Green Options » Easter

ZapRoot Features Eco Child’s Play

Jennifer Lance — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:53:14 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

ZapRoot: Easter Special — Jesus is Coming… Look Green!

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:14:18 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Make this Easter a Green one. 700 new chemicals are untested for toxicity. Check out the new batch of Alternative Autos.

Read more of this story »

How to: Reuse Silk Ties for Egg Dyes

Kelly Rand — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:34:56 +0000

Have you ever come across a craft project and just couldn’t wait to go home and try it? For me it was this simple and really cool project from the queen of craft: Martha Stewart. Perfect for Easter egg dying or just because.

Using silk ties that are destined for Good Will, a bit of scrap fabric, and boiling water, you can dye eggs. Yup, dye them with the ties! It is sort of like magic, or chemical reactions even.

Read more of this story »

Keep Easter Green: Eco Concious Baskets and Fun

Jamie Ervin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:22:36 +0000

Here at Eco Child’s Play, we LOVE Stubby Pencil Studio when Kate Rosenthal, mama of twin girls started her quest for safe art supplies, she found a wonderful niche to fill. I had the opportunity to meet with Kate a while back and see her in action. We spoke about her quest for safe products, the new CPSC/lead regulations, and how one person’s vision has turned into a busy home business.

With Easter coming, we have baskets to fill and my first thought was of Kate and her wonderful shop. So hop on over to Stubby Pencil Studio and order up some of these fabulous eco friendly art supplies and toys (If you are in the Portland area, you can arrange pick up). You’ll feel good knowing that your children are getting safe, sustainable products and our Earth will breathe a bit easier as well.

Start with your choice of basket or packaging (Stubby Pencil offers two basket options this year and also carries Envirosax). If you already own baskets (or buckets, bins and bags) reuse those of course. If not, opt for a container that can get lots of reuse (and you know your world best, so pick: a galvanized metal bucket, a cloth shopping bag, a wicker basket, a hat turned upside down, a kid sized wheel barrow, etc…

Some of our favorite basket filers:

Read more of this story »

Easter Brunch- Vegan Quiche

Jamie Ervin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:14:10 +0000

Quiche is one of the expected foods at nearly any Easter brunch. The challenge? How to make this egg filled dish without animal products?

If you do opt for traditional quiche… please consider cage free, hormone free, organic eggs and meats. Or find a neighbor who raises chickens and gather your own in the hen house (or take a page from Cate and raise your own). If you are coloring eggs this year, consider natural dyes for a fun change.

Another idea: if you want a traditional egg quiche, cold dye raw eggs, then blow out the egg and use it in your quiche. This way you get both pretty, dyed eggs and something to eat while using less.

The Recipe:

Read more of this story »

Climate Change Outside My Window

Pem Charnley — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:04:54 +0000

This story contains additional media. Click here to view the media.

Hard to imagine that at exactly this time last year, I drove off with the family to the neighbouring county for an Easter break and coincided our holiday with an absolute blinder of a heatwave.

The normally pallid writer who blinks mole-like in the daylight returned a week later a bronzed sex god.

Read more of this story »

Eggs-tra junk? No thanks!

Emma Henderson — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:44:36 +0000

When we first discussed a week dedicated to reusing plastic Easter eggs my first thoughts were “what?” So I turned to friends and family for help and inspiration but the replies were all the same: “What are they?”

The reason being that this seems to be one of the few holiday-related retail opportunities that the UK hasn’t latched onto yet - and from what I’ve learnt I really hope we don’t. Don’t get me wrong, we certainly know how to create seasonal waste - the amount of packaging for the millions of chocolate Easter eggs lining the shelves is obscene.

Read more of this story »

Pizza Box + Plastic Easter Eggs = ?

Skye Kilaen — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:37:54 +0000

I grew up thinking of plastic easter eggs as fun and harmless. They don’t wear out, so you can keep using them for years. They also come in handy if you need an impromptu set of maracas.

After seeing bags and bags of them at thrift stores, though, I realized that not everyone holds on to them forever. (Come to think of it, I’m not sure where my childhood set went. Note to self: interrogate mother about how she disposed of eggs.)

So if you’re not going to continue using them for festive holiday celebrations, or if you’ve found a stash that’s begging for re-use, what can you do? As we’ve seen, Kelly’s using hers to organize craft supplies. Autumn found a tutorial on felting wool eggs using the plastic ones as a base.

Now it’s my turn. I’ll pose it as a riddle. What do you get when you combine a pizza box and a few dozen plastic easter eggs?

Read more of this story »

Eggstacular!

Kelly Rand — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:01:56 +0000

Half eaten boxes of marshmallow Peeps; straw from Easter baskets strewn about; slowly coming out of a sugar high; plastic egg halves littering the floor. Does this sound like you and the aftermath of Easter? Feeling a little unsure of what to do with those plastic eggs now that the hunt is over and the candy eaten?

Well have no fear because this week CAGW will tackle that very question and offer up nifty solutions to reusing your Easter eggs!

Read more of this story »

No Easter Faith Without Environmentalism

Chad Crawford — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:33:59 +0000

A handful of major religious institutions have made environmental statements recently. The Vatican added pollution to the list of the new seven deadly sins. Southern Baptists compare destroying the planet to tearing pages out of the Bible. Mormons are reminding followers that their original founders were early environmentalists.

In light of these statements, Easter celebrators might want to reflect on how the story of Easter relates to the environment.

Theologian Herman-Emiel Mertens writes,

“Those who do not understand the link between the Easter message and ecological problems, do not understand anything of either. Environmentalism in itself is of course no utterance of Easter faith. Many non-Christians are concerned about this. That is only right and proper. A monopolizing of these earthly cares by Christians is out of the question. There is environmentalism without Easter faith, but no Easter faith without environmentalism.” (Not the Cross, but the Crucified, 207)
Read more of this story »

Happy Green Easter - Vegetable Dyed Easter Eggs

Juliet Ames — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:44:34 +0000

Easter is upon us again! This year, why not say goodbye to those prepackaged kits and dye your eggs with vegetables? For fantastic instructions to make beautiful eggs like those in this photo, please visit Billi-Jean of My Bountiful Life!

Photo copyright Billi-Jean.com. Used with permission.

What to Consider When Buying Eggs

Beth Bader — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:11:58 +0000

Beautiful green and brown eggs are dwarfed by the huge goose eggs. Some farms also offer duck eggs for interested buyers.

Want some of the most beautifully colored eggs this Easter, but don’t have time to dye them? No problem, you can get eggs in all colors from soft, warm brown to light sage, blue-green and olive or even pink. The best part? The chickens do all the work.

Different breeds of chickens produce different egg colors. This shell color is a result of pigments that are secreted by the hen and deposited on the eggshell’s outer layers during formation in the chicken’s oviduct. Brown eggs are from the pigment protoporphyrin, a breakdown product of hemoglobin. Blue and green hues are caused by the pigment oocyanin, a by-product of bile formation.

I was a bit skeptical of some of the information I found from the Egg Nutrition Center. The Center reported that the color of the eggs a chicken lays is related to the species of the chicken and the color of the chicken’s earlobes. Chickens have earlobes? (Tips on buying eggs and what the labels mean after the jump).

Read more of this story »

Easy Eco Easter Ideas

Jennifer Lance — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:18:01 +0000

Whether you are Christian or not, children love to hunt for a basket full of goodies on the springtime holiday of Easter, which this year falls very close to the spring equinox. My childhood memories of Easter are filled with fake, green plastic grass, gross gooey marshmallow bunnies, and of course, the ubiquitous chocolate bunny. My children’s Easter gifts are a much more eco-friendly than those of my youth. Here are a few ideas I have come across this year for an eco-friendly Easter:

Green Gift Ideas: Stubby Pencil Studio is now carrying wooden toys. The Spinny Speller is great for teaching children phonemic awareness and reminds me of the homemade phonics mediators my grandmother used to make for her first graders. The Made By Me wooden kits are perfect for little hands to decorate and assemble. Both toys are made in the USA. Stubby Pencil recycled cards and eco-art supplies also make nice additions to your child’s Easter basket. The cards now come in eco-friendly packaging consisting of a custom button/string tie envelope made from 30% post consumer recycled paper and green seal certified.

Read more of this story »

Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

Autumn Wiggins — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:55:32 +0000

A traditional Easter requires quite a bit of wasteful accoutrement. If you are trying to go green, there’s a lot of ground to cover. Maybe you’re already making preparations to color eggs with natural dyes, or even sprouting your own wheat berry grass for baskets instead of buying the plastic stuff.

You’re under intense pressure to find that perfect organic chocolate bunny. I could not, with a straight face, suggest that you attempt to weave baskets yourself when there exists such cute alternatives by a talented, green-minded crafter. Fisheye creates items using recycled and repurposed materials, including the Easter bag pictured above.

Read more of this story »

The Incredible, Edible Egg Dye

Autumn Wiggins — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:49:31 +0000

In my earliest memories, I was already recognizing excessive packaging. An experience that stands out was my love/hate relationship with Paas Easter egg coloring kits.

I would ask my grandmother, “Why do those tiny dye-things need such a big box? I don’t even use the rest of the stuff, and I have my own crayons.”

To which she replied, “So people don’t steal them.”

Consequently, that answer was given to me many times over during childhood, yet I noticed rolls of breath mints and tubes of lipstick eluded this logic. Nevertheless, I was optimistic each year that my eggs would be just as bright and blemish free as those on the box (they never were), and continued to wonder what would happen if I ate one of the tablets. Odds were that it would not taste like a SweeTart, turn my mouth blue for a week, and could even lead to possible gene damage. Such is the industrialization of a holiday.

Read more of this story »

What Does Lent Have to Do with Sharpening Green Habits?

Chad Crawford — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:08:30 +0000

Fish burgers are back on the restaurant menus. It must be Lent again.

Marking the beginning of the Easter season, worshipers go to church on Ash Wednesday (often still recovering from Fat Tuesday) and get ash spread on their foreheads. The ash is a symbol of contrition and repentance. Then everyone is expected to give up meat and beer and act gloomy for the next 6 weeks. Sound like fun? No wonder Mardi Gras is so popular!

But when you think about it, a collective confession can be incredibly meaningful in light of our complicity in greenhouse gas emissions. The tradition of Lent has potential for inspiring action. In addition to repentance, the ritual of smearing carbon on faces can visually represent the carbon we are contributing in our daily lives. The following are some reformulations of the elements of Lent with a green focus. (These principles are intended to be helpful to people of any faith background or none at all.)

Read more of this story »