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.

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.

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:

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!

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.

Another reuse for old clothes

We've been doing a lot of painting lately. I took a bunch of my dads worn and stained dress shirts off his hands. In reverse, they make great smocks! They'll work as full body bibs too... Just need to cut the sleeves off rather drastically.

Coupons for healthy and organic foods and products

It all started because I've become addicted to Tofurky Italian Sausages. I thought I'd look and see if there were any online coupons for these glorified tofu dogs. My search landed me at this page: the magazine Eating Well's coupon page.

It's actually a well set up site... you select the coupons you want and type in your email. The coupons land in your in box and you print them out.

So I was suddenly on the prowl. And found these totally useful coupon sites next:

• Coupons for Seventh Generation diapers and other Seventh Generation products
• Coupons for Organic Valley dairy products
• And this site Mambo Sprouts, that currently has some good coupons up for products including BioKleen and Method cleaners, and Maranatha Nut Butter and more. You can also sign up there to get coupons in the mail.

I did notice some online grousing that some stores don't accept online coupons because they're printed from a computer. And I guess they look like could be copies? But so far I've had good luck with them. Hope you do too...