Category Archives: Arts and Crafts

November’s Top 5 Eco Crafts

  By Donna DeForbes | November 1, 2013 - 5:00 am |
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Eco-Friendly Crafts for Thanksgiving | Eco-Mothering.com

Welcome to the third installment of my monthly eco-friendly arts and craft projects gathered from around the Internet. While some projects require adult supervision, they are a fun, educational and green hobby for your kids. This month’s collection includes five Thanksgiving-themed crafts. It’s pretty amazing what you can create just by repurposing everyday items. Enjoy! Pinecone Turkeys Junk Mail Turkey Place Cards Wine Cork Turkey Place Cards Candlelit Fall Leaf Centerpiece Mayflower Crayon Holder This post is featured on Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Works for Me Wednesday and Natural Living Monday.

October’s Top 5 Eco Crafts

  By Donna DeForbes | October 4, 2013 - 5:30 am |
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Eco-Friendly Crafts for Halloween | Eco-Mothering.com

This is the second installment of my monthly eco-friendly arts and craft projects gathered from around the Internet. While most projects require adult supervision, they are a fun, educational and green hobby for your kids. This month’s collection includes two awesome Halloween crafts. It’s pretty amazing what you can create just by repurposing everyday items. Enjoy! Recycled Bottle Skull Lights Toddler-sized Cardboard Cars Milk Jug Fairy Houses Nature Weaving Loom Papier Mâché Trick-or-Treat Pumpkin   This post is featured on Natural Living Monday, Thank Goodness It’s Monday, Party Wave Wednesday, Small Footprint Friday and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.  

The Autumnal Equinox: Celebrating Fall

  By Donna DeForbes | September 17, 2013 - 5:30 am | ,
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Celebrating the Fall Equinox | Eco-Mothering.com

The autumnal equinox marks the first day of fall, a shifting of seasons, a time when daylight and darkness are of equal length. Nature is in balance. Traditionally, the autumnal equinox has been a celebration of the harvest and preparation for the coming winter. The full moon closest to the equinox is called the Harvest Moon, since farmers would use its light to harvest their crops. Cultures around the world have honored this time with celebrations. The summer’s fruits have been reaped; now we can sit back and enjoy them. For us in the northern hemisphere, we appreciate autumn’s cooler temperatures, crisp air and colorful foliage. It is a season that is deep and magical and full of sudden silences: kids go off to school; birds head south for winter; leaves fall from branches. Spiritually, it is a time for turning inward and restoring balance in our lives. For all those … Continue reading →

September’s Top 5 Eco Crafts

  By Donna DeForbes | September 6, 2013 - 5:30 am |
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Eco-Friendly Crafts | Eco-Mothering.com

Since so many of my readers love crafty DIY projects, I’m starting a new subset of Top 5 Fridays. Once a month, I’ll feature several eco-friendly arts and craft projects that I’ve gathered from around the Internet. While some projects require adult supervision, they are a fun, educational and green hobby for your kids. It’s pretty amazing what you can create just by repurposing everyday items — ENJOY! Cardboard Dollhouse (with working elevator!) Recycled Jet Pack Butterfly Feeder DIY Paintbrushes Flower Pot Birdbath This post is featured on Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Tuned-In Tuesdays and Thank Goodness It’s Monday.

Be a Greener Babysitter with These 4 Eco-Friendly Kid Activities

  By Donna DeForbes | July 2, 2013 - 5:30 am |
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Eco-Friendly Babysitting Ideas | Eco-Mothering.com

This is a guest post by Christine Maddox. An eco-friendly lifestyle promotes sustainability. Whether or not the family you sit for follows that lifestyle, as a babysitter you can introduce earth-friendly projects that are also fun and educational for the kids. Potato Power A favorite activity among many kids is discovering that potatoes can become batteries that can be used to power an LED light bulb or clock. This demonstrates that the ability to generate power is all around us. The simple experiment is cheap requiring not much more than a potato, a penny, a galvanized steel nail and a few alligator clip wire units. Experiment with other foods as well; citrus fruits supposedly produce more power than potatoes. Follow these steps for making a potato-powered LED clock. Solar Energy Experimenting with solar power is an affordable option for introducing children to sustainable energy. The cost of solar panels have … Continue reading →

How to Build a DIY Fairy Garden

  By Donna DeForbes | June 11, 2013 - 5:30 am | ,
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DIY Fairy Garden | Eco-Mothering.com

This is a guest post from Jessica Nattamai. Gardens are more than a place to grow food and flowers. They can become an imaginative space for kids to take part in creative play while enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Furthermore, digging in the earth allows children to be in immediate contact with diverse life forms: worms, plants and cocoons can all be discovered. Luckily, most children aren’t hesitant to get their hands dirty. All they really need is a little inspiration. Creating a fairy garden is the perfect project to inspire imagination for the whole family. Simply adding stones, small plants or homes turns an ordinary garden into a place of magic! Here are a few tips on making a fairy garden. Collect Your Materials A garden, natural space or a container with a drainage hole (A wine barrel, tin basin, planter or even a salad bowl will work … Continue reading →

Top 5 Easy-to-Make Recycled Holiday Crafts

  By Donna DeForbes | December 14, 2012 - 7:00 am | ,
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Cardboard Christmas Choir. This adorable trio adorns a mantel or windowsill and is simply made with recycled toilet paper and paper towel tubes and kids’ socks. (Finally! A use for those singles that mysteriously lose their other half in the dryer.) Recycled Fishy Ornament. This ornament requires a few more items from the craft store, but it repurposes old tuna or sardine cans as well as those landfill-clogging Styrofoam packing peanuts. Milk Carton Dreidel. All you need for this cute Hanukkah craft is a small milk carton and a pencil. Kids decorate the dreidel and then play the game. The site even has downloadable activities. Yule Potpourri. With spices and fruits from your kitchen, simmer a batch of homemade potpourri to warm the house in this time of darkness. Make an extra big batch, and you can fill mason jars with potpourri for simple holiday gifts. Gift Box Advent Calendar. I … Continue reading →

The Recycled Dollhouse

  By Donna DeForbes | January 14, 2011 - 11:44 am |
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This photo shows a portion of the dollhouse my mother made for my sister and I when we were little. Built from cardboard boxes, the house was filled with wallpaper remnants, beds fashioned from old spaghetti boxes, curtains sewn from leftover fabrics, crocheted rugs and plenty of ingenuity. We loved our dollhouse then for its large size (Barbie’s Dreamhouse never had so many rooms) and personalized touches. Only now do I admire it for it’s eco-friendliness, the recycling of old materials in this labor of love. Sofie started off with a little wooden dollhouse and a wooden doll family, but she’s since transitioned into the world of Barbie-size dolls that need a home of their own. First, I perused craigslist for options but balked at the prices for today’s Dreamhouse. They were so plastic, so plain, so pink. I was inspired to do better. So in the tradition of my … Continue reading →