I'm Apartment Therapy's Best of Creative Reuse!

Look at what I found waiting for me in my feed reader after the Christmas holiday. Apartment Therapy’s green blog Re-Nest choose my picture frame dog feeder as one of Re-Nest's Best Creative Reuse of 2008 projects!

This is an amazing way to close out my first blogging year. As you may recall, Apartment Therapy’s Re-Nest featured two of my Condo Blues creative reuse projects on their blog in October, Blitzkrieg’s raised dog feeder, and my wine glass chandelier.

So, let’s see, that’s a big THREE stories featuring yours truly on Apartment Therapy this year. I blog I love and read even before I started blogging. Next goal – write an article or have a project featured in Readymade – another of my all time favorite magazines.

What a great way to end 2008! Have you had any unexpected good things come your way this year?

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The KOR ONE: Reusable Water Bottle or Swanky Hydration Vessel?

KOR set out to redesign the reusable water bottle and make it appealing to the nonsporty crowd because let’s face it most of the reusable water bottles out there are designed for the sporty folks. KOR managed to combine my teenage love of fashion with my adult love of product designs (seriously folks, I’ve geeked out over the posh design of an orange juice squeezer) and put it into one gorgeous looking water bottle. Wow. (OK. OK. They call it a Hydration Vessel when really it’s a reusable water bottle - but who am I to quibble with marketing semantics?) Imagine my delight when KOR sent me one of their BPA-free plastic Hydration Vessels for review.

The KOR ONE is a one of the few water bottles I have that I can but in the dishwasher. Given the rounded bottom, the bottle is surprisingly sturdy and doesn’t tip over easily. And just for fun, the KOR ONE features a “stone” cap insert with inspirational sayings such as “Never Settle” or “Laugh Often.” They also include a blank stone so you can create your own message. I got all Alice in Wonderland and made a “Drink Me” stone for my - oh, geez, I’ll just say it - my Hydration Vessel’s lid.

Skil Power Cutter Review

It’s no secret that I love high quality power tools. I know the big names and as I’m slowly building the tool collection in my DIY workshop, I tend to check those out first. That’s why I was very excited that the fine folks at Skil sent me their new Skil Power Cutter for review because up until now, the only experience I’ve had with Skil brand power tools is drooling over their XBench Portable Workstation in the hardware store. Unfortunately, the Power Cutter is such a specific tool that I could only use for maybe one or two specific DIY or craft jobs around The Condo, that I can’t justify drooling over it. Maybe you might though.

The Power Cutter’s designed to cut material that is up to ¼” thick such as carpeting, vinyl flooring, wallpaper, heavy fabric like canvas, window screens, plastic pond liners, or items that are a little too thick to cut with regular scissors like cardboard, foam core board, or heavy cardstock. I tested the Power Cutter on cutting cardboard, paper, canvas, and a remnant of vinyl flooring the builder left at our house and that I will someday make into a floor cloth. I found that the Power Cutter works best on straight cuts; it didn’t do too well on detailed curvy cuts. The Power Cutter didn’t take very long to charge up and they say keeps it charge up to 18 months (which due to deadlines for this review I can’t test that, so I’ll have to take Skil’s word for it.) That’s impressive because there’s nothing I hate more than to grab a rechargeable tool from my toolbox for a quick DIY task and find that the battery’s dead.

I’m in Love with Earthlust Stainless Steel Water Bottles

We have several BPA free reusable plastic sport bottles hanging around The Condo largely due to Husband getting them as promotional freebies in his 5K, 10K, and ½ marathon race packs. I’m not a big fan of these bottles because of the sport tops – it’s just too hard to drink water through them. Either I have to squeeze the plastic bottle and/or suck like a manic baby on the sport top to get the water to come out of the bottle. Even then I still don’t’ get a decent drink of water. In most cases, I just unscrew the sports top and drink straight from the bottle because I like to live dangerously.

Since I have some freebies and I generally not a fan of the reusable plastic water bottles we currently have, I’ve been slow to jump on the metal reusable water bottle bandwagon. Especially when I saw that some of those supposed-to-be-better-for-you-and-the- environment metal water bottles have plastic liners. So if you want me to ditch my current #2 plastic-but-bad–reusable-water-bottle for your metal-but-supposed-to-be-greener-but-lined-with- #2 plastic-reusable-water-bottle you had better offer me something that’s much better than what I currently have sitting in my cupboard.

Earthlust did just that. They make a naturally safe stainless steel water bottle that is not only unlined (no plastic in this reusable metal water bottle!) but uses non-toxic paints, and looks good.

I got to try an Earthlust water bottle and I’m hooked. First, I like that the Earthlust bottles are just plainer prettier to look at than some of those other reusable metal water bottles. In fact, some Earthlust designs are inspired by what the owner sees around her during walks with her child. I love that. I’m a total sucker for something that has both good design and an interesting back story.

EcoSmart Organic Insecticide Review

I have a little agreement with nature. As long as ants, spiders, bugs, and the like stay outside of my home, they get to live. Once they come inside The Condo, I will squash them like a bug. End of story.

For the first four years of Condo living this arrangement worked out very well. Until now. Some sugar ants decided to test my theory and infiltrated my kitchen via the threshold of a sliding glass door. Oh, I could squash all I wanted but more came. I tried caulking up the crack under the baseboard where those itty-bitty ants entered The Condo. That worked for about a day until the ants ate through the caulk laughing at me all the way- ha ha HA!

So why didn't I just pull out the bug spray, you say? One small problem. His name is Blitzkrieg. My dog likes to pull sentry duty right in front of that sliding glass door. Any bug spray that I use to kill the ants on the floor by the door will probably get on or in him, since he likes to lick his paws. And while I want to kill bugs I don't want hurt my dog.

Therefore, when EcoSMART Organic Insecticide contacted me about sponsoring a contest on my blog I jumped at the chance to try a free sample. I tried the EcoSMART Ant and Roach killer. It is made from organic plant oils (rosemary oil, cinnamon oil, wintergreen oil, mineral oil, and canola oil) and is supposed to kill bugs naturally. It is safe to use around children and pets.

But does it work?

Environmentally Friendly Low VOC Wood Glue, Who Knew?

Good things come to those who blog, or in my case, those who are lucky enough to win a contest because I won a nifty tool bag and two bottles of environmentally friendly wood glue called EcoGlue Premium Wood Adhesive from The Handyguy’s Podcast. Thank you Brian and Paul, you're the best!

Now I have to admit that not until I got the bottles of low VOC EcoGlue in my hot little hands did I ever think about the ecological or environmental ramifications of glue. It never crossed my mind. So I wanted to know what made EcoGlue so special. Well, it turns out that most wood glues contain Volatile Organic Compounds, which are also know as VOCs. In the case of wood glue, it’s generally formaldehyde.

Um, OK. That made me ask myself, “What actually is a VOC? What does it do? How much exposure to it is bad? And why the heck should I care?”