Giveaway: Eco Kids Art Supplies and Maggies Naturals Food Dyes
I don’t usually bake with food coloring – but, then again, I don’t really bake much apart from bread. I have, however, tried to use vegetable juice to dye my homemade play-dough, but that didn’t turn out so well – it was just a terrible mess of beet juice and bits of beets staining the kitchen. So I was excited to learn about Maggie’s Naturals, a food coloring made from all natural and organic plant, fruit, and vegetable extracts.
Maggie’s Naturals believes you should know the food that you ingest is safe, know the ingredients on the label, and trust the companies that make them. And it’s easy to trust this same company that produces eco-kids, a line of art supplies using non-toxic, natural ingredients and environmentally friendly packaging. We love the finger paints, play-dough, and even non-toxic crayons and glue for crafts.
Maggie’s Naturals is available in six colors including blue made from Green made from green gardenia extract, spinach, and parsley and Pink made from beets and sweet potato.The set costs $60 for six colors, but could probably last for an entire childhood of cookies.
Two lucky readers will either a Maggie’s Naturals 6-pack of Food Colorings ($60) or an Eco Dough + Rolling Pin set ($30). Contest closes 9/10 and winners will be randomly selected.
Disclosure: This company gave me a sample for review. Regardless, my opinions are honest. See my full disclosure here.
Guest Post: 5 Summer Green Crafts Projects for Kids
by Becky Striepe from Glue and Glitter and Crafting a Green World
Temperatures are heating up, and before you know it school will be out for the whole summer! Are you looking for some ways to keep the kiddos entertained without breaking your budget or compromising your eco-sensibilities?
Getting crafty with your kids is a great way to keep them busy on those lazy summer days, but many conventional craft supplies are far from eco-friendly. Rather than hitting the big box store for craft supplies, next time you’re getting crafty with your kids, try one of theses green crafts projects instead:
1. Plant a Seed. Growing food, even if it’s just a few herbs in containers, is a great way to get your kids more interested in healthy eats and teach them a bit about nature. Grab some organic seeds, and spend an afternoon with the little ones making seed starter pots! Here are some ideas for making your own natural pots for plants or seedlings.
2. Painted Rocks. This is a great way to get the kids out in nature! Head out to the woods or even to your own backyard and collect a bag of big, smooth rocks. Just heat them up in the oven, and let your kids draw on them with crayons. They melt like magic, and I bet that the kids will be begging you to take them out to collect more rocks when this batch is all colored up.
3. Create Mini Notebooks from Junk Mail. Teach your kids about crafty reuse by showing them how to turn collected junk mail into little notebooks! They can use them for coloring or take them out into the woods or on a walk to use as a nature journal.
4. DIY Magnets. Do you have a bunch of those ugly, promotional magnets on your fridge? Whip out some scrap paper and the hot glue gun and your kids can turn them into cute, custom magnets. Just make sure you supervise, because hot glue guns are what they say they are: HOT!
5. Homemade Peanut Butter. Get crafty in the kitchen! Seriously, making your own peanut butter is sort of like magic. Just toss roasted peanuts into the blender and blend. First, you’ll get a coarse meal, then a fine meal, and then if you’re patient, a miracle occurs and voila! Peanut butter! Your kids will love watching the transformation.
Do you have any green crafts in store for your kids this summer? We’d love to hear your ideas, too!
Image Credits: Newspaper Pots by Julie Finn, Junk Mail Notebook by Becky Striepe
How to Make Your Own DIY Tomato Cage
Filed under: crafts, food + water, garden, home, homesteading for dummies, how-to
I like to think I’m crafty, but I have more of a creative brain than nimble fingers. I can’t cut in a straight line and my hemming with a needle and thread looks like it was done by a toddler.
But I hate to pay even $20 for something like a Tomato Cage when I think I can do it myself. I knew it didn’t need to be pretty – it just had to keep the plants from toppling over. So I took some wire hangers I’d be thrilled to upcycle anyway and twisted them into a contraption with some random extra wire that probably came with a picture hanging kit.
Again, it’s not beautiful. But it works. And it was free!
Hipcycle Partners with Funky Junk to Launch U.S. Distribution of Cambodian Upcycled Fair Trade Home Goods
In developing countries, where garbage collection services are minimal and environmental awareness takes second place to basic survival, plastic bags are everywhere: clogging drains, choking animals, and blighting already difficult lives.
Funky Junk Recycled is an innovative social enterprise based in Cambodia – making beautiful, functional, long-lasting items from used plastic bags reclaimed from streets and fields.
Hipcycle.com, the leading purveyor of upcycled products on the web, is partnering with Funky Junk to enter the North American market. The project is utilizing crowd-sourced fundraising through indiegogo.com to raise $20,000 for a new e-commerce website and increased capacity at the Funky Junk Center in Cambodia. Hipcycle has also partnered with the Center for Vocational Rehabilitation to pack and ship Funky Junk orders.
Funky Junk Recycled aims to provide sustainable income for a group of local people without a major investment in technology, equipment, or capacity building. By creating a self-sustaining enterprise, they use best business practices as a means of improving peoples’ living environment, while helping them to gain a source of income and a sense of self-worth.
All products are made from discarded plastic bags, collected by trash pickers from the towns and countryside, and delivered to the Funky Junk center. Here they are washed, disinfected and dried in the sun before being sorted by color. The bags are cut and made into yarn, which is then crocheted into a product line ranging from floor cushions to handbags to patio chairs. Supporting Funky Junk means contributing to a cleaner environment and providing fair trade income, training and community benefits for its local producers.
Learn more about this program and watch the video here.
Shop to Benefit Women Worldwide with Global Girlfriend
Among my favorite eye-opening books is Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. Through extraordinary stories about the lives of impoverished women in Africa and Asia, the authors show that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. This book clearly illustrated that the economic empowerment of women is the best strategy for fighting poverty on an international level.
This concept was put into action on a worldwide level in 2003 when Stacey Edgar created Global Girlfriend, an e-commerce boutique which helps women worldwide gain economic security while providing unique products and a simple way to help women in need. The fair-trade boutique offers a line of trend-setting, women-made, fair-trade products including stylish apparel, accessories and gifts with one purpose — helping women in need help themselves.
Global Girlfriend believes that economic opportunity for women holds the promise for real change in the world; because when women have an income, they reinvest in themselves and in their children’s health, education and nutrition, building stronger families and communities over time. Many women try desperately to make a living selling their artisan-quality goods but find that they have little access to market opportunities. Through fair-trade practices, Global Girlfriend brings the work of these disadvantaged groups directly to American shoppers.
What makes the site work so well is that everything on the site is something we’d love to buy anyway! The shop only selects well-crafted, on-style pieces, so shopping is a joy. Some of my favorites are:
Branch Out Sterling Silver Earrings
Coffee Talk Note Cards – Set of Six
Learn more about the evolution of Global Girlfriend, with started at the founder’s dining room table with a $2000 tax refund, in the book Global Girlfriends: How One Mom Made It Her Business to Help Women in Poverty Worldwide.
Upcycled Mother’s Day Picks from Hipcycle.com
Flowers for Mother’s Day isn’t just cliché, it’s pricy and predictable. Give mom something she doesn’t have to water with beautiful, upcycled floral arrangements that epitomize trash turned treasure.
From tequila bottle candles to chopstick baskets, Hipcycle.com is dedicated to selling innovative, stylish, and affordable upcycled products. Here are my picks for Mother’s Day 2012:
Each one of these lovely blossoms is made from a glass bottle that has been cut and scored like petals, melted in a kiln, then fitted with a cork and an old coat hanger so that it may be placed in the ground. Designed for garden display or artfully arranged in an upcycled vase.
Handmade in Vietnam, these glass and paper vases come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Created using a variety of upcycled papers, no two are alike.
If you’re old enough to share a drink with mom, you’re old enough to appreciate the bottle. Each vase is made from a reclaimed Grey Goose bottle which has been cut and sanded by hand. Also available in Ketel One, Jack Daniels, Don Julio, and your drink of choice.
Silver Foil Vase
Mom always wrapped your P,B,& J in aluminum foil. Offset her foil addiction with this shiny silver vase.
Made of four upcycled glass bottle tops mounted on a glass pane, these glass vases are sealed to prevent leakage.
In addition to these upcycled takes on floral presentations, Hipcycle offers a wide range of upcycled picture frames, perfect for framing family photos for mom.
Many of the 500+ products featured on Hipcycle.com are made in the U.S. while others are purchased through a commitment to fair-trade practices. Products can be searched for by purpose (i.e., home, garden, office) or by original material (i.e., wood, fabric, glass). Hipcycle also prides itself on telling the story behind the product, from its creator to its provenance.
Use code HCD15 for 15% off through 6/30/12.
-
As Seen In:
