Today is my birthday! How exciting. Actually, I’m not that excited but if I could pick my perfect cake it just might be this veggies from the earth loving cake…

There are lots of ways to plan an eco-friendly birthday but today it’s all about cake design. If I decide I should work on my birthday I may be back with tips; if not look for those tomorrow.
If you’re planning an eco-friendly birthday you might as well go all the way and even make it a theme party. Here are some amazing cake ideas that can help.

You have to visit …read more

Of course if Black Friday was eco-friendly I guess it would be called Green Friday.
First off I missed you all the last two days. My sister came into town and surprise there was a two day notice that everyone is coming to my (now sort of tidy) place for Thanksgiving so I’ve been busy the last couple of days.
I did want to make sure and get in a little something about Buy Nothing Day in today before the big bad Black Friday hits tomorrow. I talked a little about this before but now the Buy Nothing website is in full …read more

It’s not bad to be a newbie when it comes to green. All green newbies have one outstanding trait in common — they recently made a decision that their actions do matter to the planet and to the well-being of other humans. It’s a good thing to be new at this. There’s lots of fun surrounding this learning curve.
If you know someone who want to incorporate more green and doesn’t know where to start or if you just want to spread the word to family and friends who haven’t ever given green a thought than Greensender boxes can help.
This is …read more

Well, that all depends. For one we’ve all heard the old, “Sponges are full of grime and icky germs” which is not entirely false. But on a much more important issue many of the sponges on the market are not a good choice for green families.

Commercial sponges contain a lot of polyurethane which comes from petroleum thus they come from a non-renewable resource. Not to mention the toxicity factor of polyurethane.
Manufacturing commercial sponges pollute the environment and later on they don’t degrade well. Our landfills will still be hanging out with your sponges years from now.
If you use natural sponges …read more

There are so many great ways to contribute to a healthy planet. Some steps are larger than others; some are quick and some eco-friendly ideas take substantial planning. We’ll eventually talk about all these ideas at length but just to get you thinking here are 100 various ideas that can help your family go green.

Buy less stuff.
Fix that leaky sink
Change one regular old light bulb to an energy efficient bulb
Visit the library instead of buying books
Buy in bulk
Grow an egg carton herb garden
Invest in a kitchen compost
Hand down clothing from bigger kids to smaller kids
Eat at least three vegetarian meals …read more

Hilary sent a picture of her kids outside enjoying nature to share with us. Thanks Hilary!
I love this picture. One, her kids are adorable playing near the lake, (pond?), river (much like the turtles but, you know, more human-like and less brownish) and two, it’s always great to see families outside in the great outdoors. I also really enjoy the look her son is giving her at the moment. Classic kid camera face.

Hilary writes green-style for b5media as well. She has a great blog called Eco Friendly Driver that covers all green things that go. Hey, that would be a …read more

I love this. I think the problem is that there are so many cool tree items. However, for one, it’s not very eco-friendly to want a lot of stuff. Two it’s not like my money grows on trees (ha ha). I had to go there. I’m a dork. Still, look at this — it’s beautiful.

I LOVE it, but you do not want to know how much it costs.

The most simple way to grow green kids (in theory) is to be ultra green yourself. Kids will copy your every move. If they grow up in a home that recycles and turns off lights it’s likely that they’ll do the same. It’s the in theory part that’ll get ya. What if you aren’t a very green adult? You can still start to instill a green sensibility in your littles (and yourself). Try these simple tips.

Take a walk: For the more adventurous; go camping or take a hiking excursion. A walk will do perfectly though. I discussed the importance of …read more

You may of heard of a green home audit; maybe a green you audit even. Basically an audit is simply investigating the current situation. You can do an audit for just about anything but obviously here we’ll be looking at green (or eco) audits. Because every human is unique and every home is different each audit in the world will present varying result. Still, there are components of typical green audits that will apply to everyone.
You can do a lot with an green audit.
You can gain powerful information about how you’re currently living — that may include what type of …read more

Welcome to Tree Hugging Family.
Since I hope you’ll be sticking around I thought it might be nice to start this blog off with some background information and introductions.
What’s Tree Hugging Family all about anyway?
There are a lot of amazing eco-friendly blogs and websites out there; just look at my blogroll. What will hopefully help Tree Hugging Family to stand out is that my goal is to help make it easier for your entire family to go green. This is a blog for everyone; kids included.
A while back I was surfing around the internet and noticed that a lot of the …read more