. Finally something that could go into the bath and I didn’t have to worry what they were bathing with. I wonder if beeswax candles would work this craft? I’ll have to try that next. One of my all time favorite crafts..quick and easy and keeps the kids attention. And the boats are a great little toy – even after the paper sails became wet and my girls pulled out their toothpicks, I saw my girls using the walnut shell (still filled with wax) and dropping them into their teapot and calling the boats their sugar cubes for tea. I loved listening to their dialogue as they clinked their tea cups, played in the bath tub, and sipped away.
I’ve attached a picture of Joel’s boats because his photography is stunning. These pictures are from the Made By Joel blog – I can’t wait to buy his book that is coming out Fall 2011 and will be keeping up with his work via his Facebook Fan page. Thanks for recording all the precious moments enjoying your talent with your kids Joel – awesome!
Related posts by Joel that I will try because he makes it look possible (haha we’ll see) are Branch Trees and Zip Line Toy. You know…we just might have a few Harry Potter figures kicking around here somewhere <wink> …and the zip line is just cool!
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I’m so happy to write about a long awaited eco-activity we’ve recently finished – building a fairy garden and fairy house. It’s been my 6 year old son urging me to help him make fairy furniture and design plans for the house which has been a very cool surprise…I always thought this would be something I’d create with my daughter’s so I’m thrilled my boys thought this was a fun idea. Creating the garden, furniture and house was so much easier thanks to the awesome tutorials at The Magic Onions. I’ve talked about this site before because it’s the ultimate resource for convincing non-crafty folk like myself that I can create some of nature’s magic with my own children.
It was so heart warming to me that one of my son’s was so determined to get this project off the ground. We had so much fun and I’m proud that all of the materials for the garden came from our yard or nearby forests…nothing needed to be purchased and borrowing a glue gun from my friend became another fun highlight for my kids (glue guns make crafting so much fun!). Our garden doesn’t come close to the artistic design that The Magic Onion achieves with her blog but check out the pictures at the end of this article – I think we did pretty good and even managed to create a new item that is the perfect accent for any fairy’s garden (hint: think acorns and hemp string).
I loved the idea of finding a wine barrel for the garden, but we used an over sized planter currently not being used. Whatever you use, make sure it’s large enough because your children will want to play with the garden when it’s completed. Also, have potting soil and make sure the container/planter/barrel has a hole in the bottom for drainage purposes because you’ll need to water your garden to keep the moss and flowers alive.
We didn’t draw out our our fairy garden before hand – but I do recommend it. Having your child map out on a sheet of paper where everything will go is a very magical step in the process and a great keep-sake. We filled up our planter with potting soil and dirt, pulled out a small flowering plant with roots intact from our main garden and replanted it in our fairy garden. Angelo found a plastic container to use for our fairy pond, then we put marbles around it with a path. Now came the fun – fairy doors, fairy furniture, and the fairy house! I followed all the instructions from The Magic Onions except for the one piece of decor within the fairy garden that was dreamed up by my sweet boy Angelo – lantern lights to hang high above the garden to light the way for fairies and gnomes. Angelo is always picking up acorns wherever we go – they are a staple item collected for his nature box. We used some hemp string and tied approx. 6 acorns together and attached to taller branches. These became our fairy lanterns ~ funny what ideas you start to imagine when you believe that fairies really do exist.
We really enjoyed making fairy furniture from the tutorials at The Magic Onions: fairy bath tub, fairy dining table, and our favourite the fairy’s washing line! This is the drying line where fairies leave their extra set of wings or dresses after they’ve been dampened by the morning dew. If you have tiny clothes pegs – that is best. For the clothing line – I used the annoying ties that you need to unwind when receiving a new toy. You know those grey ties that you fight with to ‘release’ the toy after your child unwraps it? Well my mom pointed out a few summers ago that she loves using them for tying back plants in the garden. I started saving them too because they do come in handy. They worked perfectly to tie around two sticks to create our clothing line. Here are our pictures:
After our fairy garden was complete we sat back and enjoyed our accomplishment for only a few days before Angelo decided that a house needed to be built. Thankfully, our wonderful friend Patti had many examples from her own adventures so we followed the fantastic model of no gluing, no tying to get our log house built. We simply cut approx. 20 sticks to the same size and built 4 walls (with a gap for a door) by pushing the sticks down into the soil of our fairy garden. Our roof and fairy door was made from tree bark; easy to break and mold into the shape needed for both. I love that Angelo went into the yard and was so excited that he found the perfect door knob for the fairy door – a dandelion top that hadn’t blossomed yet. It was perfect for a knob and we used the glue gun to attach it to the door. Very easy to build and our garden is almost complete. We used all materials that were already on-hand or found on a forest floor. The last surprise will be the little ladies and goodies I have arriving from The Enchanted Cupboard. I’ve long been a fan of artist and mom Beccijo who hand paints wooden treasures and has truly captured the magic of fairies and mermaids in her lovely Etsy shop.
Here are the final pictures from our fairy garden and house. So fun and hopefully a summer memory that my kids will always remember – I know I will.
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