Blogger Opp

Sponsors:

Garden of Urban

Mister Landscaper

Global Gardening Friends

Zero Soil Garden

Xlear

More to be announced...

ARV $TBA

Hosted by:

A Lucky Ladybug
and 

Sign-ups close 4/18

**The blogger with the most referrals will receive the additional links at no cost

Click HERE to sign up and for more html info.

M.O.O.N. has now added several perks/discounts for frequent participation in our events but you must be a member of our Facebook group to be eligible.  Please visit the M.O.O.N. group if you are a blogger and would like more information regarding these perks and other group events.

**If you are a company and would like to see your brand advertised in a M.O.O.N. event similar to this or a Blogger interested in working with M.O.O.N. please contact MakeOurOwnNetwork@gmail.com

Dehydrate It Right Giveaway

Mama Making Changes is happy to bring to you another great green giveaway! Dehydrate It Right is brought to you by A Lucky Ladybug and M.O.O.N., whose clickable links are below. Feel free to hop on over and leave a comment on their page telling them thank you for organizing this great giveaway event!

Prize:

Nesco Gardenmaster Digital Pro Food Dehydrator

ARV $170

Hosted by:

A Lucky Ladybug
and 
M.O.O.N.

"New Digitally Controlled" unit has all these features:
Top mounted fan eliminates liquids dripping into the heater chamber. Expands to a giant 20 trays so you can dry large quantities all at once!  1000 watts of drying power means you can dry more, faster.  Patented Converga-Flow® forces heated air down the exterior pressurized chamber, then horizontally across each individual tray, converging in the center, for fast, even and nutritious drying.

Green Your Mom Giveaway Hop Returns

Mama Making Changes just joined the 2nd Annual Green Your Mom Giveaway Hop! 

This event starts May 1, 2013, and MMC is working with EthicalConsumer.org to bring you a prize valued at nearly $50!

If you're a blogger, just click the button in this post or the button in the sidebar at right to go sign up. It's easy! Just add your blog to the linky and post the button. Promoting is optional, but the more we promote the bigger the event will be!

E is for Earth Day

I love Earth Day. It's like one day every year when everything I do to try to be more earth friendly suddenly stops getting criticized and people stop to listen. Instead of rolling their eyes, my rants seem to make sense to other people. At least one day out of the year, I win. Ha. On this day my way will be the right way! We will recycle and we will plant things and we will think about our choices more. So I take full advantage of Earth Day. While people are thinking about it, jump on in and give them something more to think about!

Let me share some news about Earth Day 2013. I hope you will pass it on!

• Check out the website! www.earthday.org is working year round to make a difference, but they work especially hard to get the attention of the world on Earth Day each year. And while you're there...
• Upload your photo at "The Face of Climate Change" and show the world you care! Let's join together to show that we are ready and willing to do what it takes to slow down or stop global warming! 
• Then head on over to "A Billion Acts of Green" to pledge your act of green! Whatever it is, just pledge to do one green thing in honor of Earth Day 2013! Or check out events that are happening for Earth Day and join one!

I will posting my photo on The Face of Climate Change and I will share it with you when I do. I pledged last year in A Billion Acts of Green to keep my garden totally organic and I did! This year I am trying to organize a 5K fundraiser in honor of Earth Day to help the downtown revitalization project here in my hometown. If it goes as I hope, everyone will plant a flower or tree downtown after crossing the finish line!

What do you have planned for Earth Day?

Click here for a full list of my posts and a list of participating blogs in the 2013 A to Z Challenge!

Sponsor Spotlight: Sprout San Francisco Patemm Pad

I was thrilled when I learned that the super-cute eco-friendly boutique, Sprout San Francisco, was sending me there patented Patemm Pad to try! Sprout San Francisco's website features hundreds of natural and organic items for babies and your home. They even have an online registry for expectant families! The Patemm Pad is their brand new, unique item designed to replace both your changing pad and your diaper bag, supposedly making it easier to take baby on the go. 



I received the El Patemm Pad in Storm White Twill, which is actually gray with white elephants on it. It was folded in such a way that one handle strap kept it closed and another served as the actual carrying strap. There were no snaps or buttons or velcro. The organic cotton fabric is covered in a substance that feels like plastic, which their website lists as a CPSIA-certified laminate that is BPA free. It's waterproof and machine washable, too! Which means, it's okay if your little wants to chew on it! 

Opening the patemm pad, I found that it's a large circular pad with pockets all the way around the outside edge. My niece is 15 months and tall for her age and she fit on the 28 inch pad easily. 




Next I stuffed the pockets with diapers and wipes and baby powder and folded the pad up to see how it handled the extra items. It folded up easily and the items inside were completely out of sight. There is a handle on each side of the pad so you don't have to fold the sides in a specific order. I was actually quite surprised! It's much more compact than a diaper bag and lightweight, too.



Bonus? She thinks it's a pocket book so now she wants to carry her own bag! 


To find out more or get your own Patemm Pad, click here to visit Sprout San Francisco.


Between November 28 and December 7, 2012, you can win a Patemm Pad in the Green Gifts Giveaway Hop! Click here to go to the giveaway now!

Gift Hulk Giveaway

Mama Making Changes is joining the Gift Hulk Giveaway, hosted by Green Moms Network, to bring you another way to win great prizes! I know my readers love giveaways and this one is for PayPal cash or Amazon gift cards so you can buy whatever you like!

This giveaway is sponsored by Gift Hulk. If you haven't heard of them, click the link to check them out. You can sign in with Facebook, which makes it easy, and you can start earning rewards right away! 

The giveaway even will run from September 20 to September 30, 2012. There will be two winners. One will receive $50 and one will receive $25. The winners will get to choose whether to receive PayPal cash or an Amazon giftcard! 

Be sure to check back on the 20th to enter! In the meantime, be sure to share the link with your friends so that they can get in on the cash too!



a Rafflecopter giveaway

10 Easy Ways to Get Greener Now (Part II)

Getting serious about going green can be difficult at times and sometimes requires us to get a little less comfortable. But other changes can be easier and don't require much of an adjustment at all. Here are 10 suggestions for simple changes you can make to get greener now:

1. Plant a fall garden, or even just one thing that's edible. What to plant and when varies depending on where you live, so if you aren't sure, try this interactive map from Mother Earth News. Just click the appropriate link to the right of the map and then click the month you want to plant for a list of seeds you should sow now. 
2. Buy local food. Go to the nearest farmer's market and save money by asking for seconds (the slightly less than perfect specimens of fruits and veggies). Be sure to ask where it was grown because many booths will have food that was shipped from other states. While you're there, look for milk, eggs, or pastured meats, too.
3. Freeze your leftovers. Too much food ends up in landfills that are already overcrowded. Save money too if you buy and cook larger quantities of meat, then slice and freeze the leftovers for sandwiches, soups, pastas and more. Leftover veggies can be frozen for a later pot of vegetable soup.
4. Re-use glass containers. Larger pickle and jelly jars make great canisters or use them to store buttons, loose change, kitchen utensils, etc. Smaller jars and bottles can be used as drinking glasses or portable water bottles. Even smaller containers can be re-used for dried herbs and spices or those miscellaneous screws and things that you find in your husband's dirty pants pockets.
5. Plant ivy. Use less electricity in the summer by planting ivy around the foundation of your house. It will block hot sunlight and keep your home cooler. 
6. Use the water while you wait for it to heat up. When you wash your face or shower, you let the water run till it's hot, right? Brush your teeth while you wait. Or capture some of the water in an old milk jug to water plants later. Get inventive with this one!
7. As the nights get cooler this fall, turn your ceiling fans on reverse. They will push the rising warm air downward and keep you comfy without turning up the thermostat. 
8. Stop junk mail. Register online at OptOutPrescreen.com to stop receiving unsolicited credit and insurance offers. You can choose to opt out for 5 years or forever. Stop unwanted catalogs by signing up at CatalogChoice.org.
9. Plug your electronics into power strips. Those electronics and chargers are drawing electricity even when not in use. This is called phantom energy. By turning off the switch on the power strip when they are not in use, you stop the flow!
10. Switch to CFL light bulbs. You don't have to switch all at once, which would be expensive and wasteful. As bulbs blow, replace them with CFLs, which use less electricity to put out the same amount of light. These bulbs cost a little more but, in addition to saving you money on the power bill, they also last longer, which means you purchase fewer bulbs in the long run and put less garbage in the landfills. 

For more ideas on how to go green without going crazy, check out the previous list of 10 Easy Ways to Get Greener Now. If you have your own easy ideas to share or any other comments, please leave them below. I always love hearing what you have to say!

Grocers Take Note: How Green Parents Shop

More and more people are becoming aware of the need to be more eco-friendly and are willing to make changes to help the cause. Some are willing to make only small changes for now, while others (like me) are jumping head first into green living and making some major changes. Green moms and dads want to teach and share a healthier, greener way of living with their children, too, with the expectation that their generation will continue in the same tradition. We want our families to realize the impact their choices have on themselves and the world around them.

A big part of green living is what we eat and what we feed our families. But do grocers take us seriously? Do they think about what we are and are not willing to buy? A report from EcoFocus Worldwide shows that they certainly should. According to their research, 50% of moms will change brands when given a more eco-friendly option and 2 out of 5 are willing to pay more for a more eco-friendly choice. 

Of course, sometimes it can be difficult to know what the true eco-friendly choices are when shopping. Not all brands are what they seem. "Natural" doesn't always mean what you would think it does and some "organic" brands are actually using GMO ingredients. The term "greenwashing" refers to these brands that would have you believe you are making a better choice when really you are not. For example, Burt's Bees is owned by Clorox and Naked Juice is owned by Pepsi-Cola. Neither is a green company. 


My best advice is to grow it and/or make it yourself whenever possible. When you can't? 

• Look for certifications on products,like the Energy Star logo, Green Seal, USDA Organic, Fair Trade Certified or the Forest Stewardship Council logo, to help you choose products that are truly eco-friendly. To learn more about certifications on labels and what they mean, check out Consumer Reports eco-labels.
• When a product has a claim to be natural or green, look beyond the labeling for an explanation. If they don't list the how and why, they may be greenwashing. 
• Buy groceries at the local farmer's market before heading to the supermarket and you may be surprised at how little you from the grocery store. More than vegetables and fruits are available. We buy meat, milk, eggs, bread, butter, cookies, soap, and more at our market! Just be sure to know who you are buying from and what their growing practices are. It's okay to ask! "Are these vegetables organically grown?" "Were these grown locally or did you ship them in?" "Where is your farm?" And beware pretty produce...organically grown foods are typically not as picture perfect. 
• When you find brands you trust, buy them often and recommend them to friends and family. What we buy directly impacts what grocers carry. How we spend our money tells them what we want on the shelf. 
• Do your research! Food is a lot of what green blogs talk about and you can blog hop your way to a ton of knowledge, learning from the experiences of others. 

Next time you shop for groceries, pause for a moment and ask yourself, "What is my shopping cart saying?"

Waste Not, Want Not?

Waste not,want not....Is that saying really true anymore? I see so much waste everywhere I turn and as we learn more about the effects of our wastefulness on the environment, companies are marketing more and more products that are wasteful of resources. And people are buying them without any thought for the consequences! It seems more like want more, waste more!

Let's go through a few examples.

K-Cups require a special coffee maker that costs lots of money and requires a separate little plastic "k-cup" for each cup of coffee you brew. Talk about wasteful packaging! A number of these little plastic cups are packaged together in a cardboard box. This, when you could buy one package of instant or brew coffee and make pot after pot after pot.

Why is it so hard to use an old fashioned toilet brush? Now Scrubbing Bubbles is selling disposable toilet brushes! Clorox makes one, too! Really? And don't tell me about the germs on the toilet brush that sits in your bathroom because those germ-y brushes have been sitting in bathrooms for decades and not bothering anyone. As long as you don't play with it or put it in your mouth, just leave it sitting in its little holder, it isn't going to hurt anything.

Disposable Clorox wipes and Lysol wipes are wasteful and unnecessary, too! Scrubbing Bubbles has their own line of bathroom wipes. Why not just use a washcloth? Worried about it getting ruined? I was raised by a frugal and green mama who taught me to tear old t-shirts into rags that can be used for any job without worrying about the condition of the rag. Old socks are good for this, too. And if you really need something disposable sometimes, use a paper towel, but you don't need something disposable for every time you wipe off the kitchen or bathroom counter!

I would like to see some of these corporations taking responsibility for the environment, not just in the way they are manufacturing products, but also in what products they manufacture. Considering how much we know about good environmental practices and global warming, I would like to see government regulations on packaging, as well as disposable items.

What items make you angry when you walk the aisles of the supermarket?

Summer Blog Challenge: Day 4

Today's Challenge: Explain the meaning behind your blog's name.

I can do that! Woohoo!

When I started this blog I was very frustrated with the way my family and I were living. We had succumbed to the life of the proverbial Jones'. We were so busy trying to do what everyone around us was doing that we lost track of who we are and what we believe. I was sick of it. So my husband and I made a decision to change our lifestyles and get back to the way we used to live, back when we lived by our own standards and to heck with the Jones'. Even better, we wanted to do more than we had ever done before. We wanted to slowly but surely convert our lifestyle to the one we both dreamed of.

And Mama started Making some Changes around here.

Today, just a few months into our changes, we are recycling nearly everything that can't be composted. Our garbage is only a fraction of what it was pre-blog. We are driving one car instead of two and hoping to trade it sometime in the near future for something more fuel efficient. We have our biggest garden ever and plans to expand it until our front yard is a grassy lawn no more. The kids are on board and my daughter has planted her own herbs and sunflowers. We have learned to eat healthier and eat whole foods. We've embraced local sustainable agriculture and businesses, and we've gotten more active.

And don't worry. Mama ain't done Making Changes yet.

If you liked this post and others on Mama Making Changes, please clickhere to go to Circle of Moms and vote for me as one of the top eco-friendly mom blogs. Just click here, then click the thumb to vote. You can come back to vote every 24 hours. Thanks for the support!

I love an ingredient list like this!

From Naked green machine:

Alternative Housing Ideas Gain Popularity

Lately I've been seeing more and more ideas for alternative housing. People want greener spaces that take up less space and blend into nature more readily. This desire to go green has induced designers to come up with some very interesting ideas for homes that are far from traditional, but are still quite desirable.
One interesting idea is the earth sheltered house. In short, this is a house that is surrounded by earth on all sides but one, including the roof. Think Little House on the Prairie. Remember the little sod house they lived in? These homes are super insulated for starters and often are built with upcycled materials like used tires. They typically have a modern look, but I have also seen some that look like more traditional. I've even seen some that made me think of a hobbit hole in the Lord of the Rings! Here are some examples:

Another interesting new idea is the tiny house. A tiny house is exactly what the name implies. It makes better of use of space than traditional homes so that fewer building materials and less land are used. Many of these are also easily moveable, so if you move you can take your house with you! Of course, they are easier to heat and cool also. Here are a few pictures of tiny houses:

Yet another idea is the pod home. A person buys a central pod that is great for one or two people. Then as the family grows, additional pods can be added to the central pod. When the kids are grown and ready to move out on their own, they can take one of the add-on pods off of the central pod and let the son or daughter take it with them! How neat is that? 

What about the tree house idea? We can't leave that one out because it's by far my favorite! I would absolutely love to live in one of these! Check out these amazing tree houses for families!

I think these tree houses are like dream homes! 

All of these ideas are new and different but quite appealing. What's your favorite? Have you seen some new ideas for housing that I've missed?