Organic Garden Oasis in Willow Glen, CA

Two of our fabulous employees, Michele and Alexa, have created a beautiful garden oasis and are willing to share their creative process with us!

The organic raised garden is a new work in progress - and Alexa's baby. The rest of the yard design and adornments are Michele's hard work and talent at designing and building.

If you need advice on landscaping design, what will grow (and what won't) or just general tips on gardening - ask Michele! You can contact her here.

We'll be following the garden's progress, so check back to see what's growing!

 



 

Canning jar crafts at Hassett ACE Hardware, Half Moon Bay

If you're in the neighborhood, stop by our Half Moon Bay ACE and see the great crafts Jennifer has come up with for canning jars: candle holders, herb gardens, sugar holder, the options are endless!

We have several six packs of the limited-edition blue jars - come get 'em now, once they're gone, we can't get any more, and they are so pretty!

The other sizes are great for all sorts of other projects and those are almost always in stock.

Ask for Jennifer if you have questions on how to make these yourself, or for the jars on the driftwood, follow the easy steps in this post from McCutcheons Blog.

 

DIY Animal Toy Wall Art

[caption id="attachment_903" align="aligncenter" width="477"] Image from HarpersHappennings.com[/caption]

Ok. This project from HarpersHappenings.com is one of the cutest and most inventive DIYs with painted animal toys I've yet seen. Turns out our ACE stores also carry most of what you need for this fun project, which I would argue looks both swank enough for a library and whimsical enough for a kid's room.

Ingredients:

Miniature Plastic Animals - Not generally found at our store, unless you ask our mom customers, who probably have one in their purse.

X-acto Knife - Check.

Rust-Oleum Metallic Spray Paint in Gold - ...And Silver, and just about any other color you could want.

Eye Goggles - Oodles of choices.

Mask - I prefer the old-fashioned white one, but we've got several.

Glue Gun and Glue Sticks - Not our specialty, but if you're looking for DIY Animal Toy projects, you've probably got a glue gun already.

Frame - You might have one already that needs some art, or check your local thrift stores.

White Card Stock - Nope.

Pencil - Check.

For complete instructions, please see the original post on HarpersHappenings.com

New Orleans ACE Show, 2013

ACE holds corporate events and tradeshows every few months - and a lucky group of us got to enjoy the Spring show (where you're actually buying for the Holidays) in NoLA (that's New Orleans, Louisanna, dontcha know?)

It was raining most of the time we were there, but we managed to do the requisite breakfast at Cafe du Monde, stroll along the Mississippi and enjoy Bourbon Street at night:

Dr. Earth All Natural Garden Products

Introducing: Dr. Earth natural garden products, coming to our Willow Glen store on March 11, 2013!

Dr. Earth products are 100% NATURAL, ORGANIC, PEOPLE AND PET SAFE and include soils, fertilizers, weed killer, insecticides, fungicides, and snail and slug spray.

Dr Earth-soils are infused with Probiotic - living organisms like beneficial microbes and mycorrhizae. The microbes break down organic materials into forms more readily absorbed by growing plants. The soil can rebuild food reserves - a self regulating cycle that has occurred for millions of years as part of the wisdom of nature. Bigger, healthier and more abundant plants, fruits and flowers, that's the promise with Dr. Earth.

Made in America.

Repair Cafe, Palo Alto, Feb. 24, 2013

We just finished our second Repair Cafe at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto this weekend and it was a fabulous success!

We had over 100 people in line by 11:30am, just a half-hour after the Cafe opened!



Our nearly 40 volunteers saw less lamps, toasters and vacuums this time and many more small appliances, computers and other electronics. We also fixed several sentimental or heirloom pieces.

I'll update this post with more details when I get the full report from the Repair Cafe folks, but by my estimation, we had about 200 community members show up with all manner of broken items, from heirloom and sentimental pieces, to newer retro-remakes of 1950 toasters, to hedge trimmers to rolling hand carts to puppets. Thanks for coming and volunteering or bringing your broken items - this event is so much fun and is only possible because everyone shows up!

The next Repair Cafe will be held on April 21, from 11am to 3pm at the Museum.

Cub Scouts Make Pinewood Derby Cars at ACE

We had the fun privilege of hosting Cub Scout pack 236 and helping them cut out their Pinewood Derby cars! We also got to go watch them race those cars last weekend at their Pinewood Derby in Half Moon Bay.

We are hosting more car-cutting events. The next one is schedule for February 10, 2013.

At our Palo Alto store: 10am - 12pm at 875 Alma St.

At our San Mateo store: 10am - 12pm at 545 First Ave.

At our Half Moon Bay store: from 12pm - 4pm at 111 Main St.

We've got all the tools, supplies and accessories the Scouts need - even the cars!

Here are some photos from the last Pinewood car-cutting event and from the Derby itself!