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Your Daily Tool: What to do about lawnmower cheese

AudioBoo / Your Daily Tool: What to do about lawnmower cheese

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Cool 4-plug adapter with rotating outlets

Transformers are receptacle hogs.  They clog up power bars and often take up two spaces.  So someone really smart came up with this beguiling little unit with outlets that rotate 360 degrees so you can put four transformers to work at once without a bar fight.  Not bad looking either, and way tidier than a gawky power bar with its stiff unwieldy cord.  By the way, it's also a heavy-duty surge protector.  $16.95 

Where to buy:  Lee Valley Tools.

My moment in the New York Times this week

Short feature by Steve Kurutz about shopping for tools in Manhattan with Mag

EcoMist - Best 'green' cleaner I've found

 In today's CanWest newspaper column I'm covering my latest discovery in environmentally-friendly cleaning products.  EcoMist is brand new for 2008, developed for The Home Depot by chemist Ted Fagan in Woodbridge, Ontario.

EcoMist cleaners are made from food-grade ingredients, which are listed right on the bottle.  I tested EcoMist against my traditional cleaners and was surprised to find that EcoMist actually works better, and with no fumes, no icky fragrances and no irritation to skin or respiratory systems.

EcoMist formulations won't harm you or your pets, even with prolonged exposure, plus they're anti-fungal, anti-microbial, and anti-bacterial.  EcoMist uses leading-edge nano-colloidal technology to lift stains, emulsify grease and disinfect any surface.

EcoMist is available in Canadian Home Depot stores for about $9.

How to hang artwork in less than a minute with no measuring

Hang & Level tool is too cool!!

For more great tips on how to hang pictures visit the Hang & Level site at:
http://www.hangandlevel.com/

Hang & Level - How to hang a picture without arguments or irritation

See Mag's 3-minute video demonstration

I first heard about this tool from alert reader Wayne Thurston: 
Mag,  I recently came across the most invaluable tool for picture hanging.  I spent almost 20 years selling, instructing and consulting to the picture frame industry and, now in retirement, have finally found the best.  You can view it on the company website (western Canada)  It's wonderfully called, "Hang & Level", and as advertised, "Marks EXACTLY where the nail goes". Check it out, I use it and it's the closest to perfect I have found.  Wish I had invented it.

I've had huge fun with this tool since I took Wayne's advice and ordered mine online from Under the Roof Decorating ($19.99).  The Hang & Level enables you to effortlessly hang pictures, photos and art objects in a fraction of the time it used to take. You don't need pencils, measuring tapes or swearing. 

To use the Hang & Level, choose the object you want to mount. Hang it on Hang & Level's perky little hook (or the double hooks for heavier objects), then hold the tool against the wall.  Raise the picture or object to the height that feels right. Then, lift the artwork off the tool and push the small ‘button’ on the lower half of the Hang & Level tool. On the opposite side of the button is a sharp metal spike, which presses a tidy little divot into the wall surface, marking the precise spot where the nail should go.  No pencils, no measuring, no name calling. 

For gobs of picture hanging tips, visit the Hang & Level web site.

See Mag's 3-minute video demonstration of the Hang & Level tool

How to Engrave Designs on Glass

(this is a glass that my friend Sue made using a Dremel for the first time!)

A Blast from the Glass

DIY Engraving

My coordination has been a bit off since, oh, puberty. Even now that I've entered my supposedly mature years I’m still a spiller and a breaker. When I go to friends’ places for dinner, I request plastic drinking vessels. People resisted this at first, thinking I was exaggerating. But they’ve learned. I have UASS. (Upper Adulthood Spiller Syndrome).

My own glassware is a ragged collection of mismatched pieces; the type of assortment one usually reserves for the cottage. Only I don’t have a cottage. (We spillers live the cottage lifestyle with or without beachfront real estate, because we never have full sets of anything.) 

But I’ve discovered a great method of bringing uniformity to my snifters, goblets and highballs: Glass engraving, a totally enjoyable pastime. You don’t need to be particularly artistic, because if you’re not confident with freehand drawing, you can just trace paper patterns, photos, quotations, leaves, flowers, fabric or wallpaper through the glass.

How to Setup and use a Delta Lathe.

Keith Potts gives me a primer on my new lathe....

Wood Turning

Lathe Bloomer
Going with the slow

I’m changing. Perhaps it’s the dawn of maturity. After many years of wanting to rush through everything, and I mean everything, I’ve started to realize that speed is overrated.

The faster you go, the less you notice, and you suddenly hit the realization that you may have missed sucking the marrow out of the bone of life (to use a disgusting medieval image of ill-mannered revelry). 

If you rush something, you don’t really experience it, and then you wonder why you can’t remember details about things you thought you cared about while you were doing them.

I’ll tell you why you can’t remember.  You weren’t really there at the time.  You were busy leaning into the future anticipating getting everything done.  And now that you’ve got so much done, how do you feel? (Pop quiz) 

How to get the look of a stone fireplace in one weekend!

Mag ambushes a friend and does a complete makeover on her fireplace!  (This video features a sweeping cinematic score that Mag created with her GarageBand software!)