Green Options

It’s a party at Clary Sage Organics and you’re invited for a festive evening to celebrate their 1st birthday…

When? Thursday, July 30th from 6-8pm

Where? Clary Sage Organics Boutique @ 2241 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA, 94115

Why else? Come celebrate their one-year anniversary and receive 30% off one clothing item of your choice!

What else?  ”Nosh on savory treats and cupcakes, sip libations” and if you go you may also like to enter their FREE raffle featuring amazing prizes!

Summer is my favorite season.  It’s the time of year for sunset barbecues and dinners on the patio, and for strings of tiny Italian lights and flickering Moroccan lanterns. Summer plays the beautiful hostess of longer days and breezy nights, polka-dotted sundresses, and peals of joyful laughter coming from children playing in the backyard.

There’s no better time than summer to indulge in a sliver of chocolate cake, so rich in contrast to the simplicity of the gingham tablecloth and the mason jars overflowing with wildflowers.   This cake is made without using wheat, corn, or dairy ingredients, yet it is unmistakably, deliciously, chocolate.

Ever forget your wedding anniversary? Your spouse’s/partner’s birthday? Perhaps forgetting the anniversary on which you started blogging isn’t quite the same, but after six years and thousands of posts, I felt like a total dolt when I realized today that July 10th (not today, the 12th) was sustainablog’s “birthday.”

That’s right: six years (and two days) ago, I created a new Blogger account, and started wrestling with this concept of sustainability that I’d only recently discovered. There’ve been lots of twists and turns since then, but it’s really gratifying to look back and see the growth and development of my little blog in that time.

While most of us associate birthdays/anniversaries with gifts and celebrations, these dates are also the perfect time for expressing gratitude, and looking forward (as well as back). I owe many people thanks for their support, including

The folks at Green Options: sustainablog’s always been a little unique in the GO network: rather than narrowly focusing on a niche within the green world, we’ve always done a little bit of everything. That has its ups and down, and I’m grateful to my friends at GO (and new parent company Virgance) for their patience with and support of our model.

The green blogosphere: You can’t blog in a vacuum… or, at least, you can’t blog in a vacuum and expect to build much of an audience. From early on, sustainablog’s received a ton of support from both big and small players within the green online media space. Special hat tips to Grist (one of the first big sites to link to us), Treehugger (for the writing gig and frequent linkage), Worldchanging (for frequent early linkage and some guest posting opportunities), Triplepundit, HuffPo Green, Green, Inc., Greenbiz, Lighter Footstep… I’m just getting started. Whether you’re listed or not, know that I appreciate your support.

We recently celebrated my son’s second birthday which happens to be on Earth Day. Being an “Earth Birthday Boy” we naturally celebrate in an earth friendly fashion.

One of the many traditions in my family is to break open a pinata at a child’s birthday party. Pinatas are a hit (pun intended) with children because they usually contain treats. What kid doesn’t want a chance at breaking open a pinata! As kids we loved being blindfolded, spun in circles and pushed towards the swinging pinata for a strike.

I knew the tradition could carry on but not without a green twist, of course. The idea of this eco-friendly mission is to forgo the plastic and create a healthy and environmentally sound party which includes a pinata. Growing up we never thought about how much waste a pinata created. We just knew that when the pinata was punctured we’d get loads of candy and maybe a few plastic toys.

On April 3, celebrated primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall will turn 75.

These days, Jane Goodall spends most of her free time traveling the world to speak to youth about the importance of environmental conservation.

That is, if you can call it free time. She might be going on 75, but she keeps the tightly packed schedule of a woman less than half her age. From book tours promoting her most recent book on vegetarianism to college lectures (where she gladly demonstrates her famous chimpanzee greeting call) to a morning giving positive feedback to youth about a classroom nature or community project, Dr. Goodall, or Dr. Jane, as her many friends and fans call her, has dedicated her life to making the world a better, greener, happier place.

If you’re looking for an eco-friendly place for Valentine’s Day gifts, check out Organica Deluxe.

The online eco-boutique offers eco-conscious minded consumers gift options for every occasion: Baby, Wedding & Anniversary, Birthday, Thinking of You, Get-Away, Thank You, House Warming, Holiday and more.

“We created Organica Deluxe because we wanted a beautiful place to buy eco-friendly and organic for ourselves and our friends,” say owners Wendy James and Jane Hunter.

“We recognized that organic companies often miss the gorgeous and ever miss the green when creating packaging.”

One sweet eco-friendly gift from Organica Deluxe is their BABY LOVE gift set.  “This delightful assortment of organic goodies is filled with softness and love for baby’s sensitive skin,” says Organica Deluxe.

Today, we turn two-years-old!  Each year brings more writers, more content, and more readers to the Eco Child’s Play family.  (To read our very first blog post, click here)  Help us celebrate our 2nd birthday by enjoying a slice of virtual vegan chocolate cake and leave a suggestion for our third year of blogging life!  Thank you to everyone for their love and [...]

This weekend we had a 40th birthday for my husband and I almost cried at the waste. The fact that we are moving and have already packed most of our dishes made it that much more difficult to keep things eco-friendly. Besides using disposable dishes and leaving the food out so long that it spoiled, I accidentally dropped three quarters of the cake before anyone got seconds. I felt terrible all the next day, not only from the cake drop and the late night, but also because we quadrupled our weekly garbage and recycling output in a matter of hours.

At first I thought it might be possible to do my time right here on Eco Child’s Play by writing a post about WHAT NOT TO DO when throwing a birthday party. However, I got side-tracked reading all of the eco-entertaining DO’s already covered, including the used book donation idea which I loved. This got me thinking that a theme party might be a great way to reduce waste, and convince guests and co-hosting partners (spouses and children) that environmentally friendly can also mean fun.

Here are five eco-friendly theme parties to consider for your next family bash:

The Take Home party

Reinforce a no-gift policy by asking each guest to bring one item they no longer use. As each guest arrives and places their donation on the table, give them a number to decide who gets to pick their take-home gift first.

For the 8th year in a row, we are celebrating the birth of our children at the river. The river is a big part of summer life where we live. It provides a cool respite from warm summer temperatures, in a community that lacks swimming pools, air conditioning, and half the town lives off-the-grid. The river provides entertainment for children and adults alike, and our parties our a community celebration. This is not your typical children’s birthday party; adults actually outnumber the children in attendance as it takes a village…

Our first river celebration was my Blessing Way. A Blessing Way is an alternative to a baby shower, and it is based on a Navajo tradition. My midwives led our “Humboldt eclectic” ceremony, in which I was surrounded by strong women friends (the men joined us later for food and river frolicking). Each friend brought a candle and symbol of strength for the altar, which was then set up in my home for the birth. Everyone also brought a bead, which was added to a necklace that I wore during my labor. We sang songs, told a collective angel story, and wrapped ourselves together with yarn in a circle. When the yarn was broken, each friend was wearing a piece around her arm or ankle. The yarn was not to be removed until I had given birth, and each time a friend noticed their piece of yarn, they were sent positive energy and thoughts my way. Often, these pieces of yarn will fall off on their own when it is time for the mother to give birth. My hair was lovingly braided to symbolize my new role as mother, and I was treated to a rose water foot bath and massage.

My children’s birthdays are only two days apart, so we have only one party. That party is rapidly approaching, and though I ask guests to not feel compelled to give gifts and to consider the planet when doing so, my children like to give out party favors to their friends. There is nothing I hate more than coming home from a birthday party with a bunch of dollar store junk we have to get rid of immediately. Now, GreenPartyGoods offers solutions for eco-friendly birthday parties.

GreenPartyGoods explains their company’s motivation for offering parents eco-friendly solutions for birthday parties:

While walking my dog through our local park and watching families disassemble their parties, I was horrified at all the waste that ended up in the garbage cans. Bags of plastic utensils, plastic table cloths, crepe paper and cheap goodies bags filled with dollar toys headed for land fill. This is what motivated me to create GreenPartyGoods.

Here are some of my favorite green party goods offered by GreenPartyGoods:

• Toy Wooden Racing Boat: These hand-crafted, hand-painted wooden racing boats are my favorite party favor and the ones we will be giving to our party guests. Since we hold our party at the river, the boats will be perfect for added water frolicking fun. The boats are made by award-winning Anatex. The wood comes from Germany, paint from Russia, and assembled in China. They are tested lead free by a third party and cost $2.50 a piece.

Parents are often looking for a healthy alternative to the standard, sugary, preservative-filled birthday cake for their baby’s introduction to the wonderful traditions of birthdays. We’ve heard from parents looking for ways to buy an egg-free cake, to those seeking recipes for “healthy” cakes, or even whether to make/buy two cakes (one for Baby, one for adults). To answer the last question first – there is no reason to create extra work for yourself, make or buy one cake, relax and congratulate yourself for making it through the first year! Most people will be gracious guests and enjoy whatever is served. And let’s not lose sight of the real reason for the birthday cake - THE PHOTO. We do it all for the precious scrapbook shot of your cake-faced little one delighting in being the life of the party!

Here are some ideas that keep the tradition of the birthday cake treat, but add some healthy twists (you can use these ideas for any age!):

Egg-free: If your baby has not been introduced to whole eggs by their first birthday, this is probably not the occasion to give them a try. Many egg substitutes contain eggs, so to be safe, look for cake and frosting mixes labeled “vegan” which are free of all animal products. You’ll need to go to a health food store to find these products. Or jump on the Internet, Vegan Baker is one company that offers cake and frosting mixes. If baking is not for you, many urban cities also have vegan bakeries too – check the Yellow Pages or ask someone at a vegetarian restaurant.