Many of you know that I am passionate about not only saving money but also saving the environment. Well, when I was thinking of ideas for my youngest’s birthday on April 22nd, Earth Day I knew I wanted to create an unique celebration of not only her turning 2 year old but also to celebrate the Earth. I began to research and find companies that offered products to help me create this beautiful earth-friendly party and the best part is you can too! Just simply ways to reduce waste and recycle products to help create an unique party.
One of the easiest and earth-friendly things to do is make your decorations. When I went to the grocery store I asked for paper bags (instead of plastic or reusable bags) and used these bags to decorate the dining room (it rained the day of her party or everything would have been outside). Using the bags I cut triangles to make a pendant-style Happy Birthday sign. After cutting each of the triangles I placed them on a scrap piece of paper and stamped them with earthy designs such as leaves and trees and used a marker to write one letter on each of the pendants. If you could also use products like Clementine Art Natural Paint
In addition to the pendant sign I used the paper bags to make the table covering instead of a plastic table cover. This is such a great way to reduce waste (no plastic in the landfills) plus protect your furniture. I found the paper bags to be thicker then a plastic cover and it allows the kids to do projects without getting crayons or markers on everything.
When planning for the party I spent a few afternoons with the girls collecting sticks…not knowing what I would do with them but wanted to use them somehow. So taking an old, washed pasta sauce glass jar I rolled a piece of brown construction paper around the jar and then hot-glued each stick. I had to trim a few but I was able to make two stick vases and luckily with Daffodils in season we picked fresh flowers. Then using the plantable confetti I received from Botanical Paperworks I was able to sprinkle them around the two vases and on the table to decorate. The plantable confetti gave just the right amount of color and yet kept things simple at the same time. Plus Botanical Paperworks provided the lovely invitations to the party and all their products contain seeds…so after the party they become beautiful flowers to place in the stick vases!
One of the BIGGEST waste producers with birthday parties is plastic plates, cups and eatery products. Most people buy disposable products for ease of use and so there aren’t a lot of dishes to wash after a birthday party. Well I have changed completely since receiving my package from Green Paper Products. We replaced ALL items with their products made from sugarcane, corn starch or cellulose wood and grass fiber. These items are completely compostable and we actually started composting on April 22nd! We showed everyone who attended the compost bin and other than a few juice boxes everything went into the compost pile. I can’t tell you how happy I was to try these products and we will not buy plastic tableware again as it takes years for a plastic fork to degrade in a landfill.
When it came time to planning the birthday cake a reader on Facebook actually gave me the idea of a Dirt Cake! So I looked online and found a basic recipe for the Dirt Cake and created two versions. Chocolate and Vanilla. Then using a paper cutter in the shape of a flower I stamped out flowers and glued them onto toothpicks. I placed the flowers into the chocolate mini-cups (Green Paper Products supplied these biodegradable cups as well) and topped all with gummy worms. The dirt cake was a huge hit with not only the kids (they loved the gummy worms) but the parents because everything was in individual cups.
One of the recommendations I placed on the invitations was that everyone use newspapers or grocery paper bags to wrap all the gifts. And we even wrapped the gifts we gave Cailan, including the Green Toys products provided for review! Honestly, I love Green Toys because all their products are made from recycled milk jugs and help reduce waste by making useful products from wasted plastic.
Finally, as guests were leaving I handed out Thank You gifts. I was so excited for this party that one of the things I knew I wanted to do was reduce the amount of cheap plastic toys that are usually give to guest when they leave and help educate everyone about the importance of supporting our Earth. So I contacted local company EarthTec and they provided free Cow and Frog: Eco Pals books to give to each of the kids plus I bought a t-shirt from them that was made from recycled plastic bottles.Each goodie bag also contained a water bottle made of BPA-Free plastic and a few pieces of candy as a treat. Then as a special gift I purchased 25 Red Oak tree seedlings and gave one to each guest that attended the party. This was my absolute favorite thing of the party because each tree will help rebuild and replace a tree that might have been used and help support our planet. We used simple small brown paper bags to wrap them and use twine to tie a Thank You card on them.
Overall the party was a complete success and I truly enjoyed trying to fine different ways to decorate or replace items with more earth-friendly products. And although it rained on her birthday (so our Nature walk in the woods was canceled) the party was one of the best parties we have had and I can’t wait to do another Earth Day celebration next year!
I would like to thank not only the guests and my family for helping me celebrate Cailan’s birthday in this unique and special way but I want to thank the companies that were willing to help me achieve my vision of a true Earth Day celebration and offer their products. Each company was a pleasure to work with and I would recommend you check out their websites!
This post comes a few weeks late because I will admit…I am one of those people with years and years worth of photos on my camera…and never seem to take them off to print or edit. So after I finally retrieved the photos from this day and edit them in Photoshop I am finally able to share with you!