I have joined Hip Mountain Mama’s One Small Change challenge for 2010. The challenge is to make one change each month leading up to Earth Day, April 22. It can be small or it can be huge, something I will do to make a positive green impact and follow through with it.

My One Small Change for February is cloth napkins.  The last paper napkin in our house was used on February 9, and I hereby refuse to ever buy them again, even for parties or picnics.   

I already had a few (ahem, ten total) cloth napkins in the linen closet, so I pulled them out and put them in the kitchen.  Since we are a family of six, I thought we could use a few more napkins.  I thrifted a plaid cotton table cloth, whacked it into napkin sized squares and voila!  We now a grand total of twenty-eight cloth napkins, all placed in a lovely basket on the kitchen counter, and we are using them at every meal.  I have to confess – they don’t really NEED to be laundered every day.  Most of the time simply shaking the crumbs into the trash is perfectly fine, and the napkin can go back into the basket to wait for the next meal.

The best part?  That plaid tablecloth was a big one, and in addition to the eighteen napkins, I also made a matching table runner.  Nice.