Little Footprints Top Eco Friendly Cottage Toys

There's nothing my family likes more every summer than finding a sweet cottage and hanging out by the lake. We can spend hours playing in nature but we also like to bring a small selection of cottage play favorites with us when we go.

Here's our Little Footprints family favorites, 5 things you can be sure will be in our cottage toy box this summer...

We love blowing bubbles at the cottage. New to us this year is this Artterro Bubble Wand kit and with it we plan to have an even better time! Made in the States by a company big on sustainable fun just like us and filled with enough for a pair of wands, complete with how-to's, fun shaped patterns and even a recipe for home made bubble solution - all in one wee recycled content box. Ages 8 and up.

For years now this is my little guys 'go to' take along toy - ask him to pick something to bring and it will be this - a  Zoom to the Moon play set perfect for the kid who loves imaginary play and as a mom I love that when the fun is done every thing stores in the spaceship. Ideal to keep track of everything when your away from home. Made from renewable rubber wood and child safe paints. I can honestly say after years of play I'm impressed with how well the paints hold up.  Ages 3 and up

Shut The Box is a true favorite in our house. Sometimes played alone but best against each other - we've even make it a tournament - we race to turn our tiles down before the other can. One of those games that gets you to enjoy doing maths even without realizing it. I discovered it at a family friends when I was little and am now thrilled to have this sustainably produced one available. Perfect sitting by the dock or on a chilly rainy day. Ages 5 and up

My son playing with the families Shut the Box.

We started family quizzes by playing 20 questions and now that my kid is starting to read she loves to play them. Betting on Nature, an animal card game, is the perfect go anywhere challenge for us all. Skills, laughs and learning, what more can you ask from fun you can fit in your pocket? Perfect for ages 7 to 107

Paints at a cottage are a must have. No matter if it's painted rocks, pictures, fairy houses or found art - it all benefits from a splash of paint! And the cottage benefits when its all natural. Nothings better for that than Clementine Art's natural paints. The colours are fabulous and they're perfect for the artistry of any age.



These are our faves for this year. We love to hear if you have others you think are great. In the mean time thanks for stopping by and I hope your enjoying your Spring day!

Cheers,
Barb

Fun While it Rains.

While one of my kids might actually be getting sick and tired of rain the other is beginning to muse aloud that it might be nice it it *always* rained. Course she does see the problem that presents to dream #1: to live somewhere where she can swim outside all year round.

So while the sun struggles to make an appearance today we look back at the past 11 out of 18 days where it rained and find lots and lots of opportunities for fun indoors.

You can only get so soggy after all.

Here to help with some indoor inspiration is Little Footprints Top 10 Rainy Day Things for Fun.

Get your Boom Boom on! This ultimate deck of Family trading cards inspires to do good in meaningful and achievable ways and calls on you to pass on the goodness online. From planting flowers for others to enjoy, to telling old stories to younger generations these cards make random acts of kindness fun for the whole family.

Brand new to the shop this 51 piece Tyrannosaurus 3D Dino puzzle can strike about 20 different poses keeping Dinosaur Aficionados busy for hours! Made sustainable and responsibly by French eco fun maker Bioviva, a company committed to the environment since they started making fun in the mid-90's.
Ages 6 & up

Create masterpieces on a rainy afternoon with is Paint With Wool kit. A box full of wool canvases, lots of brightly coloured roving and even 3 felter's needles! Everything you need to make 4 amazing works of art, you just bring a suitable surface to work on. Once your done turn the box into a frame. Full instructions and inspiration included.
Ages 8 & up



More a sculptor than a painter? Clementine Art's Modeling Dough is just the ticket to bring cheery colour to a drab overcast day. They look lovely, smell lovely and feel lovely - what more to you need to sculpt the next masterpiece?

Get active indoors and no batteries required with this Balance Board. Made in the USA from sustainably forested materials, this formaldehyde free plywood board has a challenging maze to keep you coordinated and on your toes. Try the rolling the balls inward for a beginners challenge but if Daddies think rolling the balls out is just as easy they just might loose the family bet! Available in 2 sizes. Perfect for 3 to 93

A bit of drizzle can make examining nature even more fun. Grab a pair of galoshes and head out with this Naturebag full of ways to look at nature around you and record what you find. There's even a blindfold for a all natural guessing game. Canadian made this eco friendly award winner is full of wonderful stuff. Ages 3 - 12

Outside in the puddles or inside in the bath this tug boat is totally fun. Made from recycled milk jugs by Green Toys it's a fantastic water toy, available in 3 colours and dishwasher safe for easy cleaning. Ages: 6m & up




Stuck inside with the wee one? Enjoy a game of eye spy wildlife right outside your window with this set of Backyard Buddy Blocks. Perfect size for little hands. Learn basic colours and animals with this set made from responsibly harvested rubber wood and child safe paints.

At under $10 this game leaves you change to get something yummy at your own Farmers Market. A game about looking out for each other and problem solving to make the market a success. A wonderful game made in Perth Ontario perfect for ages 6 to 12 with two sets of rules for basic and more complex play.

I always think the funnest things to keep you busy on a rainy day are things with more than one thing going for it which is why I love these puzzles you get colour yourself. Made from plantation rubber wood they are available as a Sea Turtle, Butterfly or Train paint them up then try to put them back together again!
Ages 3 and up.



Course it's easy to beat the rainy day blues so long as your having fun so I hope you get a chance to have some fun today!

Fridays I'm In Love: With These Chicks

Easter is right around the corner. Tomorrow the neighborhood festivities kick off around here with Easter Egg Hunts, visits with family and a parade on Sunday.

There's lots of chocolates and treats to be had and hid but when did it become all about chocolate? Don't get me wrong I love the stuff, more than I should, but does that mean I need to hop my kids full of it for the sake of a bunny and a basket? So since I know that the neighborhood and family will provide tonnes of energy amping sweets we are going to hide crafts and toys instead and if the item is too big we will put a ticket in an egg for them to trade.

What won't need a ticket when we hide them is this set of 3 puzzle Chicks. Each of the 6 pieces will fit nicely in an egg to be hid and once found the kids can trade with each other till they each get a complete chick. Since I know they are also made sustainably with rubber-wood and child safe paints I also can feel good knowing their fun is also planet friendly.

Mid-Week at My Place: Tie Dye Eggs

We've been in the Easter spirit this week over here. The kids decorated the house and I've been trying too remember to blow out the eggs rather than crack them each time we use eggs to collect a few for dying. Truth is, I don't remember very often and I'm not the kind of mum who turns round and bakes a cake or something when she finds herself in need of a bowl full of eggshells. And while I love getting crafty I'm a lazy mum I try to gear the craft to the abilities of my young kids so we don't all get frustrated.

So last year I found a few people talking about how to dye eggs with old silk ties and I began to experiment with it. I was hooked. The kids too. And the bonus, no one is getting their fingers covered in dyes that last for days. We love this craft so much the kids both asked me to make kits to share with their friends and since that was easy enough I happily obliged.


This year we have done a bunch already and we plan to more still and since I did remember to blow a few eggs out we might even try a few more traditionally dyed eggs.

If you want to know how to tie dye your own eggs here is a little how to. It's real easy and you gotta just love how they turn out.

Tie Dye Easter Eggs

Cut apart old silk ties and cut out squares big enough to cover an average egg.  

 

 Wrap a raw egg with a piece of the patterned silk, making sure the printed side of the material is facing the egg. Silk can still be used if it doesn't fit perfectly around egg and you can wrap the egg with 2 swatches of silk too if you like. 

 

Place the silk-wrapped egg in the piece of white sheet and secure tightly with a twist-tie. Make sure it is good and snug.

Place the egg(s) in an enamel or glass pot.* Fill pot with water to cover eggs completely. Then, add three tablespoons of white vinegar. Do not overcrowd the eggs. 

*do not use a metal pot, it may react with the vinegar.

 Bring water to a boil, turn heat down, and simmer for 20 minutes.Remove eggs from water with tongs or spoon and let cool.Remove silk from cooled egg.

 Additional Ideas:

• For shiny eggs, wipe with vegetable oil
• Silk squares can be reused.
• Any silk goods such as ties, blouses, and boxers can be used to make more squares but the heaviest silk and brighter/more intense patterns tend to have more ink and that seems to work better.
• The white squares are sheets and tablecloths. 
• Make gift sets to share with friends. Tie the bundles together with a strip of the white fabric. 

BHappy and have fun!
Barb

One in the Hand Equals Three On The Tree

We went on a pear pick the other day. Last year I signed us up as volunteers for Not Far From The Tree a local charitable organization that gleans local trees for their fruit and shares the bounty. Without clobbering them over the head with it, they are only 3 and 6 after all!, I have been looking for ways to teach my kids to understand where their food comes from as well as to be socially aware and giving. I must admit my family did bring me up to be very self sufficient but not very philanthropic - I hope to do a bit better with my kids.

Anyway....

Back to the trees. After patiently waiting a whole year to be called to pick and missing a few chances we finally made the picker cut and the three of us went a' pickin'. The kids loved it! My daughter was a dab hand at the picking tool as she gleefully picked any pear she could reach. My son, a wee bit smaller, was quite happy to collect the fallen fruit into a separate bag - an occasionally eat a few . Their chatter kept everyone laughing and it was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

Fun as it was it was also wonderfully productive. NFFTT is a food share program. The owner of the tree lists their tree with the organization and when the fruit is ready to pick a team of 'gleaners' is dispatched to pick the tree as clean as they can, as well as tidy up any fallen fruit mess and debris from the pick. The bounty is divided into thirds; 1/3 for the tree owner, 1/3 divided among the pickers and 1/3 goes to food banks and organizations that feed those in need. Pretty neat, huh? Over 6,000 pounds have been picked so far in Toronto alone.

For our pick we weighed in at in excess of 250 pounds of pears and since no one took their full share over 100 pounds of fresh ready to ripen pears were taken to a local food bank that evening. All the while a gentle lesson in community, sharing and ecology was passed onto my kids that afternoon.

Pretty fruitful day if you ask me ;)
Sign up your tree if you have one - we'll happily come pick it for ya!

Thanks for stopping by for a read, BHappy and have fun.

Is That Wood Toy Really Planet Friendly?

We stand there in the checkout line of our favorite local toy store with a wooden toy in our hands. We're doing good, right? Our kids will have fun with it, we know that, but what about the planet? Is buying a wood toy inherently planet friendly or a slippery slope of eco-destruction?

Unfortunately, buying wood products of any kind without fully understanding their origins can be detrimental to our world forests, and this is true for wood toys too.

80% of toys are manufactured in China, and while the vast majority of these toys are plastic there are more and more toys of the market that are made of wood and made in China. One of my 'ungreen' friends asked me once why he should care about buying environmentally friendly toys and avoiding un-certified Chinese wood products for his kids. My answer was of course, that we should all care about the planet we leave our children, the impact of plastic manufacturing on us globally and that we all simply need trees to breathe. He also thought that China was using it's own forestry resources for the manufacture of it exports, and expressed a NIMBY feeling about their use of their resources, but ever since the devastating flood of the summer of 1998 China has attempted to put severe restrictions on logging of it's own forests in part because the intensive logging and poor land management in the years leading up to the flood were identified as part causes for the river flooding. Right now China uses primarily imported wood for it's international manufacturing trade.

In 2002 the WWF released their report 'The Timber Footprint of the G8 & China' which identifies the illegal trade of world timber resources. While the report does not specifically mention the toy industry as one of the industries impacting the global timber resources it addresses some very serious concerns regarding logging and international timber trade.

In short,the report suggests that 13% of the timber and wood products purchased by G8 countries and China are sourced or traded illegally. And to put that into perspective that is about 53 million cubic meters, or an area about the size of Lake Superior every year.

China's need for imported timber for it's wood product exports have quadrupled over the past decade and it does little to ensure that it's wood imports are legally sourced, this in turn means that there no payment of government royalties to the exporting nations (revenue for the exporting country) or environmental control over the logging and harvesting of the timber.

The majority of China's wood imports originate from Indonesia, Cameroon, Malaysia and the Russian Far East. All of these countries are known to have rampant illegal timber trade with 50% to 80% of the wood harvested and sold to Chinese and other interests from Russia's Far East and Cameroon being illegally harvested, situation in Indonesia is reportedly even worse.

In Thailand, another popular source for wood often used for toys not only are their own forests improperly harvested for international trade but they in turn import illegal timber from Burma, Cambodia and Laos for export, where too laege amounts of timber are illegal.

How can we ensure that the toys and other wood products we buy are responsibly harvested and sold? The best way is to look for FSC Certified wood products, wood products made from re-purposed wood products such as rubberwood, and renewable wood sources such as bamboo. One can also look to purchase products manufactured and sourced in countries with commitments to sustainable logging practices such as Germany and Vietnam and consider wood products made from recycled wood and/or recycled/able wood bio-composite plastics.

Right now it is up to the consumer to educate themselves on the origins of the materials used by manufacturers but one can hope that the increased interest in environmentally considerate manufacturing processes with lead the manufacturers to clearly identify the source of their materials and manufacturing processes. In the meantime keep your eyes peeled for toys made by companies such as Plan Toys, ImagiPLAY, HaPe and Selecta who already mandate sustainable, renewable materials for the products they create.

Formore information on China's wood industry and illegal logging of our worlds forests check out:
www.Mongabay.com
www.WWF.ca

BHappy, Play Safe!

oh, p.s., if your wondering if the toy in the picture is earth friendly it is! The gorgeous Monkey Tree puzzle by Imagiplay is crafted from rubberwood, a renewable resource. Rubberwood is plantation grown to be tapped for its natural laytex rubber. Once the tree has reached the end of it's laytex producing life the wood of the tree is used to manufactuer products such as toys. Multi-function trees - how cool is that?

Welcome!

Hi there and welcome to my new blog!

Every since I had my first child I have been getting greener and greener. It began, I think, with simply reading the back of food boxes. I had been reading the back of boxes a long time ago but once I had the kiddies I started really caring about avoiding all the fake stuff, sugars and salts running rampant in packaged foods. Not a stretch when your also reading about the biological effects of additives in food. Obesity, negative cognitive effects I(ADHD, effects on autism, sleep troubles and so on), physical dependencies on sugars and salt, just to start. All things I would like to mitigate as much as I can for my kids, all things I can effect change on.

Next I began to think about the environment my kids are in. Bisphenol, phthalates, plastic off-gassing and chipped paint. My second, Zane, is a mouther. In his first year he had to taste and chew on everything! Toys, books, rocks, soap. From the most obvious to the most obtuse, he would give it a chew and I would get thinking about it. I know a lot about airborne particulate and off-gassing of foams, plastics and fire retardants from many years running my own company as a Corporate Interior Designer. And I would think, " if I don't like what he's chewing on, and the airborne chemicals relates to it, how do I feel about the process to manufacturer it?"


So, here we are.

In this blog I hope to diary all the wonderful things I have learnt about becoming Planet Friendly with my kids and share it with you. My greatest focus will be Planet Friendly play and sustainable fun, but I also will share anything else I can about our own experiences becoming eco-friendly as a family.

I hope you enjoy this blog and I welcome and comments and suggestions you may have to make it even better.

thanks for stopping by!

BHappy,
Barb