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A Feature by a Blogger Feels Really Good

Featured in the Great Green Goods!
Can I say I have a greeny business?!?! Well probably not yet...although I have a product and I have sales, and technically I have a profit (a super tiny one, but you know still). At the Crafty Rascal I make cufflinks out of recycled wine cork and tennis ball (at least right now... tomorrow when you check there will be plenty more things, such as hand made dresses by my crafty Mom).
And although things remain pretty pie in the sky, and I have to stop myself from spending too much time on this crazy adventure, it feels really good to be featured by a blogger. To have someone whom I do not know """find""" my work and feature it. I mean there are thousands of artists on Etsy, so getting found is really hard. I mean"Relevant" to one person may not be "Relevant" to another. There is also trying to decipher what Relevant means to the search optimization software that Etsy uses, without starting to sound too much like Yoda by putting the most important things first like "Cufflinks they are, Cork Cufflinks.

How do we define this human nature of getting praise by the "community" of people we dont know. I am not sure but it sure feels good :-).

Checkout The Crafty Rascal.
Here is a sample of my wine cork cufflinks.

New Logo for the Crafty Rascal!

A new dress addition to the Crafty Rascal today made out of raw silk by my crafty Mon! And my Crafty sister made me a logo. It is oober adorable. There is my Mom sering away on a florescent green sewing machine the words The Crafty Rascal, and of-course me getting into trouble by stepping into florescent green paint. Can you see it now?
Yep we are having way too much fun with this family business adventure. But hey 4 Sales!!! That's a pretty spectacular start, since I was preparing for failure, after all those B-School lectures. For now yet another successful hobby, there are just not enough hours in a day.

Come visit The Crafty Rascal 

Team Elite on Etsy: Meet the CraftyRascal!

Team Elite on Etsy: Meet the CraftyRascal!: Meet Elena from the  CraftyRascal , her Etsy shop is full of delightful up-cycled accessories and  1: Tell us about yourself and your Et...

Team Elite on Etsy: Meet the CraftyRascal!

Team Elite on Etsy: Meet the CraftyRascal!: Meet Elena from the  CraftyRascal , her Etsy shop is full of delightful up-cycled accessories and  1: Tell us about yourself and your Et...

Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Exercising – Skip the Gym

Going to the gym is bad for the environment. Yes now you can add another excuse to your list of reasons why not to go. I am not advocating against exercise just circumventing the gym and introducing some electricity free forms of exercise and when circumstances allow enjoying exercising outdoors.



The energy cost of exercising at a gym multiplies. First you start with the machine let us say a treadmill with a sample rating of 15 amps. If in our example the machine runs at a third of its rating for about 5 hours a day then the machine on average consumes 3kW/day*365 days/year = 1095 kw/yr. This is just the beginning. As you run on the treadmill you get bored To keep you coming back the gym designer installs a TV you can watch. The TV is on all the time and consumes on average another 100 watts. The treadmill, you, the TV and the people next to you are all generating heat. This causes the gym operators to install air-conditioners to keep you comfortable and coming back. Often gyms have fresh towels adding energy and water cost to wash towels used two or three times to wipe of sweat. Each time you trade the treadmill for a bike trail outside you save 1.5 Kwh and 2Lbs of CO2. Checkout other calorie burning ideas here.


Sometimes completely eliminating the gym is not an option, the weather outside is bad, its dark, you do not want to run alone, biking in the city with all the fumes and crazy drivers may be dangers to your health in more ways than one. For the energy-conscious athlete a mix may be the solution. On good weather days run outside, walk up the stairs in your work place, get of the subway a stop early and walk. Or run on the treadmill for half of the usual time and then use a non-electric stationary bike or jump rope for the rest of the time. If exercising alone does not appeal to you consider joining a group or a local bike club, it will keep you motivated and outdoors.

Signing up to a gym has a real financial cost in the hundreds of dollars annually, so is buying gym equipment and paying for its electricity consumption. Consider this cost in relation to the cost of a good pair of sneakers or even a bike for exercising outdoors plus the benefit of conserving energy, reducing your carbon footprint, and an opportunity to enjoy the many green spaces available in NYC and other metropolitan areas.

March/April Energy Events in NYC

March 24th: NYAS Achieving Urban Infrastructure Efficiencies Through Building Networks

March 29th: ElectriCITY: The future of the sustainable grid presented by NYU Wagner's Environmental Policy and Action

March 29th: Renewables: A Sustainable Idea? presented by Columbia University's Women in Energy in coordination with Women in Communication and Energy

April 5, 2011 NYC Cleantech Opportunities presented by Hodgson Russ LLP

April 7, 2011 NYAS Trash Talk: Options for Converting Our Solid Waste to EnergyP

April 27-28, 2011 Distribution Automation