An Earth Day party is the perfect time to celebrate with some eco friendly party ideas. We're sharing reusable party supplies, and an earth inspired menu for the perfect celebration full of susainable enviromentally friendly ideas for entertaining.
Why We Love This Party
- We love the earth and want to celebrate all of nature's gifts to us, and try to take good care of our planet.
- It's the perfect excuse for a party!
- It was so fun creating a nature inspired tablescape, with environmentally friendly entertaining ideas.
- Our garden themed menu was delicious.
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We set up our Earth Day celebration in our kitchen and used lots of eco-friendly party options. We love the idea of a special dinner with family members and friends to celebrate Mother Nature on April 22nd, or anytime during Earth week.
Since Earth Day is in the spring and this time of year is all about getting back outside we went with a fun garden and mother nature theme.
It's still too cold where we live for an eco-friendly picnic, but if it's warmer where you are this would be a great party to take outside to your local park. Check out our tips for what to bring on a picnic.
Re-Usable Party Decorations
One time use party decorations are hard on the planet. They take a lot of resources to create and often end up in landfill after one use. Here are some ideas for beautiful at home party decorations that you can use over and over again and are perfect for a more eco-friendly party.
- Paper Lanterns and Honeycomb Balls
Consider choosing paper lanterns instead of balloons. This is a great way to reduce garbage. Balloons are usually made of plastic and can break down to micro-plastics. Paper lanterns are a great alternative. They fold flat so you can reuse them over and over again.
Be sure to choose ones in your favorite colors so that they go with all your party decor. Hang them in clusters with ribbons for a festive look.
- Ribbons and Fabric Strips
Using ribbons and fabric strips is a great alternative to paper streamers. They look amazing and festive and can be used over and over again as eco-friendly options.
Store your ribbons in rolls to avoid creasing, or use a steamer or iron to flatten them if they become wrinkled during storage.
Look for used ribbons at second stores, as an even more environmentally friendly party decoration option.
Fabric strips are great eco-friendly party decorations. Look for vintage sheets at the local thrift shop as a way to reuse them, and tear them into long strips. Tie them together with ribbons and lace to make a gorgeous backdrop or bunting for parties.
- Re-usable Glass Bottles
These are great for parties and picnics and offer a great alternative to single serve cans of pop, plastic bottles of juice, and plastic water bottles that create a lot of waste.
Fill them with juice, and wash them after the party to use again next time.
We love these as a great reusable water bottle or filled with juice or lemonade as a more festive option.
Use these with biodegradable paper straws, and be sure to compost them after use.
- Plates and Cutlery
Often when entertaining people choose disposable plates, and cutlery to make things easier, or because they don't have enough. But the items create so much waste.
Look for reusable dishes and cutlery at second hand stores, or antique fairs as a great option. These mis-matched floral plates add so much to our party table. They were inexpensive and are reusable. When shopping for mismatched dishes choose a color scheme or theme like floral to help it all go together well.
We also used mismatched vintage cutlery. Don't worry about finding a full matching set. The mismatched patterns create interest and look great all mixed together for the cottage core look. And they were really inexpensive at only $1 apiece.
- Cloth Napkins
It's tempting when entertaining to use disposable napkins, but investing in some beautiful cloth napkins will not only impress your guests but be good for the earth and help create zero waste when we're entertaining.
- Flowers
We love decorating with fresh flowers for parties, but it's much better for planet earth if we can use local flowers.
Shipping flowers uses a lot of resources. Mother nature will thank you for choosing some from your own yard or community garden and reducing your carbon footprint when you're entertaining. See how to make your own potager garden here.
Or you could pick some wildflowers -just be sure to pick responsibly and leave some behind.
Another great option is to shop for your flowers locally at a farmer's market or farm shop.
We also used a few dried flowers as eco-friendly party decorations, which are great to use when garden flowers aren't in season.
Lastly, we added some poted herbs. We love using these as decor, and also in cooking.
- Candles
We picked up some old candles at the second hand store, along with some brass candle stick holders.
To dress them up for our earth day party we got a little help from Mother nature. We used pressed flowers and flower petals and adding them to the candles using a little melted wax as glue. They looked so pretty.
Party Favors
We added some packs of seeds to each person's plate as a party favor. We love the idea of planting flowers or wildflower seeds to help the bees. Use them to make your own pollinator garden.
Menu Ideas
We had so much fun with our garden theme for this family dinner. This would be great as an Earth Day dinner or lunch menu.
- Flower Pot Bread
We made some bread in flower pots. We bought these reusable containers at the garden centre. Be sure to wash them and season them by rubbing them in olive oil and baking the in a 350 oven for about half an hour. While they cooled we made some herbed bread dough in our bread maker. Then we brushed the seasoned pots with garlic butter and added our dough to fill it about halfway. Let it rise in a warm spot and then bake.
Get our full flower pot bread recipe here.
- Pasta with Veggies
We made a pesto pasta dish and loaded it with fresh veggies for our main dish. Consider making a vegetarian dish for this party. It's an excellent way to help the planet. Vegetarian food requires less water, land, and resources to produce.
- Dirt Pudding "Plants"
We finished our meal with a delicious and adorable dirt pudding. Find the dirt pudding recipe here.
These looked so adorable and making them with the kids would be fun and a great way to get young children involved in helping with this party. Their little hands can help stir and add all the fun details like the candy rocks and mint sprigs. Be sure to compost those wood spoons used as plant labels once you're done.
We have such a beautiful planet, that it's worth celebrating. So often entertaining isn't very environmentally friendly.
It can create a lot of waste and add to environmental issues. But with some easy swap-outs, staying away from single-use items and substituting them for some beautiful reusable options, you can create a sustainable celebration that even Mother Earth would be happy to attend.
More Entertaining Ideas
Frequently Asked Questions
Store your reusable party decorations in a sealable bin that is labeled in your storage area and use it whenever you entertain.
Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 every year.
Look for them at the dollar store, with the party decorations at other stores, or on-line.
If you tried any of these Earth Day Party and Sustainable Entertaining Ideas or any other ideas on my blog please let me know how it went in the comments below. Thanks for visiting today!
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