Browsing Tag

eco friendly

Green Your Easter: 10 Ideas for an Eco-Friendly Basket

10 Ideas for a Natural, Organic Child’s Easter Basket

Happy Spring, Friends!

Since Easter is only a few weeks away, this week I share some ideas on creating an all-natural Easter basket for children filled with eco-friendly, reusable treasures that will continue to be enjoyed year-round.

Click above to view this week’s video and discover many alternatives to a basket filled with sweets and candy.

All products mentioned in this video can be found at Bella Luna Toys under the category Seasonal Toys.

Here are the specific products mentioned in the video:

Have other ideas for special Easter basket additions? Please share them here!

April 6, 2014 by Sarah Baldwin

Family, Giveaway, Homemaking

Green Your Laundry + A Giveaway!

Have you ever put wool felt balls in your dryer?

No? Well then today I’d like to introduce you to my friend Cyndi Prince.

Cyndi and I have a lot in common—we live in the same community in midcoast Maine, and we are both mothers and business owners aiming to provide healthy, natural, and chemical-free products for children and families.

Cyndi is the founder of a great company called LooHoo that produces wool felt dryer balls here in Maine. She formed the business shortly after the birth of her son, having learned about the harmful effects of the chemicals in dryer sheets and fabric softeners.

Wool dryer balls are a natural alternative that soften clothes safely and really speed up the drying time of large loads of laundry, including cloth diapers. Cyndi has produced her dryer balls in a beautiful variety of hues that brighten up the task of doing laundry and make it more fun!

The inspiration to create LooHoo grew out of Cyndi’s creative passions (she is also a photographer), and her desire to create a consistently high quality wool dryer ball from local resources, durable enough to last for hundreds of loads.

While I love to hang my clothes on the line, it’s hard to do during the long Maine winters. That’s when I rely on my dryer more. I started out using three LooHoo balls a couple of years ago, and now have six in my dryer. I can attest that they really do speed up drying time, which in turn cuts down on our electric bill and reduces our carbon footprint.

Being the fan that I am of LooHoo, I was delighted when Cyndi generously offered to give away a Deluxe Starter 3-Pack to three readers of Moon Child!

For today’s giveaway, LooHoo is pleased to offer the following gift to THREE winners:

A Deluxe Starter 3-Pack of LooHoo Wool Dryer Balls

The set comes in an attractive box, making it a perfect gift for a green mama. (LooHoo felt balls are also fun toys and great for juggling!)

Each prize (a $27.99 value) includes free shipping within the 48 contiguous United States. The giveaway is open to all readers, but a winner outside the continental U.S. will be responsible for the cost of shipping.

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post letting me know what you think of this product. For additional entries, share on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or on your own blog, and leave a separate comment for each action taken.

Comments will close at 11:59 p.m. PDT on Saturday, November 30. Three winners will be chosen by Random Number Generator and announced on Sunday morning, December 1.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In addition, Cyndi would like to offer Moon Child readers 20% off their first purchase at loo-hoo.com through December 1, 2013. To receive the discount, enter the code BellaLuna20 into the discount code field at checkout. Thank you, Cyndi!

Leave your comment here to enter and let me know what you think!

Comments are now closed. Many thanks to all who entered.

Here are our three winners, chosen by Random Number Generator:

#1 ANANDAH, who wrote: “I would love to try these balls. I recently felted an 8 eight inch ball with a felting needle. The ball was the head of a millet baby I made for my son’s Waldorf school. The first millet baby I’ve ever made!”

#2 MELISSA, who wrote: “I’ve been wanting dryer balls for a long time and these look fantastic. The colors are also very calming.”

#3 THERESA, who wrote: “These seem great! Would love to try them.”

Congratulations! Cyndi will get your LooHoo Dryer Balls shipped right off to you. Hope you’ll report back and let us know what you think.

And don’t forget, the coupon code above is good at loohoo.com through the end of the day!

November 24, 2013 by Sarah Baldwin

green toys

Bella Luna Toys Wins Green America’s Seal of Approval

I am over-the-top excited to announce that this month Bella Luna Toys was awarded the

The seal is presented to businesses that go beyond product and service quality to set the highest standards in environmental sustainability and social justice, and work to solve, rather than create, environmental and social problems.

In order to be considered, I was required to fill out an extensive questionnaire documenting Bella Luna Toys’ eco-friendly practices and listing the countries of origin and fair trade and/or fair labor practices of all the toy companies whose products we carry.

Once this application was reviewed by Green America, I was sent a list of further questions and requests for documentation and certifications for our Fair Trade toys and documentation of sustainable forestry for our wooden toys.

After a months-long process, I was delighted to finally receive the news that Bella Luna Toys had been granted the prestigious Seal of Approval and permission to display Green America’s logo on our website!

Reader’s Digest Names Bella Luna Toys “Best Website for Fair Trade Toys”

And if that wasn’t enough good news for one month, last week Reader’s Digest named Bella Luna Toys as one of the “Best Websites for Fair Trade Toys.”

The article was posted in February on the magazine’s website. The editors wrote: “Fair Trade is a social movement trying to reduce poverty in developing countries by encouraging fair global trade practices and ensuring an equal and fair partnership between marketers and producers.”

What This Means For You

It means that when you shop for Waldorf toys at Bella Luna Toys, you are assured that all the toys we carry are made in the USA, Europe and Canada, or are Fair Trade made in other parts of the world using Fair Labor practices.
All of our wooden toys are made from certified sustainable forests, or from salvaged and recycled wood.
That in mindfulness of the earth’s limited resources, we use recycled gift wrapping paper, eco-friendly ribbon, and reuse boxes and packing materials, and recycle our own paper waste. In addition, Bella Luna Toys purchases credits to heat our office and warehouse space with renewable energy.

Hope you’ll join me and the thousands of individual members of Green America by choosing to shop with businesses who are committed to supporting the environment and social justice.

Are there any new green, eco-friendly or fair trade toys that you think should be offered at Bella Luna Toys? Leave your suggestions here.

One commenter will be chosen at random to win a FREE set of Eco-Eggs natural egg dyeing kit from Eco-Kids! (Winner will be chosen Friday, March 4 at 9:00 a.m.)

Congratulations to Krista H., winner of a free set of Eco-Eggs natural egg dyeing kit from Eco-Kids!

And many thanks to all of you who left your comments and great suggestions. Many of your ideas were already on the list of new products to add this year, and others gave me some terrific new ideas.

Keep your eyes peeled for many new Waldorf toys, all natural toys, and wooden toys to be added in the coming weeks and months at Bella Luna Toys.

February 28, 2011 by Sarah Baldwin