Ever have one of those moments where a suggestion to someone else's problem pops out of your mouth and you think, "Uh, why didn't that come to me before?" Well, I don't have them very often, those moments of brilliance. And this probably doesn't quite qualify as brilliant, but it was fun.
Last week our school had it's first "Go Green Night."
Wait, I should back up and explain a little.
Last year, a group of moms (myself included) started an effort to green our school. We made up posters with simple things to do - reusable lunch containers, no idling at drop off and pick up..things like that, and we bought sandwich wraps from Wrap-N-Mat to sell at a school functions. This didn't go over well with some of the PTO who thought we were a bunch of eco-snobs and it led to some ridiculous drama that I wont go into. But it also led to a lot of people buying the Wrap-N-Mats which is great because if you really thought about how many plastic bags go into the trash in school cafeterias, I bet it would make you sick.So fast forward a year and the PTO is now selling them at the school store and school events. And this spring the idea of a Go Green Night was proposed and approved. Now I can't tell you much about that because I didn't go to that PTO meeting, but when the night came around I volunteered to man the Wrap-N-Mat/no-waste lunch table with a friend.
The idea of the night was great. Reps from the power company came to answer questions about eco-power. Reusable shopping bags were given away. Farmers Market stall holders came and set up their stalls. Fantastic. Except it was a beautiful sunny day after a long dreary winter and there wasn't a lot of information out to the parents about it in general, so no one showed up. Which was good because then just about no one saw that they served pizza on Styrofoam plates.
At Go Green Night.
But it was also bad because now I'm sure the farmers will never come back. And like I said, the idea was great.
Anyway. As we were standing there at the Wrap-N-Mat table talking about how many wraps we would need to buy ourselves so the night wouldn't be a total bust, my friend Melanie noted that most of the good colors had been bought up over the year, leaving just plain white wraps to buy. And that's when my (somewhat) brilliant thought popped out.
"You could color them with fabric markers."
Oh my gosh, you COULD color them with fabric markers. Seriously, why didn't I think of that
before. I've been making Briton's sandwich wraps since he started school three (yikes!) years ago but I bought one last year that he promptly lost because it looked like all the other wraps people had. Well duh.So yesterday Evie and I decorated a (newly purchased at the failed Go Green Night) Wrap-N-Mat for Briton's lunch. And it totally worked!
Today I sent him off with his new wrap in a make shift lunch bag in a make shift book bag because someone walked off with his backpack when we were downtown after school yesterday. (Sucks, but he's been asking for a new backpack anyway and after three years of the same LLBean one, I guess it's time. Not that the backpack was ready to go, seriously, those things
last!)
So there you have it folks. Probably the easiest craft ever, which I should have though of before but, well, didn't. Have fun!