P&G's Future Friendly Challenge and "Future Friendly Friday"

                                 
Check it Out!  My family is currently participating in the P&G Future Friendly Challenge and although we are a little green on the edges, we could get much better at it.  We have always recycled aluminum as well as newspapers but now that we are in the challenge I have thinking of different things that we can do that don't cost alot of money.  But wait, have you heard of the Future Friendly Challenge? Well Future Friendly is P&G’s multi-brand conservation education program aimed at helping consumers save energy, save water and reduce waste. It’s designed to provide practical conservation advice and branded products featuring clear benefits in water savings, energy savings and waste reduction. Through educational tools and resources, the program aims to help families conserve by focusing on simple, tangible actions that consumers can take in their homes.  So this is week one of the challenge and it is all about "In the Kitchen".  Using Cascade Action Pacs is one really great way to help because there is no need to pre-wash dishes which can save up to 2,600 gallons of water per year.  There are many other small and big ways to make changes too like unplugging all those small appliances that sit on the counter when not in use.  So is your family Future Friendly?  You can join in on the Challenge also and to get a jumpstart on getting the family in on the challenge you can get these awesome printable tracking tools, be sure and print them out on recycled paper and use them to reward your kids whenever they do something Future Friendly.  Kids love rewards and what a great thing to get a reward for!  GO HERE and print a great coloring chart that will really help get the kids involved and it's a great reminder for grown ups too!  Now I want to tell you all about my new weekly series I will be running for a few months called "Future Friendly Fridays" where I will be posting photos of projects that we have made using recycled items and some future friendly ideas too.  If you have a recycled project or future friendly idea or tip that you would like to see on Check it Out! with Dawn send me a photo and some quick directions on how it's done and you may see it in a "Future Friendly Friday" post.  So this week I want to share with ya'll what my 12 year old son DJ does with the boxes that come into our house.  If you have a boy, it's entirely possible you have heard of these fingerboards called TechDeck's. 

Well DJ loves Tech Deck's and has amassed quite a collection of the things.  However the play structures that are designed to play these things on can be quite expensive which means DJ doesn't have very many of those, at least the ones he wants most, so he decided to make his own and I am very impressed with the detail and the functionability of these things.  Using boxes, every kind from small to large and packaging tape he creates things like this, Check it Out!

Those are lollipop sticks for the rails.  Here's a look at the underside:

Here is another he calls a quarter pipe, made from a Velveeta box:

And a few more:

Okay so that is this weeks Future Friendly Project and it's from my own Team!  If your looking for some more ways to be future friendly you can GO HERE and check out the Case for Consumer Conservation for more information and resources.  Be sure and check back for next weeks featured Future Friendly Friday project!

**I received information on the P&G Future Friendly Challenge courtesy of SheSpeaks and P&G, however all opinions are my own.