Happy Earth Day to You

So, today is Earth Day and this marks the end of the One Small Change Challenge. If your new to my bloggy just click here to find out more about it. I just wanted to look back at all the fun I had doing this and to let you know that if you have always thought about making some changes to reduce, reuse and recycle more now is the time. I mean, shouldn't every day be Earth Day?

Ok, so let's remember...first for February I added bricks to all our toilets. What a super easy way to reduce the amount of water you use EVERDAY! Apparently, our toilets are one of the biggest water wasters in the home!! Then, I brought more plants in our house. What an easy peasy way to get cleaner air...especially come winter when our homes are all stuffed up. And lastly, I made lots of pretty cloth napkins to reduce the amount of paper towels we use. I'll be the first to tell you that we definitely still use paper towels, but now I buy them much, MUCH less often. It's a work in progress really, I would love our home to be rid completely of all paper towels but I may need a 12-step program to break the habit completely...just sayin'.

In March, I knit up some reusable swiffer sweeper pads (using the pattern found here) to reduce the amount of waste going on in the constantly cleaning my floors department because of our little black-haired pooch. They knit up fast and the materials were cheap, like $1 a skein of yarn when on sale...love it! Plus, they work just as well as the store-bought pads.

In April, my goal was to reduce the amount of plastic we used in our home. I have to admit this one was hard. I mean, with little ones running underfoot it's so easy to see the benefits of plastic: sippy cups, little bowls, plates, etc. especially when they both throw things on the floor on a daily basis. But, I bought tiffins to put leftovers in instead of tupperware/gladware products and lots more Sigg bottles (they even make these sports tops for easy drinking for the kiddies). AND, did you know that Target now carries Sigg bottles along with a bunch of other brands, on sale this week!! Go check 'em out for some great prices. A reader, Sara, even commented on how she brings her tiffins to restaurants to haul leftovers home...brilliant and really how much effort does this really take? Loved that idea!!

So, overall I would have to say that adding these small changes a bit at a time was really not too hard to do. I think it helped that I did a few little things every month instead of one giant overhaul of our entire house, that way I could really, truly try to make the change stick. A little bit goes a long way, no? I am still looking into ideas for getting rid of the little kid-sized plastic bowls and plates we use for the kiddies mealtimes, any ideas?

Alright, so that's all, just a teeny re-cap of events! Thanks for letting me share, you're the best!!

Biggest hugs,

My April One Small Change Challenge

Ok, we're rolling in to the final month for the One Small Change Challenge that Hip Mountain Mama is hosting. If you're new to the blog just click here to find out more!

Last month I posted about knitting myself up some Swiffer Sweeper Covers. And let me tell you, they were super duper easy to make!! An hour, maybe two tops if you are watching bad tv, is all it takes to rock one out. I have had some of you asking me to post about how they work and I'm here to say that they are grrr-eat! They swiff up just as nicely as the real thing :) I haven't had any major issues from them yet...and at less than $2 a pop and only an hour's time, I say it's a project worth making.

So, for this month my One Small Change is to get rid of some of the plastic storage containers in our house. I found these really neat-o stainless steel containers called Tiffins all around the web but found my particular ones at World Market (I know I have professed my love of this store to you already but if you don't remember, see this post) A tiffin looks like so:

It's a really compact, portable stainless steel container with two compartments for your food, especially good for toting around soups or other non-dry foods (hummus or leftover dinners, anyone?) It looks like this when all opened up:

It's super easy to use and to wash too! At World Market it was only $10, so it was pretty reasonable in my eyes. The uses for these are endless...the hubs can bring lunch to work in them, picnics at the park, and adventures at the zoo...oh, the possibilities now that the temperatures are rising :)

Alrighty, that's all folks! Just wanted to share this month's challenge love.

Have a great weekend and a lovely Easter :) My parents are coming in tomorrow and we are all just a wee bit excited over here!! I'm still debating my final Easter Dinner menu...any last minute ideas from ya'll?

My March Challenge: One Small Change

So, remember last month I told you about the One Small Change Challenge that Hip Mountain Mama is hosting? (Click on the 'One Small Change Challenge' highlighted words above to take you to the new blogsite)! If your new to my blog just see last month's post here.  Well, this past month my small change(s) were to: 

• Add a brick to all of our toilet tanks
• Add more green plants to our home
• Make cloth napkins to reduce the amount of paper towels we use

My challenges have been going well so far...adding the brick was easy, check and done, we'll see if there is any difference in the water bill later this month.  Adding more green plants to the house was easy too...so far they are all still alive, let's cross our fingers that they live a nice, long, happy plant life :)  It's so nice to have so much green in our house these days considering winter looks like it's never leaving.  And making the cloth napkins was a super easy sewing project that I did in ONE nap time!!  We still use paper towels but now we use a lot less.  I really want to rid our home of them completely but that will take a little more time I think.

For this month, I am going to just choose one change.  Have you seen these recently:

It's a knit cover for your swiffer sweeper.  I found this pattern for free at Michael's last November and planned on making a bunch back then but a little bout of 3 month long morning sickness shot that plan to the netherworld.  You can find this pattern at the Michael's website here, if you want to make some for yourself.  It seems like a super simple pattern that should be pretty fast to make, i think even a beginner knitter could get one done quickly.  

I am getting the itch to do some major knitting now that I am finally showing :)  Besides the swiffer cover, I plan to make some baby booties, a sweet baby blanket and a car seat blankie for Bean III.  I made Noah and Penelope all of these before they were born, so I gotta be fair and make this little one a set too :)  I am getting antsy to find out the gender of this babycakes, which we could do at our next midwife appointment.  I would love to make something that is not white, green or yellow....hmmm, do you think we should find out!!!!!?????  We still haven't decided yet!!

One Small Change

So, a reader of the bloggity blog, Carrie of the Tao of Craft (cool blog, check her out!) introduced me to another cool blog, Hip Mountain Mama and their One Small Change Challenge recently. So cool! It is such a neat idea. You blog at the first of every month about one small change you are going to make to help the environment or reduce your carbon footprint, a small change (or a big change) that you are going to make a conscious decision to follow through with for the entire month. Then, on the first day of the next month you are to blog about how your green change went and you also write about your new change for that month. Make sense? If not, just check out the rules to the challenge at One Small Change for a better explanation. Basically, you blog about your green changes from January 1st through April 22 (Earth Day!)...only 4 times really so not that hard! I'm going to start the challenge this month, today actually cause I think it is such a great idea!!!

Ok, so there are lots of things my family already does to try to make a small change in the environment like:

• Cloth diapering
• Using reusable snack bags instead of all the plastic baggies
• Using natural green cleaners to clean our home, check out my post on how to make homemade air freshener here!
• Using homemade natural deodorant, see my how-to post here!
• Using CFL light bulbs
• Buying organic whenever possible
• Turning lights off when we are not in a room
• Turning off the water when we brush our teeth or do dishes
• Using reusable grocery bags
• Using reusable produce bags, see my post here to make your own too!
• Recycling
• Repurposing clothing and other items

This list goes on...which makes me very happy :) ...but you get the point so I'll digress!

But some things we haven't done which we totally should and we are now going to consciously start doing them this month are:

• Add a brick to the each of the toilet tanks in our home to reduce the use of water (how easy is this one and I never even thought of it!)
• Make a mean set of cloth napkins to use in place of paper towels (I have meant to do this For-evah!)
• Bring some more green plants into our home to clean our air more (I'm awful with keeping plants alive so this will definitely be a challenge! It would be so much easier if they cried or barked at me when they needed water!!!)

Doesn't seem too hard, does it? I'll let you know in a month how my challenge is going but in the mean time I think you should get your bums over to One Small Change and start the challenge yourself. It'll be a great way to help the environment, one small change at a time!!!

Have Fun!