My Favorite New Book

I've found the greatest new book: The Green Book, The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time.

It's full of hundreds of small choices you can make to have a big impact on the environment, such as:

Refuse ATM Receipts: Most ATM's now give you the option of getting a receipt instead of automatically giving you one. If everyone in the United States refused their receipts, it would save a roll of paper more than two billion feet long, or long enough to circle the equator fifteen times.

I love this book and will use it personally as well as professionally! Look for more neat tips on upcoming blog posts.

Taking Pictures for the Site

After I had so much trouble taking pictures of the earrings, I searched the Web and found some great information. In particular, this information helped most of all. I used the milk jug method, and it worked like a charm! Bookmark it in case you ever need it.

Official Site Launch Date: Labor Day

For those of you viewing my progress, I've set September 3 as the official launch date of TRASHformations.com! Thanks for your patience and your great comments!

While you have your calendar out, ahem, add November 3 to it, too. That's the day of the Trinity Bazaar here in Cola Town, and TRASHformations will be there!

For the Green Homeowner Who Has Everything

For the green homeowner who has it all, synthetic pine straw made from recycled polypropylene! A cool product, made here in South Carolina, too.

Cheeeeeese!

I started taking pictures of the earrings last night and quickly found out that this was not an easy job. It's not just point, shoot and upload.

This morning, I was up early enough to Google "taking pictures of jewelry," and I hit the mother load. Did you know there's even a book on how to take pictures for eBay? Fascinating.

After reviewing and bookmarking multiple sites, I think I'll try the "milk jug" method when I get home this evening. I can hardly wait - I have 30 pair of earrings to photograph and upload!

This is Taking Longer Than I Thought...

...but I want to get it right!

I'be got a BUNCH of earrings ready to photograph and upload to the site. My goal is to get those up tomorrow night. I also bought some FABULOUS beads that should be arriving any day now, and I can't wait to work those in to some earrings and post them.

I've also finally gotten a post office box. I got there in the nick of time and lots of people were irritated having to wait fo rme, but I didn't care. I was the irritated one LAST week - turnabout is fair play.

Once I get the earrings up, I need to put the finishing touches on the cards and get them up, which may take through this week. Then I have new projects to start working on...

I hope the Web site will be ready to unveil by the end of August. Whew!

Making Headway

Tonight, I made six more pair of earrings. I'm actually out of earring wires, so I'll have to make a trip to Michael's before I move forward with those. Twist my arm!

I also did a quick run of a new project involving soft drink cartons and business cards. I need to finish more earrings and post those to the site before I move forward on NEW stuff, but it's something fun to look forward to doing. And I love this little project; if they don't sell, I have a million uses for them already.

Ah, Winston is barking to come back in, so this will be a short post. Check the site again soon; it's changing every night!

USPS: Unorganized Stupid Preposterous System

So it seems that the hardest part of this venture will be opening a post office box! I won't go into the many frustrations I've experienced at the post office, but rest assured that it's not the place for the hungry, tired and/or impatient.

Lest you try to avoid the madness, don't think you can avoid a visit by calling. If you call 411, look in the phone book or even visit the USPS Web site, you will not be able to get the phone number of any local post office. You get a 1-800 number and have to go through at least five sets of prompts, recorded of course, to get the number. And when I finally got the number, it rang 25 times before someone answered it, yes, during business hours.

Thanks for the comments and encouragement, and also for helping road test the site. I made a few tweaks this evening, and I'm sure I'll end up making a few more before the weekend. I even worked on inventory tonight. I promise to let you know when it's ready to go!

Designing TRASHformations

Hi, guys! Thanks for finding me! I'm in the process of designing TRASHformations.com, which is taking longer than I thought! I'll be using the site to market my somewhat obsessive-compulsive hobby of making things from items most folks toss, continue to have my hands on a Web site and educate a few people in the process.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been designing with the actual site. I have finally gotten down to something I like and am now designing pages. I've also designed some business cards-slash-earring display cards and am comtemplating opening a small post office box. Now all that's left is to work on the inventory and post photos!

I actually have scads of the new ReWrite cards, which only a few of you have seen, but I need to photograph them and load them on the site. I really need to create a basic earring inventory to photo and post, but can't seem to find a quiet few hours. I also have plenty of ideas for new projects that I'm tinkering with, but there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to do everything and work, too.

So, be patient, and visit the site often - changes are coming! Also, please play around the site and let me know what you think. And once everything is ready to launch, you'll be one of the first to know.

Happy Recycling!