Earth-friendly crafts and activities

ARA. Nature offers many beautiful gifts and wonders to explore, and parents can help get kids outside to discover them when they step away from the television or computer screen. Here are a few fun ways to encourage your children to explore nature.

A growing trend
As more Americans are discovering every year, gardening is a great way to enjoy nature. Kids will enjoy starting plants from seed or picking out starter plants at the nursery and watching them grow and develop. Even a small container garden on a balcony or patio can yield tomatoes for salsa, flowers for an entire season or strawberries galore. Cook up your favorite recipes with home grown ingredients and donate any excess produce to local food banks.

For the more adventurous gardener, help your kids plant a "vertical garden." In the style of famed French artist and botanist Patrick Blanc, grow your flowers and vegetables in a fun new way. Try filling a canvas hanging shoe organizer with a light-weight potting mix and filling each pocket with one of your favorite plants.

ARA. Everyone will agree: This winter was long, hard and ugly. Chances are you're looking for something to make things seem a little less dreary now that spring is making its appearance. And there's no better place to start than with your home's interior.

"Brightening up your living space is one of the best ways to embrace the change of seasons after a seemingly endless winter," says Rachel Skafidas, color and design specialist for Dutch Boy Paints. "In particular, the introduction of crisp, new paint color throughout your home can usher in an almost instantaneous feeling of renewal to your surroundings."

What's best, adding revitalizing color doesn't have to be expensive or complicated.

"One of the easiest and most cost effective ways to give a room an entirely new appearance is with paint," Skafidas notes. "For a few dollars and within a few hours, any space can take on a completely updated look and feel.

By Margaret Malde-Arnosti, Landscape Architect

The owners of a historic Wayzata home wanted a landscape re-design to be in keeping with the architectural style of the period. They had four goals:

1. Improve the design of the driveway to achieve more privacy.
2. Eliminate the drainage problems. The site is flat and water always pooled on the driveway.
3. Turn a neglected side yard into a beautiful space with a view.
4. Plant new trees, shrubs and flowers in a simple, classical style to complement the house.

The central challenge was to create a functional circle drive while eliminating one of the two entrances from the road in order to gain privacy. The space was just big enough to accommodate an irregular oval that connects the garage to the home. To add historic authenticity, the surface was made from old street bricks bordered by granite cobblestones.

After exploring many options for dealing with storm water, the homeowner agreed to a permeable driveway. The layers of rock under the driveway and the grass circle are 3inches deep, leaving plenty of air spaces for holding any water that falls onto the surface or melts from the snow in the spring.

By Lynn Rogers, Financial Revival Group

A recent blog post on Startribune.com highlighted several disturbing housing statistics for our Twin Cities metro.   Among them:

Home prices were down 12.1 percent in the 4th quarter when compared to 4th quarter 2009. The decline from 3rd quarter 2010 to 4th quarter was 5.8 percent. And, home values in our town are down 32.6 percent from their 2006 peak.

Perhaps most shocking was that Zillow.com has estimated that over 42 percent of all single-family homes in the Twin Cities are upside down (compared to the national number of 27 percent), meaning they owe more on their homes than they’re worth. And we’re not done yet:  prices are projected to fall another 10 to 25 percent in the next couple of years.

(ARA) Homeowners renovate for two basic reasons: money and fun. Or, more precisely, they undertake home improvements to improve their home’s resale value or their enjoyment of their house. The best home improvements, however, are ones that deliver on both objectives.

Americans will spend nearly $141 billion on remodeling in the first half of this year, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. If you’ll be among the many homeowners opting to improve, rather than move, you may be wondering what renovations are likely to give you the best balance of enhanced resale value and immediate enjoyment.

Here are five home improvements - from budget-friendly to big budget - that provide noteworthy return on investment (ROI) in terms of increased value and improved enjoyment:

1. Skylights: You can lower your electric bill by installing skylights that will reduce dependency on artificial light and fill your home with natural light. You can obtain quality, energy-efficient, “No Leak Skylights” from companies like Velux for around $800 per unit for a standard fixed skylight with flashing kit.

Family Features. From pink screwdrivers and mini toolboxes to a surge of female-targeted home improvement sites and guidebooks, the fix-it-yourself revolution has come for women in the U.S. More women are taking on household problems themselves instead of spending the money to hire a plumber, electrician or contractor.

In fact, a recent study by the Medelia Monitor showed that more than 60 percent of women are more likely to tackle the work on their own. The majority of these women (63 percent) are being more resourceful to avoid the high costs of hiring a professional. And 71 percent of women say the desire to “fix-it-myself” stems from the empowering feeling of having the knowledge to improve their home.

May Yue, C Sweets Contributor

This is a recipe from May Yue’s book “Tao of Youth.” She converted a regular favorite chocolate custard recipe into something she can enjoy without having to consume gluten and casein (which are hard to digest). It uses coconut milk instead of whole milk.

Chocolate Coconut (Milk) Custard

Don’t even think about giving up dessert when there are such healthy alternatives as the following gluten- and casein- free treat.

(ARA)  The chill of winter winds might have you wishing for the first buds of spring, but garden lovers don’t need to let the cold season get them down. In fact, this can be the ideal time to start planning your landscape for spring and summer. Leaving the work until the last minute, when plants are starting to push up through the ground, will only delay your enjoyment. So harness your excitement for spring and prepare a plan with some expert help.

Tackling a landscaping plan can be overwhelming, so it’s a good idea to consult a professional landscape designer who knows the ins and outs of when, where and how to plant and how to install hardscapes. By starting in the winter designers will be more readily available to help you refine your plans, and you’ll be ready to get a head start as soon as the weather breaks.

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