Let's Explore has instructions for a great homemade game that mixes up and simplifies puzzle play for four-year-olds. The best thing about it? It's made out of Christmas cards. Of course, you can make it out of anything...

The Tranquil Parent has simple ways to get your child a letter from Santa for way less effort and expense than you think, as well as how you may be able to help needy families through your local post office.

Eco Child's Play has a good list of green/eco Twitterers to follow, if you're Twitterfied.

We've always loved everything about Lush bath products, for adults and for kids, except one thing. But Treehugger reported last week that the company is now dropping SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) from most of its products. Awesome. If you don't know why that's great, the post will explain that, too. (SLS is one of the ingredients tracked in our ZRecs Guide to Safer Children's Products.)

Polliwogged's Sara speaks from experience about preparing for life with multiples, offering recommendations for a book, a blog, and an organization that can help make a challenge more manageable.

Green Daily showcases an interesting array of plastic-free play food from Etsy, including some made out of materials we hadn't even considered.

Herbivoracious shares a recipe for spicy chocolate pudding cake from a great-sounding book, Dessert Express, which features 100 recipes for delectable desserts you can make in under 30 minutes.

Looking for more actions you can take to help save handmade companies and their products, in addition to the five steps we suggested? Cool Mom Picks has published a Save Handmade resource guide with some additional action items and links to good information.