Mother's going GREEN Day 11 - Children's Eco Craft

Friday’s Craft Corner: Individually Wrapped Chocolate Drops (especially for dad in preparation for Fathers Day)

You will need:

A jar (recycled – an old jam jar works well)
Foil wrap (preferably recycled – perhaps from chocolate or candy bars – I collected ours from chocolate bars – that is before we stopped eating them – but more on that in tomorrows blog)
Chocolate (preferably fair trade chocolate we used Coco Camino http://www.cocoacamino.com/)
Piece of old material
Wax paper

Instructions: (with an adults help if required)

Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave (microwaves take up less power than the stove)

On the wax paper and with a spoon drop the melted chocolate – see picture (it is a good idea to out the wax paper on a cookie sheet if you intend to put it in the fridge to set)

Allow the chocolate to set ( you can put it in the fridge to speed up the process)

Once the chocolate has set you can individually wrap them (see picture) and then place them in the jam jar

Cut a circle in the fabric large enough to cover and overlap the jar lid and tie it on the lid with a piece of ribbon or string.

Voila, you have Individually wrapped chocolate drops you’re your favourite dad for Fathers day and remember to reuse or recycle the wax paper.

I hope your dad enjoys these tasty treats. For added individuality you can place a nut on each drop of chocolate before it sets.

Enjoy.

See the chocolate all over the t-shirt; you can eat the left over chocolate in the bowl.

Next weeks craft will be a 'watering can' for your garden.

Mother's going GREEN Day 2 - Wednesday is Garbage Pick Up Day

How Charming - Our weeks worth of garbage....5 standard garbage bags.

Lets look at my garbage:

• 2 garbage bags in picture above contain disposable diapers (remember I have a toddler and an infant)
• I would say the another 11/2 could be kitchen waste (those kids don't always eat all the food served to them and then it is those fruit & vegetable peelings, coffee filters etc.)
• The remainder I am not certain

General facts about North American garbage:

• an adult produces 600 times their weight in garbage over their life time. Now that's 40825 kilograms for a 68 kilogram adult. - Natural Resources Canada
• 1/3 of our garbage is paper and paperboard, 1/3 is kitchen and yard wast and rest is made up of glass,metals, plastics, textiles wood and other materials - Environment Canada
• Americans create nearly 210 million tons of garbage each year. About 31/2 pounds of garbage is thrown away every day in the US - http://garbage.wikidot.com/garbage3
  

Hopefully, by this time next week I can get rid of a couple of bags of garbage:

• I will be more mindful of what is going into the trash
• Look at composting our organic kitchen and yard waste
• Switch to cloth diapers instead of disposable

Stay logged on and lets see what becomes of my garbage.