If you’re a builder or even a handy homeowner in need of some budget conscience repairs, you may be interested to learn about the newest building supply store with bargain basement prices – ReStore.

ReStore, an ingenious idea of Habitat for Humanity, is the go-to resource to find overstock, closeout and used building material items and home improvement supplies. It’s a new gem in Seacoast NH’s eco-friendly, green crown. The newly opened Restore in Newington, NH was orchestrated by the Southeast New Hampshire Habitat for Humanity.

Situated in a former Roller Skating Rink in Newington, NH, just outside the Fox Run Mall, customers can still catch glimpses of the former roller rink’s character in the leftover, neon wall colors and bright blue painted rink floor. The ambiance makes perfect sense for a store designed to be a haven of reduce, reuse, recycle.

In addition to being a retail store open to the public, ReStore also accepts donations of building materials, furniture, appliances, and of course, cash.  You can check their site for a list of acceptable donation items and how to best coordinate drop off.  If you are more ambitious and would like to get involved, there are number of ReStore volunteer positions available.

When I visited the new ReStore , I found the prices to be very reasonable, and they stock a wide selection of items to choose from, but like any closeout or discontinued items store, it’s a hit or miss scenario. You need an attitude of openness and a spirit of creative adventure. You don’t know what you’ll find, but chances are you’ll find something, and it just may be the perfect fit for what you’re working on.

Check it out:

ReStore
29 Fox Run Road, Newington NH
(the former roller rink near Walmart)
Open Tuesday – Saturday 9am to 5pm.

Lately, I’ve become fascinated by the idea of Guerrilla Gardening; the idea of covertly beautifying barren or run down areas of a City to make it more green, inviting and alive with the spirit of green. One of the more interesting ways I’ve found that Guerrilla Gardeners combat urban ugly worldwide is the use of Moss Graffiti.

Moss Graffiti is nothing like the territorial, spray-paint kind of street art that covers many walls, bridges, and lonely freight cars. This is something more alive and organic. It’s green garden art that adds a vitality and warmth to the dark, dank corners of any dull city landscape.  And it’s outlandishly cool.

From what I can tell, there are three ways to create Moss Graffiti. You can grow a whole wall of it and then remove the area you don’t want making a reverse design, stencil it on and watch it grow into your design, or paste it on in a ready-made fashion.

Strook, Reverse Moss Graffiti

When I consider all three moss graffiti methods, it appears that the initial method seems to takes the most time, planning and talent. First you have to find a wall that has the right conditions to easily grow moss and then seed the entire space with moss growing medium. Then you have to regularly water the wall so the moss grows into a large lush carpet. Once the wall is green, the graffiti artist then removes the unwanted moss using a high powered pressure washer. The result is a beautiful moss graffiti design. Beautiful that is, if you have the talent to create design using negative space. In my case this might be a bit of a challenge, but not for Belgian artist Stefaan De Croock  (a.k.a. Strook).

Moss Graffiti, Mosstika

The second method seems much more approachable for the average moss graffiti artist like me. Using a stencil or free hand paintbrush, you apply the moss growing medium to the surface and regularly spray it with water until the moss grows, revealing the stencil pattern as graffiti . This still takes a lot of time and effort, but doesn’t need as much creative talent to achieve if you use an outline.  This is one way Brooklyn artist Edina Tokodi (A.K.A. Mosstika) brings some green wildlife to New York City.

Moss Graffiti, Anna Garforth

The last moss graffiti method is the fastest and perhaps the most immediately visable. It involves pasting already grown moss directly to the wall surface using a flour-like paste.  The beauty of this method is that is quick and can be grown in advance in whatever shape you’d like or cut from already grown sheets of moss. Because it is applied rather than grown in place though, I do question its longevity. Would it easily wash away in a heavy rain, fall off if it got too dry or survive a strong wind?  London-based artist, Anna Garforth doesn’t seem to have had any issues with her paste-in-place creations.

All these Moss Graffiti methods have their merits, and you could use whatever method appeals most to you and your level of talent.  For me, I think I may try all three. I’m so excited, I just can’t wait for spring.

Moss is soft. Its velvety green carpet is a welcomed treat for tender bare feet.
Moss is pretty. Its vibrant shades of green paint the world with plush hues of beauty.
Moss is cool. Its lush growth in moist, shaded spaces calms our spirits and soothes our souls.

It’s no wonder then that gardeners, designers and artists alike are drawn to the magnificence of moss. We nurture its growth in the garden, use it in home décor, and employ it as a medium for expressive environmental art.

Gardeners enjoy the softness it adds to shade gardens. Decorators use moss to add a hint of green to indoor design, sometimes topping the soil on flower pots, or on the planters themselves. Artists are using moss in a new way, as outdoor green art or moss graffiti. Moss graffiti, different than the spray paint tagging that makes cityscapes look tired and warn, add a zest to the gray urban streets. Guerilla gardeners are using it to add a fresh splash of green life to their gray concrete jungle.

Whether you want to try and make your own moss pot for your kitchen windowsill, or join the guerilla gardeners to reclaim a city alleyway and make it a living piece of art, the method of growing moss is the same.  In my own attempt at bringing outdoor gardening indoors, I’ve made moss pots to add a bit of aged character to newer clay pots so they didn’t look like bright red beacons but rather seasoned and weathered friends.  Way back in 2000, Rebecca from Rebecca’s Garden inspired me with this moss milkshake recipe. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a current link to her site, but luckily I had printed a copy and tucked it away in my garden file.

MOSS MILKSHAKE RECIPE

2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt
4 ounces potter’s clay
Kitchen Blender
Fork
Moss
Paintbrush
Spray bottle

Pour the buttermilk or the yogurt into a bowl.  Add (4) ounces of the potter’s clay and stir with a fork until the mixture is liquefied. This will help reduce the wear on the blender.

Pour the mixture into a blender and add a handful of moss. Using the “liquefy” button, blend until the thoroughly mixed. You are now ready to apply the milkshake to your piece.

Pre-moisten the piece with the spray bottle. Then apply a thin layer of the milkshake mix over the surface of the pot or statuary.  Move the pieces into a shady location and be sure to keep it damp using the spray bottle. Soon you will have a nice addition for your garden that has aged gracefully.

Here are a few links to other moss recipes that I found online – some even include beer!

Environmental Graffiti
Heavy Petal
Green Profit

If you’re interested in Moss Graffiti and are local to Southern NH, drop me a note. I’m considering pulling together some guerilla gardeners to try this tactic in some of our less-attractive urban landscapes here in the Granite State.

I’ve been an Etsy artist wannabe for a long while now. It’s even how I’ve described myself on many of my social media accounts. “Diane Vautier, MBA Business and Marketing Consultant, entrepreneur, Etsy Artist wannabe and green living enthusiast. Practiced sustainability before it was cool.”

So, why the big interest in being an Etsy artist? Because I think Etsy is just awesome.

I’ve browsed the pages of the site with amazement at what people there create. The raw creative talent is inspiring and plentiful. Search by keyword, color, location or price and you’ll find just about anything you can imagine. There is jewelry, pottery, home décor items, lighting, baskets, bags, purses and art just to name a few. In fact, there are nearly one million handmade items to choose from (942,098 at this writing). Now that’s a lot of handmade beauty.

With so much admiration for the talent on line, I had high hopes of someday finding a talent of my own that would be ‘craft worthy’ enough to be listed on Etsy.  Finally in late in 2011 I found something that inspired me; using an industry by-product as a raw material. The true spirit of recycling (well, actually reuse), sustainability, and industrial synergy.  I was finally able to change my Twitter profile from “…wanna be Etsy artist…” to official “Etsy artist” with the opening of my Esty Store, Java Jayne.

Java Jayne Messenger Bag, Aprons and Journals

Java Jayne is way cool. Everything I make is crafted from re-purposed coffee sacks that I source from local coffee roasters, which saves the burlap sacks from entering the waste stream. I sew some really useful items like messenger bags, laptop sleeves, tote bags, and some really fun items such as journal covers, full aprons, waist aprons and firewood log carriers.

Java Jayne Messenger Bag

Admittedly, I was a little unsure of my rusty stitching skills until I really started cutting and sewing, and until memories of my 8th grade home economics class started flooding back into my brain. Then I was really glad I decided to pull out the old sewing machine that a friend had given me about 20 years ago. Once I had a few projects sewn together and a few more underway, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and level of work I was turning out. I am Esty worthy.

What’s even better is that not only am I now an Etsy artist, but my creations are even being sold locally at Coffeeberries coffee shop in Londonderry, NH.  How cool is that? Look out world I am an Etsy artist wannabe no more.

In speaking to a group of local artists and small businesses, Andrew Mack Jr. describes Facebook as” the new word of mouth.  One the biggest things about Facebook and social media is that it’s the new word of mouth, if you want to be able to get your business out there, this is a really a great place to do it.”

His audience, roughly a dozen or so small business owners and artists, gathered last Thursday evening to listen, learn and share on the topic of social media. The session, which ran from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm was the first of three scheduled sessions that Andrew is hosting to help the local art community thrive in a networked world.

The short lecture/workshop was held at the Londonderry, NH Leach Library and was free to the public. The next two sessions, also free, are scheduled for January 19^th and February 2^nd, 2011. For more information checkout  Andy’s website.

Are you a fan of the holiday season? If so then you’re probably spending countless nights and weekends fretting about and searching for the perfect gift for that special someone – the kind that reflects the personality and character of the recipient and the generous spirit of the giver.

But what happens when that special someone is eco-friendly? You may feel stuck, at a loss for ideas and way out of your shopping comfort zone. What’s a desperate holiday shopper to do?

First, don’t panic. Then consider choosing gifts that are local and green. Finding green gifts is easier than you may think. In fact, NH is brimming with great ‘green gifts’ ideas that could turn out to be the perfect gift for all your eco-friendly loved ones.

Dining and Getaways:

Everyone enjoys a sumptuous meal or a relaxing weekend getaway and you can find lots of eco-friendly options to both right here in NH.  Try browsing through the listings of restaurants and hotels at the New Hampshire Sustainable Lodging and Restaurant Program for some delicious, green restaurants and comfortable yet sustainable hotels. Your friends and family will thank you.

Although NHSLP is not a definitive list, it is a useful place to start when searching for sustainable locales and dishes that will make anyone’s mouth water. A few places not on NHSLP’s list, but definitely worth recommending are a few of my own personal favorites, MT’s Local (formerly Michael Timothy’s) in Nashua, NH and Republic Café in Manchester, NH. Bon Apetite and sleep well.

Gifts, Housewares and Home:

For a more personal touch, there are some outstanding NH retail stores that carry thoughtful and earth-friendly products where you’re sure to find just the right something for that special  someone. If you’re in the Concord, NH area, check out Bonafide Green Goods or see them online. They have a wide selection of unique and sustainable items for kitchen, bath, personal and home use. They also offer some workshops and post updates about green events in the area. They’re a useful resource for ongoing green activities.

Moving a little more toward the house and home side of things is Your Home, Your World, also in Concord and Green Depot in Manchester, NH.  Your Home, Your World focuses on design, décor and green living while Green Depot leans more toward green building materials.  Both would be excellent places to get a gift certificate for the green DIY’er in your family.

Food and Organic Products:

What’s better than getting healthy, locally grown dairy, vegetable, and meat for your family on a regular basis? Well, having it given to you as a gift of course. Why not consider purchasing a share to a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program?  The New Hampshire Agriculture Department maintains a list of CSA programs in the state to choose from.  If a CSA share sounds too ambitious then there is always the option of a gift certificate to one of the State’s best natural food stores,  A Market in Manchester, or Concord Food Coop in Concord, NH.

For a wide search of organic or related products and services in New Hampshire, check out the Organic Consumers Association’s buying guide where you can enter your zip code, specify the distance around it, and voila, you’ll get a listing of what’s available in your area. Find everything from pet supplies to pest control and everything in between.

Last but Not Least Options:

If after reading all these ideas you still find yourself with barely a wisp of a green gift idea, there are two last fail safe options. Both look to our local artisans for inspiration. Check out the online store at The League of NH Craftsmen where you can find incredible and artistic handmade items. Their beauty, creativity and craftsmanship will blow your mind.  Also click on Etsy, the largest online outlet for handmade crafts, supplies and vintage items (vintage as in “reuse” from the green mantra of “reduce, reuse, recycle”).  On Etsy you can perform a local search to find items in your local zip code area.  Look for me there as Java Jayne to see some of my own upcycled, burlap coffee sack creations.

Now go. Go find the perfect, local green gift for your special someone.

What the heck is RSS Feed Reader and why are we talking about it? It’s a good question and one worthy of a little discussion.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Readers function as our eyes and ears online. While RSS actually has two major components, the reading side and the publishing side, RSS “Readers” focus on listening and monitoring that helps us stay informed and up-to-date on what’s going on in our world.

RSS Readers

An RSS reader is a tool that lets you aggregate your own online content by subscribing to webpages. Those webpages can be websites, blogs, an online journals or news sites.  When the author/site publishes new content, it gets routed directly to you and appears in your RSS Feed Reader as a new headline.  It’s like creating your own personalized magazine just for you with all your specific interests organized for easy viewing. Every morning, instead of searching for top headlines, the headlines that you are interested in come to you via your RSS reader. Pretty cool, right?

RSS Feed Reader Benefits

The benefits to using an RSS reader are huge. Once you set up your RSS “feeds”, you don’t have to spend countless hours searching for interesting topics or industry news.  Your RSS feed lets you browse the headlines of top industry publications, favorite authors or quirky and obscure topics and blogs. It lets you aggregate what’s important to you and filter out information in which you don’t have an interest or which you find to be irrelevant.

An RSS Feed Reader also gives you an opportunity to engage with thought leaders in your industry by commenting on their posts. Commenting on the post of a well-known author also has the added benefit of search engine optimization by connecting your name with the more well-known online personality. Additionally, staying on top of current events can spark great content ideas of your own that you can write about and share on your own blog.

RSS Feed Reader Tools

There are lots of RSS Feed Reader tools to choose from. Personally, I use Google Reader. It makes sense for me since I already use many of Google’s other tools, but you can also find many other RSS readers at Microsoft, Yahoo, and lots of other places. Here’s what my Google Reader Screen looks like. I have topics organized into folders.

The helpful folks at Mashable compiled a list of RSS tools to make it easier to find, review and select one that’s right for you.

Once you select the reader tool that’s right for you, you can start selecting people, places and resources to follow. When you find a website or blog that you like, simply click on the little orange button (that is sometimes plain or sometimes stylized and a different color) to add the website or blog to your RSS feed.

An RSS Feed is a fantastic organizational tool to manage information more effectively, leaving you more time to use all the great knowledge you now have to conquer the world.

“No, really. I’m still creating lots of content”. That’s what I tell people when they look at my blog and don’t see many new articles and doubt I’m really blogging at all.

It’s just hard to find time to write for my own blog when I’m knee deep in creating content for others. I know that sounds like a weak excuse. But in my defense, I think the company I was working with got some interesting posts. Here they are.

• October 13, 2011. Local Hospitals & Public Safety Feeling the Squeeze of FCC Narrow Banding Mandate
  
• September 9, 2011. Why is Pager Coverage Vanishing in the State of Illinois?
  
• August 22, 2011.  New OnPage Feature: Web Console for Paging Management
  
• August 16, 2011. OnPage Has The Lowest Paging Service Rates Around. We Guarantee It.
  
• August 4, 2011. The Federal SERVE Act Could Rescue Volunteer Fire Fighters and Other First Responders.
  
• July 25, 2011. Pitch Your Pager Device for a Smartphone
  
• July 20, 2011. OnPage Officially Launches iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry Smartphone Pager Application
  
• July 12, 2011. Paging Customer Service. Hello? Hello?
  
• June 30, 2011. OnPage Adds Redundancy and Reliability to Our Own Private Cloud
  
• June 27, 2011. Finding Alpha Characters (letters) on a Traditional Phone Keypad
  
• June 3, 2011. Subscribe Now and Get Almost 60% Off!
  
• May 31, 2011. Healthcare May be Broken But Healthcare IT is Alive and WellMay
  
• May 30, 2011. Dialing a Letter (alphs character) on a BlackBerry Key Pad
  

Let me know what you think.

Remember MTV? Remember when there were actual music videos on MTV? Maybe you’re not old enough, but I distinctly remember when My MTV was “All Music, All the Time, Without Interruptions”.

Then it happened. Advertising found a way to infiltrate the purity of the world’s only music channel. Don’t get me wrong, I’m OK with advertising to a certain point, after all I’m a marketer.  But at the moment when advertising, and then television programming, accounted for more airtime than the actual music, it lost its mystique. MTV had lost that certain special something that had made it hip, cool and totally awesome.  It became just another channel.

Fast forward to today, when Twitter is that really interesting, new and novel technology. It’s a totally new communication medium that has a certain special ‘it’ factor all its’ own.  Twitter isn’t for everyone; the number of users lags behind giants like Facebook, but it does have staunch followers that speak their own language, follow new rules of connecting and most notably are loyal and influential. Much like the MTV viewers of the early 1980’s.  Much like me.

And just as I was a devoted fan of MTV back-in-the-day, I’m a faithful follower of Twitter today. Twitter has been a rich source of content with strong influence and authentic participants. I’ve met some incredible people who’ve added substantially to my world both personally and professionally. It’s been an incredible source of information, news, and networking. It’s been downright neighborly.

But, I’m starting to see cracks. Go online today and mention a top brand in your tweet and watch what happens. Within minutes you may be accosted with tweet bots inviting you to buy it, try it, or interact with it. The “it” being whatever it was you just mentioned. The intrusive robot tweets are generic, superficial, and totally distracting. It’s the same old hard-sell that I really thought the Twitter community was above. Apparently not.

I get it, it’s advertising, and advertising always finds a way to follow the cool factor and find the money. But on a personal level, I’m disappointed. The purity of the medium has made it so cool that the masses are adopting and changing the core of the community itself.  Like all good things, it cannot stay the same.

So what will happen to Twitter? How will it mature, change and grow? I’m not sure, but I’m hoping that it doesn’t become so overrun with automated marketing efforts that all sense of content value is lost.  Can you imagine it?

I want my Twitter like I want my MTV: All Tweets, All the Time, Without Interruptions.

Please share your thoughts. I can’t be the only one who want’s this, can I? Say it with me “I Want My Twitter: All Tweets, All the Time, Without Interruptions”.

I’m not a big fan of Christmas. There is too much commercialism, family drama, and what I’ve come to see as a total hijacking of spirituality.  Some may consider my attitude toward Christmas as being very Grinch-like. I just see it as getting through the season as best as I can, which is just barely. But the Grinch comment got me thinking of a way to help me enjoy it just a little bit more.

I figured if I was a Grinch, then there had to be others like me. So, I searched for the Grinch on Twitter. I found him. Excellent, let’s see who else is here. I searched for Santa, and found him too. In fact I found several versions of him. Now I got excited, so I started searching for the names of a bunch of characters from holidays past. Here’s what I found.

Santa Claus

SANTA CLAUS

• @NoradSanta (connected to the NORAD Tracking)
• @santa (who retweets NoradSanta)
• @OfficialSanta
• @OfficialSanta1
• @Saint_Nicholas
• @loadedsanta (for a more adult holiday humor)

Rudolph

RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER

• @RudolphHoHo
• @OfficialRudolph
• @RudolphRedNose
• @Rudolph (private, locked, no followers, no tweets)

Yukon C.

YUKON CORNELIUS

• @Yukon_Gold
• @yukon_cornelius
• @ProspectorYukon
• @Cornelius_Yukon
• @YukonCornelius

The Grinch

SCROOGE and THE GRINCH(kind of the same)

• @Scrooge (A Verified Twitter Account)
• @RealScrooge
• @Grinch
• @OfficialGrinch

It turns out, the holiday spirit is alive and well on Twitter. Some of these accounts are more active than others, and one @loadedsanta is bit racy, so be alert if you decide to follow it. Can you believe Scrooge is actually a Verified Twitter Account? How does that happen? What great fun to see so many characters represented on Social Media.

I feel like the Grinch whose heart grew ten sizes on Christmas Day. I’m softening. I think I’m going to go strike up some conversations on Twitter with some of my favorite holiday characters. Gosh I hope Santa remembers me (fingers crossed).

Who did I miss? Add other names of characters you’ve found on Twitter. It would be great to expand the list.