Andy's Idea Factory

Ever since living on the farm in Oregon and learning all the old world holistic trades, I have been a big proponent of do-it-yourself home care. Be it for skin, hair, eating or cleaning, there's so much to be said about making your own. And one of our go-to items is a healing comfrey salve. Burt's Bees makes a great version ( Dr. Burts ), and there are several others like it you can buy at Natural Grocers, Whole Foods, etc. So if you don't have time, having one of these store bought versions in your first aid kit or cabinet is a great idea. The magic of the comfrey plant is legendary - the Native Americans called it "Knit Bone," and used it for all sorts of internal and external remedies. In our house, we use it for rashes, stings, cuts, nicks, scrapes, and most of all, burns. Most versions (home made or store bought) include lavender in their blend, which is an immediate and must-have cure for burns. So this summer, when our comfrey plants took over the f...

Healthline launched two programs this year to support people with symptoms of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Healthline's new #pselfie program is a collection of photos from people living with psoriasis. Users can upload a photo on Instragram or Twitter with the hashtag #pselfie or upload a photo directly onto our page. You can view the photos here: http://www.healthline.com/health/psoriasis/selfie/photos-and-quotes For every photo they receive, they will donate $10 to the National Psoriasis Foundation. They've also launched You’ve Got This, a collection of videos submitted by those living with psoriasis giving hope and encouragement to others with the condition. Again, for every video they'll donate $10 to the National Psoriasis Foundation. View the videos here: http://www.healthline.com/health/psoriasis/youve-got-this Last, Words You Should Know for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. All of the terms and definitions were submitted by users from Healthline's ...

In October we posted when we first got our Tower Garden . Now it's time to share a little about what we've learned! A quick summary and recap: What's a Tower Garden ?  First, it's compact: It's literally a 4 foot tall by 1 foot wide white tower with 20 net pots that sits atop a 1 foot by 3 foot 20 gallon reservoir. Next, it's water and energy efficient: A pump inside the reservoir distributes water with nutrients to the plants' roots that hang from the net pots. In recycling the water every 15 minutes, the Tower Garden uses 10% of the water that traditional gardening does. It's also on a 125 watt timer (included), so it waters the roots every 30 minutes for 15 minutes, meaning no work for you, and costing about $4 per month to run. So on to what we've learned - Chapter 1 Seeds and Lights ... For anyone who says they can't garden - either born without a green thumb, devoid of space (apartment owners), or simply without the time, Tower...

Ever since the first time I saw one of these systems, I thought, "yes, one day you will have one of those."  The day has arrived. That first time was three years ago, when the Juice Plus Company first released The Tower Garden ® as their newest product of their short list of healthy living items, and a friend came in to the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council 's monthly meeting to show it off.  It wasn't just me. Everyone in the room went, "oooooh," "ahhhhh." Granted, this was a warm audience - a room packed with gardeners, local-foodies, and health nuts - but we oooh'd none the less. For lack of space in our previous quaint home, we held off even though the Tower Garden takes up a total of maybe six square feet.  But as soon as we moved into our new home in December I knew, come fall, we'd be putting together our first Tower Garden®.  And we just did. Let me backtrack a little; we love  to garden.  As soon as the snow melted thi...

Great recipe from Lauren Toyota, from Clean Eating !

Updated: Fall 2019 When I wrote this post in 2014, I had recently joined a new community of health-minded individuals, and after five years with Juice Plus, I went back and updated, shorted, and revised this post so you can all see and hear how powerful a consistent practice can be of adding more plant matter to your body.   Our Story – The Kennedys and Juice Plus In 2007, Craig broke his femur waterskiing. Craig is a T-12 paraplegic, meaning his spinal cord was severed at the Thoracic #12 vertebrae, just above his hips. Craig was injured skiing in March 1996 in Steamboat Springs, 2 years after moving to Colorado, just before his 25 th birthday, and has used a wheelchair ever since. It doesn’t slow him down. It didn’t affect his love for skiing.  And it didn’t affect his soulshine. Craig and I met in 1998, at a bar in Steamboat, and we started dating in August 2000. I fell in love with Craig because of his Can-Do contagious attitude, and immediately we start...

Just in from the Colorado Calligrapher's Guild We are working on an official ‘call-for-entries’ with more detailed information, which will be posted on the Speedball Art Products website ( www.speedballart.com ) the first week in September. If you or someone you know would like to receive a call-for-entry via e-mail, please send the e-mail address to  speedballtextbook@ speedballart.com . In conjunction with the new book, we are planning a website which will have instructional videos and copies of as many of the older editions as we can locate. We are hoping to find someone with copies of the first seven editions (they are horizontal), so please let us know if you have any of these early treasures. The Speedball Textbook book has always been a reflection of the lettering of its time. This special Centennial Edition is our collective legacy - a record of lettering today and an invaluable resource for students of all ages and levels. We invite you to be part of it, and look f...