GREEN HOLIDAY GIFT IDEAS

Fabkins is a Marin County, California-based company started in early 2007 by Joyce Raffo and Paige Rodgers, two friends and fellow moms. Fabkins was created out of the desire to offer kids a fun and easy way to be a part of saving the environment.

These adorable cloth napkins, available in a variety of themes, not only help us grownups easily encourage more mature table manners, but they also eliminate paper-napkin waste to the tune of $1.86 a day! That makes them well worth the cost of five napkins for $22.95. These would make a great Holiday Gift for moms and kids while saving them money and saving the environment. You can purchase Fabkins on their website at www.fabkins.com. Their website also offers useful tips for using Fabkins and saving the environment. Let’s support a mom company too!

Fight tough grease, dirt and grime naturally with eco-friendly Perfect Planet Cleaning Products from Weiman. The All-Purpose Cleaner is made from renewable, plant-derived ingredients, this biodegradable, earth-friendly formula contains no harsh chemicals and is safe to use every day. Don’t compromise the air quality inside your home with toxic cleaning chemicals. All-Purpose Cleaner does the job right every time you clean – without releasing ammonia, alcohol, phosphates or petrochemicals into the air you and your family breathe. All of the eco-friendly products in the Perfect Planet line are formulated with envioronmentally preferable chemisty in partnership with the EPA’s Design for the Environment program. What a great practical gift for families and the environment! The cleaners work fabulously and made me feel good to use them. You can purchase the line at their website www.weiman.com.

Moms and dads, don’t you hate messing with batteries every Christmas? I know we always forget to buy some and my husband has to run out on Christmas morning to try and track some down! Fact: there are 900 million batteries used each year in the UK alone and many are in toys. Fact: Only 2% of batteriesare currently recycled -the rest end up inlandfill sites and are poisoning our planet! Fact: Kids love electronic toys! The problem: How do we give children what they desire but without poisoning our planet? The solution: – ecotronictoys – batteryless electronic toys! Ecotronic toys are so cute and fun! My four year old love his football radio! The Ecotronic product line includes the Eco-Ducks featuring wind up action, flashing lights, geometric buttons and well known nursery rhymes all help to provide a genuine educational pull along duck.  The Penguin Torch is a crank up flashlight with an illuminated beak!  The Eco-Rocket is the first eco-friendly rocket that kids can pretend to fly complete with flashing lights and realistic sounds – all with no batteries.  The Eco-Mic is a “u-powered” microphone that has music, applause, flashing lights, percussion sounds and a realistic amplifier.  By shaking the Eco-Phone, the kinetic generator provides hours of fun!  Mr. Robot Head is a wind up wire puzzle with flashing lights and robot sounds.  The Eco-Radio provides wind up powered sounds, but also has a host of visual and tactile functions giving a child hours of fun.  The Football Radio and Hearts & Butterfly Radio uses a mobile phone charger to make it a fully functioning AM/FM with auto search station finder.  You can also wind the handle to charge your phone on the go.

What a fabulous idea for Christmas this year. Go and check out all the cool toys they have and know you won’t have to go searching for batteries on Christmas morning and that you are doing your small part in saving our planet. You can buy them at www.ecotronictoys.com

Greentoys are another great option for safe and fun toys to buy your children for the Holidays! Their toys are made from recycled milk containers! How cool is that? Here is how they explain the process:
We use recycled milk containers as the main ingredient in creating our toys. Yes, the exact plastic milk jugs that you and your family drink from every day. When you finish your milk and toss the container in the recycling bin, these milk containers are collected at your curb by a local recycling company, who then sorts them from all the other types of plastic. Next, the milk containers are reprocessed into super clean fresh plastic. Green Toys products are tested by nationally recognized, independent, third-party labs (located, yes, in the USA.) They contain no traceable amounts of Phthalates or BPA. They are also designed without any external coatings, eliminating the fear of lead paint. We have been playing non stop with our cooking set and it’s so lovely not to have to worry about toxins. The Greentoys line also includes an adorable tea set, Sand play set and an indoor gardening kit. Greentoys are available all over, including Amazon, and there is a retailer list on the website www.greentoys.com.