Green, Money Saving Gift Giving Ideas - Part #2

This post is part 2 in the series. Each post will contain one or 2 green gifting ideas. Click here for part 1.
Green, Money Saving Gift Giving Ideas
10 Gift giving ideas that will save you money, reduce waste and save resources.

3. Give “time” coupons
Time is a precious commodity that can’t be purchased in stores. As such, it makes a great gift for any occasion. Customize your gift of time to suit your recipient. For dog owners, offer to walk their dog or pet sit for them when they go on vacation. For parents, offer to babysit. For family members, offer to do their household chores. For home owners, offer to paint a room or weed the garden. The possibilities are endless. Make coupons for your offers of time on fancy paper or print them from your computer using clip art or a publishing program. Since “Time coupons” are virtually free, they make great gifts for children or students to give to their loved ones.


4. Write a poem or an appreciation poster and frame in a refurbished frame
Although it may seem like something a child would give a parent, writing a poem or story to give as a gift can make a great gift for anyone. You can write down a fun or heartwarming memory you have of the person or write a short poem about the person and what makes them special.

If you don’t have the poem-writing gene, making an appreciation poster can make an even more meaningful gift. An appreciation poster can be something as simple as a photo collage or as complex as a “Ten things I’ve learned from you” list. Over the years I’ve made the “Ten things…” posters for almost all of my parents and grandparents. Although I’m calling it a poster, the finished product is usually only as big as a piece of paper. Thinking of 10 things you’ve learned from each person may be easy or it may not. I usually try to include a few funny items in my list and a few that are more heartfelt and sentimental.

Some examples of ones I’ve used are “I learned how to be a strong woman and stand up for what I believe”, “I learned that popcorn can be dinner”, “I learned that even adults can play games and have fun” and “I learned that 55 is the speed limit; you don’t have to drive that fast”. To finish off the poster I usually put a nice border around it or put a picture of me and the recipient at the top of the page then frame it in a nice frame I purchase or refurbish one that I already have.

Green, Money Saving Gift Giving Ideas Series - Part #1

I've been thinking a lot lately about Green Living ideas I want to share through my blog. I've got a list as long as my arm of things I think might be fun and interesting to write. So today I'm launching the first series in that long list: Green Money Saving Gift Giving Ideas. Although this series may have been more useful a month ago during the Christmas season, I think the ideas in this series will still be useful for other kinds of gift giving throughout the year. Each post will contain one or two ideas for green gifting. If you find you enjoy this kind of post please let me know so I'll know it's worth it to launch into the next series when it pops into my head.

Green Money Saving Gift Giving Ideas
10 Gift giving ideas that will save you money, reduce waste and save resources.

1. Give an experience like a museum membership or theatre tickets Rather than contribute to consumerism and the production of more stuff, give an experience as a gift. Memberships to museums, tickets to a concert, play or to the movies, music lessons, cake decorating classes, wine tasting tours and many other experiences can be much more fun than any gifted item.
2. Make a donation to a charity in the name of the recipient
With so many in the world in need of the basic necessities of life that we lucky ones take for granted, consider making a charitable donation with your gift giving dollars rather than buying more stuff that the recipient really doesn’t need or want. Most charitable organizations will either mail a card to the “In honor of:” person telling them about the donation or allow you to print your own from their website and personalize as you wish. I often print a few more fact pages from the organization’s website to give the recipient more information on what the donation will be able to help the organization accomplish or stories about people the organization has helped in the past. Two of my favorite charities are Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for those in need, and Heifer International, which gives farm animals and training to needy around the world.

Goodbye 2010. Hello 2011

Happy New Year's Eve!



"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." – Benjamin Franklin


My family is busy playing Wii Party followed by the movie Bed knobs and Broomsticks (an annual favorite) then a camp out in the living room floor. I'm sure there will be some chocolate eaten in there somewhere, as there should be.

I hope you all have a fun and safe New Year's Eve followed by a Happy and Healthy 2011. May the next year bring you much Happiness!

Cake Pops

My daughter has always been interested in art, drawing and anything crafty. And as with all kids, she loves candy, cake, ice cream and anything sweet. Lately she's been combining these by taking a cake decorating class and wanting to make her own candy and other crafty food. For Christmas I got her a couple of crafty food books and associated tools and accessories. One of those books was Cake Pops by the Bakarella.com author.

The basic concept of a cake pop or a cake ball involves mixing crumbled cake with pre-made icing then forming the mixture into small balls and chilling or freezing. After freezing you coat the balls with candy melt coating and then decorate.

The first attempt at making these pops didn't go very well. They fell off the stick into the candy and made a general mess. After trying unsuccessfully to make a few, I put the balls back into the freezer to harden up more before trying again. It turns out that for me, a frozen cake ball works much better than a chilled one. Secondly, found that trying to dip the balls into the candy coating also usually resulted in the balls falling off of the stick into the candy. So I improvised by spooning the coating over the balls instead of dipping. That worked much better.


The rest of the project is pure decoration and imagination. Finding the perfect sprinkle to mimic a monkey ear or a chick's foot is all part of the fun. The book gives you a ton of ideas, but I think coming up with our own will be something we try to do as we make more of these. It was a lot of fun once we figured out the technique that worked best for us. And we'll definitely be making more of these in the future!

Merry Christmas!

Well, I'm happy to say that this year I finished all of my Christmas shopping, mailing and wrapping a good 2 week before Christmas! But to clarify that, I don't have that many people on my Christmas list. I don't believe in giving people useless things just to have things to give, and most of the people on my Christmas list buy what they want when they want it rather than waiting until Christmas. My adult family members have known for years exactly what they will be getting from me for Christmas. I always make a photo calendar for each person and send it with several prints of photos of my kids and family. I try to get this calendar put together by the end of November and mailed by the first week or so of December. We also make donations to a few of our favorite charities in honor of our family members. Our current favorites are Habitat for Humanity and Heifer International.

So really, my shopping is reserved for the children in my family (my kids and nieces), my hubby and donations to toy drives. I've found that using Amazon.com to organize my shopping ideas works great for me. I search the site and put my ideas into my shopping cart. They'll sit there for a bit while I do more research or think about the items some more. I usually don't buy everything from Amazon, but the shopping cart is a great way to organize my ideas in one place while I look at other places for better prices or better items. This year I was lucky enough to find a Mamapedia Sweet Deal for $100 of AmazonFresh for $50. Turns out Amazon fresh has a lot of the items I was planning to buy from Amazon for the kids. So I got some groceries and some Christmas gifts delivered to my door the next day for half off!

I also, don't really wrap presents. I know the wrapping is a big part of Christmas for a lot of people, but I just can't stand to think of all of the paper waste that results from wrapping everything. So I use reusable cloth bags for our presents. A few years ago I bought some really nice bags from a friend, then found a few more on sale at Joann's after Christmas. If we use all of those and still have presents to wrap, I grab a few pillow cases from the closet, tie some ribbon or a tie around the top of them and we're set! Stocking stuffers still get wrapped in tissue paper, but I guess for now that's good enough.

So all in all, I don't really have a lot to do for Christmas. So it's not too surprising that I've already done it all. But I am really enjoying just sitting back and relaxing for these 2 weeks knowing I'm going to be able to go do fun things with the kids while they are on break and not rushing around to finish Christmas preparations. Merry Christmas to you all!

Did we DS or not?

Well the DS or not discussion lasted a while, but in the end I took the advice of one of my friends who commented on the original post. I asked the kids if they wanted a new electronic device enough to spend their own money to buy it. Both kids have really never spent much of their birthday or Christmas money from grandparents. It's just been sitting in their piggy bank for the last several years. I think they still don't have much of a concept of money and consequently haven't asked to spend it. So when they went to count what they had, both kids had enough (along with a $30 Fred Meyer coupon that was in the paper) to buy the device they wanted.

Son has been a big Nintendo fan for a while and loves Mario and company. So his choice was the new 25th anniversary DSi that comes with a Mario Cart game. After I explained the different devices out there right now, Daughter chose an iPod Touch. I downloaded a bunch of free games and apps for her, and she's in heaven. I think she would have gotten bored with the DS sooner than the iPod, and I think son would have dropped an iPod touch and broken it on day one. So both made good choices for them. And I think having them use their own money was the correct choice as well. I'm still not sure they have a grasp of the concept of money, but I think they felt some pride in being able to use money they've saved to buy something they wanted.

To DS or not to DS

I'm torn right now about whether to get my kids a Nintendo DS for Christmas this year. They have both been asking for one for what seems like forever. A lot of their friends have them; so they've played several games and really enjoyed them. I know it would be a gift they'd love and would play all the time, but there in lies the problem. They would play it ALL THE TIME. I already limit the amount of screen time they get each day, and we have a lot of screens. They play computer games, Wii games, old Nintendo games and Leapster games. Adding another screen then saying "No" when they ask to play it seems unfair. So I can get it for them and let them have unlimited access to it, or get it for them and tell them they can only play it a few minutes each day (which makes the big price tag seem even bigger), or I can not buy it for them at all.

Although I don't want to, I'm letting the fact that most of their friends have one influence my thinking on this. I don't want my kids to think that they get something because "everyone else has one", but there is some social acceptance component that comes into play here. If most of the kids in daughter's circle of friends are talking about something and she can't talk intelligently about it, that will make her feel left out of that social circle. Now, I didn't' have one of everything my friends had growing up and I think I turned out OK. So I'm trying to not let this line of reasoning influence me...but I'm not exactly winning that battle.

The other thing is that with a big price tag, they would only be getting a DS on a major gift-giving occasion like their birthday or Christmas. I also don't really want to get one for one child on a birthday then have to wait 6 months for the other child to get one simply because the fighting it would cause would drive me crazy. I'd like to get them one at the same time, which basically means Christmas. So if I don't get one for them this Christmas, it will have to wait a year until next Christmas before we'll consider it again.

So, I'm torn. Thoughts?