How to make your own balance bike - take the pedals off!

These days training wheels equipped bikes are being cast off for the new balance bike philosophy. So while balance bikes are hard to find online and expensive even if used, the traditional training wheels variety is plentiful.

I'd strongly suggest getting one of the free or cheap training wheel bikes and turning it into a balance bike yourself by removing the pedals. One of the benefits of this is that you actually have a bike that can be used either way. I set out on this path for green reasons ($ and enviro), but it turns out one of my twins only wanted to ride with training wheels and the other only wanted a balance bike set up. I was able to deliver them what they wanted.

I promise that is was VERY easy. I followed the directions here. The only real challenge is if you want to get the chain off you need to find someone with a tool to pop it off. That might mean your local friendly bike store, or in our case a friend who is into cycling (thank Joe!).

Oh and I found this site is a great resource for thinking about teaching your child the bike skills.

Lead in kids snacks

I'm back! Been focusing on my podcast for young 'uns - Podaroo - in my spare time. You can dowload it from iTunes here. But I'm back to blog. My twins are about to start preschool this fall, so I have a feeling there will be a bunch more kid, budget, and ecoLiving revelations on the school front to come.

So I've been hearing about lead in kids drinks and wanted to look up the brands for myself. The PDF with the list is linked to in this Seventh Generation post. I'm assuming they're talking about big bottles of juice, not juice boxes but I couldn't figure that out for sure. Interesting question in all this about WHERE the lead is coming from... manufacturing? the apple growers?

I also happened to get into a discussion last night with our scientist neighbor about BPA in canned tomatoes. So I gave subject another google this AM and here is the result. If you are looking to avoid canned tomatoes since the acidic food seems more prone than others to leach the BPA out of the resin liner, Berkeley Bowl currently has organic diced tomatoes in 25.5 oz. GLASS JARS on special for $2.99. No bargain but given they're organic and packed in glass I may stock up - in the winter we do LOADS of cooking with canned tomatoes.

Interesting post about separating twins for Kindergarten

Silicon Valley Mom's Blog has a piece about one twin mom's experience separating her twins in school. I found it illuminating. And I'm glad we don't have to face those issue in preschool!

A fun green gadget competition

These are some forward thinking green energy products. You can vote or just browse. For kids... check out Rocco!

Nice and simple: Families with Purpose

Just a plug for an interesting site I found over on the Brighter Planet blog: it's called Families with Purpose and they have some good ideas for fun, simple crafts, volunteer opportunities and activities that families can do together. I'm bookmarking it for those times when I just feel all out of ideas!

Great cookie gift bag

Happy New Year! If your resolutions formal or informal for 2010 involve more reuse or all the stuff around us... here's a great idea from a friend. If you buy whole bean coffee, wipe out the insides of the bags and then they make great gift sacs for cookies or other baked goods.

And if you tie a ribbon around it the look is complete.

Plastics by the number

Here's an article on the plastics debate. At the end there's a simple way to remember which plastics to avoid because of possible toxins:

the symposium handed out a reminder card listing “safer plastics” as those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5. It suggests that the “plastics to avoid” are those numbered 3, 6 and 7 (unless they are also marked “BPA-free”).

Very lovely twins story

Someone posted this Newsweek story on our local twins forum the other day. It's the tale of fraternal twin girls from China who were adopted by different families in the US and at the age of 4 found each other. It's such a beautiful story about the connection twins share.

Unique, reasonable, sustainable gift idea...

...and it supports an amazing artist. Here's the new San Francisco Bay Area produce calendar by our friend who does letterpress out of her garage.

Not only does it tell you about what to buy in season and what to plant in any given month, it's a perpetual calendar so you never have to throw it away! Use it for planting notes or a birthday calendar.

I think it's gorgeous to boot!

Great for Bay Area residents or even homesick Northern Californians who'd appreciate the happy seasonal memories.

And for more holiday craft presents check out Renegade's Holiday Fair San Francisco. It's at Fort Mason, December 19+20:

Cozy breakfast for the cold weather

The changing seasons have reminded me how our favorite morning comfort food tastes even better in the cool weather. Thes are great because they freeze well and can be used in place of store bought freezer waffles. Enjoy!

Oatmeal-Buttermilk-Blueberry Waffles
Makes 16 little square waffles

2 cups quick oatmeal
2 cups lowfat buttermilk

Combine oatmeal and buttermilk in a bowl and let stand to soften, about 10 minutes – less if in a real hurry. Softer it is, the tastier it is. Even overnight is fine.

Add in and stir:
3 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons canola oil
dash of vanilla

Add and mix well:
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt or less

Once that’s combined add:
½ cup white flour or white whole wheat flour
1 cup frozen organic wild blueberries

Spray a light coat of oil or Pam on a preheated waffle iron. Put a heaping cup of batter on the iron and bake as directed. You end up with 4 big waffles, 16 little squares.

Halloween time

I was just pointed to a blog post that dealt with frugal/repurposed Halloween costumes (thanks for the tip @rachellechong).

We're pretty much going down that road ourselves this Halloween. The girls announced a few weeks ago that they wanted to be a soccer team ... they saw some big girls playing soccer and Big girls hold Big sway around our house these days. Of course they want to be a PINK soccer team so we're just rounding up some pink shorts and tops and I'll baste on some big felt numbers. They'll carry some soccer balls we have around and I may well invest in some cheap knee socks and head bands.

My husband decided he wanted to dress up as the coach and it was a very easy call for me to be referee. Figuring out my costume will probably be the biggest challenge!

Reduce your carbon contest

Dorky, snide remarks about "carbon-free" sugar aside, I'm all for greening the kitchen. Here's a great opportunity to offer up nuggets of wisdom about eco-friendly cooking. And to earn prizes in the process (Kindle anyone?)!

It's thanks to the folks at the Brighter Planet Blog. Happy Blog Action Day 2009!

I'm all for going green...

...but carbon free sugar?!? I don't think this new packaging was the brainchild of chemists:

(Chemistry refresher... sugar's basic formula is CH2O)

Big plug for etsy's alchemy!

I can't be the only one with a growing pile of craft projects I'll get to ... when? And yet I keep feeding it, assuming that the day will come (and in some cases that I'll be magically imbued with new found art skills) to complete the projects. One of these was improving the horrible, drab blackout curtain in my kids' room:

It's a vital, necessary thing, but such a downer to look at. So I imagined sewing on some decals, or cutting out some fabric scraps to liven things up. This was not happening so I decided to try out Alchemy, the new custom order site by Etsy. Etsy is just what it sounds like. OK, so etsy doesn't really sound like anything but what it is is a fabulous online craft source. Alchemy is a place where you can post your craft project and people bid on doing it.

I posted a picture of the curtain and a description of the mural I wanted and within 24 hours I had 3 bids. I picked my favorite Etsy provider based on the links they sent, mailed off the curtain and 2 weeks later got:


The girls adore it... and it had all the elements they'd asked for... a sun, flowers, a tree and a bird. And the price was completely reasonable!

Two sewing thimbles up for Alchemy!

On the budget front: Gilt Groupe invitation link

Gilt Groupe is an online sample sale for very high end clothes. The best part is they have a children's category, which often has really nice stuff. It's a great place to find unique but -- thanks to the site's discounts -- within reach special occassion kids gifts. The sale this week, for instance, featured Tea Collection and Saurette.

It's invitation only. Here's a working invitation link:
http://www.giltgroupe.com/invite/handknit

In an emergency, think about text and twitter

My husband and I were talking about emergency preparedness this weekend. One of the subjects we covered was how to be in touch. We both were in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001 and it was just Blackberries working that day... people passed them around to those who didn't have them so everyone could get an email out.

We don't have Blackberries now but we settled on text messages since they're a similar technology. On the old-school front, we also reminded each other of the one, non-cordless phone in the house that'll work even if electricity goes out.

Today there was a great article in the SF Chronicle taking the text idea one step further. You can program a message, like "we're okay" into your phone and also put in the numbers where you want it sent (something they didn't say: remember always include numbers of friends/family OUTSIDE the state since those are more likely to reach their target and can be a point of contact for everyone here). Then you can just quickly hit send in case you ever need to.

Cheap, easy way to display/frame kids' art projects

The girls are starting to really draw and paint. I know one of the important rules for parents looking to encourage their kids is to display their art on occasion. Unfortunately in our apartment our refrigerator is hidden out of view, so that old standby won't work.

So I set out to find a substitute with minimal nails and tape on the walls. Here's what I came up with. The key ingredients were black poster board from the drug store and three bulldog clips at an art supply store. Then out of our tool/sewing kit I got some thread, picture hanging hooks and a little felt pad. I hooked the picture hanging hooks UPSIDE DOWN on our moldings. Then I tied thread to the part of the hook where the nail would ordinarily go. I tied a bulldog clip to the other end of the thread. I repeated this four times and was ready to hang two pictures in our formerly drab hall.

I used a third bulldog clip to keep the pictures weighted down. The only problem was when you'd walk down the hall, the clips would move a little and make a little metallic banging sound. So I used the felt pads (the little kind you put on the bottom of chairs to protect wood floors) to put on the back of the bottom clip. That stopped the sound and actually damped the movement.

The best part is, I can easily swap out the paintings for their next big work of art.

The "ingredients" are pictured below:

Did the digital television switch make your reception worse?

It did for us... But fortunately it was a pretty quick fix. It turns out that some of the stations actually changed channels as part of the switch. So you have to deploy the "rescan" feature in the digital converter box menu. That was all we needed.

Apparently in some cases that doesn't do the trick and there is this more complex "double re-scanning" trick to try in that case.

Making foaming hand soap refills for toddlers

I'm a big fan of using foamy soap for teaching my girls to wash on their own. Because the product is basically diluted soap, it wastes less if they go overboard and also it washes off more easily. With H1N1 season coming I imagine we'll be doing lots of handwashing.

On that note, I've been researching the best way to make a refill. Just adding regular liquid soap to the pump clogs the mechanism. One website I found said to dilute liquid soap with boiling water (I could see how this would dissolve the soap without creating bubbles as happens with shaking). Others suggested a variety of ratios of liquid soap to water. One place suggested 1 oz. Dr. Bronner's to 5 oz. water -- Dr. Bronner's is already so liquidy it's easy to work with.

I ended up going 1 tablespoon standard liquid soap to 3/4 cup water. I combined them in the soap dispenser and shook them up. So far so good. That's a 10:1 water-soap ratio which I read was best for not clogging the soap bottle.

Besides being a cheaper way to go than buying the pre-made foaming soap refills, making your own foaming soap can ensure eliminating an ingredient commonly used to make the soap foamier: SLS. (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate). While I am not super hard core about trying to avoid SLS, it's not something you really want to have in EXTRA doses. There are some pre-made foamy soap refills that don't have it like this Kiss My Face version.

Part of me was also excited about making my own foaming soap because I thought I could make an unscented version. I know scent free is supposed to be best for sensitive skin. But when it comes to my toddlers who are adamant about independence when hand washing I like something with a strong fragrance so I can tell easily if they've washed or not. I ended up used the last of this lemongrass soap I had on hand.

DIY Summer Camp

This is less on the green side and more on the cost cutting side... A friend just forward this AP article about DIY Summer Camps that parents are putting together in these tough economic times.