It’s that time of the year again when you’ve got to decide whether or not to order holiday cards. Personally I get sad every year receiving fewer and fewer cards in the mail. There’s nothing quite like coming home to a full mailbox of holiday greetings and warm messages from friends letting me know how their year went. E-cards just don’t hold the same weight, literally and figuratively. Living in a time where e-mails are replaced by short tweets or Facebook messages, it’s often easy to forget how nice it can be do get a real card in the mail.

If you do send cards out this year, we recommend choosing a company that gives back. Not to toot our own horn, but Paper Culture plants a tree in your honor for every order.  If you want to skip the gift-giving this year, plant a tree for someone instead with a beautifully designed card. Now’s the best time to shop with a final sitewide sale of up to 50% off. There are many other companies that give percentages of the cards to charity. Choose a card design that reflects your style and personality. Consider adding a recently holiday photo. And most importantly, add a few lines of holiday cheer to let your lucky recipient know you’ve been thinking about there. Here’s to a happy and safe holiday season for all!

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.

Can a candy bar really be considered healthy? Probably not. But everyone needs a treat now and then. And if you’re going to go down the candy aisle, bear in mind that there is a whole range of candy options from not-so-bad to pure chemical junk. You might as well go for something with minimal junk. Yet when it comes to getting a sugar fix, we don’t always have time to go to the health food store to pick up a favorite like chocolate-covered organic almonds. One company is trying to change all that: Unreal.

Enter Unreal candy, a new company that mimics our favorite treats, such as peanut M&Ms, Milky Way bars, Snickers, or Reese’s peanut butter cups. But these versions are “unjunked,” made without corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, artificial ingredients, GMOs, or preservatives. And on top of all that they have a low glycemic index. Your kids won’t even be able to taste the difference. But what is really revolutionary is Unreal candy will be available in stores nationwide. It’s currently in stores  like CVS, Kroger, Michaels, Ralphs and Staples and will soon be available at Target. That’s 30,000 stores coming soon. Here’s to a slightly healthier Halloween!

This weekend we celebrate father’s day, thanking dads everywhere for being such swell guys. Looking for a last minute gift? You can recycle any old tie into something useful with this handy guide courtesy of Ecouterre. Find the tackiest, most out-of-style tie and turn it into something useful. Ecouterre provides step-by-step directions for making an awesome new guitar strap, eyeglasses case, camera strap, cellphone case, and pillow.

While it’s easy to buy a last minute gift, show dad you care with something made from the heart. You can make most of these with items you already have around the house: a bit of thread, scissors, a needle, an old button. Check out the photos for more. Do you have any more fun ideas for ways to recycle a tie?

Happy Father’s Day everyone!

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, the time of the year to honor the woman who gave us the most. Bamboo Wall Art makes a great Mother’s Day present. Just choose your favorite photo of you and mom and upload. Customize with a variety of sweet designs. In addition to bamboo’s wide-ranging green qualities, Paper Culture plants a tree with each order, so it’s a win win. Click here for details. But perhaps you want to go even more DIY and make something from scratch for mom. Here are some easy ideas that will be sure to put a smile on her face.

Breakfast in Bed.

We love this recipe for easy blueberry vanilla pancakes from the BBC. Add a few scoops of ice cream or whipped cream? Why not. It’s Mother’s Day after all. Pair with real maple syrup and fresh fruit. When it comes to breakfast in bed, presentation is everything. Cover the tray in fresh flowers or add a few momentos that you know are particularly important to mom.

Decorative Boxes.

Speaking of mementos, these easy-to-make fabric boxes are a gorgeous way to store any keepsake. All you’ll need is a box, fabric, glue, scissors and decorations. Choose fabric in colors mom loves. And be sure to put a few of your favorite family photos in the box to get the collection going.

Homemade Beauty.

For some reason exfoliating scrubs are one of the most expensive things to buy, but one of the easiest things to make. Literally all you need is oil, sugar (or salt) and scent. Whip up a quick and fun body scrub, throw in some natural essential oils and package it in a mason jar with a beautiful ribbon. Make a few different kinds and surprise mom with a small beauty basket.

Happy Earth Day to our beloved readers! We hope you celebrated our favorite holiday in a way that was both inspiring and fruitful. Paper Culture has set a goal to plant 1,000,000 trees, one for each new Facebook like. Click here to get going, and dedicate your tree to someone special. We’ve planted 200,000 since Earth Day last year and are looking forward to the many, many more trees we’ll be putting into the ground through 2012 and beyond.

Over one billion people are dependent on our earth’s forest for their livelihood. And the benefits of trees are innumerable: producing oxygen, absorbing carbon dioxide, fighting soil erosion, and cleaning the air, just to name a few. Planting a tree is one of the simplest things we can do to show our planet that we care about tomorrow. In the spirit of the holiday, we’ve listed below some of our favorite quotes about trees, courtesy of the United Nations Environment Programme. How will you commemorate Earth Day 2012?

“The symbolism – and the substantive significance – of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on Earth, and it is a way for individual men, women and children to participate in creating solutions for the environmental crisis.”

Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

“If you are thinking a year ahead, sow a seed.
If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree.”

Chinese poet, 500 BC

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

Greek proverb

“If what I say resonates with you, it is merely because we are both branches on the same tree.”      

W. B. Yeats

“He who plants a tree loves others beside himself.“

English proverb

“The best friend on Earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically,
we have one of the greatest resources of the Earth.”

Frank Lloyd Wright

“The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, ‘In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!’”

John F. Kennedy

According to my friends, everyone in Belgium eats speculoos cookies, which are light-brown buttery cookies with a hint of cinnamon (you may have tried one on Delta Airlines). In the morning, they dip them in their coffee or hot milk and patiently wait to scoop-up the dregs from the bottom. A few years ago a Belgian woman won a competition on an “invention” reality TV show where she made a spread of speculoos cookies. Now speculoos paste is incredibly popular in Europe and it has made its way across the Atlantic into mainstream America. I know, it sounds weird, but it is out of the world yum. Try it.

I bought discounted treats from two of my favorite online store Thursday night after having a super yummy Thanksgiving. And yesterday I got 10 yoga classes online sale at my neighborhood yoga studio. But the rest of the day was spent taking a little hike, watching ducks and turtles and climbing trees. And making another batch of carrot soufflé for our second Thanksgiving meal!

It is now the time of the year where we all really focus on being thankful for what we have, more than any other time during the year. It is also a time when we give and share with others, some who are less fortunate than we are.

I feel that it is important to acknowledge people’s generosity and caring all year by writing thank you notes for gifts, and when people are generous with their time. Everyone likes to be acknowledged. As a Mom this is twice as true (to make up for the kid, who rarely thanks you). Thank you notes are a simple and nice way to say “I appreciate you for caring and sharing.”

Although I have terrible hand writing and it often takes me a bit of time; I send out thank you notes. I take pride in crafting thank you notes that express my thanks for the gift and for the friendship. I have fun too. I enjoy picking out cards that I know my friends will like. Who doesn’t like love getting a letter in the mail?

+ I am thankful everyday for my family’s heath, that we have food and a roof over our head. And for the fact that my problems aren’t really problems compared to most of the people in the rest of the world. Potable water comes out of the faucet when I turn it. I don’t have to send my daughter to fetch water twice a day in a hostile environment.