Is it a rainy day? Are the kids bored? Are you bored? Want to reuse some old junk you don't have the heart to throw away, or to learn how to fix something yourself? If you answered yes to any of these questions, visit a DIY website to learn all sorts of new ideas. Here are a few sites and projects from them to inspire you and make you feel a little like MacGyver.

Instructables

Instructables features featuring member created instructions, including DIY projects, written step by step with photos or sometime video. Some great projects include:

• How to use spaghetti to paint like Jackson Pollack


• Make your own light saber


• How to make an ottoman out of an old suitcase


• Recycling Plastic Shopping Bags into Yarn

Craftzine

The formerly-in-print Craft magazine now channels all of its energies and talents into its free online website. Projects include:

• How-To: Make a Laptop Bag Out of Fused Plastic Shopping Bags


• Soda Bottle Coin Purse


• Mending a moth-eaten cardigan


• How-To: Make a Kitchen Cupboard Message Center

Make-Stuff

Make-Stuff is for people who, you got it, like to make stuff! Sections include Kid’s Crafts, Recycling, and Holidays. There isn’t as much on this website and they don’t include photos. There are also some instructions available to those who have paid to become a premium member.

Ready-Made

Ready Made Magazine's website isnt' as good as the magazine itself, but has a section called “Project Archive” where you can search for project according to different categories like “Sew It”, “Reuse It”, and “Craft It”, and find complete instructions for great projects like:

• Kitchen Skin Care – make your own skin care products in your kitchen


• High Fidelity – Reuse a vintage radio to hide desktop speakers


• Stereo Lab – Recycling an old laptop to turn a built in stereo cabinet into an mp3 center


• Broken Flowers – Turning chipped dishes into showpieces

Have any favorite DIY sites or DIY projects to share? Tell us all in the comments!

When it comes to material to make everyday items, glass is one of the most beautiful as well as green materials. One of the main reasons it is environmentally-friendly is that it can be endlessly recycled. When recycled, plastic and paper are actually down-cycled, meaning they are made into a product of lesser quality. Eventually they cannot be recycled and end up in the landfill. Of course we should continue to recycle our paper and plastic, but we must do so with the understanding that we're prolonging their time of use before they will ultimately be discarded. Glass, on the other hand, can be recycled into a new glass product of equal quality.

It’s unfortunate that many grocery store items in recent years have switched from glass to plastic packaging. Hopefully we will see a reversal of this trend as companies take more responsibility for their effects on the environment and consumer demand for glass increases.

Here are some companies making recycled glass products I'd love to have in my home:

Fire and Light is a company creating colored glass tableware from recycled glass. The company was started as a partnership with the Arcata Community Recycling Center in Humboldt County, California. They are made of over 91% recycled glass and come in a rainbow of different colors. Visit their website to find a retailer that sells their tableware.

The Green Glass Company is based in Wisconsin and sells a variety of glasses and vases made from recycled glass. My favorite is the “Assorted Clear Pop”, a set of 4 tumblers made from old soda bottles with the colorful bottle design still in place.

Looking to remodel your kitchen? Vetrazzo has some beautiful countertop options made from recycled glass which makes up 85% of the material. They even track where the glass came from and provide you with a Certificate of Transformation that tells you the story of the glass that makes up the product that you bought. And when you have gotten years of use out of your countertop and you decide to replace it, Vetrazzo will take it back and recycle it into new countertops.

Vivaterra is a company committed to selling sustainable, earth and people-friendly products for the home. Among their many products they sell many recycled glass products. Some of my favorites include the Recycled Glass Terrarium in the shape of a pear. It comes with sand and four air plants that need minimal maintenance but create a beautiful display for your home or a great gift for a nature lover. I love the bright colors of the Sol Recycled Mini Glass Bowls and Saucers set. And the Recycled Glass Live Edge Servers would be great for parties.

Let us know in the comments if you have come across any great recycled glass products!

This holiday season many of us will be buying and receiving new electronics, including cell phones, digital cameras, camcorders and power tools. Many times these new electronics are replacing an old or broken one, and batteries that end up in landfills can leach heavy metals, lead, and acid into the environment.

In landfills, heavy metals have the potential to leach slowly into soil, groundwater or surface water. Dry cell batteries contribute about 88 percent of the total mercury and 50 percent of the cadmium in the municipal solid waste stream. In the past, batteries accounted for nearly half of the mercury used in the United States and over half of the mercury and cadmium in the municipal solid waste stream. When burned, some heavy metals such as mercury may vaporize and escape into the air, and cadmium and lead may end up in the ash.

You can make your holidays a little greener by recycling the old batteries from your electronics and encouraging friends and family to do the same. The best part about it (besides helping out the environment) is that it is free!

Call2Recycle is a non-profit organization that collects rechargeable batteries and cell phones for recycling. The company refurbishes batteries and cell phones for reuse or salvages materials from them for use in new stainless steel products and batteries. Call2Recycle claims that “none of the material broken down from the recycling of rechargeable batteries and cell phones makes its ways into the landfills.”

If you have old cell phones to recycle, it's best to go ahead and erase personal data before passing them on to any charitable organization. Sites like this one can show you how.

Call2Recycle can use batteries from products as diverse as:

• Digital cameras


• Camcorders


• PDAs


• Cordless power tools


• Laptop computers


• Cordless phones


• Portable printers


• Two-way radios

They accept the following types of batteries:

• Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd)


• Nickel Metal Hydrid (Ni-MH)


• Lithium Ion (Li-ion)


• Nickel Zinc (Ni-Zn)


• Small Sealed Lead (Pb) batteries weighing up to 2lbs each

They do not take alkaline, non-rechargeable or lithium batteries.

Drop your batteries off at one of the many collection sites including Target stores, Office Depot, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes and Sears. You can find a complete list on their website or call their toll free number 877-2-RECYCLE. Instead of making a dedicated trip and wasting gas, save the batteries for your next trip to one of the participating stores.

So this holiday season, keep batteries and cell phones out of the landfill and help educate your friends and family by telling them about the Call2Recycle program!