Category: Green Living

Wanting a fun and festive Memorial Day DIY? Look no further! This super affordable craft can be painted with different colors to match your decor or holidays! Below you will find the simple and easy to follow directions:

Materials:
*4 cinder blocks
*Red Spray Paint (i would find one with a primer in it)
*2 pieces of wood (cut to the correct width of cinder blocks and how over long you want)
*Blue latex paint

Directions:
-thoroughly spray pain the cinder blocks. You might need a few coats as the cinder blocks do absorb some paint. Make sure you lay card board or a cloth down if you want to protect ANYTHING from the spray pain! Let dry completely! While the cinder blocks are drying go ahead and paint both pieces of the wood! You might want to do 2 coats on them! Once everything is dry, it is time to assemble! Place 2 cinder blocks where you want them, add a shelf, and repeat until finished! Add some colorful flower pots and decorations and you are DONE!

If you loved this DIY, check out our others! Remember to give it a personal touch and most importantly, have fun!

Hanging plants are all the rage these days, right? I love the simplistic look these adorable natural hanging pots! Another great thing about these is that if you don’t have a green thumb (like me), you can put succulents in these pots, either live or fake! Only you would really know! Follow these super simple DIY instructions below to liven up your place!

What you need:
* 2 or more soup cans (cleaned and dry)
* a spool or 2 or twine (any shade is fine, make it personal)
* hot glue works great for this
* a hammer
* a nail

How to make them:
First off you are going to completely clean and dry out your cans. Then you are going to hammer holes into the side of your can near the top opposite from each other, so you can put some string to hang them. Then take your hot glue, twine, and your can. Start at the bottom and dab some glue and place the end of your twine there. You might want to hold it for a second or 2 to make sure it stays. Next you are going to keep doing that while wrapping your twine around the can over and over glue about every other row or every few inches to make sure it won’t come off. You will get the idea as you start working on the 1st one! Once done, go ahead and run some twine through the holes you made earlier with the hammer and nail. Tie twine together to hang. Add dirt and a flower if you are going to live route or some paper, foam, dirt, or whatever if you are going to fake route! If you don’t want to hang them, they are also super cute placed in groups together around the house; in the bathroom, entry table, kitchen table, dresser, or where ever else you would like!

Did you love this fun quick and easy DIY? We would love to see your personal touches on these beauties! Let us know what you thought of these!Check out our other DIY ideas!

Receive a FREE Disney Reusable Shopping Bag from the Disney Store on April 22nd. Bring in 5 plastic shopping bags to exchange for the free tote bag. Supplies are limited and only good on April 22nd. Get there early.

Today’s frugal living tip is to use both sides of the paper when printing. I cannot follow this tip for school reports, but I use this often when printing coupons, and other items where it doesn’t matter. It is cost effective and cuts down on the amount of paper used.

My son comes home with an obscene amount of paper from school, and mostly it will just get thrown away. I let him draw and color on the backs of those pages so he isn’t wasting my good print paper. That paper is not cheap. I do recycle all the paper in our house.

Do you print on both sides of the pages or do you also let your kids draw on the backs before discarding?

I’m not sure what rock I had been living under, but I never heard of Earth Hour until last year during my speech class. An exchange student from China gave a wonderful speech on Earth Hour. I try to live a “greener”  life by conserving more of our resources, planting more of my own food, and recycling. I plan on participating in Earth Hour by turning off my lights for one hour. It seems inconvenient in our super busy lives to not be on the computer or to watch television, but maybe Earth Hour can help us to slow down a little and spend more time together as a family.

Earth Hour originated in Sydney Australia in 2007 by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) by asking everyone to turn off their lights for one hour. The date is March 31, 2012 (Saturday night) at 8:30 PM until 9:30PM. The initiative is to help offset the climate change, but it also conserves energy. From the Earth Hour website: “It’s scheduled on the last Saturday of every March – closely coinciding with the equinox to ensure most cities are in darkness as it rolled out around the Earth.” Last year more than 135 countries and millions of people participated in Earth Hour.

What else can we do to help preserve our planet?

Earth Hour asks everyone to go beyond the 60 minutes of one year by doing more to help conserve and preserve our world. The things we do to conserve are usually what helps to save you money. No matter what your views are, we do need to help preserve our planet for our generation and future generations. What we do now impacts us all now and in the future.

Get involved . It is also a great way to slow down and spend time with your loved ones. There are lots of great ideas by making a nice dinner by candlelight, play games with your flashlights, go outside and pretend to camp or look at the stars, talk, tell stories, or spend time with the neighbors and play cards. The possibilities are endless, and some communities have big events for the whole town or city to participate together.

I dare you to participate in Earth Hour on March 31, 2012 from 8:30-9:30. Will you join Earth Hour?