Teacher Appreciation

Great Teachers Make Great Schools


On National Teacher Day, take time to honor local educators and acknowledge the crucial role teachers play in making sure every student receives a quality education.

The next National Teacher Day will be celebrated on May 3, 2011.
Give Your Child's Teacher A gift to remember!

Have your Jars Customized!!!!

Recycle/Reuse/Upcycle

Three R's of CDs in the digital age: resell, reuse, recycle
by Ashley Cullins
April 07, 2011



Ashley Cullins/Medill

CDs can be used as easy, light-reflecting candleholders.

A cathode lamp is one of millions of ideas for projects made with used CDs.
Cullins -Etsy

"Kusudama is traditionally a Japanese art of paperfolding that results in a beautiful ball of flowers. This particular piece is a modern update of my own invention, utilizing a single hemisphere and repurposed CDs!" - Cybele
Cullins - Reckless

Ashley Cullins/Medill

Reckless Records sells used CDs starting at $1.99.
Related Links
CD Recycling Center of AmericaMRC Polymers, Inc.GreenDiskReckless RecordseHowEtsy - CybelesqueEtsy - Oddartist

CD sales slowed 12.8 percent from 326.2 million units in 2010 to 373.9 million in 2009, according to Billboard.com. Meanwhile digital track sales managed a one percent increase that same year.



Not everyone has given up on CDs. “I really like listening to an album from beginning to end, “ said Beth White, 30, a lawyer from Ravenswood. “My primary source of music is my iPod, but there are certain albums where I like to listen to the CD or the actual album.”



But what can digital music junkies do with their defunct disks? Reselling, reusing and recycling are all viable options.

Resell

Consumers can resell CDs in good condition to stores such as Reckless Records in Chicago. The store accepts all genres of music, but the disc must work and come in its case with the original artwork inserts.

Customers can bring in any volume of CDs and the staff will look at the items individually to determine a value on the spot, said Robbie Hamilton, floor manager of the store at 26 E. Madison St. The customer can choose to accept cash or store credit worth an additional 20 percent. So if Reckless decides your Backstreet Boys CD is worth $5, you can choose $5 cash or $6 store credit.



Hamilton said the digital revolution has hit sales of CDs harder than DVDs, while the business overall has remained consistent. The collection at Reckless includes not only new and used CDs, but also vinyl records, DVDs and even cassette tapes.

Reuse

CDs can be reincarnated into simple drink coasters and candleholders, or incredibly creative artwork and furniture. A quick Google search for “uses for CDs” generates about 80 million results.



Cybele, a single-named artist from Las Vegas, makes Japanese-style folded paper flowers out of maps and attaches them to CDs to create unique art. She has been making and selling them on Etsy.com for several months. “I saved all the AOL discs that our mailman used to deliver all the time,” she said. “I also use them for my Miniachair Tableaux.”

She recommended fellow Etsy user “oddartist” who melts down CDs and other media to create bowls and jewelry.



Lifehacker.com features a cathode lamp made from CDs. It’s “a mod bluish torch with which any geek would be proud to light his mother's basement,” according to the website.



EHow.com offers instructions for making driveway reflectors, sun-catchers, clocks, curtains and chandeliers.



Recycle



CDs and jewel cases aren’t generally accepted in community recycling programs, according to earth911.com. But consumers don’t have to choose between storing them indefinitely in a dusty attic and sending them to a landfill.



MRC Polymers Inc., 3535 W. 31st St., accepts "post-consumer" plastics, including CDs.



CD Recycling Centers of America in Salem, N.H., offers a mail-in option for consumers who can’t bring their used CDs to a local recycling center. The CDs, jewel cases and paper inserts must be separated and can be mailed in any quantity. There is no charge for the service, but the consumer pays shipping. The CDs are destroyed and new items are made from the recycled plastic resin.



GreenDisk considers CDs technotrash, along with VHS tapes, batteries, small electronics and hard drives, and also provides a recycling service for a fee. Consumers can mail in their used CDs and GreenDisk will erase the disks and rewrite and re-label them for redistribution. Fees are based on the content and weight of the items being recycled.



Next time you stub your toe on that box of long-unused CDs, consider reusing, reselling, or recycling them.




Featured Etsy Shops
Cyberlesque
Oddartist

CNBC Media Money

Empire
Published: Thursday, 31 Mar 2011 | 4:53 PM ET
Text Size
By: Julia Boorstin
CNBC Correspondent



Etsy is like eBay, but for a niche market — handmade goods. If you've not one of the site's eight million shoppers, imagine a hipster's DIY dream of handicrafts and art. Instead of buying something mass-produced from a giant corporation, you get to browse for a unique gem.

Etsy
Source: Etsy.com
Over 800,000 people sell their homemade products on the site, everything from jewelry and clothing, to furniture and music. There's a lot that makes Etsy different from eBay [EBAY 31.84 0.45 (+1.43%) ], beyond the fact that sellers set prices rather than hosting auctions. On Etsy every item has a story, and the company considers its sellers a community. You can search items not just by variety, but also by the location of the seller. So if you want, you can opt to support just your local Brooklyn or Silverlake handicrafts.

Etsy may be all about shoppers finding unique items, but it's also a serious business. Here's how it works: it's free to set up a "shop" on the site. It costs 20 cents to list an item and Etsy gets 3.5 percent of every transaction. And that's an increasingly large pie: sales topped $314 million last year and are growing fast.

Etsy's COO Adam Freed tells us this is just the beginning.

In addition to international growth the company is seeing growth in all of its categories. And the company is rolling out more features to make shopping more personal. And the more personal the experience, the more the company expects shoppers to buy.

Investors are on board: Etsy has raised over $50 million from top VCs including Accell Partners and Union Square Ventures. And individual investors are also hungry for a piece of the business. Etsy was the third most traded company on Second Market last quarter, behind only LinkedIn and Facebook.

Etsy's community has had its problems. Just this month it faced major outcry after buyers found that feedback posts, purchases and user profiles, and on occasion even real names, were made public. The company responded by tightening its privacy settings. COO Freed tells us that it takes its members (shoppers) privacy very seriously, and that the company made a fast feature change as soon as it realized there was an issue. Freed seems to understand that even with "communities" like Etsy's, people need to be able to maintain their privacy.

Etsy Photo Shoot Video

For a behind-the-scenes look at our big Etsy photo shoot and to learn more about Etsy power sellers, watch this video:

Recycle/Reuse/Upcycle

The Blue cobalt dish was just completed. I turned a blue cobalt water bottle into a beautiful amazing dish. The dish is cleaned,sanitized,fused,slumped,etched and wire wrapped with beads. I LOVE it! Let me know what you think.

Recycle Glass

How do you reuse/upcycle different items in your everyday life?

I guess its time to stop buying new glass for my glass projects and start using what is already available. Glass does last forever. I might as well use it. My current project is cobalt glass water bottles and actually they can be used as vases with out even redesigning them.
Ive decided to slump and etch mine. My first one is slumped into a shallow bowl shape and decorated with beads and etch work! So Fun! I love the reusing the items!

Earth Grrrl Crafts

http://www.etsy.com/shop/EarthGrrrlCrafts
25% off on all items to help pay for my cat's Emergency vet bill. It's up over $2,000 at this point, and may be higher before all is said and done. Checkout code Earth25 for 25% off. Everything on sale 25% off! Great deals!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/EarthGrrrlCrafts

Stone Carving

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=69016&sitesection=ndnsubss&VID=23385963

Stone Carving Video
An extinct art form?

Urban Zen, Hand-knitted Spacemen and STEM Education

Urban Zen, Hand-knitted Spacemen and STEM Education

NASA has lately reached out to girls and young women in its efforts to attract and retain students in science, technology, engineering and math. It has partnered with the Foundation for Advancing Women Now (FFAWN), created by singer Mary J. Blige, and even worked with the online art and crafts marketplace Etsy.

Earlier this week, the agency led an education forum in New York City designed to encourage young people – especially girls, organizers said – to pursue studies and careers in STEM. With an audience of more than 200 middle school and high school students, the event featured talks by NASA senior officials and even a Q&A with astronaut Cady Coleman, who was able to participate even though she is living and working aboard the International Space Station.

In hosting this forum, NASA collaborated with fashion designer Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Foundation as well as the Foundation for Advancing Women Now. “By collaborating with organizations like Urban Zen and FFAWN, whose missions are aligned with ours, we can identify and reach out to students who may not otherwise realize the opportunities that are available,” said NASA’s Associate Administrator for Education – and former astronaut – Leland Melvin.

Just a few days before, across the East River in Brooklyn, NASA and Etsy announced the winners of the “Space Craft” contest. Here, entrants were challenged to create handmade art and crafts inspired by NASA programs, including the space shuttle, human spaceflight, aeronautics, science and exploration of the universe.

The goal of this rather unique collaboration was to inspire Etsy’s 5.8 million members – the majority of whom are women, NASA said – to learn more about the agency’s past, present and future exploration programs.

The contest received more than 600 entries in three categories: two-dimensional original art, reproductions of original pieces and three-dimensional art. The two-dimensional entries included paintings, drawings, rings, mixed media, photographs and computer-generated prints. The three-dimensional pieces, everything from wearable art to furniture.

Finalists included the “Major Tom” hand-knitted spaceman and “Space Odyssey,” a stained-glass transom. View these and other entries here:  www.etsy.com/nasa