Materials

•         Pizza box
•         Box cutter (or scissors)
•         Aluminum foil
•         Black construction paper
•         Non toxic glue or tape
•         Plastic wrap

Instructions

Measure a 1inch border around the lid of the pizza box.  Cut around 3 sides of the border, leaving the backside uncut.  Gently fold back the cut flap.  Line this flap with aluminum foil and secure with glue or tape.  Cover the opened portion of the pizza box with plastic wrap, making sure that it makes a tight seal.  Line the bottom of the pizza box with aluminum foil.  Then cover the bottom with black construction paper. 

When you’re ready to warm up a treat to eat, find a sunny spot and angle your pizza box so that the foiled area is facing the sun.  Use a stick or a ruler to prop it open the flap.  Enjoy!

Are you looking for a great way to celebrate Earth Day with your children?  The best way to teach your kids about going green is to help them fall in love with nature.  So get outside, get dirty, and show your kids why this planet is worth protecting.  Here are 7 cool activities to help your kids learn about the Earth:
 

1. Create art with leaves: Collect a few leaves from the backyard or your next nature walk, add a little paint to the back and help your kids press the painted leaves onto paper, folders, cloth, old furniture…you name it.  Check out this cool leaf printing tutorial for more details.
2. Press flowers: What better way to show kids the beauty of nature than to let them hold it in their hands?  Simply press a flower between two heavy books and let it sit for a few days.  Carefully remove the books and use the flowers to decorate a card or present.  For larger projects, read up on how to press and preserve flowers.

3. Make an underwater viewer:  Check out this quick and easy idea for making an underwater viewer out of a coffee can and some plastic wrap.  Be sure to take it along to your favorite stream, river, lake, or pond to let your kids get a better view of what’s going on under those waves!
4. Take a bird walk:

   Help you kids get a better appreciation for their feathered friends by going on a bird walk.  Sure, binoculars and a bird guide are nice.  But all you really need are your ears to show you where the birds are.  Listen for bird songs and let your kids help find the birds.  Compare songs, pay attention to habitats, and make up silly bird songs of your own!  Need a primer on birds and their songs?  Check out this link on North American Bird Songs.

   fair game movie to buy

5. Make a bird feeder

   : Now that your kids know all about birds, help them make a treat for the birds to celebrate Earth Day.  Just roll a pinecone in some peanut butter (organic, if you have it!) and cover it with bird seed.  Hang with string from a nearby tree.

6. Start a shell collection:

   If you live near the beach, take a walk in the sand with your kids and check out all the beautiful shells the beach has to offer.  Sketch your favorites in a journal and help your kids learn which is which.  Check out this shell identification guide to learn more.

7. Inspect insects: Did you know that there are about 6-10 million species of insects on this planet?  So far, we know about roughly 5,000 types of dragonflys and about 170,000 types of butterflys.  And that’s probably just the tip of the iceburg.  Bugs are cool.  Head out in the backyard with a shovel and a hand lens (like this $4 model) and see how many different kinds you and your kids can find.

Happy Earth Day!

This post is part of the Green Moms Carnival on Earth Day hosted this month by Alline at the Milkweed Mercantile. Head on over to her site and find out what other green moms are doing, saying, and thinking about Earth Day this month.

Photo by John F119

Finally, spring has sprung!  Are you ready to plant so seeds with your little ones?  You don’t need a bunch of store-bought seed starters and supplies to grow plants indoors.  Here are some great seed starter projects that use recyclables instead.

Newspaper

Take a sheet of newspaper and fold it in half so that it’s about 6-8 inches long.  Wrap the newspaper around a soda can, fold one end over to make the bottom, and voila…instant seed starting pot.  The best part is that when the seedlings have sprouted you can plant the whole thing in the ground…the newspaper will eventually decompose.

Eggshells

Another quick and easy way to grow seeds indoors is to use use clean, empty eggshells as a seed starter.  Save the egg shells from your next omelet and rinse them out with a gentle cleanser and water.  Store egg shells in their carton, fill with top soil and plant seeds inside.  When the seeds start to sprout, plant the egg shell (with the plant inside) right in the ground.

Cans/Cartons/Tubes

Need ore seed starter pots?  Raid your recycling bin and use metal cans, yogurt containers, waster bottles, milk cartons, egg cartons, toilet paper or paper towel tubes to do the trick.  The cool thing about using these recyclables is that your kids can decorate them to hold their new treasures.  Punch a few holes in the bottom of your recyclables to allow water to drain, fill with soil, plant and seed, and watch it grow.  When it comes to plant, gently remove the plant from the container and place it in the ground.

Photo by tonyolm

Waste-Free Wednesday

For this week’s edition of Waste-Free Wednesday, I’m tackling my daughters’ art box.  No sooner could my girls put pen to paper then my walls suddenly were papered in their sketches, drawings, painting, and doodles.  Once I ran out of wallspace, I needed to figure out a way to get the most mileage from their most prized pieces.  Sure, grandma will always love a stack of artwork as a gift, but why not make it even more creative and useful with these tricks:

• Framed art: Pick up second-hand frames from the thrift store to display artwork.
• Ornaments: Make holiday ornaments and decorations by trimming artwork and laminating if necessary.
• Coasters: Pick up clear glass or plastic coasters from a second-hand store and tape portions of your child’s artwork to the backside.
• Mobiles: Make paper cubes out of your child’s artwork and hang pieces at different lengths from a hangar.
• Bottled-Up Art: Roll of the artwork and gently insert into a clean, clear bottle.  Unroll the piece for display in the bottle.
• Cards: Use the backside of art-work as is for personalized stationary to send letters and notes to family and friends.  Or get creative and make cards from artwork to send out on special occasions.
• Wrapping Paper: Use your child’s art to wrap presents.
• Pencil Holders:

  Glue drawings around a clean, recycled metal can to make a keepsake pencil holder.

• Mouse Pad: Laminate your child’s paintings to create a personalized mouse pad.
• Line-Art: Hang artwork on a clothesline or across your fence on a sunny day.
• Books: Staple several pieces of your child’s artwork together into a book.
• Kiddie Gallery: Cover a large cardboard box inside and out with your child’s artwork and cut holes on both sides so kids can crawl through and observe the art.

What creative ideas have you come up with for sharing, reusing, and recycling your child’s artwork?

Got an old pair of jeans hanging around? Recycle them into a cute mini-backpack with just a few quick stitches. Check out this video to see how its done.

Photo by Tofutti Break

Gather up these supplies:

Scrap wood (preferably reclaimed or FSC certified)

Nails
Hammer
Drill

Cut your pieces to these dimensions: (Click here for a larger version of this sketch)

And then follow the instructions in this video:

Happy Building!!

The first rule to celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is that you don’t have to be Irish to love the Irish. The second rule of the day is that you gotta go green…and the greener the better! So enjoy the luck of the Irish this year and celebrate an eco-friendly St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s how:

Invites: Skip the paper invites this year and send text messages or evites for your next get together. Whether you’re hosting a party or organizing a pub crawl, Evite has an invitation to match your mood.

Beer: Up for a pint? Look for a locally brewed beer (less miles to travel) in draft form (no extra resources) served in a reusable glass (no waste) to hit green gold! If you have the choice, try a Fat Tire Amber Ale from Colorado’s New Belgium Brewery where every stage of the brewing process has been designed to improve energy efficiency; or the Brooklyn Extra Brune from NY’s Brooklyn Brewery where the brewing process and company HQ are powered by 100% wind-generated electricity.

Food: There’s more to St. Patrick’s Day than corned beef and ham. Check out these recipes for Vegetarian “Beef” and Guinness Stew, Happy Irish Beer Bread, and Vegan Irish Whiskey Bread (I’m sensing a theme here); or stop by the Irish Vegetarian to learn how to make Irish favorites like Potato Cakes, Colcannon, or Curried Nut Roast.

Flowers: If you’re sending flowers to celebrate the day, try the Rainforest Foundation Charity Bouquet from Organic Bouquet. Your recipient will get one dozen gorgeous chartreuse organic roses, and with each purchase Organic Bouquet will donate 5% to the Rainforest Foundation-US, a non-profit that helps indigenous and traditional rainforest populations secure land rights, manage natural resources and strengthen their capacity to defend and sustain their ways of life.

Crafts: Looking for a St. Patty’s Day craft ideas? Check out these great eco-friendly St. Patrick’s Day crafts that are sure to please all of your little leprechauns.

Materials

8 Toilet Paper Roll Tubes
1 Paper Towel Roll Tube
1 long board or box
Recycled Aluminum Foil
Recycled Paper (I used scrap pieces of red, orange, and yellow recycled construction paper)
Non Toxic Paints (I used blue and white)
Non-Toxic Glue

This craft is eco-friendly because it recycles items that you probably already have before they hit the trash bin. So take a look around and see what you can scrounge together while assembling your materials. If you don’t have non-toxic paints, you could use leftover wrapping paper, markers, or the back side of scratch paper instead. No tin foil in the recycle box? Use muffin cups, extra garland, or a silver marker instead. If you don’t have enough toilet paper or paper towel roll tubes laying around, ask friends to give you theirs (yes, they will laugh). You should have plenty within a few days. You get the idea.

Putting It Together

Here’s how I put this craft together, but feel free to get creative and change it up to suit your materials and your kids.

1. Using your non-toxic paints, paint each toilet paper roll tube and the long board blue. Paint the paper towel tube white. Let everything dry and decorate however you’d like.
2. Cut out nine squares (about 2-3 inches in size) from the aluminum foil.
3. Glue aluminum foil to the long board. Then glue each tube to the foil as shown in picture, making sure to place the paper towel roll in the middle of the board.
4. Cut out the flame shapes from your recycled paper.
5. Using tape, adhere the “flames” to the “candles.” Light the middle candle (the paper towel roll) first, and then one additional toilet paper candle on each night of Hanukkah.