Steel wool creates realistic storm clouds

See that? That's steel wool. Nope, not a photo manipulation or digital creation. Check out the larger pictures on this site and you'll be able to see it better.



This one isn't a real volcano either. Artist Matthew Albanese made it out of grout, cotton, and phosphorous ink. You'll want to check out the rest of his work, too, to find lots of interesting landscapes created out of household materials, including the Paprika Mars mentioned below in his explanation of how it all started:

‘One day I knocked over a tub of paprika and as I was cleaning up the mess I began to daydream,’ he said.

‘I thought it was a great shade of red and reminded me of Mars, an exotic place I could only dream of seeing.

‘So
I figured I would bring Mars to me. I went out and bought 5kg of the
pungent spice and created my first landscape – Paprika Mars.’

"Wheel-Skates" take the best of bikes and skates

I don't know. I'm not a skater or biker, so I can't really say much but the Wheel-skates from Chariot Skates look rather ridiculous and I don't know how much they'd really be an improvement over either.

I 'can' see the benefit of being able to go off-road a bit without having to be on a bike, but then again, these don't even come with brakes, so...?  Maybe I'm just missing something. Here's a brief description that explains it better than I could:

"....radical roller skates that seem to breach the gap and take skating closer to skiing and cycling. Finished in about 5.5 pounds (each skate) of carbon fiber, the skates roll smoother and provide better maneuverability, as if you’re skiing, in comparison to their conventional or even contemporary counterparts. Strapping your foot just below the axle of the (knee-high) main wheel, the Chariot skate also integrates a smaller wheel near your heel for extra support on rough terrains or grassy slopes."

Stunning snowflake pictures

We're going to skip the banter and send you straight to the link. Go. Now. They're gorgeous.

Looking into the Past - History meets present day photos

There are lots of these pictures for the Looking Into the Past project. It's such an interesting way to see how things have changed over the years in a single glance. It's particularly interesting when there's a single building in the historical picture but in the present day photograph, there's an entire city built up around it.

Rain, rain, roll away....

April showers*, bring May flowers, but sometimes they bring a lot of wet benches, too. Although surely an expensive idea, wouldn't it be cool to show up in a park or outdoor eating area and actually have a place to sit after a nice Spring rain?

*Yes, I know it's March...and not April 'or' May, but this is my way of hoping for warmer weather soon. ;)

Snowing billboards encourage people to go skiing

I don't know if this ski resort is using this ad scheme again this year (although I hope they are, especially considering how much they probably cost), but these are from last year.

They're not just snowing signs either. When weather conditions reach their optimum levels (wee, snow!), an SMS message is delivered to the billboards that tells them to start "snowing." This alerts passersby that they should "ditch work," as Gizmodo says, to go skiing instead.

Faucet vase - Perfect place for Spring flowers

Because it 'is' Spring now, right? :D

This faucet vase would be the perfect way to brighten up any bathroom. And if you're not into "flowery" things, I'm sure you could add some rocks or something. I'm going to assume that there's a double wall in there and the water that's pouring out isn't actually touching the flower or whatever you're putting in there, too, so nothing to worry about on the clean-side of things.

Baby it's cold outside - Warm up your trees, poles, statues

I simply must go - Baby, it's cold outside
The answer is no - Ooh baby, it's cold outside
This welcome has been - I'm lucky that you dropped in
So nice and warm -- Look out the window at that storm
("Baby, it's cold outside" lyrics)




We bundle up in coats and scarves, so why shouldn't the outside lovelies have the same privilege? And they're knitted, at that!

Recyclart - Where creative art meets practicality and eco-friendly

It's no secret that I have a thing for offbeat art and when you combine it with my adoration for geeky eco-friendly inventions, Recyclart had me skimming through page after page of pictures within minutes.

The people who submit things there seem to have found a use for practically anything. Some just look really cool like the chairs above, others are for practical purposes like using canoes rain gutters for house-side gardens, and yet others combine both and turn them into true pieces of recycled art.

~Edit~ Here's another site with a limited selection of pictures with some different creations based on the same idea. 

Glass-shelled hermit crabs

 

We tried having hermit crabs a couple times. For a family that was in contact with hundreds of animals any given year, the hermit crabs seemed so stereotypical and silly.

And so I wanted one, of course. :P

Of all the animals we rescued, rehabilitated, raised, released (can I get any more 'r' words in there? recycled, reduced, reused??)....we couldn't keep those hermit crabs alive. I felt horrible for it, too, because what should be so hard about hermit crabs? I did all the research and was intrigued by how they choose new homes/shells and how hard it even is to make them feel safe enough to do that in captive environments like ours. They were comfortable to walk around, both in a tank and in our hands or on the floor, etc, but to change to larger shells is completely different. It has to be perfect.

That makes these shells even more amazing. Read more about the hermits moving into these man-made shells over at the NZ publication.

Eco-friendly bathroom setup (that won't make you squirm!)

Okay, so I had a few of you squirming with the quirk about turning your fresh urine into fresh drinking water.

Well I'm back with a bit more pee talk, but this one is less disgusting and more practical. Unlike a lot of the "go green" craziness that sends some people to the extreme, this is bathroom setup is classy, economical, and just a great thing to consider if you plan on remodeling your bathroom in the future.

I'd love to see more designs like this created to implement environment-friendly items in everyday life without going to ridiculous lengths that most people won't go.

Like the first urine-to-fresh-water post, I found this concept over at thedesignblog. They describe it like this (find more info and pictures on their site)...

“Eco Bath System” is a new concept that combines the functions of a sink and toilet bowl. Drawing inspiration from the natural flow of water on earth, the Eco Bath System accumulates the water used to wash your hands which further can be reused to clean the toilet.

Powerbella gets the geeks outside in a geeky way

Treehugger posted about this awesome umbrella that will be available next month. Not only is it solar powered, but it's also 100% recyclable and waterproof. I'm not sure how many outlets it has, but after a day in the sun, it should have enough power to charge ipods or a laptop battery.

I'm sure it will be expensive and yeah, it's kind of eye roll-worthy, but I think it's a unique idea and definitely something I'd love to have. Yes, we should all get out in the sun and leave our electronics behind, but this is great for those times where I have things to do online and would now have the opportunity to take my work outside in the great weather. I love taking my laptop outside anyway, but a battery only lasts so long and unless the shade is just perfect, there's usually a glare on my screen. Yuck.

I'll be interested to see how many public areas end up putting these into place. I can see them being a hit at hotels, especially with all those people on business trips or all the family outings that may bring along their iPods/stereos/etc.

Turn your dryer lint into Play-doh

It can't actually be Play-Doh, so before I get into legal trouble, let me be clear that I'm using it the most generic of senses....."modeling dough" is more accurate and legal-friendly, I suppose.

You can find the quick and easy tutorial on ecochildsplay.

Summer is here and kids are home from school, so start saving your dryer lint for a rainy day. They'll love it!

And hey, it might make you feel ever-so-slightly better about continuing to use your dryer instead of line drying your clothes outside. ;-)

More Mother Nature -- Pictures from the Sky

And this time, I'm not even going to give samples of the pictures. They should be viewed as the larger pictures that you can see here, so just clicky the link and skedaddle on over.

Time-Lapse Wonders -- Mother Nature

Mother Nature has quite the abundance of artistic works, too, and I can't possibly capture that all in one post. This post of videos, though, is quite the collection of time-lapses.....videos taken of a specific spot and then fast forwarded so you can see how the day/event/etc occurred rather quickly. Here are a couple examples:

PJC--Google Has Turned the Lights Out!

http://www.google.com/intl/en/earthhour/

For Earth Hour awareness, they've turned their screen black for "lights out." On Saturday, March 29th, turn your lights out from 8pm-9pm local time. Check out the link above for more details about what's going on.

PJC--I Wanna Fit on Your Thumbnail

Yep, they're a dying breed, but not just because they're so tiny, unfortunately. Here's the caption:

A Gardiner's Seychelles frog rests on a thumb in this undated handout. A giant Chinese salamander that predates Tyrannosaurus rex and the world's smallest frog are among a group of extremely rare amphibians identified by scientists as being in need of urgent help to survive.
Taken from Yahoo and the link will become broken rather quickly, so why bother?

There's a lot involved with why so many animals are dying off, so I won't even get started on it. Instead, can you imagine sitting on the edge of a thumbnail like that? What would the world look like?

~Edit~ This 'was' posted yesterday, but I'd changed the date incorrectly from when I saved the draft, so it didn't show in the right place...oops!

Fluorescent Cats Glow in the Dark

This picture taken through a special filter in a dark room shows, a cat, left, possessing a red fluorescent protein that makes the animal glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet rays, appearing next to a normal cloned cat, right, at Gyeongsang National University in Jinju, south of Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007. South Korean scientists have cloned cats that glow red when exposed to ultraviolet rays, an achievement that could help develop cures for human genetic diseases, the Science and Technology Ministry said.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? At first glance, the picture looks cool, but I just assumed it was some fancy lighting or creative photoshop. I had no idea that the cat was actually glowing because a fluorescent protein it was exposed to.....nor did I have any idea that the cats were cloned.

Do You Ever Feel Like You're Not the Favorite?

Is life stepping all over you and it's clear you're not the favorite? Well, you're not alone. That poor bird is in the same boat, lol. This was originally sent to me with the title "How to Tell If You're Not Mom's Favorite." Mother Nature playing favorites....and you're not it? Hehe. :P

Once in a Blue Moon (Your Chance is May 31)

Thursday, May 31 brings us the second of two full Moons for North Americans this month. Some almanacs and calendars assert that when two full Moons occur within a calendar month, that the second full Moon is called the "Blue Moon."

The full moon that night will likely look no different than any other full Moon. But the Moon can change color in certain conditions.

The rest of the article with talk about the origination of the term can be found here, but just a head's up that two nights from now is a "blue" moon!