Tis the season......

Getting green presents can be a challenge sometimes. I do have a friend who was telling me how she will be getting me a small coffee cup with a lid to have our coffee at work.  I started to look and nothing is under 16 ounces.  Not something we can drink in a 15 minute break.... so I found this:

Cute Stainless Steel coffee mug

I signed up for the  affiliate program but Blogger is NOT letting the code work... meh....

Don't worry she will not see this she doesn't do the whole internet thing (her words...) So if this isn't good for her I guess she could use this for camping...

Wait the last time she went camping or me for that matter we came back saying "OMG we are TOO old for that shit..."  Next time it will be in a windsteam or something else that is on wheels!!

Picnics that what we could use them for.  But hey I like the looks of these and of course I had to get me one.  Is that a bad thing to get something for yourself during the holidays? I thought hey we will match... symbol of friendship.......... 

Earth Friendly Gift Wrap. Furochic It!

So much fun... Plus you can use towels and other things to wrap your gifts for eco-friendly wrap.

Wrapping gifts...

Furoshiki
 is a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth. It is used for light travel, shopping and gift giving. When you click on the link it will take you to the part of the site that shows you what type of wraps you can use for different items. Scroll down and see some wrap for your body of course that would work better for a sarong then a tea towel...

I have been looking for some holiday towels to wrap gifts in but I can't find some nice ones. They are stiff
or have some very childish looking design.  And it is one of those things that having moved out I don't want to get a gift that makes her think I think of her as a child you know.  Guess I think to much.

Yea I have made a few gift bags this year. Some are smaller for smaller gifts.  Some of them are the gift to the people at Church....


Some I made tote bags for.  Or got a shopping tote at one of their favorite store!

My fudge is going into re-useable containers that can be used over and over.

what type of eco-friendly wrapping are you using?

Green Tuesdays

Green America is starting a grass roots campaign that is asking after the Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday madness to shop for the environment and local business.  Calling All Tuesdays in December Green Tuesday.

 It's been said that the trend  for this years shopping is the local business shopping.  Etsy  is blogging that Cyber Monday was the biggest selling day they have had!  My local news is reporting that the area "craft shows" and pop up local artist shops are having great sales increases this year.  The local shops are doing great!

My co-worker and friend has sold out many of her shows that even surprised her.   As it is needed.  She depends on the money she makes at the shows for her holiday shopping.  But she teased me that it is more work, she has one big mess in her living room cause she had to make more stuff for the next day...

It's great to hear how people are getting it and buying from their local stores and small business or artist.  It's also kinda heart warming to hear the sales of t-shirts with our city are up too. Could it be the money is tight could it be that  they rather buy something from someone close to them.  OWS? That people are sick and tired of sending their money in a big box store that CEO make so much more that the average person?

Whatever the reason it is good to see that local businesses getting what they deserve!

Doggie Bark

Gift for the canines

4 cups carob chips

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup dry-roasted peanuts or chopped walnuts


Instructions
1. In a bowl, melt the carob chips in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir them with a wooden spoon, then microwave for 30 seconds more.
2. Stir in the peanut butter and microwave for another 15 seconds. Stir the ingredients again to combine.
3. Add the nuts and the cinnamon, then stir the mixture to coat the nuts.
4. Line an edged cookie sheet with aluminum foil and lightly spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray. Pour the mixture onto the foil and chill it for 15 minutes in the freezer or 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
5. Remove the bark and break it into roughly 1- by 2-inch pieces. Store it in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Makes about 70 pieces.

Ornament dough

Salt dough

2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 cups water

Mix the flour, salt and water together until well combined.

Shape or roll out dough and use cookie cutters for the ornament.

Bake at 300 degrees for 1/2 hour.

Let cool before painting. Can use nail polish also.


Applesauce dough

1 cup Applesauce
1 1/2 cups ground ginger, allspice, cinnamon and clove (mixed as desired)
1 squirt of school glue

Mix your ingredients together. If your dough seems crumbly you can add more applesauce or even just plain water.

As with the Salt dough, you can use this to make 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional ornaments.

Once shaped the dough needs to cook for an hour at 200 degrees F., then cool completely before decorating. You can also leave the ornaments to air dry for several days if you have the time.

Decorate! Decorate as desired with glitter, paint, googly eyes, cotton pom-poms. Whatever you want. You can seal with a few clear final coats of paint (decoupage style).

Cupcakes for co-workers

I am going to make some cupcake ornaments for some of my co-workers. See how we work in the bakery area... but I have seen directions for them basically just gluing the ornament to a cup cake liner and sprinkling some glitter on top.

But I think I am going to make some puffy paint to squeeze on top like we do when we ice the cupcakes....
Puffy paint:
1/4 cup of flour
1/4 cup of salt
1/4 cup water
paint or food coloring

Mix flour, salt and water together then add any colored paint or food coloring.


Use a thick paint brush to paint with it.


You can also pour your mixture into squeeze bottles or re-use old squeeze sauce bottles.


Use the paint as normal, but when it dries it will harden to a puffed up dimensional paint.

will this stay on a ornament? Guess I will find out.. depends on the type I guess...

Hummm also could use the sprinkles and then use my clear sealant. Will post pictures I promise!

           

Time for Cards

Oh this holiday season you can remember our soldiers. There is a outdated message circling the net that says When filling out your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it to this address: A Recovering American Soldier c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20307-5001. If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these wonderful, special people, who have sacrificed so much would get.

But the Walter Reed Army Medical Center has closed! So this would just end up in the dead letter office at the post office in Washington DC. If they are still open.  With our  local distribution  center closing it's postal operations here... you never know.  My daughter's father and his wife work there and may loose their jobs.  With worries my daughter.  Her father is talking of moving to West Virginia and that means to see her dad she have to make a 6 1/2 hour drive to see him.

So if you would like to send a card to a soilder you can go to the Red Cross site and found this address:

Holiday Mail For Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Just add one more card to your list!

Gift Jars

I have started my gift making for my hours have been cut again (not sure if I can have a holiday at this rate) but I will try to find a way to come in early or pick up hours somewhere! So this means I have limited amount I can spend on the holidays. Yuck....

So I am going to make gift jars for some of the people on my list.

I have made some spice blends as the picture to the right shows.  That is Chili Seasoning.  I have a co-worker that keep saying "you have teach me to cook."  I teased her I was going to make her some Fajita Seasoning and she is excited to try it.  I guess I might have to make more! But I think it looks so cool when it is layered like that.  So sad you need to mix it together to use...

 I have in the past made drink mixes like Spiced Chai Mix, Friendship Tea Mix and some coffee mixes as gifts.  I have a friend that loves the  Spiced Chai Mix! When I came over and saw I had a friend that well didn't show up and it stayed with her... LOL... and her boyfriend got one too and he doesn't like tea!!!  So I have to make sure she gets the biggest jar of it this year.  She is the biggest fan of Chai.  I need to find different favors chai for her... any one got any good recipes for favored chai?

Not sure how I feel about the cookies in a jar gift but I keep seeing them at the stores.  I think that maybe home made is better for less chemicals in them.   But it doesn't last on the shelf as long as the store brought ones would.  That's ok as long  they know the gift is not going to last a year in their cupboard.. or will it? Shrugs I am not sure I guess the flour and sugar mix will last as long as they do un-mixed.

What home made gifts are you planing on making this year?

Boom!!! Boom!!

Through a Dog's Ear is a website that has down-loadable music for your canine friends this holiday. The forth of July can be the longest month here at my house. Seems that my neighbors believe that fire works should and are set off at all times if the day. Plus for many of us in the neighborhood it is maddening that we get to hear them well into the night.  With people having tomorrow off too; I know tonight will be a very long night.  It does distress my poor animals to hear load noises.  Plus the screaming after the loud boom gets them too.  The other night I had a dog on my one leg, a cat on the other plus a cat rubbing on my head from behind my neck.   Yea it been fun on 90 degree days to have my fur babies on me shaking and whining.

Yes they are illegal in my area, but the cops do drive down the street once in a while looking for the illegal displays.

Through a Dog's Ear has music like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and more.  They suggest that you play the music low. Don't try to overpower the fireworks. That will just over excite your animals.  We have been using a loud box fan for the cover up of the fireworks when we leave the house. Like I said they set them off all hours of the day and night.

I also saw that lavender essential oil applied on the spine can help relax your fur babies.  I haven't try that yet but it is tonight I KNOW will be the craziest with the fireworks....  Last year I couldn't sleep because the house across the street  had been lighting off fireworks most of the night.  I pass out around 3 AM and wake at 8AM and they are still lighting off fireworks and laughing.

So being off today is unusual but working the next day isn't. I get to try to sleep through the fireworks, the yahoos! screams and my animals freaking out..... Sad thing is we will be busier then a normal Monday because many people have the day off.  Joy, Joy.

I got a jury duty notice and have to call the fifth to see if I have jury duty.  I don't mind doing jury duty at all it is my civil duty.  Just thinking it may have been different if I did have to go in on the fifth... I can see me being cranky sitting there being asked questions.  If it is a person being tried for firework possession.... I might be crazy and try to make them work in an animal shelter during a firework display and then a loud thunderstorm..... Yea how cool is it now big man.... Sorry didn't get much sleep last night. I had a cat on my legs most of the night. I keep the windows closed to keep the loud booms outside. Plus the smell of gun powder. Yea that a mix loud booms and the smell of gun powder makes my animals freaked out. Loud booms and loud Yahoo screams.... I live by a bunch of Yahoos!!

Happy Forth of July everyone.  We are having hamburgers and brats. or is it Italian sausage? Oh well I got out voted for beer can chicken.  Boston baked beans, grilled corn on the cob, foil wrapped potatoes and watermelon. 

The forth for me is the cookout and summer type foods!

Spring Hoilday crafts........

I found a cloth basket directions at Family Fun. Going to get a couple old tee shirts  out of the good will box and make one.  Ok maybe more than one. Maybe get the girls in on the fun to make one for Crawling Machine. I will ad a picture if it turns out......

A basket made from a milk carton.My girls are way to old for that.... but I thought some of my followers have little ones, why not add that link.

A vine to decorate the house.  at Enchanted Learning which is a great site for home-schooled projects and teachers.

Hoilday Mail for our Heros

Ok it not really green but it will brighten our heroes holiday.
The Big Cutie, my grand-baby; Is missing his Daddy in Iraq.



I was so happy to hear at work that they are taking up a holiday card collection for the soldiers. So I thought what does someone who doesn't work for my company do? I found this site! Red Cross Holiday Mail for Heroes

Holiday cards will be collected through a unique P.O. Box address from Monday, November 2 through Monday, December 7*.

First, cards from across the nation must be sent to this address:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

So no glitter or letters, sign with your first name NO last names or your address. Cards should say “Dear Service Member, Family or Veteran”. Limit is 15, no need to put each card in a envelope, Place all your cards in a single large envelope and send to above address. Don't place anything inside the cards for they will be thrown away by the Red Cross when they screen the cards.

So spread the holiday cheer to those who as risking their lives for our country......

Getting Ready for Halloween

I love Halloween! The costumes, the candy, and the parties that make Halloween my favorite holiday of all. But how can a green momma make this eco-friendly? I have thought and fought this for many years.

The costume is the most fun thing for a small child. It also can be the biggest fight. See rows and rows of plastic I want that costumes at the big stores is my biggest fight. I hated those things when I was a kid. The mask would get all gross from me breathing in to the mask. The plastic would feel weird and shift making it hard to walk. So not because I was green it was because I had girls that hated the feel of labels in their clothes let alone the seams on the socks. I would make costumes from old clothes and adding some wonderful accessories.

We had princesses with fancy dress that they didn't like to wear to school because they were too puffy. Add some necklaces and a crown that we made from a headband or got from the dollar store. Now being jeans and t-shirt people, we had hippies with this outfit very easily. One daughter loved ballet so she was a ballerina. She wore her Tu-Tu, tights and leotard and became a ballerina. Cowgirls was easy too. A flannel shirt from Dad and jeans with a cowboy hat. They got to carry a rope and a play gun. A black cat was a favorite costume. I made ears from black fuzzy material. Very easy to do. Cut triangles from the back and pink for the inside. Sew together leaving the bottom open. Stuff with fiberfill. Sew bottoms to a heavy plastic hair headband the type with a open end. Sew the bottom of this tight to the hair band.......... She get to wear black sweat pants and a black sweatshirt. Ta Da. She was also a dog one year with long ears but that was something her grandparent found for her at the store....

I have my favorite too. I fall back on being a gypsy! I wear a flowing top with a big skirt add a shawl. Add a bunch of necklaces and I become a gypsy. I really like the bohemian look to this day. So it isn't to hard for me to pull this off. I can't wear a shirt or a head-cover. So I am going to wear a pair of black pants and flowing shirt I got from Good Will.