I’ve been slowly gathering ideas because there are a few special people in my world expecting babies.  What would a person that is starting to learn wayyyyy too much about toxic baby products give as a baby gift?  Here is a compilation of very affordable ideas that I’ve bookmarked over the last few months. I’m sure there’s a few you haven’t seen!

1. Milk Lush, organic baby quilt. Made by an amazingly talented new mom, her line of organic quilts are  the perfect size.  These are a special, affordable, and a unique present. Her choice of fabrics is magical and each quilt is one of a kind made with 100% cotton, stuffed with organic cotton batting, and the side that is dreamy next to a baby is minky. (If you haven’t felt this material…it is amazingly soft!) It has tabs for baby to chew and that can attach to the stroller or carrier so you don’t loose it. She is currently sold out of her quilts, but will have new designs on her Etsy site on August 15th so stay tuned!  Check out these sweet designs from Ashely.

2. Whipstitch Backstitch These Eco-friendly stuffies will be available in the Fall, (I’m just a tease) but I had to show off this latest find! A wildly talented artist has created environmentally conscious creatures that children will adore! Looking for the perfect 1st friend or stuffie for baby? These are hand stitched with love and are filled with Ecofill stuffing (recycled plastic that is non-toxic).
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Want an easy way to educate your kids about the environment and ways to help replenish a precious resource …our trees?  Check out Eco-Libris. They are a wonderful green business that works with book readers, publishers, authors, bookstores and others in the book industry to balance out the paper used for books by planting trees. More than 20 million trees are cut down annually for virgin paper used for the production of books sold in the US alone. Eco-Libris aims to raise awareness to the environmental impacts of using paper for the production of books and provide people and businesses with an affordable and easy way to do something about it: plant one tree for every book they read, sell or publish. Customers also receive a sticker made of recycled paper for every book they balance out saying “One tree planted for this book” and can later display these stickers on their books’ sleeves.  

Wouldn’t that be the perfect finishing touch on a book given as a gift or goodie bag item from a kid’s green birthday party? That is going the extra step to support reading and balancing out your love for books by having a tree planted to reverse the destruction caused to have it produced.
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Fundraising campaigns for schools, athletic teams, and clubs is changing.  The desire to do the right thing for the environment has crept into all aspects of parenting and education with our kids…why not fundraising?!  Tracy Green of Green Hands Fundraising has found a great way to generate money for schools, while supplying parents and children an avenue to eliminate waste from school box lunches.  Her vision is to create litterless lunches by supplying stainless steel bottles and laptop lunches.  

Tracy Green started this green fundraising company when she recognized the lack of environmentally conscious and socially responsible products available to schools and organizations wanting to fundraise. In the midst of the BPA controversy, she decided to run a fundraiser with Klean Kanteen bottles to try and eliminate all of the plastic water bottles children were drinking from. In the hope of raising a few hundred dollars, the success of this fundraiser went off the charts!  Selling a product that parents need, while helping our environment seemed to be the perfect fit.  Also, have you attempted to source stainless steel bottles lately?  The prices are very expensive and they are hard to find.  With Green Hands, the sourcing of bottles has already been done, the prices are fair or even below retail cost, and money goes back into your school for finding a product you need!  How awesome is that?

Not only does Tracy run the fundraiser hand-in-hand with the PAC or teachers, she will educate regarding BPA and healthy alternatives. She is branching out to Eco Bags and has lots of cutting edge, cool ideas for fundraising products.  She is one of the most knowledgeable people I’ve spoken to locally about environmental issues, and has been successful since starting up just before the school year wrapped up last year. So if you are looking for fundraising alternatives to selling Entertainment books or wrapping paper, you can contact Tracy in the Fall when school starts back. This awesome company, based from the common sense approach of giving parents products they actually need, is very successful with generating dollars to help schools and athletic teams.  Klean Kanteen, Bilt Bottles, Laptop Lunch Kits, Eco bags, and Eco cleaning supplies are all on her list of fundraising possibilities.  Visit the site Green Hands Fundraising for more information or to contact Tracy with questions.

We all know the importance of using a canvas tote or re-usable bags to try and eliminate plastic waste, but you can go one step further at the grocery store. Has it crossed your mind that there might be a better way to bag your apples or potatoes, rather than putting them in plastic produce bags? You know the bags you rip off the roll and can’t figure out which side is supposed to open? <grin> It has crossed my mind on more than one occasion that there must be a better solution.

Today I received a great solution called Eco-Bags®. This company sells perfect little sacks for bagging your produce or grains. They are very light-weight and come in natural or organic cotton…most important, they are machine washable. These can be used in place of plastic produce bags. 

Amazing that Eco-Bags® was so ahead of their time when they opened for business in 1989. They were very forward thinking as the company’s goal was to produce a product so that “reusable becomes a way of life.” Also, they first launched using natural cotton, then evolved to certified organic cotton, and have now progressed to reclaimed cotton (recycled scraps).

Just to give you an idea of what colossal waste plastic bags produce for our planet -  here are the savings from San Francisco that has banned plastic bags. They estimate that 180 million bags were used per year by shoppers. The owner of Eco-Bags® projects that 90 billion plastic bags are distributed per year in the US and that paper bags are also a huge waste in the amount of energy it takes to produce them. Reusing items is probably the most profound message from Environmentalists. There seems to be no easier place to start than with plastic bags and there is an educational component with taking one of these shopping with you.  You can bet people will stop and ask questions and an Eco conversation will be born! These bags are priced great too…check here for produce bag prices. 

Picture source: Eco-Bags® site

Well, I didn’t know when writing my previous article on safe sunscreen for children, that it would be this difficult to actually get my hands on the brands that came highly recommended by EWG (Environmental Working Group).  It has been a challenge to source these, but I have some tips and hope it saves you research time. 

Badger sunscreen SPF 30 if very difficult to find in stores.  Whole Foods and Planet Organic would love to carry it but are having a tough time sourcing it.  My friend Leah (thank you Leah!) sent me the link to Victoria’s Health that sells Badger online, BUT after you pay for the sunscreen and shipping you are looking at $30 per bottle (82 g).  I will need about 5 bottles to last my kids this summer, so it’s just not a practical solution for me.  Still, I’m not deterred….I figure this can’t be hard.  Hmmmm keep reading.
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