The Invention Inspired by my late Mom

My late mother used to have  a certain style of magnetic soap holders hanging in the family bathroom. I am pretty sure that she bought them in Europe. Basically, Mom's version consisted of a metal prongy thing to insert into your fave bar of bath soap, which you could then hang from a magnet that was attached via a plastic holder onto the shower wall.

So, I thought, why don't I try to make one myself? So, with only a magnet and some Gorilla brand construction adhesive and a bottle cap squished into a bar of bath soap.....Voila! I created a DIY copy of what my mom used to be able to buy somewhere across the pond.

This is a very inexpensive home project you can make yourself. The only thing, is that you want to be sure that the bottle cap does not wind up in the hands or mouths of children, as it is a choking and/or scratching hazard.


All you need is the following list of simple items and soon you will be able to hang your soap up and away from the sink, so that it can dry properly between uses, instead of melting in a messy glop on your counter top or sink rim.
Items:

• magnet from the hardware store (note: the magnet doesn't need to be really strong, as it will only be holding up a bar of soap, so stick with smaller size rectangular magnets that are no more than 1-2 inches long and no more than 1 inch wide)
• metal bottle cap from your fave glass bottle.....squish the bottle cap firmly into the topside of your fave bar of soap
• some kind of adhesive that you can use to glue your magnet to the underside of a cabinet.

Note the reason why the bottle cap has green painters tape on it....is because I don't yet fully grasp copyright law when it comes to displaying branded company logos.  Note that when you actually start to hang up your soap onto the magnet, there shouldn't be anything obstructing the contact between the metal bottle cap and your magnet. Therefore, the painter's tape is coming off as soon as this blog post is complete. I hope you get a kick out of  making this DIY gadget as much as I did.\Peace out,\
Carla.

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A Brilliant Substitute for Grass

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So here's my invention..... See the photo of the drought stricken patch of grass? This grass is seen everywhere around suburbs in Ontario, Canada. Yes, we haven't had enough rain to support lush green grass, and secondly, the cost of watering your grass with tap water has gone up. Combine that with record scorching heat this summer and that's what we wind up with......scrubby brown crunchy grass.

So......here is my big invention. I have noticed, that in many many yards that have the parched brown grass syndrome, that there are these random HEALTHY patches of yellow flowers.  These yellow flowers look like tiny snapdragons, but probably fall into the weed/wildflower category. The beauty of their genetic structure is that they have figured out how to stay green and lush in the midst of scorching dry temperatures.

So, why can't we start having yards filled with these yellow wildflowers instead of generic bland grass?
It would require less maintenance, and less costly to water, as it can stay green and healthy with little to no extra watering. Nature seems to do well for these cute little yellow blooms.
Methinks that they would also survive a weekly or biweekly trimming by a lawnmower.....
Hmmm .....is this a brilliant idea or what?

Thinkfully yours, 

Carla.

Heating Your Home With A Magnifying Glass-ish Roof

Ok, friends if you're getting used to some of my more quirky yet inventive ideas....prepare yourself for another doozy.

Ok, permit me to think aloud here.... In Arizona and other hot spots in America, there are massive solar farms that use focused sunlight to produce heated oil/steam in order to operate generators that produce electricity.

Now, what if the roof of a house was built out of small yet very thick glass bricks that were concave or convex only to a certain degree. Remember how we used to see how one could use a simple magnifying glass to start a fire on a hot summer day? All you needed was a hot sunny day, a magnifying glass and something like dry dry tiny bits of wood and in no time the whole bits would start to smoke and eventually catch flame.

Well, what if the whole roof of a home was outfitted in very thick glass brick "magnifying glasses" ?
The designers would study just how to tweak the convex/concave dimensions of the bricks just so that these
brick "lenses" focused just enough sunlight to produce a warm beam of light flow directly into the home. The beam could not be focused too sharply or else it would produce a dangerous amount of fire-provoking light/heat streaming into the home. But the architects/designers/scientists could work on just that precise issue to regulate the streaming strength of the focused light beams.

What I'm talking about is directly heating a home in this manner, NOT by using the sun to produce solar energy to be converted into electricity. I'm  talking about warming your home in the same way that a cat loves to bask in the sunlight that streams in through the windows on a sunny day.

So permit me to put this out to you? Do you think this would work? Would it not be possible to
create roof top glass bricks that transposed sunlight into direct heat pouring into our homes through our roofs? To my limited scientific mind, it surely sounds possible. The focused beams of light would heat the air and the floors as the beams of light stream down from the transparent glass roof. I'm not talking about one large piece of glass as a roof, but rather....many hundreds of convex/concave thick yet transparent glass bricks joined together to form a heat generating roof. I'm guessing that the bricks would not need to be more than maybe 7 inches by 7 inches in size.

Your comments and thoughts are most welcome. My readers are a vital part of this blogging phenom.
Peace.

Carla

Disclaimer: There is a fire hazard when working with magnifying glasses.Please don't try this at home unless you are using a qualified professional for supervision/design. Parents, don't permit your children to use magnifying glasses without adequate supervision. This blog is intended for conversational purposes only. The author of this blog as well as it's publisher do not accept any liability for the ideas discussed in this post or any other post on this blog. Thank you for your time.

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