This being the last day of June, we’re closing out our green wedding feature. In case you missed something essential, I rounded up all the posts we did so far related to green weddings. I also made this green wedding guide a permanent fixture in our sidebar page section (to your right). Although green wedding month is over, as we do other posts that relate, we’ll be adding to the sidebar guide.

Here’s what we covered in May…

Basics:

Green Wedding Planner: Helpful Links for Wedding Planning

Announcements & Invitations:

• Engagement Party & Wedding Invitations Go Digital
• Perfect Digital Wedding Cards
• Alternatives to Reply Cards
• Eco Friendly Paper for Your Green Wedding

Wedding Dresses, Wedding Party Clothing & Accessories:

• Where to Find Earth Friendly Wedding Gowns
• Quick Eco Wedding Tip: Greenest Wedding Gown
• Eco-Wedding Ring Options
• Wear A Tree: On Your Wedding Day

Cake:

• Green Wedding Idea: Wedding Cake Toppers
• Green Wedding Cake Ideas
• Quick Green Wedding Tips: More Wedding Cake Ideas

Food & Beverages:

• No Disposables: Rent Your Wedding Dishes and Napkins
• Planning an Organic or Vegetarian Wedding Menu?
• Organic Beverages for Your Green Wedding

Gifts:

• Your Green Wedding Gift Registry – Where to Register
• Eco Wedding Favors – Four Ideas
• The Perfectly Green No-Cost Wedding Anniversary Gift

Special Touches:

• Green Wedding Candles
• LED Lighting for Your Green Wedding

Extreme Green Weddings:

• Extreme Green Wedding Tip: Only ONE Bridesmaid
• Extreme Green Wedding Tip: Elope!
• Extreme Green Wedding Tip: Green That Honeymoon Sex

I hope you enjoyed this special feature – we sure did. Don’t forget to look for a new feature in June.

All month we’ve been running our Green Toys giveaway and taking a close-up look at the prizes in this great giveaway.

• Cookware & Dining Set
• Indoor Gardening Kit
• Sand Play Set
• Tea Set

As mentioned before, all Green Toys have the following perks:

• Easy open 100% recyclable packaging made from recycled corrugated boxes with no plastics, cellophane or twist-ties.
• Made from plastic made from recycled milk containers.
• Locally produced – as in, every step in the process, from milk container recycling to toy production to final assembly, occurs in one place (in this case California).
• Contain no traceable amounts of Phthalates or BPA.
• Designed without any external coatings – non-toxic, no lead, no icky paint, etc.

The company uses recycled milk jugs to make their wonderful toys and offer some stats on just how much energy this saves:

Very cool. Another big aspect of this company is their safety testing. They want their toys safe for your little ones. Some safety tests they participate in (and pass) include:

• Consumer Products Safety Standard Specification, ASTM F963
• California Prop. 65 restrictions on lead & cadmium
• FDA regulations for food contact
• California regulations prohibiting phthalates in toys
• Voluntary testing for no BPA (Bisphenol-A)

Read all the press on Green Toys.

Last chance to enter giveaway:

The Green Toys giveaway ends tonight at midnight (west coast), and tomorrow I’ll be announcing our four winners. So, if you haven’t entered yet, now’s your chance. Also, make sure to read the entry rules, so that your entry isn’t disqualified.

If you’ve got a load of paper to be recycled; why not put it to some fun use first. You can get double the use out of paper with these cool folded paper projects for kids.

Paper Toys: From double decker buses to dinosaurs to Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, this site has a load of folded paper projects to try.

I can’t remember if I’ve showed Readymechs here before; in any case, they’re worth pointing out again. These are the cutest little paper folding monsters you’ve ever seen! Check out these two:

Cubeecraft papercraft toys – fun fat headed folks to cut and fold. Here’s Indiana Jones & Batman; but there are loads of other great projects too.

The Toymaker is this amazing site that offers books, super sweet holiday ideas, like what’s fun in the good old summertime, free paper dolls (otters) and other paper folding project – which include toys, gifts, and more. I can’t even tell you how great this site is for kids (and adults) you just have to go play around. Trust me, you’ll be soooooo glad you did. Following are two of the free paper projects offered.

Butterfly Basket

Magic Fairy Wand:

Have fun!

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

Father’s Day is June 15!

The most special gifts from kids are the ones you can’t buy in the store. Kaboose has a great Father’s Day craft for kids. Using a thumbprint and paint, kids can make a custom mug for Dad. Go to Kaboose for the complete instructions.

For other Father’s Day craft ideas, visit:

Tie Card for Dad

Oatmeal Soap on a Rope

Fit to be Tied

CD Photo Frame

Miniature Zen Garden Craft

Do you have any Father’s Day craft ideas of your own to share?  

Image via Kaboose.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

I’ve been wanting to introduce the healthy cooking blog, Robust Cooking, and now that they’re giving away five autographed copies of Henry and the Hidden Vegetable Garden, I just had to go ahead and tell you about it. Henry and the Hidden Vegetable Garden will help kids view veggies more positively. And it sounds like a fun book.

Robust Cooking is all about low-fat and healthy cooking that tastes good! It’s a perfect blog for you if you’re on a weight-loss or cholesterol-lowering diet. Or maybe you’re just trying to take care of your heart. There are many, many reasons to eat healthy. Robust Cooking is co-blogged by Linette and Sandy.

Don’t forget to enter the kid’s book contest before June 8!
Go to the contest post to enter.

Book image via amazon.com.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

You know, for someone who claims to have nothing to say about wedding cakes, I sure have a lot to say about them. We’re wrapping up green wedding month tomorrow though; so of course all these ideas are popping into my head tonight.

These are a few random tips I was thinking about.

Before I mentioned you could have edible cake toppers – a very green choice. However, I forgot to mention that you could go ahead and make them yourself. We have a post here on making candied flowers, and Linette, over at Mother Earth’s Garden has another option for creating candy violets.

Then I was thinking that one budget idea for green weddings is this – make cupcakes. Actually wedding cupcake cakes have become very popular, and there’s no limit to how you could decorate them. Cupcakes are a winner too, because no dishes are necessary. Linette (yes, again) has some Simple Summer Cupcakes you might like. Cupcakes can be any old flavor you choose too – here are some organic flavor ideas.

Other great links for ideas:

Bridal Shower Cake Ideas (also, by the way from Linette – she’s too smart for her own good.)

Marye at Baking Delights did an entire amazing series on making your own wedding cake – from choosing the shape, to cake flavors to assembly; plus some wedding food ideas. To read all about it see: Weddings: Cakes, Foods, Favors. Remember, any cake can be made with organic ingredients.

Ok, let’s hope I’m done with the cake ideas. Geez.

[image via stock.xchng]

Ok, so I lied in the last post about not having jack to say about wedding cakes. Mainly because I totally forgot about this amazing cake site that I’ve had bookmarked for ages.

If you need a picture to take to your baker, and you want something with a natural theme then I’d visit Wildflowers – one of the most beautiful cake shop in the world (IMO). Not just cakes either. Wildflowers creates amazing baskets filled to the brim with sugar flowers, leaves, berries, and more.

Individuals in New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland can order cakes from Wildflowers, but outside of the area, you can still order custom toppers or a collection of flowers for your wedding. And believe me, you’ll want to after you see these cakes. Or rather works of art. Wildflowers creates both Wedding Cakes, Special Occasion Cakes, and Garden Cakes, and most would work for a natural themed wedding.

Here are just a few examples of these beautiful cakes…

Bride Magazine named the cake below as one of America’s 50 most beautiful cakes in 2008 – not very surprising.

Fall Apple Basket for an autumn wedding table. Beautiful sugar work.

Lilacs! My favorite – this was a birthday basket, but it could so be in a summer wedding.

I’m not sure how you could slice into this lavender and lilac watercolor wedding cake – seriously. It’s so pretty.

I have to say if I ever have a wedding, I’d have to get some sugar flowers from Wildflowers. Or heck, maybe skip the wedding, and just get a cake.

To learn more about these wonderful cakes visit Wildflowers.

[images via Wildflowers]

I wanted to do a green wedding post regarding wedding cakes this month, for our green wedding feature. But after thinking about it, what can I say?

Go organic.

There; two words. That’s not a post. When it comes to the cake, you’ll simply have to make it, or have it made, with organic ingredients. If you have it made, you’ll simply need to search out a local bakery that will go organic.

Since cakes are out, I thought hey, let’s look at cake toppers!

Your best bets for green cake toppers include:

• Seek out a company that makes eco toppers (rare).
• Buy something for a topper that you’ll love to look at forever, not simply store away.
• Make it yourself out of green or recycled materials.
• Use fresh flowers or herbs, leaves, etc., only – stuff that will compost.
• Use candy. Eat the topper.
• Have pie instead

Here are some ideas:

Robot Bride and Groom Wedding Cake Topper Wood Statues with Base – this is too cute and unique. You could keep this out and look at it all year. More choices available.

Adorable bird cake toppers – made with mostly vintage and antique fabrics and garments. Currently artist Ann Wood is out of these toppers, but if you sign up on her mailing list, you can learn when more are coming. Go see all of the different styles she’s made!

Max Kitano of Sugarworks, LLC was making amazing sugar art that would look fabulous on a cake. I wrote about his work at another blog of mine, and he actually sent me one of his sugar Origami Cranes and it was beautiful – it looked just like glass. Now to save breaking he’s using casting resin, for wedding cranes, which makes his cranes break proof, and thus not stress inducing if you’re getting married. These resin cranes last forever, and are perfect for a cake topper and available in all sorts of color choices. Actually, Sugarworks offers an entire page of wedding favors as well.

DIY Cake Topper – cutest topper ever! Made partially with scraps from the bride’s dress alteration. I LOVE these. Click the image to see the entire topper.

Do you have any other ideas?

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

Ok, maybe not everything, but with various Lifestyles Channel contests you might just win something cool…

Here at Tree Hugging Family your kids can still enter the Green Toys giveaway and your dog can win a Recycled Skooperbox for Nicer Doggie Walks.

Last chance to enter at Inside Motherhood – Contests end tonight (May 30)! Hop over and register to win one of 10 great prizes!

Mary Emma Allen has a random drawing at Quilting and Patchwork for a quilting booklet, How to Make a Quilt – 25 Easy Lessons for Beginners by Bonnie Leman, founder of Quilters Newsletter Magazine. Leave a comment with the name of your favorite quilting/fabric arts book. Deadline June 6, at 11:59 PM (EDST).

Jewelry and Beading – Win a free copy of “Under $25” by Bead & Button magazine. Simply leave a comment on this post, telling us what your best source of bargain beads is, and you’ll be entered into the drawing. Next Wednesday, I’ll be
randomly selecting 4 winners!!

Three Contests on Keeping the Castle:

1. This giveaway is for one copy of the book “The Peaceful Nursery: Preparing a Home for Your Baby with Feng Shui” by home and lifestyle experts Laura Forbes Carlin and Alison Forbes. The authors use principles from interior design, Feng Shui, healthy, green living and their own parenting experience to help create a balanced, peaceful and green nursery.

2. The EZ-Fit Safety Gate Adapter, – by ’boutKids, provides a mounting surface for attaching pressure- or hardware-mounted safety gates to stairway posts.

3. Three winners will get a Mabel’s Labels Neat Freak Combo (spice, canister and bin labels). These labels are strong enough to “withstand the dishwasher, microwave, UV Rays and hard-wearing children”.

Robust Cooking is giving away a copy of Henry and The Hidden Vegetable Garden. Henry and the Hidden Vegetable Garden was launched on May 1 to help promote the Love Your Veggies Campaign. The Love Your Veggies Campaign was created to help schools improve their students health and nutrition.

Babylune has a Kangaroodle Father’s Day Giveaway.

Good luck Tree Hugging Families!

Thanks to Gayla for writing this up.

It’s the end of May and time for the unveiling of our Biggest Green Sin poll results! Thanks to all 89 of you who took the poll. It was fun to have so much participation. And have you ever noticed how much an electrical outlet has a surprised look?

From least to most popular green sin:

Recklessly use the printer — 2% of all votes

Don’t buy recycled office paper — 2% of all votes

Don’t recycle anything — 3% of all votes

Never buy organic foods — 3% of all votes

Still use detergents with phosphate — 3% of all votes

Don’t bother getting off junk mail lists — 4% of all votes

Buy a lot of stuff I may not need cause I love to shop — 4% of all votes

Refuse to carpool to work — 6% of all votes

Use Raid on spiders — 8% of all votes

Eat convenience foods with too much packaging — 12% of all votes

Drive an SUV (choice added by reader) — 15% of all votes

And the Biggest Green Sin was . . .

Leave unused appliances/chargers plugged in all day — 36% of all votes (That’s also the one I voted for.)

It’s good to know so many of you are recycling! That choice received very few votes. If you need to work on not leaving unused appliances plugged in all day, try a power strip AND check out Jennifer’s post — One Small Step: Solve One Green Sin (At Least Partially).

As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve been writing about these green sins all month. Here are the posts in case you missed them:

Never Buy Organic Food

Driving an SUV

Reasons to Carpool

Raid on Spiders

Using Dishwasher Detergents with Phosphates

Recklessly Use the Printer

Why Buy Recycled Paper

If we left out something you wanted us to cover, let us know. And please look for the new poll very soon.

Are you surprised by the poll results?

Image via stock.xchng.