I was looking for information about infant eczema when I stumbled across the article at Z Recommends (a go-to source for product reviews as well as consumer advocacy on issues central to parents’ concerns for the health and safety of their children) detailing violent reactions that children are having to those plastic tagless tags that grace all of our clothing these days. If you find you (or your children) breaking out in rashes on your backs, this could be the culprit. And phthalates in the tags? How unfortunate.

TinyDecor blog is now offering products in their store with that cute Mod Green Pod Kids fabric I posted last week. Lovely!

Thrifty Jinxy has a recipe for homemade dishwahser detergent composed of stuff I know I already have in my house. Definitely going to give that a try!

Considering cloth diapering versus G diapers? tiny Decor has done the head-to-head (or bottom-to-bottom?) research for you!

Re-nest shares recycling and donation resources in 10 Ways to Give Things Away for Free. A number of these I hadn’t thought of or didn’t know about. Double check what your city accepts, too. Our recycling center takes athletic shoes, batteries, tires, and computers on top of the standard paper, plastic, yard waste and the like.

Isn’t this a sweet idea? (From a number of things via The Crafty Crow, with more detailed instructions at SouleMama)

I love the idea of doing this project alongside the one suggested by ohdeeoh using vintage fabric and embroidery hoops of different sizes. I need to get on freecycle and see who has some hoops lingering in their attic that they’re never going to use.

I have to get some more details about this, but it is the coolest freebie I’ve ever encountered… (via Ecobunga)

Buy 3 natural/organic baking products totaling $10 or more and get a free culinary class!

What a great deal to take advantage of with a friend and then have a free night out! They have more than one class in my area, so why not?

Need another reusable bag? Need vitamins? Nature’s Bounty is giving away a tote (with a $1/off coupon) when you sign up at their site.

You might not think that you need your own bags for bulk bin purchases, but what if they’re made from Amy Butler and other awesome fabric and are 15% off? Green Mom Finds shares the discount code (GMF15) and a give away. (Now that’s a cool hostess gift, stuffed with some nuts or granola, don’t you think? And speaking of granola, get a free sample of Bear Naked Fruit and Nut blend here.)

There is much to love about rikrak. I can speak from personal experience that the customer service is great (I ordered letters in vintage fabric in each of my son’s initials to iron on to their winter coats). Now I have my eye on two cute gifts for special occasions: the new job and the new home.

For the former, I know I would love an upcycled business card holder like those offered by rikrak for $12. Maybe a cute gift for a new mom, too, with some playdate calling cards!

And for the latter, the similarly fabulous vintage fabric coasters ($14 for 4).

Even as a Jewish family, there are still aspects of the dominant December holiday that pull at me. The song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” always, as well as the in-the-round, “Christmas is Coming.” I think we all can agree, especially when it comes to our green and frugal wishes, that indeed the goose has gotten a little fat. We spend, eat, and worry more than we ought to, even if we just celebrate Hanukkah! Let’s see what we can do together to get prepared, have more authentic times together with our children, be kind to the environment, and make and give gifts that last and matter.

Michelle at Leaving Excess has an amazing series up, “How to Save on Anything.” Really good advice, nicely presented, and timely, with the holiday run-up upon us. I love Kelly’s post at Almost Frugal about gift giving ideas, too. Skip to My Lou has some pretty and easy homemade gifts for adults and also for children.

It’s a good time, as I’ve mentioned before, to address holiday cards and book a family photo session (with a pro or a friend). If you’re going to be making gifts, it’s definitely time to start. If you’re like me an aspire to gift making but might fall short in the execution this year, it’s a fine time to explore local shops for fun gift ideas. If nothing else, make a list of everyone you’ll need to buy for (including, as applies to you, daycare helpers, piano teachers, the poor letter carrier who schleps millions of eBay and Etsy purchases to your door, and then some).

I promise not to post again about Christmas until we’ve at least talked a little bit about Halloween!

Horizon organic milk boxes are more affordable when you use the Amazon code MILKDISC (via Ecobunga), which takes 20% off. Use Subscribe and Save for another 15% off and you’ll pay $14.96 for 18. At Whole Foods, I paid $17.00 for 24 boxes of Organic Valley milk (which is also a local product for us, natch), but I’m not sure if that was just a back-to-school sale price. Still, $0.70-0.83/box is not too shabby.

I’ve always wanted a pedometer, just to see how many steps I take with the triplets each day. Right now, a Tylenol promotion is giving one away, so I’ll see what the results are when it comes (and how it increases when they are crawling, and then walking, and then running…)

Re-nest writes up the new Costco eco-friendly dish and laundry detergents. Looks like they’re worth giving a try! (Good Guide hasn’t weighed in on them yet to know if they have the best of the best ingredients, so check the guide out if there is something you are specifically looking for, or to avoid, in your household.)

Did you know that Firefox tends to crash when you have more than 30 tabs open? I know this (very well!) because I have so many sage reads items open these days and so little time to write! I am planning some reorganization, like a more tightly edited reads as a once- or twice-a-week feature, and a new design and layout, when I have a little time. Soon!

Last week, I got some inspiration from this bunting picture at The Crafty Crow.

I’ve seen lots of handmade buntings around, and I felt like our older son’s playroom was really needing some decorating attention. This weekend, we sat around with a big pile of magazines and boxes and other papers intended for the recycling bin and picked what we wanted to cut out. Right now, we have a large pile of colorful images ready to hang. I’ll take a picture when we’re all done, the hardest part will be the hanging because the walls have a weird texture to them.

Also Crafty Crow inspired is the very cool Playful Learning’s custom ABC book. Martha’s craft of the day today is the similar and beautiful leaf alphabet.

I would love to have the big brother help me collect some leaves in the coming weeks and then we can create letter cards for him and his brothers. Special gift idea, too, with a cute frame! (Treehugger shares the Martha love today, too.)

Parenthacks suggests ideas for repurposing Melissa & Doug packaging. Now why didn’t I think of that before?

Ike has us all thinking about family preparedness. I know I could do better in this area. I need to look into tornado safety, which is the real threat in this area, and get better prepared for the winter with infants in tow. We might have a frost tonight, so no time like the present!

We’re looking at another crazy week, and there is something about writing my menus out that makes me stick to it and makes dinnertime easier, so here we go:

Sunday — Birthday (take-out, we’ll go out for a nice dinner some night we can get a sitter or two)

Monday — Baked potato bar: We have potatoes from the farmers market, so I will bake them, make some turkey bacon, some sauteed mushrooms, and a slew of other toppings and we can all pile on what we like.

Tuesday — Crockpot Chicken Tetrazinni, subbing rotisserie chicken for the turkey

Wednesday — Tacos (tomatoes from our garden, some lettuce, ground turkey, blue corn taco shells, and cheese)

Thursday –The salmon & roasted corn chowder that I’ve been meaning to make for weeks

Friday — Pizza night! We have a ton of basil in the yard so still at least 1 fresh pesto pizza. Yum!

Saturday — Big school picnic runs until 2pm, so I’m guessing that we’ll cobble together some leftovers for a light dinner

A free Kashi cookie. Yum! I wonder if they send a coupon or an actual cookie…?

Four beautiful Beco Butterfly Carriers are on sale at The Portable Baby. Regularly $139, you can get Espresso brown, Metro Black, Martini, or (my favorite) Abby for only $89. I am so tempted to pick one up at this price! I have a Beco 4th Generation carrier that I love and a buckle tai I use too, as well as a ring sling. And I have 8 strollers. So really, I don’t *need* another carrier, right? (Thanks to amazing triplet mama Jen for pointing out the sale.)

Drugstore.com has all sizes of Seventh Generation diapers on sale for $41.89/case. It’s only a dollar less than Amazon, true, but you get their store rewards (good on future purchases), 6% in rewards if you have the Upromise toolbar, free shipping when you spend $49 (only $25 to qualify for your first order), and if you’re a new customer, start from this link and you’ll get $10 off a $50+ order.

Plus, they are also offering a deal if you spend $50 on Seventh Generation natural products, to get $10.00 off the entire order! Grab one or two more products you usually buy anyway, and you’re essentially getting them for free. I think I’ll do this deal twice, since we’re just hitting size 3 diapers and if I remember correctly, we’ll be in this size for quite some time. A few extra steps, but a good price on diapers!

My husband’s cousin happens to own a quilting shop near us, so I piled the kids (and the sitter) in the minivan today and went to check out some fabric in person. The Amy Butler print I loved so much was too light in color and the print was huge, so I knew I was going to pass on that. I found a fat quarter of something I really love, but they no longer stock it. Of course, the exact amount I need is for sale right now on eBay for a great price, so I think it’s a sign.

What do you think?

It’s Walgreens coupon time again! Good Friday and Saturday.

Do you use Upromise? It’s a free service tied to your credit and loyalty cards that can help you save for college. I joined years ago to start saving for our then-future children but didn’t think much about maximizing my savings. Now that it’s more on my mind, I’ve been using the Firefox toolbar, and I have to tell you, it’s pretty exciting when I go to a site where I was going to buy something anyway and a little green button pops up to tell me as much as 11% will be credited to my account in rewards. I’ve added a few dollars to our account in just the 2 weeks I’ve had it, but I do a lot of online shopping so YMMV.

If you decide to give it a try, in addition to rewards from restaurants all over the country, they have a new  eCoupon program. They load the savings onto your rewards card, so when you’re shopping at CVS or other stores, the credit will simple show up on your bill and be deducted from the total. Disposable diapers, applesauce, cheese… it’s an interesting set, not sure how often it refreshes, and you don’t have to worry about printing or clipping and remembering to bring any coupons with you!

Ecobunga shares a great Envirosax deal at Bright and Bold:

Bright & Bold offers coupons that save you $3 on the purchase of 2 Envirosax pouches, $7 on 4 pouches, $12 on 6 pouches, and more! Each pouch contains 5 chic Envirosax resusable grocery bags. Mix and match from the various styles, including Flora, Mikado, Mono, Retro, Amazonia, Kitchen and Envirosax for Kids bags. You’ll also get free Priority Shipping included on every order, and orders ship out the same day.