It’s been a long couple of days away from the computer, so I’m going to put a few things out there, in no special order…

It seems like every once in awhile, one of the many blogs I read does a round up of all of the current printable coupons for organic groceries and baby stuff. The latest is from Green Mom Finds. Enjoy!

I read this entire article on Depression-Era posters and modern remakes in Readymade with great interest. The posters these are inspired by are from my favorite exhibit at the Smithsonian American History Museum. As an American History major in college and a constant student of political communications, they’ve always appealed to me. The new ones are excellent, and some how I managed to miss… free to download!

Skip to My Lou rounds up more free downloads — all sorts of adorable gift tags, including some especially for for handmade gifts.

Eco Child’s Play has a bunch of links for quick, thrifty and eco-friendly Christmas crafts to do in the waning days before the holiday. I especially love the idea of Lego ornaments and will be filing that away as teacher and grandparet gift potential for next year. And as soon as we’re clearing off the mantel, I’ll be making some of the cool holiday card puzzles featured at The Crafty Crow (which has had a pile of nice Hanukkah crafts lately, too, although as you can tell by the picture from my living room, we believe any project can be a Hanukkah project around here…)

What are you making with your kids this week?

I admit it: I boasted a long time ago about how I address my holiday cards by Columbus Day, but this year it just didn’t happen. Still hasn’t happened. I’m still running on triplet time, which means it takes me about 6 weeks longer to get to something than I expect. And who knows how long that effect will be in place?

Excuses aside, I have cards, I have photos, and I have photo cards. (Want some photo cards quick and free besides shipping? Freebies 4 Mom has the details. There is also information on a free photo book that you have to claim today and order by the 16th, if you’re looking for an easy gift.) I just don’t have any time! I will get to it soon and luckily all of the elements are in place. Plus, I’m behind on my deadline, but the real world deadline is still a full month away.

I also don’t have a gift list together. I’m hoping the economic situation means the exuberant side of my family is willing to pare back and do a swap. We’re putting it out there that we would like a “no stuff” holiday, and instead would prefer contributions for P to continue various (expensive!) classes and lessons, restaurant gift cards so we can go out as a family, and other experience-based gifts.

For our purchases, we’re joining in on the No Plastic Holiday Challenge!

It shouldn’t be too hard since I already challenged my self to a “tiny choices” holiday where we will be giving some of our favorite green household items to family and friends. Very ambitious, I know, given that I’m running on triplet time and all!

I somehow powered through the busted ankle and the four kids with three different ailments (cold, stomach bug, and teething, of which I also have two!) and had a robust post planned for today. My laptop had other plans and suddenly stopped working. The fine people at my local Apple Store fixed it in a matter of seconds, but it threw my day and my writing off. Apparently, the more I try to be mindful about my blogging, the more complicated my life seems to get just to throw me off.

parenting

The Crafty Crow has posted a kids homemade ornament swap. Sign up now for a fun crafting exchange. Though we don’t do Christmas at home or have a tree, I love ornaments (is that weird?) and would really have loved to do this with my oldest. I just don’t think it’s in the cards for us this year. Our family life is a little too unpredictable for activities where we would disappoint other kids if we didn’t come through!

crafting

Cool, crafty make your own recycled bath mat! This looks like so much fun. The Cookie Magazine “nesting” blog has a lot of smart how-tos, like this on making fabric covered drawer pulls. Considering I was thinking of shelling out $6 each for some at Anthropologie today and I have *tons* of fabric, I’m definitely going to try this first!

resources

Got piles of music or data CDs you don’t know how to recycle? Re-nest points out the CD Recycling Center.  They take disks, cases, and liners, and have great ideas for setting up recycling stations in an office, library or school.

Cool Mom Picks shares hand-me-downs, a freecycle and freepeats-esque resource that also combs craiglist and other sites to put info in one place. Right now, it’s only in a few cities, and not mine. Let me know if you check it out…

Let’s face it: You’re not going to be able to convince certain relatives to skip holiday gifts or to buy from local vendors or from Etsy, no matter how early you start or how persuasive your argument. I know, because I’ve tried!

Here are a two green items from mainstream stores that would be at home on many families’ gift lists:

The Eco-Friendly Cooking Center from Toys R Us:

The Wonderworld Cooking Center Play Kitchen Set is an ultimate must-have toy. This modern Cooking Center invites endless role play activity. The Wonderworld Cooking Center Play Kitchen Set features an oven with temperature and timer controls, a built-in refrigerator, a washing sink and steam hood. The fun will never end when your child is playing with the Wonderworld Cooking Center Play Kitchen Set! The possibilities for imaginative play are endless and the opportunities for creative growth are plentiful. Wonderworld uses only Water-based paint for our wooden toys so to minimize: child exposure to chemicals, a health factor use of underground fossil fuel, reducing CO2 emission, industry refinery reducing CO2 emission and chemical waste release to the environment. Wonderworld as a strong advocate of protecting the environment, insists on using only rubber-wood that is of replenishable source and widely accepted throughout the world as the environment-friendly material. Wonderworld strictly uses only non-toxic color and laquer constituent for all our products. This not only contributes to the safety proposition for children but also demonstrates our determined commitement to mother earth.

They have other play appliances, too. Nice!

Recycled (and recyclable) cardboard chairs from Land of Nod (via Ohdeeoh). These would be so fun for preschoolers to decorate with markers and stickers, or for crafty parents to customize to match a unique nursery.

What do you have your eye on that’s green but grandparent-shopping-friendly?

You might think I’m not in the Halloween spirit, but it’s just the opposite. I’ve had our costumes ready for weeks, we have a scarecrow on our front porch (named by P, “Duncan!” Duncan’s full name? “Duncan Donuts!”) and an oversized spider living in our bushes, and I’m pricing out the organic lollipops at Whole Foods next week.

Most importantly, the other day we started the neighborhood Booing. On a short jaunt to Target with one of the babies, I grabbed 2 tin buckets, some (hopefully reusable) garland for stuffing, Halloween pencils, and individually-wrapped Green and Black organic chocolates (On clearance! I couldn’t believe my good fortune!). We have a Costco box of fruit leathers, so I stole a handful of those when I got home and wrote up the little pumpkin notes.

On our way home from preschool, P and I left them at two of our neighbor’s houses. I chose the two moms that are the most active in planning block activities, knowing that they will definitely keep the chain going. I can’t wait to see how it spreads down the street!

I’ve tried so hard to come up with a creative post about greening Halloween, but it seems like those are everywhere right now and I’m seeing what I thought were my brilliant ideas in print after they apparently occurred to other brilliant mamas. I don’t want to be repetitive, so I refer you instead to the Green Moms Carnival featuring dozens of posts and to Green Halloween and I’ll get back to the winter holidays.

I was very inspired by the October Tiny Challenge to do small deeds that help others make green choices. I’m going to take it further by doing that for as many holiday gifts as possible. I already had envirosax on my list for my stepmother, and since I came up with this concept, more and more ideas are coming to me.

There is a preponderance of “Green Your Lifestyle” kits out there that run $35-60 each (here’s one example). How about buying the same materials yourself and making several kits for friends and family members? CFC lightbulbs can be bought in big packs at hardware stores. Pick up some of your favorite items or make bulk batches of homemade dishwasher powder to include. I’m guessing with a little ingenuity, you could do this for less than $15 each.

A sweet simple gift for a teacher or a stocking stuffer is a handkerchief holder with a new or vintage handkerchief that might discourage use of paper facial tissues. Likewise, if you have basic sewing skills, you can repurpose t-shirts or other linens into cloth napkins very easily.

So, like the Tiny Challenge, I challenge you to replace one conventional gift with another that will please the recipient but also help them trying something new and green! Let us know what you decide to do or leave a link in the comments to your ideas.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts at sundown on Monday. It is a religious holiday in nature, but like most Jewish holidays (and holidays in other traditions), it’s steeped in routine and symbolism related to the environment, spiritual nourishment, and food. All the more reason celebrate!

No matter what your background, there are simple, inexpensive aspects of Rosh Hashanah to participate in that kids love and that can contribute to a conversational about pluralism, community, and more.

• One very popular observance is eating apples dipped in honey to symbolize a sweet new year. With the preponderance of apples available at this time of year, it’s a great time to go picking at a local orchard or to score some cheap at the farmer’s market. (In fact, a lot of popular dishes for this holiday are farmer’s market friendly… grab some carrots and sweet potatoes for your tzimmes, too!)
• On Tuesday afternoon, many will also head down to a river or other flowing body of water for the Tashlikh, or casting off. By emptying our pockets, stuffed for the occasion with stale breadcrumbs, it symbolically casts off our spiritual baggage welcomes the new year. All the better if we feed some ducks, too!

If nothing else, you can wish your Jewish friends “L’shana Tova,” your wishes for them to have a good year!

I mentioned the Whole Foods “whole deal” flyer before, but this week was the first time I saw one in the store. It was the same edition as I read on line, but I noticed the very prominent text on the top reading, “Looking for Mambo Sprouts? $36 in Coupons Inside!” So, of course I picked up the flyer and indeed, there are some great natural grocery coupons inside.

But what was this “Mambo Sprouts”? Well, it turns out that it is also a site with printable organic grocery coupons!!! There are freebies, recipes, and more. Glad I thought to check!

(As an aside, if you are like us and have a Co-op Advantage store near you, a lot of the coupons in the Mambo Sprouts insert were also in the Co-op Advantage book this month, but only to be used at the co-op, while the Mambo Sprouts coupons are manufacturer’s coupons. You could certainly try using both, or so called “coupon stacking”, at your co-op for additional savings. I’m going to give it a try and see if it works.)

By now, you know there is a $5/$20 Wallgreens coupon for today and tomorrow.

What you might not know is that there is actually one of the coveted Register Rewards deals on Tom’s of Maine products. Buy 3 (toothpaste, mouthwash, or deodorant) and get $5 in Register Rewards to use on your next purchase. Buy 5 and get $10 in RR!

Want a little prod towards holiday planning? The Organizing Junky points out that The Household Helper has a *free* ecourse to help you prepare Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, featuring weekly emails giving you action steps and recommended resources.

Attention Target Shoppers shares two coupons for Horizon Organic Milk. Get a $1.00/1 Target Q here. Also, get another $1.00/1 manufacturers coupon. Target allows “stacking” coupons, so you can use your store coupon along with the manufacturers coupon for additional savings.

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!

Christmas prep has hit the blogophere earlier than I expected this year. We are Jewish, but half of our family and most everyone else we know celebrates Christmas so there are many aspects we take part in. In my mind, I’m already gearing up the asks for our boys (both the wants and the want nots, like plastic baby toys that take batteries!). Even though we don’t have a tree or anything, the holiday Martha impulse still hits me pretty hard, though fortunately the urge to shop and overbuy for friends and family does not. One tradition I love: holiday cards

This is my hard and fast rule for cards — I always buy next year’s cards in January when they are on sale. I store them in the same place each year and I address and sign them over Columbus Day weekend. We may not have the family photo taken yet, let alone printed, and the little update letter comes later, too, but I can do the bulk of the job in October. If I meet someone between October 15 and December 15 that should receive a card, I add theirs at that time, but really, what’s the chance of there being a lot of people like that?

In regards to the photo, we generally have a professional do an outdoor shoot the last week of October. We order a CD of the shots rather than individual pictures, and then I used up photo credits I’ve banked all year to get prints. I have more than 200 credits right now at snapfish, if you can believe it, just for paying attention to their promotions. You can use the web services to print copies of school portraits as well, just scan them in so that two jumbo wallets make one 4×6, order half the number you need, and then cut them yourself when they are delivered. Must cheaper than whatever “Package B” gives you!

Assuming you don’t have a stockpile of cards to make this work, the internet won’t let you down. eBay has tons of odd lots of cards (modern and vintage) available. The holiday stamp isn’t available yet, but if you want to add postage to your cards early, the cute “Celebrate” stamp available now would certainly do.