1 Happy Easter Photo Card, Paper Culture
2 Eco Plastic Easter Eggs, Eco Eggs filled with jellybeans
3 Painterly Pastel Eggs DIY Tutorial, Papernstitch
4 Porcelain Egg Candles, Revisions Design Studio
5 Milk bottles, Acme Party Box Company with striped paper straws, Just Artifacts
6 Fun table setting with kraft table runner, chalk drawn utensils and colorful confetti
* To view images of our spring inspiration, visit our Pinterest boards.

For an eco-friendly way to set up a fun table setting, bring in Kraft paper as a table cloth that will entertain both kids and adults. Using chalk, you can draw utensil outlines as well as provide an artsy alternative for guests to draw on the paper. Scatter the tops with colorful confetti in spring shades of mint green, coral pink and canary yellow. Not only will this brighten up your Sunday brunch, but also your Easter egg dying station. For beverages and things, we like to reuse jars and bottles like the milk bottles from Acme and accent them with paper straws (always eco chic!) in the chosen color scheme.

A good way to emphasize recycling materials is to bring them to life in new settings. In addition to using eggs to dip and dye, try using them as candles. You can break them in half, pour in soy wax and light them. Or, if you rather save your eggs for your traditional hunt, go ahead and check out Revisions Design Studio’s porcelain egg candles with soy wax! They’ve already done the job for you so you can buy them as is and set them up for your tablescape.

As an eco-friendly business, we like to support all things that help out Mother Earth, so we were extremely egg-static when we saw these eco plastic Easter eggs from Eco Eggs, which are made with corn and are completely compostable. You can use them as favors filed with jellybeans for a more casual spring party or even hide them with little prizes and treats for the little ones for their Easter egg hunt. Cap off your party by sending your guests away with one of our fun spring themed Easter cards from your family thanking them for hopping along to your party to usher in Spring and to celebrate this season with all its promises of new life.

We’ve always been huge fans of collages. All you need are some old magazines, scissors, and glue and you’ve got an instant arts and crafts project. We found a particularly inspiring project this year on Cool Mom Picks from the new DIY magazine Moomah. You can download a template, which includes an abundant cornucopia and the phrase “I am thankful for….” Look through newspapers and magazines Thanksgiving week to find pictures of characters, objects, animals, or even simply colors that your kids are thankful for. It’s a great way to keep them occupied while you’re cooking up a storm in the kitchen. And the results are simply frame-worthy.

Some of the best toys, whether paper dolls or paper planes, are the ones you can make together as a family. Moomah is a new type of community with a motto of “dit” or do it together, offering easy DIY that make fun projects to do with your kids. Their tagline: “Be inspired and know you are doing enough,” says it all. You can subscribe directly to their magazine to get smart, fun ideas delivered right to your mailbox.

Did you know that 65 percent of kids entering school this year will end up working in careers that haven’t even been invented yet? According to Cathy N. Davidson of Duke University, that means the need to be creative in life is essential. The new site DIY.org makes it easy and fun for kids to start enhancing their creativity skills early on. The website and app presents a multitude of projects kids can create at home. Once they complete the project, they earn virtual skill patches, similar to a Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts badge. They can share photos or video of their project to further enhance the feeling of pride of a job well-done. The projects range from easy and homemade, like making pickles or a smoothie, to medium-skill such as making an animal mask or rock collection, to complex, such as knitting a scarf or even making your own bicycle fenders.

We love how fun some of the the projects are, such as a cardboard birdhouse, scary monster finger cookies, or a marshmallow shooter. It’s the perfect solution for a rainy day, or any bored afternoon when your kids are sitting around wondering what to do. Turn off the computer and turn on the DIY. The site even has a parental dashboard to make sure kids aren’t sharing private information. Kids can sign on with an avatar and nickname, to make the site even safer. If you’re looking for a painless and productive site online for your child, it’s hard to beat DIY.org. We love that it provides online information for real-world fun.

We recently showed you our favorite DIY paper masks for Halloween. But what if you have a newborn and don’t want to throw away money for a costume on year zero? Fortunately all you need to celebrate the holiday with your newborn is an old onesie, a scrap of fabric, and some. Check out Rachel Low’s costume templates to turn any onesie into a fun costume. You can even increase the pattern size with your printer and make a matching sweatshirt to wear out trick-or-treating.

Our favorite is the skeleton template, complete with a little heartbeat. Or choose between a jack-o-lantern or ghost for more fun. You can use either a simple thread and needle to sew the pieces on, or, if you’re like most new moms, extremely pressed for time, fabric glue works just as well. And if you have artistic inclinations, you can turn any white onesie into a costume. Imagine drawing a Frankenstein or witch’s face with fabric pens. Don’t stress out this Halloween. Just find 20 minutes to spare and you’re ready to go.

With 85% of textile waste going to landfills every year, Halloween can have a devastating effect on the environment. While it’s tons of fun to pick out a costume and dress up, any family can make a night of crafting DIY costumes, and avoid creating unnecessary waste. Look around for wornout clothes, old sweats, or too-small garments. Many of today’s costumes can be made by hand if you have a sewing machine. Or if you truly want to make something easy, consider making an easy paper mask to wear on top of a colorful outfit. Paper masks can be tons of fun for kids and adults to wear. There are lots of sites that offer outlines for you to print out. Just color them in, add some sequins and glitter and you’re ready to go.  For masquerade style, glue it onto a stick, or for easy-wear just add an elastic band.

The great site Cool Mom Picks has rounded up their favorite online patterns. There are six fright-ready choices available at Mr. Printables, including a black cat, jack-o-lantern, skull and spider. They’re free to download. The patterns can also be used to make longer-lasting felt masks. The cutest patterns online are hands-down Wee Society’s DIY Wee Alphas, which are free cutouts that can be pasted onto a brown paper bag. These little bags are the complete costume. Choose between an owl, lion, fox and gorilla. For a more fancy option, Etsy store Shades of Every Color offers digital downloads for $3.99 each. Choose between full-color printouts of a peacock, owl, or deer. And if you’re feeling inspired, just take out some cardboard and markers and get to work.

Do you have any fun plans coming up for Halloween? Just thinking about October 31st is making us crave some holiday treats. But if you’d rather not add more sugar-laden candy to trick-o-treater sacks, consider dishing out a friendly eco-alternative. Etsy store Ivy Lane Designs has created some amazingly colorful recycled Jack-o’-lantern crayons. These frightfully fun crayons come in a party pack of 20 for $20. The candy may be gone in a week, but these are sure to provide hours of fun long past autumn. You can also try and make your own simply by rounding up all your used crayons, melting them in an old pot and pouring the mixture into your chosen mould or even a muffin tin. Read full instructions here.

Are you getting the new iPhone 5? Pre-Orders have already hit two million in 24 hours, more than double the demand of the iPhone 4S. Whether or not you need to upgrade is up to you, but if you decide to make the leap, what are you going to do with your old one? Apple has sold more than 244 million iPhones since its release in 2007. That’s a lot of old iPhones sitting around in the junk drawer. USA Today has created a handy list of ways to recycle your old iPhone to ensure that it doesn’t become another wasted piece of hardware taking up desk space.

There are the obvious ideas, such as passing it on to your kids for their very first cell phone, or to a parent so you can get them on the Apple bandwagon. But what about keeping it as a miniature iPad? Use it as a camera or even watch videos on it, if you have a Wi-Fi connection. Consider donating it to a charitable cause. Cell Phones for Soldiers buys calling cards for soldiers with the profits made from recycling old iPhones. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence refurbishes and resells old iPhones, with the profits supporting the group’s mission.

You could keep it around as a very expensive alarm clock. Or make a few bucks and sell it on eBay. Glyde.com and Gazelle are companies that offer cash for your old model. Or you can turn it in for store credit at GameStop or Apple. Keep it as backup in case your new baby is lost or stolen. Or stick it in an iPod dock and stream music. Do you have any other fun ideas to recycle your iPhone?

Ready to finally solve the universal problem of what to make for dinner once and for all? Meet mor.sl, a new website founded around the principles that we should be eating out less and making home-cooked meals more. Of course that’s easier said than done for the busy mom. But the brains behind mor.sl have put over a year’s research into perfecting the new site, and giving you literally no excuse not to cook.

How does it work? Mor.sl uses digital tools to help you navigate your kitchen. It learns your preferences, food allergies, and kitchen skill levels to recommend everyday recipes. Search by core ingredient, prep time, dish type or cuisine. It’s never been easier to plan the perfect meal. And you know it’ll  good because each recipe is hand-curated by top food bloggers and chefs. It’s the best of the web, right in your kitchen.

The startup aims to give moms the knowledge and experience necessary to plan, shop, and cook great meals at home, meals that would make our mothers proud. By taking the guesswork out of planning and prepping, they make cooking easy for even the most time-strapped people. All you have to worry about are the dishes. Try it out and let us know what you think.

We’ve seen a bamboo water-bottle, BPA-free bottles, bottles built for tiny hands, and now when you’re craving a healthy fruity mix, the Aqua Zinger! The device is simple. Add some berries, mint, or fruit of your choice to the small capacity in the bottom. Twist it on, shake it up and let it sit. The mesh screen allows flavors to seep through without adding any pulp to your drink. You have an instant fruit-infused water that sure beats artificial sodas.

The Aqua Zinger makes it easy to get your eight required glasses a day. The bottle retails for $25.95. Personally, we don’t mind a little pulp in our water. Make your own delicious drink by adding lemon and mint, or blueberries and raspberries to your water. Let sit for 15 minutes, add ice and enjoy. Use carbonated water for a real soda-like alternative.

A trip of young designers created a shopping bag, the H+Bag, that folds into a hanger with easy-to-fold instructions that are printed right on the bag. Hyojun Jeon, Younha Hwang, and Minjae Kwan took a common problem, how to reuse the many paper bags we get in shops daily, and made a creative solution, turning it into something with a creative purpose that can complement that shirt we just bought. The result is a sleek hanger that helps save closet space. And they even takes a tip from the dry cleaners, who sometimes fold their own hangers to protect your delicates. By not using metal or plastic, the hangers won’t create unsightly bumps in your more sensitive fabrics.

The designers explain: “In order to face against environmental problem, instead of plastic bags, paper bags have been activated by [clothing retailers]. However, it was also proven ineffective since customers throw them away after using them once. This causes another problem with wasting natural resources.” We love how they created a double solution through design. And it’s a bag that any clothing store could adopt. Imagine never having to buy hangers again. The design is an entry in the 2012 iF Design Talents. But we truly hope it will be picked up and mass-produced.