Live Green and Have Fun Doing It!
Many Squidoo lens masters are experts when it comes to taking trash and turning it into treasure. If you're interested in making your planet and your home a cleaner place to live, then you'll enjoy browsing this selection of Recycle It! favorite lenses. I've gathered up some of the best tutorials by creative Squids who enjoy making crafts, clothing, and more from reusable materials. Whether you want to save the planet one newpaper at a time, or you're just looking for ways to be more frugal, there's something here that you will enjoy!
*Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The 3 R's
A Musical Tribue
I hope you will enjoy this musical performance while you read on about how you can reduce, reuse, recycle in your home!
Paper and Cardboard
Ideas on How to Reuse Paper Products
Stainless steel coffee mugs and water bottles are more widely available than ever, because of BPA recalls for plastic products. Instead of purchasing coffees in throw-away paper cups, refill a travel mug. Instead of carrying lunches in paper bags, buy an insulated nylon lunch bag that you can use again and again. You can also reduce your paper consumption by asking for no napkins with your fast food orders, or better yet, avoid fast food altogether!
Most manufacturers now make recycled and unbleached paper products such as toilet tissue, note paper, and even diapers. Going green is a growing trend, and most stores are proud to offer recycled paper products for home and office.
Paper and Cardboard Lenses
Turn Your Excess Paper Into Treasure
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How to Reuse Paper Bags
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What do you do with paper bags? Toss them into garbage? Recycle? Reuse? Renew? The obvious first option is to reuse them for your groceries and other goods. They likely won't hold up for as many reuses as the plastic bags, but remember even one reus...
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Cool Ways to Reuse Those Greeting Cards - Christmas, Valentine's, Mother's Day
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Ah, the card tree (or ring or other display option). So lovely and appropriate during a holiday season like Christmas or Easter, but just a pile of paper once the next month hits. Is there life for the greeting card beyond Christmas or Valentine's Da...
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How to Reuse Egg Cartons?
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Well, you may ask yourself - what could be done with the egg cartons?!? Plenty of stuff as you will see when you read the rest of this article! Not just crafts for kids - egg crates can be reused in household, garden as well for some DIY projects......
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How to Reuse Paper Rolls
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Before you throw away a paper roll, do you consider what it can be used for? Never thought of that? Or you already reuse them? Although our society urges people not to throw out but recycle and reuse as many common household items as possible, we st...
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Recycle and Reuse Christmas Greeting Cards
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Everyone loves to receive postcards, and greeting cards for special occasions. They're simple, thoughtful, and beautiful - especially Christmas and holiday cards. They're so memorable and nice, that many people hold on to their greeting cards for yea...
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How to Reuse & Recycle Envelopes Using Sticky Labels
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Envelope Recycling has caused some people real problems, with some local authorities deciding that stamps, gummed edges and the dreaded plastic windows mean that envelopes are not suitable for recycling. After reading about the dilemma of envelope re...
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How to recycle worksheets for new Do Now activities.
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After many years as a teacher in small schools where we didn't have supplies, I came to realize that sometimes as teachers we waste a lot of paper and supplies. We copy many worksheets that could be used in numerous ways in the classroom. I set up th...
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What Can Be Done With Wallpaper Leftovers?
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Do you put wallpapers on your walls? And what do you do with residues? Wallpapers aren't just for walls - they can be a free source for some of the most creative yet simple crafts.
Make the Most of Your Paper
Here are just a few ways that you can reduce the amount of paper that you buy and throw out around the house:
Save your newspapers and use them to clean your windows and mirrors. You'll be amazed at how streak-free the glass is.
If you receive bills by mail, cut off any portions of the leaflet that aren't printed on, and save them for use as notepaper. Do this with all your mail and you'll never have to buy Post-Its again!
When you buy a wall calendar, make sure that you really love the artwork or pictures for each month. At the end of the year, tear away the pages and use them to decorate a drab area in your house such as the garage or garden shed.
Reusing Paper Bags
The Bag Book: Over 500 Great Uses and Reuses for Paper, Plastic and Other Bags to Organize and Enhance Your Life (Lansky, Vicki)
Amazon Price: $6.95 (as of 12/25/2009)
Learn how to use paper bags, plastic bags, mesh bags, and other accumulated items around your house to make crafts, organize your life, and have some green fun!
Project ideas include kites, puppets, laundry helpers and more!
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Plastics
Ideas on How to Reuse Plastic Objects
Bottled water is under a lot of scrutiny because of the large number of plastic bottles that end up in landfills every year. Make a difference by using a stainless steel water bottle and tap water instead. Some experts say that tap water can actually be more healthy, because it is more strictly regulated. If you're worried about contaminants in your local water, you can use a jug or faucet filter.
Although many cities have now outlawed the sale of plastic shopping bags, many stores and cities are still catching up with current environmental trends. You can do your part by purchasing recycled, reusable bags. Many stores offer them right at the check-out, for prices as low as 99 cents each. Even if you buy just one bag per visit, you'll have enough for an entire shopping trip in just a few weeks!
Plastic Lenses
Turn Your Excess Plastic into Prized Possessions
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How to Reuse Old CD or DVD
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Do you burn CD-ROMs on your computer and get errors, where you have to toss the CD-ROM? Do you get tons of CD-ROMs in the mail from Internet providers and trial programs? I do and all these unwanted CD-ROMs are piling up. You can recycle them but it...
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Making Your Own Recycled Yarn
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Make cool stuff and help the Earth at the same time. If you like to knit, crochet, or any other yarn craft have a go at using recycled materials. You can make your own yarn using plastic bags, thrift store sweaters, scraps, and t-shirts.
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Ways to Reuse Old Medicine Bottles
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Prescription pill bottles can multiply quickly when you receive new ones at the pharmacy each month. Read on for a few ideas of how to reduce waste and find new uses for your empty medicine bottles!
Make the Most of Your Office Supplies
If you have kids around the house, or know someone who does, you can save yourself a trip to the recycling depot and make use of your old office supplies at the same time.
Kids love to mimic what they see adults doing, and a pretending to be mom on the phone is an indication that a child's social skills are developing in a healthy way. To help your kids with their imaginations, you can pass on your old telephones and keyboards to them.
Make sure to remove any cords or small pieces that can cause a choking hazard, and thoroughly wash items with warm water and vinegar. Then sit back and watch your little monkeys play!
Metal
Ideas on How to Reuse Metal Objects
Food containers and cans are reprocessed and made into all manner of new objects - even cars. Because the metal is melted down, any impurities such as food and paper labels are burned away. This makes metals much easier to recycle than paper and plastic.
Metal Lenses
Make Something Magical with Metal
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Beer Can Solar Heater
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In spite of the goofy trend of people practically worshipping this rock called earth, I'm still in favor of conserving our natural resources. I'm also in favor of drinking beer - and not conserving it. On this page, we're demonstrating...
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Multifunctional Aluminium Foil
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Is there a way to reuse aluminium foil? You bet! I've listed numerous household tips, gardening tips and craft projects with aluminium foil! Hope you'll find something useful! Enjoy!
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PULL TAB (POP TOP) CROCHET
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Crochet with pop tops is a very popular craft in my home country, Brazil. I think that most pull tab crochet products you may see online are "pasteurized" and mass-produced. They strive for perfection, while I do it for the pure enjoyment o...
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What to Do With Your Old Soda Cans
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What can you do with your used soda cans? pop cans? beer cans? What are your choices? Think your have two options: trash it or recycle it? I assure you, there are many more options than that. People worldwide are using aluminum cans in creative and a...
Reusing Junk
Rubbish!: Reuse Your Refuse
Amazon Price: $13.59 (as of 12/25/2009)
Learn how to turn trash into treasure with over 30 fun and easy projects. You can upcycle your clutter into stylish jewelry, home decor items and more!
Projects include a lampshade, clock, bracelet and more creative ideas for green people.
Fabric and Clothing
Ideas on How to Reuse Cloth
However, if you wear your clothes to the limit, they can sometimes be a bit too ratty for anyone to enjoy. Plain cotton clothing is great for making rags that you can use for cleaning your home or car. Socks make great puppets and kids crafts, like pillow stuffing or wrist bands for playing dress-up. There are lots of ways to reuse fabrics so that they don't end up in a landfill.
Fabric and Clothing Lenses
Turn Your Worn Out Clothing into Crafts
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Recycle your "Retired" Tee shirts!
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In this short article I hope to pass on some inspiration from my mother. She seems to be able to find solutions to most any problem. For instance... Did you know that Cold floors plus raggedy clothes = thick warm rug?! I needed a rug for my entry d...
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Recycled Used Jeans - Recycle Your Old Jeans Into Designer Fashion Garments, Accessories And Home Dec Items
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Never, ever thow away a pair of old worn out jeans. It is truly amazing what you can create out of them. It is so much fun to recycle your favorite jeans into another favorite item. The ideas are endless. So why not recycle...
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Recycling sweaters into new accessories
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Often a jersey or sweater will wear through at the elbows or develop a hole somewhere just through use. While smaller holes can be darned and elbows can be patched over, modern jerseys etc don't lend themselves to patching as it rather ruins th...
Reusing T-Shirts
Generation T: Beyond Fashion: 120 New Ways to Transform a T-shirt
Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 12/25/2009)
From the creative genius that brought us Generation T, this new collection of T-Shirt upcycling projects shows us how to turn our old tops into all kinds of useful and interesting items.
In addition to some new clothing projects, you can also learn to transform T-Shirts into stuffed cat toys, wine cozies, beach blankets and more!
Pre-order your copy today!
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Recycling Programs
Each city has different ideas about what is and isn't recyclable. Not everyone has access to clean and efficient collection of materials for recycling, and that's a shame! Reducing and reusing helps to prevent the need for recycling, but sometimes things just aren't worth holding on to.
Food Packaging
Ideas for Reusing Food Packages and Materials
You can reduce the amount of packaging that your household throws away by making your own food from scratch. Not only is this a great way to save money, eat healthy, and help the environment, but food preparation is an important skill that everyone should have. You never know when you might have to rough it!
Food Package Lenses
Preserve That Excess Packaging
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How to Reuse Popsicle Sticks?
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Your kid just love to eat popsicles? Can't get out of the store without buying some? Who can blame them - I love them too! This page is a collection of possible uses for popsicle sticks and here you'll find how it can be reused in house, garden and...
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Recycle- Juice Pouch Crafts & Cool Stuff
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Like we have all heard, "one man's trash is another's treasure." You can take so many things and make great products, crafts, and cool stuff out of them instead of throwing them away. I thought about this about a year ago when I saw a vendor at a fes...
Odds and Ends
Ideas on How to Reuse Junk and Other Stuff
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Recycled Art Pieces, Step By Step
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Every year when spring rolls around, I get geared up for the challenge of making a couple of pieces for the Recycled Art Exhibition here in Flagstaff, Arizona. This year, I had available to me a pile of scrap plywood, some aluminum fall-off from my...
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Recycled Art
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I scour the internet for interesting art to share with my readers at Daily Art Muse. Along the way I discovered the world of Recycled Art and I have gleaned quite a bit of information. I've got my finger on the pulse of Who is making it,...
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How to make a Scrabble Tile Pendant
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So you want to learn How to make a Scrabble Tile Pendant! Well, scrabble tile jewelry, and more specifically scrabble tile pendants are one of the latest/hottest crafting crazes! This free step by step Scrabble tile pendant DIY tutorial will show y...
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How to Reuse Old Mouse Pad?
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On this page you'll find some cool ideas how to reuse old mouse pads but also links to many online sources with instructions and tutorials how to make your own homemade mouse pad. All mouse pad images on this page are from my Zazzle gallery - Will...
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How to Reuse Old Toothbrushes
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In this lens I will list numerous and helpful ways in which you can reuse your old toothbrushes. It is recommended that we replace our toothbrushes every 3 to 4 months or when the bristles get frayed. However, they needed not go straight to landfil...
Reduce - Make Things Last
Don't Throw It Out: Recycle, Renew and Reuse to Make Things Last
Amazon Price: $12.21 (as of 12/25/2009)
This in-depth guide from the pages of Yankee magazine offers tips and projects for reusing and repairing all kinds of objects around the house. Learn how to make the most of everything you buy, so that you can save money and help the environment, too.
Topics include maintaining appliances and wood furniture, how to refurbish and repurpose household items, and more!
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Recycling Crafts
- Credit Card Mosaic
Skill Level: Beginner
Use your old credit cards, bank cards, gift cards and other plastics to create colorful and unique photo frame.
Materials Needed: Credit cards, Glue, Photo Frame- Magazine Swirl Necklace
Skill Level: Beginner
Use bright, colorful pages from your previously loved magazines to create an interesting and beautiful pendant for a necklace. Your new attire will be the envy of everyone who loves to be green!
Materials Needed: Magazines, Hot and White Glues, Basic Jewelry Components- VHS Tape Book Ends
Skill Level: Beginner
Have you moved on to DVD and Bluray? Once you replace some of the older titles in your library, use the VHS tapes and CDs to make interesting bookends that reflect your personal tastes.
Materials Needed: 2 VHS tapes, 2 CDs, Epoxy- Recycled Can Planters
Skill Level: Beginner
Recycling is better than trashing, but it still uses energy to transport and reprocess the materials. Save your best sauce and vegetable cans and reuse them in the garden!
Materials Needed: Medium or large tin cans, Rocks or pebbles, Nail and hammer, Seedlings, or soil and seeds- Recycled Art Vase
Skill Level: Beginner
You can reuse glass jars and cardboard boxes to make this gorgeous decorative vase. By layering strips of cardboard, a wicker-like effect turns an old jar into a work of garden art!
Materials Needed: Glass jar, Cardboard, Glue- Cosby Sweater Cushions
Skill Level: Intermediate
If you've got sweaters that are too worn, or just too Cosby-like to give away to Goodwil, why not recycle them? You can turn your old sweaters into vintage style throw cushions for your sofa, or a fun gift.
Materials Needed: Sweaters, Pillows, Sewing Machine- Woven Scrap Journal
Skill Level: Intermediate
Don't spend a fortune on a fancy journal or planner, or buy a cheap one with toxic glue. Instead, reuse scrap fabric, yarn and paper to make a unique and interesting journal or notebook.
Materials Needed: Cotton fabric, Yarn, Paper, Cardboard- Washable, Crocheted Swiffer Sock
Skill Level: Intermediate
Cleanliness and convenience have done so much harm to the environment, it's time we started re-examining our priorities when it comes to housework. One of the first things that should go are disposable cleaning implements. If you're already using a Swiffer or similar sweeping mop, you can crochet a washable cover and never throw a cleaning pad in the trash again!
Materials Needed: Acrylic yarn scraps, crochet hooks- T-Shirt Quilt
Skill Level: Advanced
Turn your favorite logo T-shirts into a colorful and stylish quilt or blanket. This craft tutorial explains how to create a pattern and connect strips of cloth cut from your old T-shirts.
Materials Needed: T-shirts, Quilting Grid, Sewing Machine
Recycling Gurus
Lensmasters that Love the Earth
These lensmasters are dedicated to providing informative lenses about the Three R's, and recruiting new people to the Green side! Check out some of their lenses on living green!Green Guides
The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time
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Amazon Price: $10.04 (as of 12/24/2009)
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It's Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living
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Amazon Price: $10.39 (as of 12/24/2009)
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Green Chic: Saving the Earth in Style
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Amazon Price: $10.36 (as of 12/24/2009)
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The Lazy Environmentalist: Your Guide to Easy, Stylish, Green Living
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Amazon Price: $11.21 (as of 12/24/2009)
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Living Green: A Practical Guide to Simple Sustainability
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Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 12/24/2009)
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This Page Donates to Ecotrust
And So Can You!
Ecotrust is a conservation organization committed to strengthening communities and the environment from Alaska to California. We work with Native peoples and in the fisheries, forestry, and food sectors to build a regional economy based on social and ecol
Green Living
It's More than Just Recycling
There are lots of other ways to protect our environment, your health, and save money. Visit some of these other lenses to learn more!-
Increase Your Green Consciousness
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Consider the following: Going green is the most important issue that will shape our future-we have reached a tipping point on the environment. Going green is about our kids, our families, our lives. Investing in green will be to the twenty-first cent...
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How to Be Eco-Friendly
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With so much going on in the world today, we rarely have time to think about how we could protect the Earth. We fail to realize that many of the things we do on a daily basis could be hurting both our environment and our future. Being eco-friendly a...
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Top Ten Things to Do for Earth Hour
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On March 28th 2009, millions of people around the world turned out the lights for Earth Hour. This awareness movement is intended to get people talking about the importance of reducing human impact on the Earth. Below you will find lists of activiti...
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The Truth About Gold
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Although environmental awareness grows stronger everyday, one area that is continually ignored is the impact of precious stones and metals. In particular, the lure of gold slips under the radar of most eco-conscious people. The price of gold has rise...
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- TalesTrailsAndTips2 TalesTrailsAndTips2 Oct 26, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
- This lens is worth more than 5 stars. I love it. I've lenrolled it on this one of mine - http://www.squidoo.com/GreenAndFrugalLiving Thanks for this great lens.
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Reply
- IWishICouldBeAnAiroplane... IWishICouldBeAnAiroplane... Aug 14, 2009 @ 4:48 am
- Awesoeness, dude! Now I Know What I Can Do With My Pop Bottles... USE THE 3 Rs!
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- geothermalminnie geothermalminnie Aug 6, 2009 @ 9:57 am
- Thanks for the tips! Recylcing is not only great for the environment, but saves TONS of money. I feel like a champ whenever I find something new to do with something old.
Minnie
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Reply
- spirituality spirituality May 15, 2009 @ 8:52 am
- Great lens - you've been blessed by a squidoo angel :)
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Reply
- TheGreenerMe TheGreenerMe May 10, 2009 @ 9:56 am
- A great collection of resources you've assembled. Thanks for including my profile! That's a great idea about reusing the keyboards and phones as toys.
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