Win Fun Stuff! Tea Party Extravaganza!

It’s Tea Party Week at Mom Most Traveled! Enter here for your chance to win a Baby-G watch from Casio!

The Tea Party Week fun continues at Mom Most Traveled! Enter here for your chance to win a Barely Bamboo hoodie from Bamboosa!

Check back throughout the week for giveaways at Mom Most Traveled, Superdumb Supervillain, Katydid and Kid, Fractured Toy, and 7 Clown Circus!

Wordful Wednesday: Dyeing Playsilks

I love Waldorf-style toys, and I was very excited to find this tutorial on www.Make-Baby-Stuff.com about an inexpensive way to dye your own playsilks!

I ordered 6 plain white silks from here. I got 4 35x35 (at $3.75 each) and 2 30x30 (at $2.80 each!), thinking the smaller ones would be more manageable for my one-year-old, and my 3-year-old could use the larger ones for capes!

I prepared the vinegar soak as detailed here and put in all of the silks with a full tea kettle of hot water:

I first dyed red and green, because I only had two containers to work with.

The red dye was 2 packets of cherry Kool-Aid and one packet of Black Cherry Kool-Aid.


For the green dye, I had only 2 packets of some kind of lemon-lime Kool-Aid. MakeBabyStuff.com recommends 3, but I didn't plan ahead that far...

After about 5 minutes I took the green silk out and rinsed it, followed by the rinsing of the red silk.

I didn't plan ahead in my vinegar rationing either, and I noticed I would run out before I finished all 5 silks (I decided to leave one silk undyed, so it could be white "snow" for an igloo play set we have from Imagiplay).

To conserve vinegar, I saved the green dye water and added blue food coloring to it to dye the blue silk.


MakeBabyStuff.com recommends wearing gloves to prevent dye stains on the hands, but I didn't have those either...



I "recycled" the red dye concoction by adding 3 packets or orange Kool-Aid to make our orange play silk.


I used the vinegar soak from step one of the tutorial for my yellow dye. I had 2 packets of Wyler's lemonade, but it wasn't as brilliant a yellow as I wanted, so I added a good splash of my favorite brand of yellow food coloring.

It is called Best Odour Brand, made in Thailand! I just like the name! They make extracts, too!

When the silks were hung to dry, I was so excited I wanted to wake my preschooler from his nap to come see them! I refrained, because I am trying to save these until Christmas!


But I did give him the white one to play with, which made a great "snow" surface for the Arctic Playset!

Mexican Sugar Skulls

I have long been a fan of Mexican folk art that celebrates El Dia De Los Muertos, or The Day of the Dead. This special holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to remember friends and relatives who have died.

The celebration occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November. Traditions include building private altars honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed, cleaning graves, and visiting graves with these as gifts.

This week, a family owned company, Mexican Sugar Skulls (www.MexicanSugarSkull.com) is teaming up with my favorite source for organic baby clothes to offer a great Dia De Los Muertos prize pack at Go Natural Baby Blog!

You can enter to win $59 worth of prizes, including a sugar skull kit, complete with skull molds, and a Day of the Dead tote bag!

To enter, visit this post on the Go Natural Baby Blog and leave a comment according to the instructions provided!

The deadline is October 17th, so you will be receiving your prize in time for some Halloween fun with your family!

WW: Fun in a Thai Mall

We had a fun weekend when we went on an overnight trip to Udon Thani, Thailand.

At the mall, Jojo and Deeds enjoyed riding on several different coin-operated kiddie rides. The cutest one was this little tuk-tuk that they could ride in together:



Jojo was the driver and Deeds was the passenger, next to some strange plastic person. The tuk-tuk goes forward and backward while also rotating slowly in a circle.



I think they rode this one two or three times. It cost 10 baht each time.



After the rides, we each enjoyed a 10 baht ice cream cone (about 35 cents each).

Eco-Friendly Gifts Don't Have to Be Boring

Just when you thought you were out of gift ideas for the Eco-minded person in your life, along comes something that they are guaranteed NOT to already have.

PoopooPaper.com sells a variety of beautiful (really) paper products produced from dried elephant dung. The idea of paper made out of poop might seem kind of scary at first. Here are the details of the process from PooPooPaper.Com:

We collect naturally dried elephant dung from elephant conservation parks and bring it back to our paper-making factory. • We then pre-rinse the elephant dung with water, leaving only the fibrous materials from the grasses, bamboo & fruits they've eaten. • Afterwards, we place the fibers into a giant pot of boiling water to ensure the fibers are super clean. After this thorough cleaning, any color that we may want to add can be added. • Natural fibers from banana trees & pineapples are added to the dung mixture so the paper will be thicker & stronger. • Once this is all mixed together, we separate the moist fibers into small “cakes' or “wafers” of about 300-400 grams each. • The cakes are spread evenly over a mesh-bottomed tray measuring about 60cm by 90cm. • The tray is leaned up against a tree, angled toward the sun and allowed to dry naturally for a few hours. • Once dry, we peel the sheet of paper from the mesh tray and start making Poo Poo Paper products.

I will admit that I have indeed seen some Poo Poo Paper products while in Chiang Mai, Thailand two years ago.

I wouldn't mind having one of these Poo Poo Paper journals. And at only $12.99 each, you can support a good cause and not go broke!

Eco-Friendly Birthday Parties

I was so excited to find www.OneMomAndAParty.com among my discoveries when I was browsing through the Bloggy Carnival last week.

Modern birthday parties, as we know, generate A LOT of waste. The typical birthday party results in a mass of disposable plates, cutlery, napkins, cups, balloons, wrapping paper, banners...the list goes on and on!

One Mom And A Party sells eco-friendly party supplies in a variety of festive themes. Check out the super cute Flip Flop Party Set (pictured) that includes a fabric flip flop table cloth, stripy napkins, and flip floppy goody bags.

I am totally smitten with the White Stars Napkin Set...it makes me want to have a tea party! I'm also looking forward to the Birthday Banners that are supposed to be "coming soon"! Think of it: a unique fabric, washable Happy Birthday Banner that can be reused for YEARS. That is a family tradition starting, my friends!

My favorite thing about One Mom And A Party, though, is not the super adorable table linens: Terry has assembled a wealth of FANTASTIC ideas for throwing an eco-friendly party of just about any type!

You can look at a list of possible themes for an Earth friendly party (do you prefer a Montessori party? Indoor? Outdoor? Destination? Take your pick!). Once you choose a theme, take a look at the Activity Ideas page. After that, you can plan the menu with the Eco-Friendly Party food section! But Terry didn't stop there (she is amazing)! You can look at ideas for a Baby Buffet (for a first birthday), Toddler Party Foods, Picnic Foods, Healthy Birthday Cakes (say what?), and even Free Recipes!

I can't wait to use One Mom And A Party as a planning resource for my next birthday party! Maybe I'll start planning RIGHT NOW!