That said, we’re going to do a boring, random name generator. Not as much fun as a video, but still, nice if you win. Two of you have won a very cool prize – the Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe 2009.

And those two winners are…

Numbers 12 and 3. In case you didn’t memorize your comment number, this would be readers Sara and Carla.

Sara’s family is keeping it green this winter by, “Making some organic treats to give as gifts to our friends and neighbors! Oh, and lately we’ve been making peanut butter/birdseed pine cones for all of our furry friends!” Carla says, “We aren’t using our heater or watering our grass. We bought extra blankets to keep warm and we will let the rain keep our grass watered!”

Very nice green tips, as were everyone’s actually. I may have to create a link love post of everyone’s comments because you’re all doing some very cool green things this year.

Congratulations to both Sara and Carla, I’ll email you asap, so be sure to check your spam filters. Thanks to everyone else who entered and left green tips. Big hugs to our prize sponsor Hallmark Software – I’m sure our winners will be able to make some amazing projects all year long thanks to this family friendly prize.

[images via Hallmark Software]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

To learn more about this cool prize, read, Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe 2009 – A Great Family Time Product.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

The prize, in case you forgot, is a copy of the #1 card making software, Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe 2009. I’ve got two copies up for grabs.

The only downside I see to this product is that system requirements are Windows XP or Vista – sorry Mac lovers Other than that, if you happen to be a PC user, this product is way cool.

Perks of the Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe 2009:

Easy as pie – if you visit the Card Studio website, you’ll see that kids, non-computer savvy adults, and anyone else can easily learn to use this product. There are just three simple steps from start to completed project…

1) Choose from one of over 9,000 projects – holiday cards, invitations, stickers, 3D cards, scrapbook pages, calendars, envelopes, gift tags, mini albums, photo cards, photo frames, postcards, and lots more.

2) Incorporate your own unique messages, photos, colors, fonts, or images into your chosen project.

3) Print that project out. You can also directly email your project or create a PDF of it.

Lots of great clip art – Included with the software is this amazing array (16,000+) of clip art graphics; way better than the basics that come on most computers. Look how cute these sample images are:

Fix your photos – This version of the software comes with a nice Digital Photo Editor. You can crop, remove red eye, and more.

Here are some project samples that I think are extra cute: 

What’s green about this? 

Being that this is a green blog, I like to do green and family product minded giveaways. At first glance I wasn’t thinking this was an especially green prize, but then after thinking about it some more, I realized the following:

1. This product encourages family together time – something I push, push, push here at THF.  I like that you and the kids can get together on a chilly winter day and have some fun making special projects.
2. You can use the materials you choose. While recycled greeting cards get more and more expensive, recycled paper in bulk, is not all that bad. You can use recycled paper and recycled embellishments to make a truly unique green gift for someone.
3. You can save some cash AND make homemade gifts that are more personable, extra special, and fun to create.I am always saying going homemade is best – you save gas, save product resources, and save money. This software allows you one means of doing all this.

All in all, a great family-minded prize. If you haven’t entered to win this software yet; what’s stopping you (besides the Mac issue).  Click the penguins below to learn how to enter.

[images via Hallmark Software]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

What you can win:  Two lucky Tree Hugging Family winners will win a copy of the #1 card making software, Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe 2009.This software is super slick, full of features, and family friendly. (Watch for my upcoming review of this software’s full features).

Who can enter: Not me. If you happen to be a girl named Jennifer who blogs here at Tree Hugging Family; well, don’t enter. Are you someone else? You’re good to go.

Giveaway duration:

• Starting… now (go)!
• Ending December 7th, 2008 at midnight Pacific Coast time.

How to win this giveaway:

What I like best about this software is that it promotes family together time and allows you to make some great projects at home using recycled materials if you so choose (recycled paper, buttons, and more) plus your own creativity. In that spirit, if you’d like to win this software, head to the comment section of this post, and tell me one green activity your family will be doing together this holiday season.

Will you be having an organic cookie baking day or will you be taking a nature hike in the snow? Are you all making homemade eco-gifts?

Additional rules: 

I’ll be randomly drawing and posting our winners by the afternoon of December 8th.  If you win, I’ll be sending you an email that day. Please respond within 3 days, or I’ll draw another winner. I know that’s a short time frame for responding, but being that this is a holiday project gift, I’d like the winners to get this before mid-December (plenty of time to make cards).

Also, please note that sometimes b5media emails go to spam. If you’re listed as a winner on the 8th, and you don’t have an email from me by that evening, check your spam or toss me an email at jennifer.chait@b5media.com.

Good luck! Don’t forget to watch for a post that discusses this nifty software’s features.

November current events at Tree Hugging Family – themes, reviews, news, and more…

[image via Hallmark Software]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

It’s not a realistic campaign. While I agree with the reasoning, I don’t much agree with how they’re trying to pull this whole, get the family together or get moving or what have you.

First off they lie, or at least exclude decision making processes:

From the TV Turnoff Network: “All TV is passive, sedentary and non-experiential. Most viewers tend to watch show after show–not individual programs. Instead of watching a documentary about birds, go out (with binoculars if you have them) and see how many real birds you can identify in your neighborhood. The purpose of National TV-Turnoff Week is to leave behind judgments about the quality of television and focus instead on creating, discovering, building, participating and doing.”

ALL TV is passive. Really? All of it. I think that’s a stretch. We learned things on home shows that we used to build our house (not passive). Cedar wants to join a jump rope team when he’s old enough and is already doing hip hop dance – every single day (not passive), and why? Because he watched Jump In on TV. If you’re going to call for a ban, at least be honest and consider that some people use the TV to their advantage in useful ways.

I hate the implication that humans can’t make good decisions when exposed to something that’s potentially harmful.

Is TV turnoff week realistic?:

There are other broad claims they make as well. However, one of my biggest issues with TV turnoff week goes back to the whole, it’s not realistic situation. Asking people to turn of the TV for a whole week is not a normal way to learn how to make change. In most cases folks won’t keep that TV off. They might for a while. In fact, the TV site claims that 90% of the folks who participate in turnoff week don’t return to their old TV laden habits. That said, how many are participating? That 90% is a pretty small number if the TV turnoff forums are any indication.

They’re asking for people to make huge leaps all at once instead of incorporating less TV on a normal sort of schedule. In my experience, large leaps don’t tend to hold up. In a completely bizarre switch, TV turnoff week goes from asking folks to make this broad jump, to asking people to make too minor of changes. Like the Family Dinner Night:

“Have you picked your night? Each one of us is picking a night, that cannot change. Pick yours and after dinner, pull out a board game, a deck of cards or something else to do and make a night of it.”

A dinner. One dinner? I’m sorry, but if you’re only eating one dinner, one meal a week together, there’s a much bigger issue at hand then television. Something besides TV is gonna have to give. You should be having far more meals together each week than one.

Learning by negatives:

Learning by negatives is also a big pet peeve of mine. I don’t agree with negatives to make a positive. If a child considers TV a positive in their world, then taking it away to teach them a lesson in fitness, family time, better grades, what have you, is a negative way to do so. A better and actually more realistic way to pull off this lesson is to simply incorporate outdoor time, family dinners, exercise, and togetherness into your life, before, or without taking anything away.

Is TV an easy thing to blame?

Trust me, your kids would rather be with you, doing fun things then watching TV – I’d bet on it. Your kids would rather eat with you than watch a movie. If this is not true in your house, if your kids don’t want to be with you, then however harsh it sounds, it’s your fault. As a parent you make the big choices. You make the choices from day one that define how your kids feel about family time, TV time, and most other issues. If your kids are reluctant to hang out, it tells me that so are you, and you need more than TV turnoff week. You need major changes in your household.

If TV turnoff week got you thinking about this fine, that’s a good thing that TV turnoff week has accomplished, but it’s not TV that’s the issue. It’s our family actions that are to blame. We talk about spending time with our kids a lot here. One because that’s how it should be. And two, the only way our children pick up our green actions is by being with us, by doing.

30 ideas for family activities:

1. Make Your Own Natural, Colorful Dyes – Great Kid Nature Project
2. Play dress up – let the littles totally raid your make-up and clothes
3. Make Your Own Solar Light!
4. Color
5. Green audit your trash as a family
6. Play board games
7. Nature Themed Autumn Craft
8. Build A Plant Maze!
9. Go fishing
10. Make some paper
11. Read together
12. Take a sign language class
13. Cook a meal
14. See what other other families are doing
15. Homemade Organic Paint Soap for Kids
16. Play with clay
17. Study water – and do some experiments
18. Bake cookies or cupcakes
19. Five Fun Ways to Reconnect with Nature
20. Go bike riding.
21. Go On A Treasure Hunt
22. Join Journey North
23. Build a playing card castle
24. Start a garden
25. Search for rocks
26. Get outside
27. Get a pet
28. Volunteer to build a house
29. Go swimming
30. Volunteer to keep the planet clean

There are at least a hundred more ideas on this blog alone related to activities and actions you can take as a family. Not to mention countless others beyond this one little blog. Honestly, you don’t even have to do anything dramatic – just hanging out around the house, doing everyday tasks together works. Don’t just celebrate TV turnoff week to see if you’re up to some random challenge. Make the challenge about your whole world. This is your life, your children’s lives, time you can’t get back. All in all, my biggest issue, I suppose, is that we can do so much better then TV turnoff week.

What do you think?

[photos via stock.xchng]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family