Saturday, July 31, 2010

Plastic Artist Palette Can be Good for the Environment

I use a variety of artist palettes when I paint, i.e. a clear one if I want to do color matching, a closed lid one for longer term projects, and a plastic well one for most of my acrylic painting projects.

I use the plastic well one the most, as it is small; that works well for my space. I usually paint on canvas sizes that are around 8-1/2 x 11 inches, so it also holds pretty much the amount of paint that I need.

The other thing I like about the plastic wells, is that once I'm finished painting, I set the palette aside and let the paint air dry. (I actually have several of these in case I'm working on multiple projects and/or at different times.) Once the paint is dry I peel the dried paint out of the wells. Most of the paint peels off pretty easily, and the rest I do a few scrapings with my finger nails. That might seem a little rustic, and sometimes a little time consuming; however, I'm keeping less paint from being washed down the drain. Then it's only what is coming off of my brushes that goes down the drain, so I see that as an environmentally friendly thing to do.



Cheryl Paton

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Word Puzzle Game, Bananagrams Product Review

My family likes playing word puzzles; if there is paper on the table when we eat out at a restaurant, we usually grab the crayons and play hangman. Then I came up with the idea of hangman on Post It Notes.


My daughter and I also like playing word search puzzles. So I was much intrigued when I read someone's post about Bananagrams; so much so that when I saw the game at our local book store, I purchased one for myself.

Bananagrams is a letter title game in which the players put together crossword puzzles. It's different than Scrabble, in that each player builds their own individual puzzle. The thing that I like about playing Bananagrams is that there is no timer, and every once in awhile, for various reasons, you get to grab more letters; and it's all in fun.

When there are less letter tiles in the grab pile than there are players, the first player with no remaining tiles shouts Bananas! That person is the winner of that hand as long as all of their words are spelled correctly. The other thing I like about Bananagrams is that there are no letter scores to add up.

There are several alternative ways to play the game, for instance, there is a variation for playing in restaurants, not having to grab from the center pile, and playing the game singly. You could also make it more challenging by limiting the game to making only words in a certain category.

If you like word puzzle games already, and/or like making words from letters, Bananagrams can be a hit for you.



Cheryl Paton

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Laundry Hamper Sorter Review

We used to have what we called laundry day. We sorted all the clothes on our king size bed in various piles, by color. And then we carried each laundry basket full of dirty clothes down the stairs to the laundry area. I wanted a new system and to have a clean bed - whether we were doing laundry that day or not!

We purchased two 3-section laundry hamper sorters, and it was the answer to my prayers. I now carry lighter loads of laundry down stairs and sort them in to one of six different colors, right into the mesh bag. When a bag is full enough to do a load, we do that load, whatever day it happens to be; and we just roll the hamper sorter over to the washing machine.


I like the mesh design, as it allows for better air flow for the dirty clothes, and helps any damp ones to dry; i.e. towels.

Since this unit is on wheels, we easily wheel the needed one over to the washing machine, and then roll it back to the side to keep it out of the way for walking through.

I would definitely recommend a laundry hamper sorter on wheels. You can easily wheel the clothes over to the washing machine.

I also pinned in cloth labels (I just cut it from some left over fabric we had.) to identify each type of clothing that was to go into each mesh bag.

Other styles are available. I like the mesh style bag because I think it helps air things out.



Cheryl Paton