Friday, September 4, 2009
If you look closely, you can see my crayon letters on the side of the box. This is one of my party pics. Eek, I’m so excited! Okay, down to business. Here are the five winners of the Sillycone alphabet letter set:
joy said: They look so fun!
Elaina said: I ruined a muffin pan trying to make recycled crayons – and I’d love to try again with these trays. Thanks!!
Kimber said: Super cute! Sign me up!
AshelyU said: These are so cute! My kiddos would love them.
Debbie Macy said: I love your blog! I hope I win, I want some 
Thanks everyone for entering this giveaway. And a big thanks to the kind people at Sillycone for their generous donation. Well, there you go folks! The winners have been notified by email.
xoxo, Brittany
Monday, August 31, 2009
The cool people at Sillycone have offered to giveaway an alphabet set to five lucky winners. Go to their site and check out their great line of products, including the new individual number molds. Leave me a comment here and make sure to include your email address in the comment form. I’ll pick a winner on Friday moring, September 4th.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Since this was an eco-friendly artist party, I focused on eco stuff. And artsy stuff.
Here are the invitations again, made from 100% tree free paper and junk mail. Notice the request for absolutely no gifts. This is also a very eco-friendly idea since plastic toys often end up in the land fills.
The main table, with my rainbow of juices. I used resuable dishes to eliminate waste.
A platter of organic fruits.
Cans recycled as marker holders, used at the coloring table.
Jars recycled to hold crayons, also used at the coloring table. I spray painted the lids.
I made fabric banners out of stained clothing and old pillowcases, items that otherwise would have been thrown out.
Aprons made from mens’ dress shirts. Repurposing clothing is a great way to extend it’s life.
Paint.
One of the party guests painting.
The playdough table.
Stringing organic, naturally colored “froot loops” into necklaces.
The eco-friendly favors made with recycled crayons and upcycled notebooks.
A close up of the letters.
The birthday girl’s cupcake. All of the cupcakes were vegan. Even the candles were all natural, no petroleum-based wax at this party.
Enjoying the food. You can see the necklaces that they made, and the food on the mismatched plates.
These artistic party pictures were taken by the lovely & talented Melissa Papaj . For more posts about this party, click on the Eco-Friendly Artist Party tag below.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
It was fun scouring the thrift store for cool plates in different colors. If using someone else’s plates bothers you, scrub them down and then wash them in the dish washer. Mine has a sterilize setting.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Since this was an eco-friendly artist party, I thought it would be fun to make aprons from recycled shirts. After a trip to the thrift store for a bunch of old shirts, I came up with this pattern.
directions:
1. You will need: a long sleeved men’s dress shirt size M, L or XL; 41 inches of ribbon (I used grosgrain ribbon); fabric scissors; straight pins; a sewing machine and colored thread; optional ironing board & iron.
2. First you will need to carefully cut off part of the collar. Following the example in the picture, cut above the stitching on the collar until you get to the seam by the bottom arrow, then angle up. Cutting above the stitching again (top arrow) cut off all of the top collar. Go back and cut the lower part of the collar on the other side until you get to the stitching and then angle your cut up again. It’s really not as confusing as it sounds–just make sure that you are keeping all top stitching intact to avoid having to resew seams. Cutting the collar like this will create an opening to later string the ribbon through. And yes, this will create some raw edges. It doesn’t bother me and they fray really cute and make the apron seem even more cozy. I also cut off the tiny collar buttons at this time as they aren’t needed.
3. Adjust the shirt so that all of the back panel is in the back and none is showing in the front. You can then iron the shirt to keep the fabric there and pin or you can just pin it and not iron.
4. You will need to unbutton some of the buttons on the other side for this to be possible and for it to lay smooth.
5. With your sewing machine, sew the back panel in place.
6. This is how it will look on the other side.
7. You will need to reinforce the top of the collar to avoid wear from the ribbon. Stitch only along the top, double stitching at the ends for extra strength. Make sure to leave both sides open for the ribbon.
8. I used a safety pin on the ribbon to thread it through the collar casing.
9. The sleeves are used as the waist ties.
10. A view from the back.
11. Here’s how the front looks. These are so much easier to make than they sound.
12. As you can see, this Large size shirt is long on a three year old. But I made 13 of these for the party in all shapes, colors and sizes and they fit kids in a range from 3 to 10 with a lot of clothing coverage.
Leave me a comment with any questions that you have about the instructions and I will answer them.
There are lots more artsy posts from the Eco-Friendly Artist Party. Click on the tag below to see them.
Monday, July 20, 2009
These vegan cupcakes are from Cakewalk Baking Company and the organic lollipops are from Yummy Earth.
How are vegan and organic foods eco-friendly? Oh, just let me tell you. I won’t get up too high on my soapbox, because really we’re talking about sweet little cupcakes here. But I don’t think a few facts will hurt anyone.
First vegan. Farmed animals consume 70 percent of the corn, wheat, and other grains that we grow, and one-third of all the raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S. go to raising animals for food. And more than half of the water used in the United States today goes to animal agriculture, and since farmed animals produce 130 times more excrement than the human population, the run-off from their waste is fouling our waterways. There is a lot more, but I’ll leave it at that. You can go here to read the rest of the article. This doesn’t mean that you have to give up all animal products, just using less will help.
Okay, organic. Organic farming requires more people-power. Weeding by hand and using green manures and crop covers rather than synthetic fertilizers to build up soil are the foundations of Organic agriculture. Whereas, conventional farming uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the country’s total energy supply. Did you know that most commercial fertilizers come from petroleum? More energy is used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all the crops in the US. Of course there’s more and you can read the rest of the article here. But let me assure you that although these cupcakes were better for the environment, they also tasted so good.
There are lots more artsy posts from the Eco-Friendly Artist Party. Click on the tag below to see them.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
I bought these upcycled notebooks from Vintage Paper Works on Etsy. They matched the color scheme of the party perfectly–what a great find! Etsy has such a great selection of upcycled notebooks and other upcycled items. Don’t know what upcycling is? It’s the act of creating useful products from waste materials or in other words taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value. For example, these monopoly cards. Perhaps this game was missing pieces and was no longer in use. Instead of throwing the whole thing out, Judy decided to make these property cards into tiny notebooks, giving them a new life. Brilliant!
There are lots more artsy posts from the Eco-Friendly Artist Party. Click on the tag below to see them.
