Friday, October 31, 2008

eco friendly friday



Well here it is another Friday. It is also Halloween. So what a better topic for eco friendly Friday.

I am sitting here in my bath robe, with a black cat sitting on my lap. I have been up since 5 a. m. I had to get some coffee in me before I got Ryan dressed up for school.

Once again Ryan is going as a marine. I borrowed the Cammie's and the boots. Another marine is letting Ryan borrow his body armour. Rusty found some Cammie paint. O.K. Ryan is set.

Nothing in my life goes as planned. I got Ryan up and gave him the Cammie's to wear. I woke Jake up and asked him to paint Ryan's face. While Jake was waking up I tried to help Ryan put on the boots. Oh crap they don't fit! Ryan grew.

So I send Ryan into the bathroom to get his face painted while I try to figure something else out. I go into my closet and I start looking at all the combat boots that are lined up. Rusty's are way to big, Elle's boots are to big and they don't have boot laces, and then I spotted them. My dads combat boots. I grab the boots and head back to the kitchen.

Oh crap one of the boots is missing its laces. Now I am on the hunt for boot laces. I just went and grabbed what I could find.

In the end Ryan left for school all dressed up. The cost of the costume? Nothing.

I know that it is a little late to start talking about making a costume. But I want to challenge people to really think outside the box when it comes to stuff for our children.

Halloween comes once a year. So why not make a costume instead of wasting money on something that the child will wear once. Try to find something that can later be used for playing dress up, or something that could double as p.j.'s.

Next year start looking early. Look at garage sales, or go to the good will. There are some other options.

As for the pumpkin.

As a child I remember carving pumpkins and then my mom would cut the pumpkins up and cook the pumpkin down. We would eat pumpkin bread for a long time.

I do not see very many people using fresh pumpkin anymore.

Next year try growing your own pumpkins. They are very easy to grow and very low maintenance. Heck I grew them here in California and I gave them limited water. Pumpkins are a vine, so be prepared for them to spread, but I was still able to grow them in my flower bed.

Once you are done with your pumpkin this year make sure you cut it up and compost it. It you do not have a compost pile you always just dig some holes, throw some pumpkin in and then put the dirt back. The worms will do the rest, and you will have some nice black soil.

Please post your comments on how to green up Halloween. I want to hear from everyone. I want to hear about costumes that you have made, other uses for the old pumpkins etc...

5 comments:

betty said...

good morning Kelli; I bet Ryan looked great!! good thinking with how you got his costume together; a lot of great ideas too for Eco Friday. My mom had a compost garden years ago; you would have liked her; she was a maverick on recycling and things like this.

no costumes here this year and no pumpkin,haven't in years so that's a good thing right??

take care of yourself and be safe today/tonight

betty

Chrissie a.k.a. HoneyB said...

I love your ideas. I never even thought about doing that with our pumpkins last year and we have a worm bed as Kyan calls it. I already have them a nice moist place. Mostly I just put a bunch of leaves and stuff there. I didn't get any pumpkins this year even though they were down to a $1.50 at Walmart last night huge pumpkins. They wanted $5 for them before. My son use to wear John's army stuff. Glad you were able to pull your son's costume together.
Take care, Chrissie

Melissa said...

good ideas...we never even had a pumpkin

Heather said...

My eco friendly contribution for today is recycling furniture! Ha!

We never had storebought costumes growing up. Maybe that's what made me able to costume for theatre because I already knew how to make something out of nothing!

My parents had a compost pile but I don't garden. I just can't keep stuff alive. But I AM very committed to buying local produce and other food products. I love the little farm markets around here! And the food is tons better... and cheaper!

Happy Friday!
*hugs*
heather

Sage Ravenwood said...

Hard to think of any Eco friendliness with Halloween. You end up with a ton of wrappers from the candy, which produces more waste....Only thing I can think of is instead of the plastic throw away Halloween bags. Make sure you use a cloth bag, or plastic bucket that can be reused for trick or treating.

I used to love doing Skye's face make-up for whatever she wanted to be that year. We usually found things around the house to make up the rest of the costume. I think it's more fun for the kids to do that than, go buy a ready made one.(Hugs)Indigo

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I am a stay at home mom. I am also married to a veteran and he is the love of my life. I keep it real here and I hold nothing back. My life is a roller coaster ride, so strap on your seatbelt.... here we go!