As some of the planets resources dwindle, and landfills get fuller, the need for sustainability and recycling becomes ever greater.

Here are some great examples of creative recycling:

Boots made from fused plastic bags

Fairy lights from egg cartons

Chandelier from banana boxes

Chair from industrial cardboard rolls

Things made from coathangers

Rose

Following my recent blog regarding bicycle commuting in Christchurch and Chicago I thought I’d see if there was any noteworthy advertising around the subject. As creators of advertising and design we certainly need to be visually aware but I have to admit that I was caught out by this cycle safety campaign for Transport for London.

Matt

 

Last week the SMG Captivation Awards web site went live for our client SMG. A big well done goes out to all the team who worked on this project. Rob and Mel deserve a special mention for the great job they did in managing this technically challenging project.

The site provided our client with a live virtual space to announce award winners daily over the past week for their global annual in-house awards programme. It featured winners videos, live comments from the SMG team around the world plus profiled all the finalists from SMG offices around the globe.   

The site looks great! 

Nigel 

Millions of cubicle dwellers across America helped set records for Internet traffic on Tuesday as they watched online video of the inauguration ceremonies — or at least tried to. The overwhelming demand meant that some Web sites and data networks had trouble keeping up, forcing many people to turn to less cutting-edge forms of media.
Internet traffic in the United States hit a record peak at the start of President Obama’s speech as people watched, read about and commented on the inauguration, according to Bill Woodcock, the research director at the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit organization that analyzes online traffic. “The peak is the highest measured to date, and it appears to be mostly a U.S. phenomenon,� Mr. Woodcock said.

Rather than go on about it I have attached my favourite photos from the ceremony celebrations. The volume of people attending and the passion on their faces speak louder than words!

Liz Bissland

For all of you who love gardening, or for those of you who want to save some money and grow your own – I thought it timely to post tips on planting your own raised vegetable garden beds.

 1.  Get 4 pieces of untreated 8″ x 2″ wood to your desired length

 - usually around 1.2metres x 1.2m.  Either pine or macrocarpa is best. 

Untreated wood is important as treated wood will only  leach chemical nasties into your plants!

2.   Bang the wood together  – using a hammer & nails to create a box structure.

3.   If you want to get creative you can add another level or seating on the top if you wish. 

4.  Place box in an area facing north with plenty of sun.

5.  Fill the first few inches with something that will allow drainage

- wood chips, scoria or small stones that sort of thing.

6.  Fill the remainder of the beds with soil  – for best results use a mix of something like zoom grow and a compost mix full of either pig manure, chicken manure, sheep manure etc.

7.  The soil tends to drop after a day or so  – so it’s best to prepare the bed, water it and let it settle for a night then top it up when you are ready to plant.

8.  Plant it with anything you like to eat from lettuces, rocket, tomatoes, herbs, carrots, beetroot, parnips, silverbeet, corn etc. 

Making sure that the taller plants (eg corn) are planted along the back of the bed with the smaller plants to the front of the bed 

 - this allows the sun to reach all the plants.

9.  Add a handful of potash, a sprinkle of lime,  some extra sheep pellets and a few Nitrophoska  blue fertiliser pellets  – this just gives your plants an extra boost.

10. Water daily and watch your gorgeous little plants grow.

For maximum weed control  – wood chip between your raised beds.

To bring the bees to pollinate the plants –  plant lavender.

To control bugs plant marigolds somewhere in the garden as they attract the bugs and keep them off your plants.  Throw some slug pellets down as well. 

…and lastly if you live on a farm make sure your partner closes the gates!!!  After a huge effort last weekend I woke up on

Saturday to find my entire vegetable garden annihilated by our 5 sheep!   So here it is again lovingly replanted!

Jackie Clark

Something a bit lighthearted for Friday. Here are a couple of pictures of the inspiration for my wedding dress:

It was worn by Carly O’Brien of Gloucester when she married in 2006. Weighing in at 425 pounds, it had 30 layers of material and 30,000 Swarovski crystals. Who wouldn’t want a dress that was heavier than they were?

Some interesting and little known facts about weddings:

The tradition of wearing wedding rings on the third finger has two sources: one started back in ancient times when it was believed that the third finger had a nerve that ran straight to the heart; the second is metaphorical, while every other finger can be extended to its full length and straightness alone, the ring finger can only be fully extended in the company of an adjacent finger.

Groomsmen were basically henchmen. Originally made part of the wedding party by the groom in order to keep too many uninvited people from joining in the celebration and the wedding party getting big, rowdy and uncontrollable. Today, they are simply symbolic.

In Christian ceremonies the bride stands on the grooms left. This was started when it may have been necessary for the groom to reach for his sword with his right hand in order to keep someone from riding up and stealing his bride during the wedding.

A number of cultures adopt the western custom of a bride wearing a white dress. This tradition came to symbolize purity in the Victorian era (despite popular misconception, the white dress did not indicate virginity, which was symbolized by the face veil). Within the ‘white wedding’ tradition, a white dress and veil would not have been considered appropriate for a second or third wedding of a widow or a divorcee.

 And finally, a funny twist to the traditional wedding dance:

Signing out for the last time as ‘Miss’ Rose

New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk parody duo have cemented their success with big wins at the 43rd New Zealand Music Awards. Taking out awards for Album of the Year, Best Group, Breakthrough Artist of the Year and an International Achievement Award, they add to their growing haul which includes a grammy won earlier in the year for Best Comedy Album. They weren’t able to be there to collect their awards, but still managed to entertain the crowd with pre-recorded messages.

Other big winners were Opshop who also took four awards. They were for Single of the Year, Highest selling NZ Single, Highest Selling NZ album and Radio Airplay Record of the Year. Another International Achievement Award was won by Savage . His single ‘Swing’ has been a huge hit on the US Singles chart with sales topping half a million and the track has been remixed by international hip-hop superstar Soulja Boy.

Rose

Most people think of marketing as advertising, a way to sell a product. It is also a very important tool in politics, something residents in both the US and NZ will be familiar with, as both have major elections coming up in November. Politicians try to talk up their policies and experience, and talk down that of their opponents.

Even the current financial turmoil isn’t immune. According to some advertising experts, if the recent ‘bailout’ package had been labelled a rescue instead, Americans would have warmed to it more and it may have passed through the first time, alleviating some of the financial stress that was caused while plan b was being thought through.

Read the  full article here

Rose

Sometimes in the world of advertising and publicity things slip pass even the most eagle-eyed proof-reader. For example, “Grandmother of eight makes hole in one”, “Deaf mute gets new hearing in killing” and “Two convicts evade noose, jury hung”. Some ads can be unintentionally suggestive, “Is there a ring of debris around Uranus?”,  “Queen Mary is having bottom scraped”, “Child’s stool great for garden use” and “Organ festival ends in smashing climax”.

My personal favourites though are when translations go tragically wrong.
Here are some good ones-

“It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant�
- Purdue chicken ad as mistranslated in Arabic.
“Mitsubishi Masturbates�- The Spanish translation for Mitsubishi Pajero.
“Bite the wax tadpoleâ€� – Coca-Cola as originally translated into Chinese.
“Pepsi bring your ancestors back from the graveâ€� – Pepsi ad slogan ‘Pepsi Comes Alive’ as originally translated into Chinese.

Conveniently, this cleverly links to my recent trip to China. Here are some pics for you to enjoy.

Kim

 

These ads often manage to pull a tear of two.

 Andy