Mother's going GREEN Day 101 - Children's Eco-Craft

For today's craft was inspired by a science experiment that I did way back in high school - making sugar crystals. Taking this a step further we are going to make the crystals on sticks to form a sugar stir stick or rock candy. The picture shown is not the end result of my personal craft today as it will take 2 to 3 weeks to get large crystals.

Sugar Crystal Stir Stick

You will need:

-- 1 cup of granulated sugar (ours sugar is a light caramel colour as it is organic sugar, but regular white granulated sugar will do.)

-- 1/2 a cup of tap water

-- 2 sticks (I used a wood skewer cut into 2)

-- string

-- pot to boil sugar and water

-- container to grow the crystals (I used an old jam jar - choose a container that you can see through so you can monitor the progress of your crystals without disturbing them)

Directions (with an adults help if required):

-- Soak the sticks in tap water remove from water.

-- Cover the lower 2/3 of the stick with a light coating of granulated sugar.

-- Allow to dry (this will help the crystallized sugar to stick better to the stick).

-- In a pot boil your 1/2 cup of water and your cup of sugar, until the sugar is dissolved.

-- Once dissolved pour mixture into your container where you will 'grow' the crystals.

-- Allow the liquid to cool until it reaches room temperature.

-- Suspend the 'sugar coated' sticks into the sugar/water mixture (I tied strings around the top of the sticks and hung them in the water, taping the ends of the string to the side of the jar).

-- It is important that the sticks do not touch the bottom of the container and should be about 1 inch to 2 inches apart (again our liquid is a caramel colour because of the organic sugar being used).

-- Cover the container with a paper towel (we opted to use a cloth napkin).

-- Place the container in a secure place where it will not get disturbed.

-- After 24 hours who will see small crystals start to form and after 2 to 3 weeks you will see the larger crystals appear.

-- Once your crystals have reached the desired size, remove them from the liquid and allow to dry.

You can then loosely wrap them in cellophane wrap with a pretty bow and give it as a gift to someone. They can use it as a sugar stir stick in their coffee.

Better yet just keep it and eat it. Rock Candy.

If you would like to make colour crystals just add food colouring to the warm mixture before it cools. We chose to keep ours natural.

I will post a picture of our "actual results" - once our crystals have formed.

Mother's going GREEN Day 94 - Children's Eco-Craft

Since I have been talking about hemp I figured we could make some hemp jewelry and such. I have chosen to make a bracelet and/or key chain.

Hemp Bracelet and/or Key chain

You will need:

--Stands of Hemp

-- Beads

-- Key ring (if you chose the key chain)

Directions (with an adults help if required):

We will be using the easiest knot in our creation the "Square Knot".

-- You will require 4 stands in total (so get 1 stand of 24" for 'filler' and fold it in half and for your working stands one strand 6' long and fold it in half).

-- With the loops of the folded stands together tie them together with a knot creating a loop. (in ours we used a bead for a fastener so we measured to make sure the bead would fit through the loop snugly when we tied the loop. (if you choose to make a key chain attach the loop to the key ring at this point).

-- The 2 shorter strands are your filler stands and they are to remain in the centre of your work with the 2 working strands on each side.

-- Follow the instructions on this site to tie the "Square Knot". Please note that they are using four strands for their filler instead of the 2 strands that we are using.

-- To add the beads - insert both filler strands through the hole of the bead and tie the knot around them. We chose to make our bracelet with a message - also by doing this we had way less knots to tie.

-- keep tying the knots until the length of knotted hemp is the desired length for your bracelet and then tie them off. In our case we inserted a bead on all 4 strands and tied it off. (this is where it ends for the key chain)

-- the end bead is then inserted into the the loop to create a 'clasp' to close the bracelet.

This craft is probably for the older children although my children had fun selecting the beads and it was great for letter recognition as my son searched for the letters as I asked for them.

If you are struggling to follow my directions there are many directions available on the Internet.

Mother's going GREEN Day 60 - Children's Eco-Craft

Today's craft will add some sparkle to our summer nights on the deck.

Tin Decorative Candle Holders

You will need:

-- Tin Cans

-- Hammer

-- Nail

-- Tea Light Candle

-- Safety Glasses

Instructions (with an adults help if required):

-- It is best that you fill the cans with water and then freeze them - it just makes it easier.

-- Draw a design on the cans (after the water has frozen)

-- With a hammer and a nail punch out the design (this is when you may need the safety glasses)

-- Allow ice to melt. (I stuck mine in the garden where the sun melted the ice quickly and the water then went into the garden - rather than wasting it)

-- Insert the tea light candle

-- You may need to flatten out the bottom of the can especially if it pop out with the ice being in it.

And there you have it - A nice decorative candle holder.

Mother's going GREEN Day 53 - Children's Eco-Craft

When Fridays come along, I usually head to the recycling can and try figure out what we can create this week because we have an abundance of milk jugs I decided to put them to use. We also needed some sort of plant markers for our rooftop vegetable garden which is growing so well - so the idea of Vegetable Plant Markers came to mind.

Vegetable Plant Markers

You will need:

-- Empty Plastic Milk Jugs

-- Pictures of Vegetables

-- Glue Stick

Instruction (with adults help if required):

-- Cut long 'rain drop' shape from recycled milk jug (2 per marker)

-- Glue picture on the top of 'rain drop' shape cut out (I used printed pictures on the back side of an already used paper, but you can either draw your own or cut some from a magazine)

-- Glue on second 'rain drop' shape to cover picture - this will provide some waterproofing so our pictures do not get damaged.

-- Place markers in garden to identify your vegetable plants.

Mother's going GREEN Day 32 - Childrens Eco-Craft

Finally the sun came out in our part of the world....Yippee!! We crafted something simple outside in order to enjoy the sun.

Pet Rocks (a classic)

You will need:

• Nice smooth rock
• Paint
• Google Eyes (if you have any – not required)

Instructions:

• Paint rock in pet of choice (we did a Lady Bug – but you could do a bee or a regular bug whatever your creative heart desires).
• Stick on Google eyes
• We placed our 'Lady Bug' in our garden for a little bit of colour.

Mother's going GREEN Day 25 - Children's Eco-Craft

Today we had a wonderfully warm day and the birds were out singing in the trees which inspired today's craft.

Pine Cone Bird Feeders

• You will need:
  Large pine cone (open – which means it has opened up and released it seeds – see picture to right)
• Peanut Butter
• Bird Seed
• Wire or String

Instructions (with an adults help if required):

• Spread Peanut butter over the pine cone and in between the crevices
• Cover with birdseed (we just stuck the whole cone in a dish of birdseed and it sticks to the peanut butter)
• Tie the wire or string onto the base of the pine cone
• Hang is a suitable spot (we hung ours off our back deck)
• Watch as the birds visit and enjoy a tasty treat.

Mother's going GREEN Day 4 - Children's "Green" Craft Corner

Fridays will be devoted to an environmentally friendly craft, especially for our young children. They too can be inspired to live green and crafting is a way for them to connect with the environment around them.

Today is how to make "Grass Potato Heads" an old well known craft.

You will need:

• Large Potato
• Potting soil
• Grass seed
• Water
• Markers for adding a face

How to make it (with an adults help if required):

Carve out the centre of the potato to create a well of about and inch deep.

Decorate the potato with a fun face using the markers

Fill the hole with some potting soil (or any other soil you may have available)

Sprinkle the grass seeds on top (in ours we were quite generous with the seeds)

Water and place in a sunny spot. Water daily and wait for the grass to grow. Ours pictured above took about a week to sprout. Once grass is long, you can have some fun giving your potato a hair cut.

I found that this craft taught my children of how plants grow and and what is needed in order for them to flourish: water and sunlight and special care which is what we have to give our planet earth.

Next weeks craft will be something for dad in preparation for Fathers Day.

Mother's going GREEN Day 1 - Our Family's Ecological Footprint

Going Green for the modern mother is an additional challenge added to her already hectic day, but after being inspired by others going green and reading a terrific book "The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating" by ALISA SMITH and J.B. MACKINNON, I could no longer turn a blind eye to the environmental crisis that our world is in.

Today, I sat down and calculated our family's ecological footprint and we came to a whooping 6.48 earths. That is, if everyone on the planet lived our lifestyle we would need 6.48 earths to sustain it. I am sorry but that is just pathetic. The average worlds ecological footprint is 1.5 earths, clearly our family is way beyond that and drastic steps need to be taken in order to reduce this footprint.

Now our family already recycles as much as we can, we also have done away with the plastic shopping bags, although one or two may find their way back into our household, yet it is not enough; there is so much more that we NEED to be doing....

And so our journey begins: Reducing our footprint!!!

To learn more about Ecological Footprints and to calculate your own Footprint you can visit

http://www.rprogress.org/index.htm - They offer great tips on reducing your footprint and some frequently asked questions. Also for a small donation you can have a poster of your Ecological Footprint done up. This is what I did and have posted it on our refrigerator as a reminder of our challenge.

For a children orientated quiz to determine their footprints you can visit http://www.kidsfootprint.org/ - this proved to be a fun and interactive activity for my 5 year old son.

For more information on "100 Mile Diet" book you can visit: http://100milediet.org/book/