We love solar powered stuff here at DIY Life. Hacking things together ourselves in the interest of reducing our environmental footprint really gets us going. This DIY solar lantern is just the thing to keep the spirit of Earth Day even after it's come and gone.

Noel from unplugged living gives us a full detailed tutorial on making the solar lantern. Covering each step thoroughly, and providing loads of helpful pictures, diagrams and part lists, this is one project that will be easily recreated on your own.

This project is split into a three part tutorial. In the first part, Noel explains the basic theory of operation, then goes on to explain how to calculate the value of the resistor. In the second section, you'll learn about the charging module and solar cell. The assembly instructions are clear and detailed. Finally, in the third part, you'll see close-up pictures of each piece and how they should look together.

Staying green isn't always easy, but it sure is important. Noel brings us inspiration by combining our desire to go green with the love for great DIY projects. Gear up for your next camping trip with a solar powered lantern.

Once in a while, I forgo my great love of coffee for a cup of tea. Tea is soothing to the soul, and leaves me feeling like I just relaxed all my worries away, even if it is just for a few minutes.

If you are a tea lover, and drink the stuff all day long, all those tea bags adding up seems very wasteful. You only use them once or twice and then end up throwing them in the garbage, unless you have used Francesca's tips on reusing tea bags.

Craft Leftovers has an image tutorial that tells us how to make our own cloth teabags that can be used over and over again. You'll need a small piece of muslin cloth, string, an awl to makes the holes, and needle and thread to stitch the thread into the bag.

For those of us that are into reusing an item over and over again, making your own tea bags is a great step in our never ending quest to go green. The homemade tea bag can be washed over and over again, and the tea leaves can be added to our compost.

[via: Craft]

Making a real effort to live more conscientious of the environment and our impact on it cannot be an individual movement. So many of us make the effort on recycling day, but don't talk to our children about what we're doing or get them involved in any way.

I firmly believe that for a family to be successful in their green efforts, it has to be a family effort. So, where to start? This article at ivillage gives suggestions for how to get your children involved in the practice of living green. They break it down by age, giving a real idea of what each age can understand and how they can participate. Here are some examples of what each age can do.