This fish and snake are both recycled and upcycled pieces of art on the streets of Jacksonville, Florida.

I wish Ottawa had neat things like this — maybe that’s a sign that I should start building things like this myself, right?

Maybe I will! Any ideas? I’m thinking of a giant robot made out of cans with vinyl records for eyes… I think that could be a city attraction as well as a neat way to use recyclables.

“Come too Ottawa to skate on the canal, stay in Ottawa for the giant, angry, can robot!”

I can see the billboard now.

Thanks to nanoparticle “inks” you’ll soon be able to print off solar panels just like you would newspaper. And if that’s not futuristic enough for you, why not paint your roof in nanoparticle paint?

These products will apparently work as well as any other kind of solar cell to absorb electricity-producing sunlight and will cost only a tenth of what current solar panels cost.

Shown recently in an issue of Journal of the American Chemical Society, the inks must be printed on plastic substrate or stainless steel.

“You’d have to paint the light-absorbing material and a few other layers as well,” Korgel said. “This is one step in the direction towards paintable solar cells.”

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Sure, I don’t know how practical it is to live in such a teeny tiny cramped space — but it’s awfully neat!

This man pulls his home behind his bicycle. Might I add that this home is not only portable, it’s powered by solar and wind energy and can stand winds of 60mph and temperatures as high as 100 degrees farenheit!

I personally love the nomadic lifestyle — and with your house attached to the back of your bicycle, you could live anywhere that your bicycle can take you! And all without emitting a single gram of carbon into the atmosphere. Fantastic.

Check out TinyHouseDesign for some cool pictures of this cool mobile home!

I never had a treehouse when I was a kid. I didn’t really have parents that were comfortable climbing trees and building structures stable enough to hold their kids safely.

But as an adult, I’ve definitely thought about it more than once. I love being outside, I love building, and most importantly, I love sky high panoramic views.

This tree house – featured here – definitely caught my eye.

It’s becoming a neat eco-trend to repurpose lookout towers into homes. That’s right, I could live here! (Though I’m assuming it’s safe to say that this is likely out of my budget.)

So, who wants to rent me a repurposed watchtower, shipping container, or lighthouse? I’m open to any and all.

Alright, this might be the coolest DIY I’ve ever stumbled upon!

How to make eco-graffiti — no spray paint, markers, or nasty toxic chemicals, just… moss! I have a few friends who are guerrilla gardeners here in Ottawa and I’m definitely going to recommend to them that they try this out.

The moss continues to grow and changes patterns — it really is living art. How creative is that? Living and breathing art!

I, for one, could definitely see decorating the back of my house in a giant green piece of art. It’d really be something to see it move and grow over the summer. Maybe next year!

How-to: How to make moss graffiti

I, personally, have gone through far too many pairs of headphones to even think about… I don’t want to know. They’re expensive, the good ones at least, and I will wear them until the day that they make me so angry that I toss them out the darn window.

I want to help! Don’t throw away those great headphones just because one of them doesn’t work any more — or hey, neither of them work any more. Or you spend half of your bus ride trying to sit perfectly still because you know if you move you’ll lose the sound in one of your headphones. So very frustrating.

For about 5 bucks, do-it-yourselfer Chris Metcalf photo-documented how he replaced a faulty connector on his best earbuds with a big shiny new one from Radio Shack.

Check it out before you add those beautiful, expensive headphones to the nearest landfill.

I wear a whole lot of skirts. I’ll take a nice flowy skirt over a pair of shorts/pants any day, I really would. And currently my favourite skirt is the floor length jean skirt that I made out of a pair of old bell bottom jeans my mom had in her teens.

Recycling old clothing and making them new and usuable is a great way to save some space in the landfills. And having some neat home-made clothing items that you’re particularly proud of makes you feel much better than an emptry wallet does, right?

Here’s the step-by-step DIY I used when making my jean skirt — try it out and let me know how yours turns out!

How to Recycle Jeans Into a Skirt – The Four-Panel Method

Okay, so maybe this isn’t exactly a DIY — but this site is definitely worth promoting in my Ottawa spotlight!

DIY Ottawa has a mission:

The objectives of this group is to provide real citizen input into planning and management of our city by letting smart people solve problems.

It’s as simple as that. What makes them fit into my Ottawa eco spotlight? Well, it may be a bit of a stretch, but I think the potential fit is one worth noting: Their entire goal is to inspire citizens to fix the city around them! That’s a very good start.

They encourage change of all kinds. The site itself posts regularly about initiatives in the Ottawa area, such as FixMyStreet.ca – a site that allows people to file problem reports on things in their neighbourhood they’d like to see fixed: potholes, bad lighting, or unsafe pathways.

Kudos to DIY Ottawa! Check out their website for more information.

Today is clearly planter day! When the weather’s right and I can sit on my balcony for my morning coffee, I swear — plants are all I think of. Weird, huh? I just have one of those really great balconies that I can grow things on brilliantly.

The above video, made by the genius folks at Urban Organic Gardener, shows us how to build an upside down herb planter. Cool, eh?

I’m gonna try this out myself! My balcony doesn’t have one of these yet…

I love the idea of making planters out of really unconventional things.  One look at my apartment, and you’ll see that unconventional is how I roll — bookends made from giant rocks, bean bag chairs made from old sleeping bags and packing peanuts. In fact, my queen size bed is made from a converted Coleman’s camping air mattress with an added base and sides built to keep it from sliding. It really makes moving easy and when I do go camping, I can bring my own bed with me no problem!

I love DIY projects like this. How cool is it to have your favourite plants sprouting out of a reclaimed dresser? Especially if you can find some discarded dressers that have neat-o hardware/handles as they look that much classier.  Sticking living things in giant blocks of plastic is somehow just wrong. Or hey, maybe you don’t care about planting things in plastic planters, but you’d like something a little less… ugly. This DIY is for you.

Now, on with the show!