We’re in the middle of our Artterro Eco Arts & Crafts Giveaway so I wanted to fill you in on one of the great prizes, the Artterro Art Journal Kit.

Use:

Crafty free-form fun that allows imaginative kids (or adults) to explore their artistic creativity through art journaling. Available in many different colors as shown above.

Cost:

A super affordable $12.95 at the Artterro online shop.

Eco-perks:

For general information on the eco-perks of these art kits, please read my Artterro company review, which discusses materials, eco-benefits and other stuff about the company. With only very minor cons, I gave this company 5 out of 5 trees, a perfect score. These art journals are made with eco-friendly materials. You can see a run-down of the sorts of eco-materials used by Artterro at their website.

• Art Journal Kit

   

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• Unique artist quality custom paper

   

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• Custom paper choices

   

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• Beautiful paper designs

   

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• Easy and free-form instructions to inspire kids

   

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• Art journal in the making

   

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• Various directions included

   

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• Tons of supplies and handy folder included for one low price

   

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What’s this art journal all about?

The Arttrro Art Journal is a wonderful, cost-friendly craft idea. Artterro has teamed up with Strathmore Artist Papers to create a these unique art journals. Kids may learn and experiment with fun doodling, drawing and collage techniques with the help of some inspiring materials.

Each Art Journal Kit Includes the following: Spiral-bound 6.5 x 8 journal with solid book board cover to personalize, 14 inspiring project pages, 5 pages of beautiful handmade decorative papers, 6 solid colored papers, artist-quality drawing paper, and a handy pocket folder to store pictures, scraps and found images.

Your family provide: Pens, pencils, markers, scissors, glue and any other art materials you choose.

Best perks of this art journal

When this journal first arrived both my 10-year-old son and my partner’s 13-year-old daughter thought it was a very cool idea. My son is already a fan of blank drawing books, doodling books and creative journals, such as Wreck This Journal so it didn’t really shock me that he felt this journal was an excellent idea, but he commented specifically about how he liked the prompts and unique paper choices.

I liked how the paper was high quality and gorgeous and I love the idea that no two kits are alike, meaning siblings or best friends will get different choices to experiment with. Or, if your child goes thorough one journal, you could always get him or her another without fear of the exact same paper.

Best of all, the affordable price was well below what most eco-art journals cost too, which was an excellent perk. In fact, I haven’t seen a free-form eco-art journal under $20 ever, so this is fun every family can afford to enjoy.

I couldn’t find any cons associated with this journal and neither could my kids. We all thought this would make a great green gift for just about anyone.

Beyond art journals, Artterro offers a huge wonderful selection of other eco-art kits. Read two of my reviews below:

• Read my review of the Artterro Wool Felt Bug Kit
• Read my review of more Artterro craft kits

Overall Score

Five out of five little trees! This is a great journal if you’d like to encourage your child to think up creative art projects on his own but while using eco-materials. The beautiful papers will entice anyone’s imagination and you can’t beat the low price. I highly recommend this for schools or as a gift for any child.

• Buy the Artterro Art Journal Kit 
• Artterro website
• Follow Arterro on Twitter
• Join Artterro on Facebook
• Read their blog

See my green product rating system and green product rating criteria or read more green product reviews.

For Christmas this year, Cedar and I were going to make homemade wool felt play food kits for the kids in our family, as holiday gifts. However, we’re not the best sewers. We made some and did okay, but we need more practice before our sewing crafts are gift-ready. Still, since we wanted to make homemade gifts vs. buy toys or something else, we had some brainstorming sessions and settled on homemade recycled chunky crayons and homemade memory games.

Homemade memory game

If you’re looking for a fun homemade gift project that your child can help with (my ten-year-old easily helped to make these) then this game is a great fit. Memory is fun and educational for young children. This game can help teach shapes, colors and words. You could even make a game with matching numbers or letters to help teach other early childhood comprehension skills.

This homemade memory game is also quick (so last minute if necessary) and allows you to use up excess paper scraps and stickers you have laying around the house. Plus it’s very inexpensive and nice if you’re aiming for a low-cost, non-commercial holiday.

Time taken: About two evenings of concentrated work – all-in-all we made games for three kids in about 6 hours. Not bad. It would have been faster had we used wooden squares vs. stars because there would have been no tracing and exact cutting involved, but the stars are soooo darn cute.

Cost – about $15 for three kids: We looked for a sale and found some wooden stars for about $15 in bulk packs. We had paper, glue and the other stuff laying around the house.

Odds and ends to make your game

Here’s what you’ll need

• Wooden shapes. These are easily found at most craft stores. If you’re super crafty and have some sort of wood shop, you could make your own, but alas, that’s not us. Most people go with squares or circle, but for fun, we decided to go with stars. You can also find thick recycled cardboard squares or make some, but after making some game pieces with both wood and cardboard, we felt the wood looked a lot better and felt more sturdy.

• Water based glue and sealer. 

• Scrap paper and some large sheets of matching paper for the backs of the game pieces.

• Design items – Stickers, paint or more scrap paper for the design side. I.e. the side with the two matching objects.

• Little bags (which you could make with reuse fabric) or small recycled boxes.

• Pencil, scissors and a bit of sandpaper.

Be sure to mark odd sized wooden shapes so you can match the shape to the paper

Making your game

• If using star shapes trace the stars onto your paper then cut the stars out. Note – because wooden stars vary in size, be sure to mark a little arrow on your star and on the back of your paper so you know how the paper fits onto the wood. If using a uniform shape, it’s a lot easier. Simply trace one piece, then cut the rest of your paper to the same size.

• Coat your wood with the water based glue/sealer, then press the paper on firmly. Repeat until all your wood pieces have one side that match (i.e. the side you lay out to start the game).

• Then choose matching scraps of paper or stickers or even paint matching designs on the other sides of your wood.

• Coat your wood pieces, front and back with two or three coats of sealer – this will make the paper much less likely to come off in little hands.

• Sand any rough edges with a bit of sandpaper. This is a good job for a kid helper.

• You can put the finished game in a little reusable fabric drawstring bag or small recycled box.

A sweet pink version!

Tips

• You can make a memory game like this with real photos of people your child knows. The sealer works on photos.

• We’re making our games for kids who are two through four, so we picked easily recognizable designs for young children – i.e. strawberries, flowers, bees, ants and so on.

Fun to stack

• Consider making theme games such as holiday, birthday, Easter, Valentine’s day or so on.

Use lots of different matching images

• Experiment with different shapes of wood, plenty of color and even different sizes – all of which help young children learn new things. Fun shapes can be used for stacking fun too.

Great for homemade labels

• Be sure to add a little label about how to play the game. I found some adorable wooden labels (shown above) stockpiled in my craft drawer which would work great – but you could print out a label on the computer too.

Review summary:

An excellent buggy art kit that requires almost zero parent help – although, you’ll probably want to make a bug too!

Product:

Artterro Wool Felt Bug Kit

Use:

Crafty buggy fun for creative kids – and even adults.

Cost: 

An affordable $19.95 at Amazon or at the Artterro online shop.

Eco-perks:

For more information on the eco-perks of these art kits, please read my Artterro company review, which discusses materials, eco-benefits and other stuff about the company. With only very minor cons, I gave this company 5 out of 5 trees, a perfect score. I’ve also reviewed three other Artterro Kits – Collage Jewelry Kit, Creativity Kit and Paint With Wool Portrait Kit. Read that review.

Oh, since those previous reviews, Artterro has added some more green practices to their company though. For example, before, Artterro kits came in reusable bags. Now they come in recycled boxes that can be re-purposed by your child, by turning the box into a frame for finished artwork. There’s still a re-sealable plastic bag is perfect for storing extra materials after doing a project.

My reviewers:

Cedar (age 10), Katana (age 13) and myself.

What’s included:

This new bug kit is perfect for kids ages 7 and up and includes: Natural 100% wool felt shapes, glass beads, wooden beads, sequins, ribbon, craft thread, needles and ideas sheet. There are enough supplies included for 7 fuzzy art bugs. You simply provide scissors and glue, and you’re ready to make a bug world.

What we thought of the Wool Felt Bug Kit:

I wasn’t sure how the kids would take an art kit about bugs, but they both thought it was adorable and fun. Both were super excited when I pulled it out, tossing around words like, “Cool!” I thought it was one of the more creative kits I’ve seen from Artterro. The kit contains plenty of colorful wool felt, which as it turns out makes the most delightful little one-of-a-kind creepy-crawly friends. The Ribbon and beads that were included made great wings, eyes and antennae for our bugs.

The kids especially LOVED the bonus recycled box project – i.e. you can turn your product box into a frame for your finished artwork. My kids decided to use it to make a little bug world to house their bugs. They’ve been working on it slowly, but as you can see above, it’s coming along well and is totally cute. The kids added some art supplies from around the house to make a nighttime bug world. I thought the new box feature was especially creative and a great idea on Artterro’s part.

The kids didn’t need too much help with this kit, but did need a little help figuring out antennae. Some of the little wool balls were hard to attach antennae to and so the kids ended up getting pretty creative with glue and using a needle to make tiny holes first. So far, both kids have made a couple bugs that are so cute, but there are enough supplies for them to make more, so this is a great project for a couple of rainy days.

• A cute little buzzy bee

   

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• A helpful idea sheet is included

   

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• Art Bug Kit supplies

   

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• Close-up of Mr. Bee

   

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• Spider with top hat and cane

   

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• Cheerful ladybug

   

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• "Emo" bug - my kids are obsessed with making emo stuff

   

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Overall score:

5 out of 5 little trees. Both kids, loved this kit, so I’d say it’s a good choice for boys and girls. Plus, unlike some art projects, this one was almost entirely hands-off on my part, meaning it kept the kids busy without me having to hang around and help out. Also, the new awesome box feature adds a whole other dimension to these kits and really got the kids thinking about what they could do to dress the box up.

Neither kid mentioned any cons about this kit and both said they’d highly recommend this for any other kids. I think these kits, the bug or other Artterro kits will make a wonderful and totally affordable eco-friendly holiday or birthday gift too.

If bugs aren’t your deal, Artterro has many other available kits:

• Collage Jewelry Kit
• Creativity Kit
• Paint With Wool Portrait Kit
• Wire and Bead Art Kit
• Handmade Paper Bookmaking Kit
• Canvas Storybook
• Wool Felt Wearable Kit
• Art Dolls Kit
• Collage Decoration
• Garden Art Kit
• Bubble Wands Kit
• Wool Felt Art Kit

Learn more:

• Buy the Artterro Wool Felt Bug Kit
• Artterro website
• Follow Arterro on Twitter
• Join Artterro on Facebook
• Read their blog

See my green product rating system and green product rating criteria or read more green product reviews.

Recycled luminaries are actually a great year-round craft. You can make them spooky for Halloween or use pretty patterns to lighten up a birthday picnic table. They’re especially nice during winter holiday celebrations though both indoors and out on the porch. I like how this person below, hung their luminaries in the window. Nice.

Gather:

• Empty tin cans of any size – peel the paper off and clean them exceptionally well. If you’re using a large can with a design, say a coffee can, you can paint it, but wait until after you poke your holes.
• Nails of various sizes. The bigger the nail the easier this project is. However, you can make various designs with a good selection of different sized nails.
• A hammer
• Candles – I suggest safer, LED candle lights, rather than actual candles. Especially use LED tea lights if you’re planning on covering your luminary with vellum.
• Optional items include – paint, vellum paper, glue, and glitter

Make your luminaries:

• If the top edges of your cans are sharp or jagged, file them down with a metal file stick.

• Fill your cans with water and pop them in the freezer.

• While your water freezes decide on what sort of design you’d like to make.  Your child can draw a simple design on paper, or you can look for some templates in a book or online. One thing that works great for luminary templates are those old craft and crochet books you see at thrift stores. There are usually some nice flower, snowflakes and vintage looking patterns in these books.

• Once your water is frozen pull out one can at a time and tape your design onto the can. One thing I found out last year is that the paper can slip, thus making your design look funky. To get around this issue, take a sharp permanent marker, and poke through your design onto the can, then remove the paper and punch the black dots.

• Grab your nails and hammer and hit the dots along your pattern design. The ice keeps the can from bending.

• After your design is hammered into your can, allow the ice to melt, and dry your luminary.

Extra nice options:

Homemade luminaries look perfectly great when left plain, but you can also decorate them. You can paint on a light coat of glue and sprinkle your luminary with glitter. You can cover your luminary with vellum paper – an effect that looks really glowing and nice. If you paint or cover your can too thickly, you may need to go back over your design and re-punch out some holes (with just a nail).

Design ideas:

If you’re having a holiday dinner party you can aim for an elegant design like vines of holly flowers or tiny stars. For kids, basic snowflakes or a tree are fun designs. You can also make festive holiday luminaries with recycled glass jars – if you’re trying to avoid cans due to BPA.

Bonus – extra holiday crafts:

• AMAZING recycled mod house ornaments
• Recycled tin can Santa
• Make organic dough and make ornaments
• Recycled cereal box houses – think holiday scenes or gingerbread houses!
• Really adorable recycled Christmas card ornaments
• Cinnamon-Apple Wreath

Photo © Flickr user Elin B

You very rarely can go wrong when you give crafty gifts for the holidays. Most kiddos love arts and crafts of all sorts, and nowadays there’s a fairly amazing array of eco-friendly art products out there. Here are some excellent green arts and crafts gifts for inspiring creativity this holiday season.

If you’re looking for some all-inclusive, themed art kits, my family likes Artterro Arts & Crafts Kits – Arrterro makes art kits for all sorts of crafty fun, but my family first recommends the Paint With Wool Portrait first.

Speaking of felted wool ideas; you can always build a sweet crafty gift that focuses on needle felting. Kids ages 8 or so (depending on the kid) will be able to try their hand at wool felt projects. First snag a nice book about wool felt crafts, such as Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects.

To complete the crafts in this book, you’ll mainly need stuff you likely already have around the house. If you don’t have these items, most are inexpensive additions, you can add to this book. Items needed include stuff such as; paint or markers, scissors, a basic sewing needle, embroidery floss, non-toxic glue, pipe cleaners, yarn bits and if your child will want to make fairy dolls, you’ll need fake silk or cotton flowers, little wooden beads for heads and collected acorns for fairy hats. This is all very easy to find at a local craft store or even a thrift store. You’ll also need wool felt.

If you’re too busy to build a little wool felting kit for your child, consider a needle and wet felting starter set kit.

A unique art gift for a child is this Hand Crafted Art Box. The box itself is made of solid Douglas Fir wood, with a magnetic drawing board on one side and chalkboard on the other. The chalkboard slides open to reveal crafty storage inside. Each Art Box comes with a special muslin pouch packed with 3 pieces of chalk, a dry erase marker, and soft felt wiping cloth. Personalized Art Boxs come with hand-cut wool felt embellishments. I would have loved this when I was little.

Other crafty art-minded gifts…

• Handmade Organic Eco-Dough
• Make Your Own Memory Game
• Wooden Plant Press

• Ecotots Surfin Kids Easel
• Green Crafts for Children: 35 Step-by-Step Projects Using Natural, Recycled, And Found Materials
• Mary’s Natural Softdough Set – Scented Set of 9

• Biodegradable 100% Recycled Sketchbooks
• Clementine Art Natural Paint – 6 Color Pack

• Good Earth Art: Environmental Art for Kids (Bright Ideas for Learning)
• Non-Toxic Kitty Crayons
• Organic Powder Paint Kit, Gluten Free

• Paper Making Kit

• Artemis Plant Dyed Color Pencils
• Cadaco Enviro-BLOX X-Treme Builder Set – 440 Piece – (see our review)
• P’kolino Colorful Markers (12 colors)

• Cityscape Natural Stamp Set

• Artemis Plant Dyed Color Crayons
• Recycled Crafts Box
• P’kolino Non-Toxic Playful Art Set

• Stockmar – Watercolor Paint Set
• Modeling Beeswax
• 100% Recycled (and scented) Smencils Colored Pencils

Most kids I’ve known adore whipping up meals, snacks or baked goods in the kitchen. Translation – the kitchen is one of the best place to introduce eco-friendly skills to your kiddos because they’re already hanging around with interest.

Introducing your kids to green living and cooking skills usually starts outside of the kitchen. The planning and thinking stages are very much part of being a good green chef (or eco-friendly person in general). Tips 1-4 below cover the planning stages and tips 5-10 launch into actual cooking adventures.

1. Read (think) about it:

You don’t just have to read eco-friendly cookbooks, although that is a nice place to start. It’s not the recipes my kiddos like first, but the pictures. With that in mind, when looking for good cookbooks for kids, check out bright and glossy cookbooks first to jog their interest.

You and the kids can also take a look at cooking websites, watch cooking shows or even take an easy cooking class together. Part of successful cooking with kids is spiking their interest, then keeping them interested.

2. Discuss organics:

Kids don’t always understand why we should choose organic vs. conventional foods. I’ve been discussing organics with my son forever at this point and at age nine, Cedar has totally caught on. He’s very organic conscious at this point and will go out of his way to search out organics. Now, does it always pay off? Nope, he’s mad that there are no organic Skittles; he’s not so mad that he won’t eat the conventional ones though. However, he will ask for organic apples and milk.

To discuss organic choices with a younger child, my best advice is to keep it simple. Stay away from pesticides until your child is a little older – pesticides, which you can’t see, are a tad abstract to a child. Say something like, “Organic means healthier for your body” or “Organic foods are a smart choice for the planet, like turning off the lights.” These are things that worked with my son when he was young. Now I do explain terms like chemicals and pesticides in more detail but I waited until I thought he could grasp that concept.

3. Let them shop:

Kids can smartly shop if you let them. Help them make a list for whatever they’d like to cook. Choose a time when you have extra time and allow your child to measure out bulk food, choose new and interesting fruits and make decisions about which juice to buy.

Give your tot his own basket and sometimes some money so he can pay on his own. Take your kids to the Farmers’ Market. Teach your child how to save money on organics too. All of this allows a child to take ownership of what he’s cooking and eating.

4. Start young:

Even little kids can help make a healthy and inventive school lunch or snack. It’s smart to baby-proof the kitchen so that your kids can be in there with you from a young age. Kitchen safety should start early and so should food choices. At my house, Cedar has his own spaces in the cupboard and fridge, with food choices he can make on his own.

When he was younger he’d complain that he couldn’t cook alone so we made a visual list of foods he COULD make and some he wanted to learn. For example, Cedar drew pictures of cereal, toast, apples, carrots, yogurt and other easy foods that he could fix himself, and when he’d whine about being hungry (between meals) I’d refer him to the list. He eventually added stuff he wanted to learn how to make to the list as well.

5. Use green cooking tools:

Using eco-friendly cooking gear like silicone muffin cups, stainless steel cookie cutter, real vs. paper towels to dry fruit, recycled bowls, reusable ice pop molds and food storage containers over plastic wrap provides you with plenty of conversation topics. For example, my son used to fight against homemade ice pops. He REALLY wanted those shiny boxes of pre-wrapped store treats. But, I just kept telling him the pros of homemade, and now it’s not an issue.

Green living is sometimes about making hard choices and with my son, homemade ice pops were a harder choice when he wanted the store pops so bad. So far he’s survived without store bought pops and it’s a good lesson in green choices and living.

If you can, try to score some green cooking and baking tools made especially for kids. Kid tools tend to be smaller, so they’re easier for little hands and often come in fun colors too.

6. Try cooking with nature:

Incorporate nature with your cooking. For example…

• Make some fun organic candied flowers.
• Grow wheatgrass and make smoothies.
• Gather non-toxic leaves, spread melted organic chocolate on them, freeze. Later carefully peel the chocolate off and you’ll have awesome homemade organic chocolate leaves.
• Build a solar cooker and bake with the sun.
• Grow your own salad mix or even grow edible flowers.

7. Encourage meatless meals:

Kids who are given veggies from a young age really do love them. Meatless meals are healthy and better for the environment. Cedar was raised vegetarian and he’d rather eat a bowl full of broccoli, a red pepper or sliced apples than cookies. I’m not kidding. Lately his deal is peas. He ate an entire bag of them this week.

Tofu is an very easy ingredient to work with, and kids like to squish it around with their hands. Try some tofu recipes for kids.

8. Set a green example:

Recycle packaging, compost old food, use food up, turn the oven off early, turn the water off and get invested in other basic green kitchen habits. Your child is watching you carefully, make sure he’s seeing that you’re engaged in basic eco-friendly activities.

9. Stay chill:

In my opinion, chill parents have happier kids in general, but being calm really pays off in the kitchen. I was at someone’s house once and the family was making cookies. The mom freaked when one of the kids cracked an egg badly (it spilled) and took over if she thought a kid was messing up. She even directed the kids on how to decorate the finished cookies. Her kids didn’t look like they were having much fun.

Kids need to make mistakes. Kids need to feel safe, like you won’t yell over something little like spilled milk. Yes, for sure teach kitchen safety, but mostly chill out. Kids can handle more than we think. If you push and freak, your kids won’t want to hang out with you.

10. Host a little party:

After you get your kid cooking, let him show off his mad skills by hosting a little party. It can be as small as grandma over for dinner or as big as five little friends over for lunch. You can even plan a special event like a pizza party, a tea party or a cupcake party.

Whatever you plan make sure your child puts his green skills into action too. No paper plates, use organics and so on.

Extra: Some fun recipes to try with kids…

• Organic Caramel Apples
• Organic Black Raspberry Chocolate Frozen Yogurt
• Easy Homemade Bread – Homemade Organic Honey Oat Bread
• Healthy Organic & Fair Trade Hot Chocolate
• Organic sugar cookies
• Homemade Organic Raspberry Bars
• 50 Amazing Homemade Popsicle Recipes & Ideas
• Homemade organic applesauce

Have any other great green cooking with kids tips? Let everyone know about them in the comments.

[images: Slicing ©qwrrty; Cedar Cooking ©Jennifer Chait; Sous Chef ©eyeliam]

Play cooking is super fun for kids, but it doesn’t usually beat the real deal. Most kids love to cook with their parents and cooking is an excellent way to teach green living skills. If you’re looking for long-lasting and useful gifts for the holiday season, cooking and baking gifts can’t be beat.

I love the Children’s Play Baking Set shown above. It’s a perfect kid cooking starter set, complete with a stainless steel bowl, measuring cups, cherry platter, rolling pin, loaf pan, a cherry kitchen Spoon and a cherry Kitchen Paddle. All natural and non-toxic materials.

To see more cool eco-friendly, non-toxic and fun cooking gifts for kids jump to the next page.

• Bean Appetit: Hip and Healthy Ways to Have Fun with Food
• Fiesta Head Chefs Silicone Pastry Brush, Blue
• Ateco Stainless Steel Cookie Cutter Sets
• Animal House Monkey Peeler (stainless steel blade)
• Mimi the Sardine Coated Organic Cotton Child’s Apron – Hybrid Cars or Jungle OR bugs or flora / airplane.
• Pops!: Icy Treats for Everyone
• 100% recycled, BPA-free, Preserve Measuring Cups Dry
• What’s New, Cupcake?: Ingeniously Simple Designs for Every Occasion
• Fiesta Head Chefs Silicone Whisk, Green
• Tovolo Farmyard Ice Cream Sandwich Molds
• Fred Hot Heads Silicone Insulating Mitt, Dog or you could go with a frog or Pac Man style mitt.
• Wilton Silly- Feet Silicone Baking Cups

An excellent family-friendly, green-friendly company with almost zero cons.

Coming up I’ll be posting specific reviews of a few Artterro art kits. Before I do that though, let’s take a look at the company basics.

BASICS: Artterro was founded by Forrest & Jen who note that after searching high and low for “Eco-friendly, open-ended art projects with beautiful materials” they were disappointed. The solution – start their own eco-minded kids’ art company. The main company goal, according to Artterro is, “We want to make it easier for people to bring art into their lives. Artterro kits are for kids, families, seasoned artists and novices alike. We’ve done the sourcing and shopping, helping busy people bring a creative, meaningful activity home to their families.”

ABOUT THE ART KITS:

• Arterro art kits come in many flavors; enough to suit just about any crafty kid out there. From felted wool art kits, to jewelry making kits, to collage kits, to wire and bead kits, to unique bubble wand kits and more, there are seriously kits that will work for everyone.

• Each art kit is unique and filled with its own assortment of materials, colors and patterns.

• Materials used in each art kit are high quality and gorgeous. Plus, materials are non-toxic and safe for kids. Even their artist quality paints are non-toxic.

• I liked the included instruction booklets. They didn’t overly explain, for example, they didn’t say, “You MUST make this sort of project,” and yet they were useful enough when necessary. I like how the instructions left plenty of room for kid creativity. I can’t stand when art instructions tell kids 100% what to do and what to make.

COMPANY SUSTAINABILITY PERKS:

• Materials used in Arterro art kits are high-quality natural materials such as 100% wool felt, 100% post-consumer waste decorative handmade paper, glass and wooden beads, cotton thread, hand batiked cotton fabric, and copper wire.

• Non-excessive packaging. This company uses minimal kit packaging made with 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper and reusable bags instead.

• The company partners with Green Solutions Printing, a small family-owned business in Eugene, OR, where all their packaging inserts and marketing materials are printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper using vegetable based inks and renewable energy.

• Arterro retail display units are made from 100% renewable bamboo.

• Shipping is light – I don’t know for sure how all products are shipped but the samples I received were in the smallest possible packaging that could still do the job.

OTHER PERKS:

• Artterro kits are assembled at and shipped from Goodwill Industries in Milwaukee, WI, a non-profit organization that provides jobs to people in need.

• The company has donated kits to Project Kids in Cambodia, an art program serving orphanages in Cambodia, and are looking to partner with other like-minded organizations.

• The website was user-friendly with zero glitches. Although, I would suggest updating their blog more often.

FAMILY-FRIENDLY PRICES:

I would say these kits are very well-priced. They run about $15-17 (sometimes a little more or less) a pop, so even if you have more than one child, you can afford individual art kits for each child.

If you look up similar art kits, even non-eco kits, you’ll see that Arterro kits are extremely similar in cost, which I liked. For once a company who doesn’t smack the term “eco” on something then hike the price. Nice right!?

If you wanted to buy a bunch of this stuff separately and make your own eco-art kits, I’d guess that it would cost much more. Additionally, although inexpensive, these kits look really cool (they’re well designed and put together) so for a birthday or event gift they look amazing and will get kids excited, but for less $ than most eco-toys items.

COMPANY CONS:

• No dedicated online shop. However, the links they posted on their where-to-shop page were seemingly up to date, so products were not overly difficult to find. waldorfsupplies.com seemed to have the most selection.

• No Fair Trade statement regarding material sourcing. The company does state, “We are committed to forming partnerships with great supplier companies we believe in” so I’m hoping that means they’re checking all their material sources out, but again, no statement about this that I saw.

OVERALL SCORE:

5 out of 5 little trees. I tried to find more cons about this company, frankly, because they seem a little too perfect. Green products, great prices, seemingly killer ethics? There has to be a glitch right? Maybe I’ve become too skeptical of green. In any case, after hunting around and finding nothing bad about them, other than the two minimal cons above, I’ve decided to give them all 5 trees – an excellent score.

This is a company who really seems to know what will attract kids when it comes to an art kit (as you’ll see in my reviews coming up) and you cannot beat their prices. Artterro art kits are truly a family-friendly, eco product you’ll feel great about giving your kids.

Coming up, I’ll be posting specific Artterro art kit reviews by me and the kiddos, so stay tuned.

LEARN MORE:

• Artterro website
• Follow Arterro on Twitter
• Join Artterro on Facebook

See my green product rating system and green product rating criteria or read more green product reviews.

The cheapest route to go when looking for a waste-free lunch kit is most likely to make your own. Now, you can’t make everything you need for a waste-free lunch kit – for example making homemade silverware is hard I hear. That said, you can make most of a lunch kit yourself, then add silverware and a reusable water bottle and your kid will be good to go for the year.

Pros of making your own reusable waste-free lunch kit:

• Inexpensive compared to some ready-made kits, especially if you re-purpose fabric.
• Unique and personalized.
• Fun to make – a great easy sewing project for kiddos to help with.
• Eco-friendly – not only are you making a waste-free lunch kit, but you can use recycled materials if you choose.

Cons of making your own reusable waste-free lunch kit:

• Hard if you suck at sewing – that’s why my son Cedar uses pre-made lunch gear. I’m crafty, but not very sew-happy. AND by not sew-happy, I mean I’ll staple something before I sew it (I know – sigh).
• Takes time.
• It’s hard to make an insulated bag. Many DIY lunch kits I see aren’t insulated and thus get leaky and don’t stay cold.

Later we’ll look at my own personal criteria for choosing a reusable lunch kit, but for now here are some ideas if you’d like to make your own.

DIY REUSABLE WASTE-FREE LUNCH KIT IDEAS

Sew a lunch bag!

• A super cute mini lunch bag tote (shown above) – you could really personalize this bag for your own child. 
  
• I’ve loved this ADORABLE burlap bag for a long, long time. The one I linked to is made with an old coffee bag, but you could use any sort of burlap. I like the fact that this bag will last a long time and it’s sturdy – probably less leaky with ice packs too.
• A basic, but cute DIY canvas lunch bag.
• Here’s one reusable insulated bag. For any insulated lunch bag you’ll need something insulating of course and this bag uses Insul-Brite, which IMO is not very eco-friendly, but it will last a long time and insulate.
• Another reusable insulated bag that uses recycled windbreaker material.
• A nice simple Oilcloth Lunch Bag Tutorial. Clean looking and you could reuse an old tablecloth.
• IF you are the most crafty of crafty green parents you could even make a wooden box, add a latch and handle (or no handle) and there you go – a bento box.

Use hyper cool found materials to make a lunch bag:

• Sweet as sugar Vintage Pillowcase Lunchbox – now, this one seems more lightweight and it likely more suitable for a young child who doesn’t take much food to school. For example, this would never work for Cedar.
• Make a lunch bag out of old jeans or other old pants.
• Interesting idea for using an old book as a lunch box.
• Make a sweet recycled Nintendo system lunchbox for a tech-minded kiddo.
• Reusable-Upcycled Lunch bag – made with a recycled bird seed bag which sounds really odd I know, but this bag looks strong and pretty cool.

Other items you can make:

• This amazingly easy and cute reusable sandwich wrap (shown above) was made by Betz White, author of Sewing Green: 25 Projects Made with Repurposed & Organic Materials. See how to make it step by step.
• Another homemade sandwich wrap tutorial.
• Make some other eco-friendly snack bags for crackers, raisins and other snack-sized goodies. Or try this Reusable Snack Bag Tutorial.
• Make some ultra cute homemade cloth napkins.
• Since most homemade lunch sacks are fabric, you should make some reusable ice pack covers for your ice packs or else the ice packs will sweat everywhere, thus making the bag wet.

Got any other ideas? I’ve been thinking about how one might make a homemade metal box, but haven’t been able to find a good tutorial.

The other day I posted what may be the world’s cheapest eco-craft – organic flour dough. I said I’d post some of our creations soon, so to follow through here you go.

We made a name flag and zombie butterfly.

A couple of these picture will also give you an idea of what happens when you mix in food coloring, although you do have to mix a while. Something to remember is that getting through and through color takes a while. At first, after you add the food coloring, and start kneading, it looks like you’re going to have tie-dye dough, but keep kneading and the color will saturate the dough.

We made a ton of organic flour dough creations this weekend, but as noted previously, I’ve only got my phone camera right now so the pictures lack perfect quality – but it’s enough for you to get an idea.

The girls made food, but haven't painted the dough yet.

A pea pod and taco we made with food colored dough.

Cedar loves the Legend of Zelda video game - in case you don't - this is a mask from one of the Zelda games.

NOTES: The kids also made a slew of dough zombies – some were pretty freaky, so this being a family blog I won’t post them, but in any case, they are being creative. Just so you know, we baked ours so the kids could paint them sooner. Air drying takes a while.

Why not make some of your own organic dough creations this week?