Eco Party Time

Eco-Friendly Party Supplies for a Rustic Farm Theme Celebration

Send paperless electronic invitations. If that's too informal for you, choose eco-friendly, invitations on plantable seed paper.

Reused and recycled are never more charming than when we decorate with the rustic artifacts found at flea markets and antique shops. For example: Old toy trucks can be incorporated in your tablescape as part of a centerpiece, filled with potted plants, or used to serve snacks at your party.

Event design and production by Merryl Brown Events. All photography credit goes to Medeighnia Westwick Photography.

Recycled food tins from the early 1900s can be used as containers for live flower cuttings or seedlings of lettuce, chard, basil, parsley, eggplant and tomatoes. Arrange

Today we’re discussing eco-friendly edible favors you can give your party guests as parting gifts. Your party favors are another layer in the theme of your event. Make your edible favors eco-chic by choosing fair trade, locally grown, or handmade goodies. Lucky for you, ecopartytime.com has amazing options for edible favors and packages to showcase them in including these amazing cotton muslin favor bags.

These bags are remarkably versatile and work for all the most popular party themes. (Melissa’s hint - Remember if your edible can dry out or has small bits, use our biodegradable cello bags inside your favor bags.)

How might you use these favor bags to enhance your theme? I’m glad you asked! Here is just a small sampling of eco-chic edible themed favor ideas.

Carnival or

Welcome to summer, that busy party time! I’m Melissa Wagner-Gens, Resident Green Event Expert for Eco-party Time and owner of Emerald Events & Weddings. Today, we’re going to discuss a favorite topic of mine – how to throw an amazing eco-chic wedding. Our first summer theme is a luscious one – Strawberries. Red, ripe, wonderfully sweet strawberries are in season most places from May to August. Using a seasonal fruit is a great, inexpensive way to green a theme.

For great picture and pops of color, place these red paper parasols in trees or from the ceilings of your venues. Milk glass vases and accents make a great contrast to the bright red and multi greens used in this theme. Another inexpensive but great décor addition is red burlap, which you can buy at most fabric stores. You can use this material to cover tables, as a photo booth backdrop or as draping. This

Decorations

Decorations for your Earth Day Party should mimic the natural colors of the planet - no crazy neon shades for this party! Earth tones for the ground, blues for the ocean and greens for the grass and trees are the palette you'll want to duplicate in your decorations. Party goods and table covers should be made from reusable materials such as organic cotton tablecloths and your everyday glasses. Otherwise, use disposables made from recycled or natural organic substances that can be composted when your party is over.

String Be Green EcoGarland all around your party space both indoors and outside. EcoGarlands are made from a special paper that is created from stone, that requires no water, trees or bleach in their production and 50% less energy than traditional papers. Unlike plastic garlands, these won't sit in a dump site

Unfortunately, too many products sold for filling those cheerful baskets are one time use items that, once they are discarded, will sit in landfills for many generations. Rather than contributing to the future health of our planet for our children and grandchildren, they contribute to its decay. Many of these well intended basket fillers contain toxins, artificial ingredients, and too much sugar, none of which is good for little growing bodies.

Therefore, we propose a new approach to Easter baskets. Goodies and gifts that will bring the joy of Easter morning to our children, that are as good for them as they are for the environment.

Use a Felt Goodie Bag - Instead of giving your child a plastic basket that will be quickly forgotten and tossed into the trash to sit in a landfill for many generations, choose an adorable felt bag that is made from all natural materials and will be loved and reused

Bulbs and Wheat Grass - Nothing says springtime like the pastels popping up from the ground as soon as the earth is warm. Tulips, hyacinths and daffodils are perfect choices for decorating your Easter table, especially since they are readily available at garden centers and supermarkets at this time of the year. Fill a 6-inch terra cotta pot with soil, and plant a spring bulb in the center of the pot. Next, plant wheat grass tightly around the bulb. Wheat grass is often available at garden centers, pet supply stores, or you could grow your own from seeds. Finally, complete the look by wrapping a piece of brightly colored sinamay mesh ribbon around the top of the pot and tying a bow. Place several of these arrangements down the center of your table. For a dramatic look, go with one color and variety of bulb; for a more light-hearted expression of spring, vary the bulbs and colors.

Bird's

Preparing for Your Party

Involve your children before the party even begins. Have them help to create the invitations for this party using recycled paper. As you make your guest list and plan the activities for the party, they will enjoy decoraitng these cards. Use accessories like felt flowers, eggs, and farm animals. You can feel good knowing you are using recycled paper and felt accessories that are eco-friendly.

There's never a reason to use wasteful and environmentally harmful party goods. At least, not when better choices are available. You can always use your everyday glasses and plates but, for the sake of convenience, why not use colorful Viva recycled paper dinner plates made of recycled paper that you know will be 100% biodegradable and won't clog up landfills for generations. Set them out on the coordinating Viva

Remember that thing you played with all the time when you were a kid?  It was with you from sun up till sun down.  You didn’t buy it at any toy store… it was free.  And it’s what could turn an empty box into a dollhouse or a broom handle into a light saber.

Where can you find this long-lost treasure?  It’s still with you – if you take the time to encourage it…

Your imagination – would your childhood have been the same without it?

Do you ever feel like our children’s generation is really missing out on the simple, creative joys of life?

From the day your child is born, you’re bombarded with singing, blinking, interactive toys with slick marketing campaigns to convince you the advantages of “starting education early.” 

I wasn’t immune to the claims.  When our son was a few weeks old, we asked our birth doula

Conventional baby showers generate a lot of waste and tend to use toxic products. Just think off all that rubbish that ends up in a landfill after a commonplace baby shower. A clean planet is the most enduring gift one can leave to a child, so start your bundle of joy off right with a eco-friendly baby shower that focuses on the health and well-being of mommy and baby.

Invitations & Birth Announcements
Look for alternatives to regular throw-away paper that contributes to the devastating loss of our forests. Shower invitations, birth announcements and even thank you cards that are sustainably made from recycled paper are a great place to start. It’s easy to go one step further with fabulous “tree-free”, plantable paper products such as the Little Giraffe Birth Announcement. This cute announcement card can also be used as an invitation to a baby shower

You're getting married and you've decided that you want to be environmentally conscientious about how you plan your wedding day. Maybe you want to have an entirely green wedding, with such high standards that Treehugger writes an article about it, or perhaps you're more like the rest of us, and would like to incorporate as many green and sustainable options into your wedding as possible, without hand-growing your own organic silk worms and weaving their abundant natural gifts into your wedding gown on an FSC-certified, sustainable-wood loom by solar-powered light, while drinking organic, fair-trade green tea.

Since I don't even know where to start with organic silk worms or looming, I'll stick to helping you green your wedding, one small step at a time.

One of the first things to consider when greening your wedding is your overall footprint. The less people you have, the less impact you have. You may or may not be able to control this