Green Tips

Here is some useful info from Green Tips via the Union of Concerned Scientists:

The Green Dry Cleaning? article confirms one of my suspicions that dry cleaning isn’t always necessary. Wet cleaning, Silicone Cleaning and Carbon Dioxide Cleaning all fall into the green category.

Clean Laundry points out that environmentally friendly detergents should contain no phosphates, petroleum or chlorine. On a side note I’m currently testing some green detergents. More on that later.

Green Paint Choices for the Home.

Can Solar Energy fit your Budget? I would love to have solar power!

and the list goes on. Check it out.

Dream Kitchen of Tomorrow

The Frigidaire Flair is 2:30 minutes into this techno song/video made of retro commercials:

Yahoo Teachers

I signed up for Yahoo Teachers back in July and am looking forward to the public release. It will be a free tool built by teachers that will allow teachers to easily share lesson plans. I watched the sneak peak and there is a product called the Gobbler that lets you easily gather parts of web pages for a lesson plan. It is an awesome widget that allows you to grab text, images and links simultaneously from a page and drag and drop them into your Yahoo Teacher projects. The combination of collecting information with gobbler, organizing it as a Yahoo project and sharing it with a worldwide network is impressive to see all in one product. I sure hope it lives up to the hype.

The Frigidaire Flair in Action

I hit the Frigidaire Flair jackpot! I found a clip from Bewitched on YouTube that shows Samantha cooking. It is a video called Sam & Darrin - You Set Me Free. You have to click on the link to view this video. There are lots of love scenes from the show set to music.

Bewitched Season One Trailer

Another Bewitched Video that stars the Frigidaire Flair Custom Imperial. There are also some great views of the retro clothing and decor.

The Bewitched Frigidaire Flair

I hunted down a few Bewitched YouTube videos where the Frigidaire Flair makes an appearance. The oven is in the first minute of this clip that seems to be a strange promo for the show.

Google gets its Sky On

I was excited to see today via Slashdot that Google Earth has added a Sky feature to use within the product. It allows you to take 3-D journeys through stars, constellations and galaxies. There is all sorts of potential for teacher and student use during the school year.

Here are some helpful websites for users:
Sky: Educational tours (Made by Google Earth users)
Google Earth Blog
Ogle Earth

Crafty Salt N’ Pepper Shakers

Crafty Salt N’ Pepper Shakers

Originally uploaded by jjzach

We don’t use Salt and Pepper Shakers and I forget that the rest of the world does. After our last set of house guests seemed surprised that we didn’t even have any I decided to DIY a set. The plain set is from IKEA and I used some glass paint to add the S and P. In order to get a fine point I used my Venetian Glass pen.  On a side note, I had no idea which shaker was supposed to have more holes in the spout and Wikipedia reports that the pepper shaker does.

Photo Booth Fun

Photo Booth Fun
Originally uploaded by jjzach

The Smittens had fun with the PhotoBooth feature on my new laptop. Here is the whole fun PhotoBooth shoot. They stayed with us while they were on tour this month. Below The Smittens pose with the cork board that I found in the neighbors trash. The happy unicorn cork board found a home in the Smittens van instead of a landfill and will be used to display messages and merch prices at their shows.

The Smittens

Originally uploaded by jjzach

Homemade Cork Board

Happy Birthday Dad!
Originally uploaded by jjzach

I made my Dad a cork board for his birthday/father’s day this year. I have been saving wine corks for some sort of crafty project for a while. It was fun to piece together the different sized corks and pick out nice designs.  I only laid down one row at a time to make sure that the glue worked.

Here are my top 10 tips to reuse wine corks:

10. Pin cushion for pins and needles
9. Protection for storing sharp objects
8. Make a hot plate, trivet, coasters or bulletin board
7. Put a string through a few for a floatable keychain for your boat keys
6. Place corks inside planters to keep moisture in
5. Use for a science experiment (Make a water compass with a cork, a magnet, a needle and a bowl of water)
4. Make a hideous wreath for the holidays
3. Recycle your corks *See below
2. Sell your corks on ebay!?!?! (Who knew you could do that!)
1. Make a creative statement. Here are some great creative examples at Terramia | Crazy for Corks.

*Many countries recycle cork, but there aren’t any official programs in the US yet. I did find some information for recycling cork over at a site called Corkdork. The best U.S. recycling option seems to be shipping a bunch to a company called Yemm & Hart so they can be made into other cork products. Unfortunately you will have to pay your own shipping.