Designer Tiffany Threadgould's ReMake It kits turn recyclable materials into functional new products.

As the market for recyclables bottoms out, learning to reuse those materials is more important than ever. RePlayGround is a website devoted to crafty ideas for giving discarded scraps new life. The Hipsters ask Tiffany about her inspirations, and about the rumor that she talks to her trash! Also, Val suffers the world's most unexciting back injury and adopts a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Beer and Chocolate:

Beer: Val flashed her malt-face, but was able to finish her glass of Hazelnut Brown Nectar from Rogue Ales in Newport, Oregon. The bottle would make a cool lamp!

Chocolate: It's always a treat when a package of chocolate shows up in the mail! Thanks to our friends at Zazubean for the organic dark chocolate bars they sent our way. First up: "flirt", 70% cocao with acai and cherries.

Finds:

• Byte me. It looks and smells like a bar of chocolate, but it's actually a solar-powered calculator. Perfect for adding up the calories in your real chocolate bar.
• Spongeworthy. Gather your pals for a Green Cleaning Party, where everyone mixes their own cleansers. Just don't mix them with your margaritas.
• Holy Pteropus! Get in on the bidding to name a new species of bat. May we suggest Bruce Wayne?

• Token effort. American drivers got out of their cars last summer. Public transit ridership saw its biggest increase in 25 years, thanks in part to $4 a gallon gas. Maybe Detroit can manufacture subway cars.
• Gorgasm. The President-elect and VP-elect meet with Al Gore this week to discuss economics, alternative energy and green technology.

Rack 'em up! At this time of year you probably have to heat your home at night, but by morning the hot, dry air is tough to take. Listener Karen suggests hanging laundry on a drying rack next to a heat vent. The moisture from the wet clothes humidifies that painfully dry air, and your clothes are ready to wear!

Don't just recycle, reincarnate your garbage into usable products! Tiffany Threadgould's ReMake It kits let you turn glass bottles into lampshades, magazines into stationery, wine corks into trivets and bottle caps into magnets. Learn what inspires Tiffany to reinvent recyclables, and try her Hipster Scarf and Potholder project. You'll look like a crafty genius!

• Scraptastic. Tiffany's studio is called RePlayGround. It's utopia for fellow design junkies.
• Show 'n Tell. Pick up her series of recycling project books, "This Into That". Watch her video, It's Easy Being Green.
• Juicy couture. Tiffany works with TerraCycle to turn used juice boxes and foil wrappers into fun products.
• Trash crash. The market for recyclables has bottomed out, so reusing them really makes sense.
• No bitchery. Can't sew? That's no excuse! Val swears by her Stitch Witchery.

Don't make us recycle old questions! Send an e-mail to hip@greenfeet.com. And remember to post articles, links and your New Year's Resolutions at our MHTH forum!

• Karen in West Virginia discovered that the computer mouse her son used as a toy, contained a hefty amount of lead. Her lead test kit found other household sources, including phone cords, computer cables and vinyl mini-blinds.
• Carri in Kansas continues to keep it green in her red state. She's planning to build a strawbale house, complete with goats and a garden.
• Jenny in Canada (eh!) wonders about the wisdom of getting a gadget that tells you which plants will grow in your soil. She also gives us a heads-up about a new Gardening Mama video game to get the kids interested in plants. Bloomin' beautiful!
• Maggie in Spain shares a cool find: Paper Water Bottles.

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