DIY – Make a Computer Mouse Ornament
Release your inner Geek and help keep old computer parts from making their way into a landfill by converting those old wired mice into holiday ornaments.
If you’re like me, you have a few old mice laying around. If you don’t have any old mice and you have an IT department at work, I’m sure they would love to give you their old wired mice.
Nest of Old Computer Mice
Getting the Mouse Ready to Paint
In order to hang the mouse, you need to make a loop with the cord. To save money a large paperclip is heavy enough gauge wire to crimp on the mouse cord.
Paperclip for Mouse Cord
Taking some pliers and wrapping the paperclip wire around it will help form it into a circle. Then just cut the wire.
Bending Wire for Crimping
Loop the wire so there is a 1 ½ – 2 inches loop of wire. This will be what you can hang the mouse with.
Looping Mouse Cord
Use pliers to crimp the mouse cord with the paperclip section.
Crimping Mouse Cord with Pliers
Crimped Mouse Cord
Once you’ve confirmed the cord is held tight by the crimped wire, cut the extra.
Trimming the Extra Cord
Preparing the Painting Area
Using a zip tie, the extra wire from the mouse can be strung across some poles to make painting easier.
Attach Connector End with Zip Tie
Tie Other End
Priming the Mouse
Use a plastic primer, like the Rustoleum Plastic Primer.
Follow the primer directions for preparation. For me this meant cleaning the mouse with mineral spirits to remove dirt and oils from the surface.
Mice Ready for Priming
Painting the Mouse
If you are using the old mouse cord to hang the mice to paint them there are two ways to do this
- String the cord through the looped cord on the mouse, as seen in the picture below.
- Another method is to use some extra paperclips to make hangers. I found this to be the best method.
When painting use multiple light coats.
Painting Mouse Silver
The picture below is why preparing the mice before priming is important. If the primer doesn’t have good adhesion to the plastic, when you paint it will crinkle like below while drying.
Bad Prep Work = Bad Finish
Optional Finishing and Fun
Something fun to do is hand paint the mice with raised glitter pens.
Elmer’s Raised Glitter Pens
I made about 10 of these mice for our holiday party, and had people decorate them. It was a nice way for people to interact before eating.
Hand Painted Mice
Being Sustainable and Responsible By Reusing and Recycling Electronics
Because I work in the computer industry, the thing that comes to mind for being sustainable is being responsible when it comes to recycling and reusing electronics. At work and at home we work with a local charity that will try to reuse / resell in a secondary market the old working electronics, and properly recycle and dispose of non functional items.
Dangers of Electronics In Landfills
Electronics not do electronics contribute to landfills but the pose environmental and heath dangers when they are not disposed of properly. Some of the specific dangers are
- Lead
- Cadmium
- Mercury
- Hexavalent Chromium
Please take a quick look at the following to see how really harmful not properly disposing of electronics can be and what products contain these chemicals.
Electronic Waste: The Dangers – covers the harmful chemicals present in electronics and their affects environmentally and on humans.
Hazardous Substances In E-Waste – Lists the substances found in E-Waste and what products contain them.
Protect Your Identity Before Donating or Recycling PCs and Laptops
In today’s world it is extremely important you protect your identity. The sites below will help you remove any personal information from your PCs and laptops before you donate them.
Darik’s Boot And Nuke – This is a bootable program that will erase and write over the information on a selected hard drive.
Eraser – Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
Recycle and Reuse Old Electronics For Free
Many of the organizations below not only provide a free place to recycle old electronics but work with companies that will repair or recondition old electronics and sell them in a secondary market.
TIA E-cycling Central – Find E-cycling centers by selecting your state on their map. EIA member companies follow strict guidelines and regulations when recycling products or contracting with electronics recyclers.
CEA Recycling Help Page – Sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. There are links for how to donate old electronics, corporate recycling programs and finding electronic recyclers by zip code.
Best Buy Recycling – In addition to recycling old electronics they have free kiosks, just inside the door, for you to drop off ink and toner cartridges, rechargeable batteries, and wires, cords and cables.
Water Smart Landscape Conversion Started
We decided to convert our grass filled front yard to xeriscape. The great thing about doing this is if you live in Las Vegas call the Southern Nevada Water Authority before starting the conversion you will potentially get up to $1.50 sq/ft back. If you do this it is important to have them come out first before ripping out turf.
There is one thing I know about something as labor intensive as landscaping, that in order to get it done in a timely fashion we are going to have to pay to have someone do at least part of the project. To save some money we’ll do most of the demolition work ourselves.
The Plan
After sketching out the dimensions of the front yard, we came up with an overall plan for the front yard. We can’t afford to do everything we want all at once so we’re going to break it up into 3 stages. Here are some of the things we would like to incorporate into the new front yard.
- 2 different sizes and types of rock
- Additional parking
- A small wall in front to keep debris and the random dog out of the yard
- Minimal plant maintenance
Stage 1 – Remove all the existing decorative walls, the planter box attached to the front of the house, sandstone gravel and turf. Once that’s finished we’ll work with a landscaper to put in the new gravel and irrigation in.
Stage 2 – Figure out a paver solution for the additional parking section. I want to use pavers so water can go into the ground and not the street.
Stage 3 – Put in the stacked stone wall in front of the house.
Original Front Yard
5 Energy Saving Tips For Winter
For Las Vegas things start getting cold right after Halloween, lucky us. I was recently contacted by a Home Depot associate and asked to relay the following energy saving quick tips for the winter. They cover some of the most common areas for improving the efficiency of a home. I’ve done some expansion with what I hope are some useful links. In addition, Home Depot has an energy saving podcasts series. Hope they help.
- Regularly maintain your furnace and water heater. Regular maintenance on your furnace and water heater will increase energy efficiency in your home. By combining proper equipment maintenance and upgrades with appropriate insulation, air sealing, and thermostat settings, you can cut your energy use for heating and cooling, and reduce environmental emissions, from 20 percent to 50 percent. Regular maintenance will help make these investments in your home last longer and be more energy efficient.
- The DIY Network has a pretty good article on water heater maintenance.
- If your in the market to purchase a new water heater and your not sure if you need a larger unit, GE has a water heater capacity calculator.
- This HowStuffWorks article on furnace maintenance covers furnace basics, cleaning, lubricating the motor and changing a belt.
- Install a programmable thermostat. You can save up to $180 a year by installing a programmable thermostat that controls the temperature of your home while you’re at work or asleep.
- Seal your home from heat and cold. Allowing air to escape through gaps and cracks is like throwing your money away. By sealing your home like caulk, sealant and weather-stripping, you can save up to 20 percent on heating and cooling costs.
- Insulating outlet boxes with spray foam
- Inexpensively sealing a drafty fireplace
- Sealing exterior wall gaps with expandable foam
- Install insulation. According to the Department of Energy, the leading cause of energy waste in the home is inadequate insulation and air leakage. Homeowners typically can reduce heating and cooling costs by up to 20 percent by sealing their homes and adding insulation in attics, floors over crawl spaces and accessible basement rim joists.
- Not sure what are the suggested R ratings for your area? The EPA has a page that will help you figure it out.
- If your not sure about what R value is or need to figure out the R rating of your current insulation, Oakridge National Lab has a great insulation guide.
- Update your windows. ENERGY STAR-qualified windows can reduce your energy costs by $126-$465 per year when replacing single-pane windows or $27-$111 a year when replacing double-pane, clear glass windows. For a quick fix, add heat control window film to your windows and save up to 50 percent on your cooling costs.
Water Smart Innovations ’08: Exhibit Area
The vendor exhibit has a good variety of companies from local to national and small start-ups trying to get a distributor to large established companies like Kohler. The SWAG is pretty good. Revive organic soil treatment actually gave away a 1/2 gallon sample. Here are some images from this morning’s visit.
Project WET Education Program
Project WET Aquifer Demo
Select A Flush Commercial Retrofit Kit
Kohler Booth
Niagra Booth