Kristie Serra Photography Blog »

It’s day FIVE, our last day for our week long celebration of Earth Day! It’s been an amazing week! I want to thank all the wonderful moms and kiddos, who have contributed to our “do your part” Earth Day series this week! Your green ideas and thoughts have been INSPIRING!! Also, thanks to everyone who has stopped by the blog this week! I truly appreciate the support.

As a bonus, Andy from Sandbox Threads is offering a special discount code for our blog readers. The discount is for 10% off all Sandbox Thread orders by April 30th. Use code: “earthday” at checkout. Start shopping at http://sandboxthreads.com/

So, for our last post in the the series, these three AMAZING women are sharing how they’re doing their part…

Lights off
One thing we are really trying hard to do is save electricity. Everyone is becoming conscious of turning lightswitches off. Also, my workplace wastes a ton of paper – so I take home the unwanted paper and my kids use the blank to color on and my son makes paper airplanes with them too!

-Kristine (amazing mom of three)

Saving water
We have been doing alot here at school with the kids through guidance and science classes so I decided to try and take some of the kids ideas and use them at home with my three year old son. We’ve been turning off the water while tooth brushing. We also tried to walk everywhere yesterday around the neighborhood instead of using the car (when we could) and axed errands after work for an entire week. It was so nice being home and just relaxing.

-Monica (amazing mom of one and elementary school guidance counselor)

Family garden
We started our little organic garden last year. Growing our own organic vegetables was something we had always wanted to try. It has been a blast to work on and so incredibly rewarding. There is nothing better then seeing yours kids picking lettuce (or any vegetable for that matter) right out of the garden and running around the yard eating it. And they have made a point of trying everything that we plant. This year we have added corn and blueberries.

-Cory (amazing mom of three)

Wishing everyone a green weekend. We are volunteering tomorrow to plant trees–this will be our first family volunteering experience. I am excited. It’s suppose to rain though, I’m hoping it holds off until after the trees are in the ground! That way the trees get a nice drink.

xo,
Kristie

It’s day FOUR in our celebration! Happy Earth Day! It’s late, but what a fun day we’ve had!

I am thrilled to share how these four AMAZING women are doing their part…

Making a difference
I love that some of the things I do to ensure the health and safety of my kiddos also help out our momma earth. So, we eliminated all plastic in our house. Instead of refilling water bottles we got a purification system and refill our kleen kanteens. No more pastic baggies- reusable bags work great and on Etsy there are some super cute designs. Forget plastic tupperware- glass storage containers are easy to wash and last forever. I also cloth diaper our little guy which saves money too. We also try to buy organic whenever possible- less chemicals equals a happy mommy!!

Jessica (amazing mom of two)

Small changes for a big fix
One of the things we are very passionate about is eliminating as much one-use plastic from our lives as possible. We have personally seen the effect of plastic on our beaches and oceans and want to stop the cycle of over use. What have we done? We take reusable grocery bags to the store instead of using the plastic ones. If we forget, we save the plastic bags and bring them back to the store to recycle. We stopped purchasing plastic water bottles and instead use reusable containers. I send the kids to school with reusable sack bags for lunch items and buy in bulk to avoid “snack bags”. I stopped using ziploc bags or other one-use plastic for kitchen storage and instead use glass containers. Small changes which will lead to a big fix eventually.

Tara (amazing mom of four)
To view here beautiful work, click here: http://tarawhitney.com/

Family garden
Our family has been busy planting a garden in honor of Earth Day. We have chosen flowers and plants that attract beautiful butterflies and who knows maybe a humming bird will come for a visit!

Jaime (amazing mom of two)

Lessening our impact on the Earth
We are trying to be more aware of our carbon footprint and take efforts to lessen our impact on the Earth. We do the standard grocery sacks and recycling. We’ve changed out our lightbulbs to low energy bulbs. We’ve stopped buying bottled water and now use re-usable aluminum water bottles. We also pack lunches with re-useable stainless steel containers The goal there was to save money and eat healthier. Sometimes, I go days without showering which conserves water (that is the life of a mom of 3–hahahahaha). Obviously what we’ll be doing this Earth day is taking a little time to see what we can intentionally do to change our behaviors and leave a little Earth for the generations to come.

Jordon (amazing mom of three)
To view her amazing clothing designs, click here: http://georgiagracedesigns.com/ and here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/georgiagracedesigns

It’s day THREE in our week long celebration of Earth Day! The emails keep coming (thank you, thank you, thank you) and their filled with such inspirational green ideas. I am overjoyed! Seriously, reading what other moms, families and kiddos are doing to make our planet a better place brings me so much JOY and fills me up with lots of HOPE!

To keep the celebration going, here are five AMAZING women and their kiddos doing their part…

Vegetarian living
My son, Cam, came up with the idea of creating a website about living vegetarian. It talks at a kid-level about taking care of the environment by not polluting it with animal waste, methane and antibiotic-filled run-off water from farms mass-producing livestock for meat.

-Christine (amazing mom of one)
To view Cam’s awesome website, click here: http://www.camsavegetarian.com/

Keeping our family green
I am going to have my older son and daughter make Grocery tote bags for us and for friends and family. We will attach a note to each bag that says: ”Keep those plastic bags out of the landfills. Please use these bags on your next trip to the store.”

-Antoinette (amazing mom of three)
To view this earth friendly project, click here: http://crafts.kaboose.com/canvas-grocery-tote.html

Turing trash into treasures
All year long we love to do lots of TRASH to TREASURE to art projects. We keep a huge bin of recyclables in our garage and this is where our art frequently starts— our favorite projects include a counting robot from spice tins and a bank from a latte cup. Another fun way we get our kids thinking about our planet is our annual TREASURE TRASH HUNT. We divide our family into two teams and go on a group little patrol. We have a prize for most unique trash item found and most garbage collected…

-Katherine Marie (amazing mom of four)
To view her beautiful work, click here: http://katherinemariephotography.com/

Keeping the plants and doggies green
On these warm Florida days, our elementary school requests that students bring a bottle of water to P.E. class. My kids will refill their bottles throughout the day using water from the fountain. After school they make sure that any water that is left over is used to fill the dog bowls or to water our household plants.

This keeps our plants (and doggies) green!

-Yvette (amazing mom of two)
To read more from Yvette, click here: http://www.examiner.com/x-10270-Pasco-County-Parenting-Examiner

Lights off
One easy little thing we always do around here (even our two year old son) is before we leave the house, we make sure that all the lights and t.v.’s are off. He doesn’t let me forget either! I also purchased aluminum water bottles to refill. But tomorrow, on Earth day, we are going to plant a little garden. This is perfect for my son because anything to do with dirt and the outdoors is right up his alley : )

-Dana (amazing mom of one, with one on the way)

On a side note, there is ONE day left in our first green giveaway. If you haven’t already entered for a chance to win, click here to do so: http://kristieserraphoto.com/blog/?p=2394 TWO winners will be announced Thursday at 8pm PST. Best of luck to everyone who has left a comment or two. Another super fun giveaway will be announced tomorrow! I can’t wait!!

xo,
Kristie

It’s day TWO of our celebration of Earth Day and I am thrilled to share more green ideas from my friends, clients and fellow photographers. The emails have been so inspiring–I love that everyone is pitching in to do their part to make our planet a better place!

Here are four AMAZING women doing their part…

Making a difference
I am all about recycling and I like to think what I do makes a difference! My recycling bins are overflowing every week and I love it! I have been teaching my ‘almost 2 year old’ about recycling and we practice putting our stuff in the bins. Being a mom means having a LOT of battery waste. So I now have a bag set aside for old batteries and I plan to dispose of them properly when the time comes. I’ve only got about 20 so far but it won’t take long. I just recycled 3 old cell phones last week – that’s another one people don’t think about. I send in my printer ink cartridges, use reusable grocery bags (when I remember to bring them in the store), and I try to buy personal care and home care products from environment/eco-friendly companies whenever possible.

-Summer (amazing mom of one)

Celebrating Earth Day
This year for Earth Day we are going to see DisneyNature’s movie Oceans. For each person that goes to see the movie during opening week DisneyNature along with the Nature Conservancy will help establish new marine protected areas that will contain miles of coral reefs in the Bahamas. http://disney.go.com/disneynature/oceans/

-Sarah (amazing mom of three)
To view her beautiful work, click here: http://www.blinkphotography.info/

Walking to keep Earth clean
When we walk our beloved dog, Fenway, my two daughters each get a pair of gloves and a bag and they pick up all the trash they see along our walk. They are completely disgusted about everything they find and on some days they can’t believe how quickly their bags fill up. Good news is, they would never even spit out a piece of gum because they understand how bad littering is for the earth.

-Jenn (amazing mom of two and dog-mom of one)

Getting the kids involved
In our household, we’ve started a compost bin…the kids LOVE helping out with this.

-Michele (amazing mom of three)
To view her beautiful work, click here: http://www.pinkletoesblogstalker.com/

This Thursday marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day–go green! To celebrate this week, I’ll be painting myself green like Kermit the Frog, just kidding, I’ll be sharing several special features on my blog! From simple steps on becoming more environmentally friendly to giveaways to personal stories of going green. To get things started, I’ve asked my friends, clients and fellow photographers to share what they are doing in their homes and communities to make our a planet a little greener. I’ve already received so many emails filled with such wonderful green ideas and I can’t wait to share them all with you! I’ll be sharing a handful of stories everyday this week, which I hope inspires you! Big or small, every little bit helps!

So, without further ado, here are four AMAZING women doing their part…

Celebrating Earth Day
I have sent out an evite to meet up at a local park and have “half work & half fun”! Half work, cleaning up the garbage at the park and half fun, playing after we clean up and share popcicles together!

-Leslie (amazing mom of three)

Leading by example
Our family has made being earth-friendly a game. We see how many things can go into the recycle bin (the kids have found a few things that I wouldn’t have guessed we could recycle!). We keep a garden and are blessed to live in a place where we can grow things year-round. We’ve done away with bottled water and instead we each have a Nalgene bottle we keep close, so we’re not using and tossing lots of plastic. We’re conservative with our water and electrical use. We’ve replaced the standard shower heads in our house with low-flow versions. We water the lawn and garden early in the morning. I LOVE hanging out my laundry and do it often. We walk when we can. We open windows at night and in the morning, and close up the house during the afternoon. We only use cloth and re-usable bags at stores (I love my Envirosax!). I cut up used paper (that is blank on the back) and keep it in a small stack by my phone for notes and lists.

We pick up trash when we see it and throw it away. We’re getting ready to put in a play area in the backyard with shredded tire tread as the ground covering.

I think it’s extremely important to teach children that the earth is a blessing; that it’s our duty to keep her clean and cared for. And, I know it’s my duty to lead by example!

-Rachel (amazing mom of three)
To view her beautiful work, click here: http://rachelclarephoto.com/

Every little bit helps
My daughter and I made some eco-friendly window and furniture cleaner using instructions we received from her Brownies troop meeting. We also wrapped books in old newspaper comics instead of regular wrapping paper for a charity function. Every little bit helps, right?? Oh — we also sent our bday invitations through e-vite instead of buying paper invitations for her classroom party.

-Michelle (amazing mom of two)

Getting the kids involved
My students will be making paper from recycled classroom paper and also planting a seed to take home. We are in the middle of a unit called We’re Going Green – it’s 4 weeks and each week we learn about a different part of the environment (land, air, water and plants/animals) and how we can make things better. For example, last week, we talked about landfills and trash. We did a ReUse It project: students brought in materials and made them into something new. The best one was a student brought in an old shoebox and some cereal boxes. She cut up the cereal boxes and used them as dividers in the shoe box and made an accessories organizer (and yes, she has a bow for each outfit she wears!) It was so cute and the kids were all so creative! We had banks, garages for toy cars, a rain gauge made from an old plastic coke bottle and even a sun tanner (an old piece of cardboard covered with a piece of “used” but clean aluminum foil!

At home, we have been much more conscious of recycling – the kids help with crushing the bottles and milk jugs, taking out the bag and helping to spot things that could be recycled! It’s cute – my youngest son LOVES to step on the milk jugs!

-Shelley (amazing mom of three and 3rd grade teacher)

Be on the look out later today for TWO GREEN GIVEAWAYS!

xo,
Kristie

That’s definitely the bumper sticker that I would proudly display on my car! I HEART that iphone of mine and especially since discovering two of my favorite new apps, Hipstamatic and ShakeItPhoto! Goodbye boring old cell phone images, HELLO fun and fabulous images! And, the icing on the cake? An inspiration challenge to leave the DSLR at home from Two Photogs (for photographers by photographers). The Two Photogs blog, which is a recent find for me, is such a great place to learn and grow as a photographer. I love that there are challenges and that I am able to connect with other photographers. So, fellow photographers, if you haven’t stopped by their blog, you should check it out! You’ll definitely be glad that you did!

Okay, so now, the challenge. I wasn’t allowed to touch my professional camera for this one and funny enough, my camera battery was completely out of juice, so I didn’t feel like I was neglecting it by using the iphone, just giving it time to rest and recharge (we all need that, right?)! We had such a blast exploring our new city and I have to say, I enjoyed not lugging the Nikon around! All the images below were taken with the Hipstamatic app on my iphone, no editing done, just pure fun straight out of the phone!

And, in honor of the iphone, I’ve decided to do a monthly post of our favorite iphone images. We took a vote as a family tonight, even Quigley got in on the action, and I’ve got some favorites ready to share tomorrow. I just thought it would be a fun and different way share my nutty little family on the blog!

Thank you Brandy and Danna for this fun challenge!!