Tag: Holidays

Fabric Gift Wrap

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I am ALL about fabric gift wrap!  And having just been through the holiday gift opening, I’m going to highlight some of my favorite things about using fabric, instead of paper:

–It’s SO easy to wrap with fabric bags!
–No need to shop for wrapping paper every year.
–No need to store bulky, awkward wrapping paper rolls and tape.
–SO much better for the environment!  (especially when using upcycled cloth)
–WAY less mess!  (Can’t emphasize this enough.)
–SO easy and compact to store
–Looks quaint, creative, and homey

For me, using fabric gift wrap has been a gradual process, and I think that’s important to remember.  It’s awesome if you can make/purchase a whole stash of fabric gift wrap/bags all at once and dive in, but that wasn’t the case for me.  It started with small fabric gift bags people had used to gift me presents.  Then, I sewed a few of them one year.  And a few the next.  This year, I finally had the time to round out our stash quite a bit, which is probably why I’m on a fabric gift wrap mission right now.  It was so amazing to not deal with paper or tissue paper.  Not only for the mess factor, but for my environmentalist-self as well.  My heart sinks whenever I see piles of wrapping paper.

I also think this would be an awesome fundraiser for a school.  What a fun project to teach kids basic sewing (these bags can be very simple), to teach them and their families about reducing and reusing, and to help them get started on that journey.

I highly recommend giving fabric wrap a try, even if it’s only a little bit at a time.  Keep your eyes out for fabric bags throughout the year, and collect them with your gift wrapping supplies.  If you do sew, even if you’re a beginner, sewing fabric gift bags is EASY.  As with any project, you can make things more complicated if you’d like, but the basic idea is an easy one.  Collect fabric bits, old sheets, even old tee-shirts to use for sewing a simple bag.  My favorite fabric gift bag to make is a drawstring bag, but I don’t always find the time to make these.  Making fold-over bags for gift wrap is super easy, but sometimes I just sew a simple bag shape and tie a ribbon around the top.  Some people will even just use a piece fabric cloth to wrap with and use fancy folding methods.  These are beautiful to see, but the process is something I don’t have the patience to master right now.

Whichever method you use, I highly, highly recommend the switch!

**St. Nick comes to pick up some of our fabric bags at the beginning of December to take to Santa for that year’s gifts.**

ALL our holiday wrap in one small, little stack!

Other alternatives to wrapping paper:
Magazine Gift Wrap
Food Box Gift Bags
Upcycled Paper Stockings

Easter Bread

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I made this bread decades ago, back when I found it in my Family Fun magazine as a teenager. (Yes, I was that kind of teen.)   Anyway, I came across a photo of it recently and had to make it this year.  What a fun bread!  First of all, you get to braid it, so my daughter was very excited by this part.  It’s also a sweet bread.  AND it has eggs buried/tucked into it.  How awesome is that!  To top it off, we added our hippie, natural sprinkles on top.  Very yummy treat and a great tradition for Easter day.

I used the old recipe from the 1990s Family Fun magazine, but there are many, many similar ones online.

April Fools

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I used to seriously dread April Fools’ Day, especially when I was a teacher.  I really don’t like when people just tell fibs on this day and call it an April Fools’ joke. I also really dislike pranks that are mean or a huge mess or environmentally-wasteful.  I do, however, appreciate punny/silly jokes like these:

–Google lets you put a 3D animal into a scene on your phone or for pictures.  The kids thoughts these were great fun last year.

–I cut up a bunch of “E”s from brown paper and told the kids I was bringing out a tray of “Brown E”s.  (Be sure to have the real thing after the joke. =)

–This year, the kids loved giving their Dada a mysterious packet labeled “bagel seeds” that instructed him to leave them in a tray by a window sill.  “No watering or soil necessary!” they wrote.  “Bagels will grow in 2 hours!”  The seeds were Cascadian Os cereal, and when Dada left the room, we quickly switched these out with hidden bagels I had purchased ahead of time.

(This one could also work with “doughnut seeds.”)

–I also love the good ol’ dessert dirt in a pot.  I make the cookie part only from these homemade Oreos, with a lot less bother on presentation, of course.  Then we blend them into crumbs and mix with homemade vanilla pudding.  Yum!  Gummy worms are fun too, but we couldn’t find any this year.

Instead, our daughter decided to include an instruction tag that said we could tell if the soil was still “good” by tasting it.

 

And here are some April Fools’ jokes I haven’t tried, but sounded cute:

–Switching your kids into one another’s beds, if they’re heavy sleepers.

–Writing “April Fools!” on the toilet paper that they will unwind.

–Stick googly eyes on fruit or lunchbox foods.

–Switch out morning cereal in box with another kind or with popcorn or Legos, etc.

 

Even our 3-year old got into making up his own pranks this year.  He insisted on hanging some long strands of yarn on the wall for Dada to see.  Then he instructed Dad to leave the room while he cut the strings to be very short.  Sneaky little guy.  ha

Anyway, I’m glad that now as a parent I’ve found an appreciation for this first day of April.  The kids get so excited to play these good-natured pranks.  Instead of seeing it as I used to, a day of feeling gullible or hearing about mean pranks, I see it as a day to be goofy and have fun.  That kind of foolishness for a day sounds pretty good to me.

Easter Egg Hunts-Reducing and Reusing

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I love spring!  Especially this one, when a feeling of hope is slowly settling in.  I loved Easter as a child–wearing a special dress, being outside, having exciting egg hunts full of clues written by our Easter Bunny.  As a parent, I’ve worked hard to make the holiday special without indulging in some of the wastefulness or excessive treats.  Our bunny fills our eco-friendly eggs with a variety of alternative items, depending on the year.  But, thinking about Easter events in the community gives me a bit of a shudder…

I cringe at the thought of fields of egg hunts–plastic eggs, that, let’s face it, most parents end up tossing in the landfill (AHHHHH!) and cheap trinkets that end up with the same fate.  Many of these “hunts” aren’t even hunts; they are just grab fests.  Which kid can run out there and grab the most-type of situation.  To me, there is no redeeming piece to these hunts.  Sure, I’d love for our kids to have a fun celebration of spring with the community, but if it means participating in this environmentally-horrific, greed race, then I’ll have to pass.

I did ask our local community member in charge of one such event if they had a plan in place so that parents could place the plastic eggs in a bin to be reused the following year.  The answer? – No.  They buy their eggs pre-stuffed (with cheap, plastic toys) so there was no way she could make this work.

I have been to some small-scale hunts that were more conscious.  Instead of cheap, throw-away trinkets, the eggs held papers for collecting to choose from a table of more quality items.  The hunt was an actual hunt and the eggs were collected at the end to be reused the following year.  Huzzah to that.

Since we don’t do many mainstream sweets, our Easter Bunny had some thinking to do.  We picked up some Eco-eggs years ago at our local natural food shop.  They’re great!  Large and sturdy and beautiful colors.  We’ve still somehow ended up with some of the super cheap kind too, and the difference between the two types of eggs is incredible.  When our first-born was young, each egg held a tiny sticker on Easter.  As the kids have grown, the eggs sometimes hold pieces of Lego from a small set that needs to be built.  I’ve also heard of Bunnies who put puzzle pieces in each egg or seed packets.  Our bunny puts picture clues in each egg so the kids can each find a trail of eggs.

The kids’ baskets don’t contain much–just the first clue, really.  (And definitely NO plastic grass!  But sometimes fun, shredded old magazines.)  This year, Easter Bunny may include some homemade bath bombs (by request).  I think the fun of the hunt is really at the heart of everything, not so much what’s inside.  Our kids make their own egg hunts throughout the year–sometimes just because or sometimes on each other’s birthdays.

Here’s a picture of our Eco eggs and the felt eggs I made as well.  There are also hollow wooden eggs out there and many crafty ideas online or to buy on Etsy.  We just leave the eggs out a couple days before Easter for the Bunny to come pick up.

Visit my Pinterest page for a visual of some ideas!

Another alternative

Classroom Valentines

Posted on by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

Like many, I have fond childhood memories of Valentine’s Day and the exchange of those commercial, store-bought, cartoon cards everybody dropped into decorated paper bags.  But as the years have passed, many of these valentines have more and more cheap, plastic add-ons.  (I think the most ironic stack of valentine cards I ever saw were ones from the movie, Wall-E.)  And the more I think about it, I feel like these store-bought valentines kind of miss the whole point.  This article nails it, and estimates school kids in US exchange as many as 750 million.  (This is not, by the way, including cards exchanged by teens and adults.)  Understandably, schools don’t want kids to feel left out, so will require that everybody gets a valentine card for everybody.  I like the thought behind that and I like the exchange of cards…but, like so many of our holiday traditions, much of the meaning has been sucked out and left an empty shell of obligatory tradition.

Also, with the unpredictable numbers of valentine cards “needed” by any one family vs. the numbers sold in packs, people often end up with more than they’re going to use.  (Here are some “print as needed” valentine options, because despite my rant, I am a sucker for punny valentine cards…)  Perhaps families/friends could also come together and share odds and ends cards to at least eliminate extra waste.

As someone whose love language is words, I do have a weakness for cards and hand-written notes.  The thing is though, most of the classroom valentines passed out in schools are purchased by parents and quickly scribbled with a signature.  And after the kids go through their stash and pick out the cheap candy, the cards often end up directly in the recycling (or trash).  I don’t know what the solution is, but here are some thoughts:

nature-based valentines ideas

–Or, perhaps, as the linked article above suggests, Valentine’s Day card exchanges should just bypass the Under 12 group.

Traditions are great, and many of us get very caught up in memories of how our own childhoods looked.   But, times are changing, and it’s okay to shift to new traditions.  Not just okay, it’s necessary.  I think it’s wonderful to have a holiday that centers around LOVE, and despite this post, I actually really do love the idea of exchanging cards.  But maybe by exchanging of 750 million cards in schools, the meaning has gotten a bit lost…