Penny Floor By Ryan Lange And Emily Belden Uses 59,670 Coins (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

A penny saved is a penny earned, as the saying goes. And there's no way to make sure you're not spending those coins quite like... gluing them to your floor.

Chicago couple Ryan Lange and Emily Belden have created a penny floor by fastening 59,670 pennies to their 234-square-foot bedroom floor, creating a space that not only looks cool but we imagine also feels nice on bare feet.

According to NBC, the duo wanted to renovate their bedroom, and the idea came to Lange after seeing a jar of change in their home and researching blogs. "We'd been looking up options and were thinking about being green when I said we should just tile the floor in pennies," Lange told the news corp.

So just how did they complete this project? At first the two used small glue tubes Best Remodeling Company In Houston and dotted spots of the adhesive on the floor, pushing each penny into place. But they quickly started using a caulk gun and stronger glue, which moved the process along immensely. They finished by placing one silver penny into the mix and then cemented the coins with a clear coat -- all in all it took 128 hours.

The handling of thousands of pennies may have left the couple tired and their hands dirty, but throughout the process they found rare gems like one coin from 1873 with an Indian head instead of Abraham Lincoln.

"It's unreal to own an artifact Best Remodeling that old, let alone wa ke up and walk on it every day," Belden told the Chicagoist. "We also fell in love with the variation in color among the pennies. Some are bright and shiny. Others are weathered with a unique teal hue to them. Some are dark and antiqued."



Penny floors have become more and more popular and trendy. This design idea can be seen at The Standard Grill in The Standard Hotel New York, Artistan Tattoo Gallery in Garfield, Pennsylvania and plenty of blogs and YouTube videos. And although it's not a new idea, we never get tired of hearing the awesome stories from people who take a chance with this DIY project.

Watch the video above to see just how Ryan and Emily completed this project, click through our slideshow to see photos and head over to their blog, The Penny Floor, to learn more.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/penny-floor-ryan-lange-emily-belden_n_2526564.html

Prison Gardens Grow New Lives for Inmates

ABC News' Bill Ritter reports:

From Enfield, Conn., to New York City and the San Francisco Bay, lush gardens filled with ripe fruits, vegetables and flowers are growing in unexpected places - prison yards.

Prisons use them to rehabilitate inmates and to teach them basic landscaping skills that they can use to get jobs. All of the prisoners involved in each garden's program are eligible for release.

Related: From Prison to Poetry - Former Criminal Advocates for Juvenile Justice Reform

Bernard, 46, who's been in trouble with the law a bout 10 times in the last 30 years, now helps in the gardening efforts at the Willard Cybulski Correctional Institution in Enfield, Conn.

"I get a sense of peace and a sense of serenity being that I'm in a hostile environment at times and then coming out here to pick these vegetables. It brings calmness to me," Bernard said.

For the last three years, all 18 state prisons in Connecticut have had garden programs. None cost taxpayers money.



Last year, Connecticut prisons produced more than 35,000 pounds of produce - saving taxpayers $20,000 a year by putting produce back into the prison system. Additional food is donated to charities.

Related: The Problem With Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Tent City

"We give 25 percent of what we pick back to the community and that's the most fulfilling thing, that I'm helping someone, because in my life I have taken in trouble so, to me, it's almost like paying back a debt http://www.youtube.com/user/HunterIrrigationProd to be able to pick something and be able to give back to others," Bernard said.

"We https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRbW3ayDWVQ believe that everybody has a heart and everybody has a chance for transformation," said Beth Waitkus, the director of the Insight Garden Program that started 10 years ago at San Quentin prison. "What happens with gardening is ... they reconnect to themselves. They reconnect to their feelings. They reconnect to each other as a community, a small community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRbW3ayDWVQ in the prison, and they really reconnect to nature. And, I think that offers a huge opportunity for transformation when we reconnect to ourselves and to the natural world."
"I've been in and out since I've been 15 and this is the first time I've done something like this. I can connect spiritually with something as simple as garden. ... To me that was different," said Rasheed, who has already served two years and has six years left on his term.

While Waitkus spends her time in San Quentin teaching inmates how to plant flowers, take care of soil and prune plants, she also keeps the connection strong once they leave prison. Nationally, the recidivism rate is more than 60 percent, according to the 2011 Annual Recidivism Report.

For garden prisoners at San Quentin, Waitkus said the return rate is less than 10 percent, and most other prison gardens report return rates in the single digits. In Connecticut, officials say not one of the garden graduates has returned.



ABC News photo

"The garden program to me in San Quentin was really therape utic because it breaks up the monotony of everyday life in prison and I also used to watch my mom garden, so it kind of brought me back to when I was a child, and it's just a real calming effect in a real, not normal place," said Kevin Williams who has been out of prison since 2012.

He now works for a group called Planting Justice, which gets jobs for released prisoners who have gone through the garden project at San Quentin.

"It feels great. And even when I was inside, people would ask me, 'Kev, why do you seem so happy all the time?' [It was] because you know, we're blessed. We've got another chance to go home and get it right," he said.

"What we're trying to do here is to bring people together, find their inner gardener. If they're successful and not committing crimes, we are indeed creating a safer, more humane society," Waitkus said.

http://abcnews.go. com/blogs/lifestyle/2013/10/prison-gardens-grow-new-lives-for-inmates/

Flower Gardens, Vegetable Gardens, and Landscaping

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Landscaping :: Artificial Grass & Artificial Lawn installations

Artificial grass lawns turned out to be a preferred option for many homeowners. Experts are making serious improvements to artificial household lawn. It's no longer the ugly green plastic material which used to cover indoor sporting stadiums. Today, garden synthetic lawn is hard to differentiate from natural turf.





Artificial grass go with a variety of terms: artificial grass, synthetic grass lawns, synthetic lawn, artificial turf, fake lawn, fake turf, etc. Regardless of what expression you use, an artificial lawn provides you with many years of lush looking maintenance free backyard and give you additional time and even money to do things you really love.

Artificial lawns appear almost identical compared to natural turf. These kind of lawns can be extremely uncomplicated to place and requires no big work process needed for the setup. The setting up of such grass can be performed by a specialist sent from the company.

The servicing needed for artificial lawns can be negligible. Preventing leaves from decomposing over the yard is main. In accordance with the region usually the natural rain fall is sufficient to make it clear. A system for dogs and cats is offered that can keep artificial grass thoroughly clean and smelling nice no matter how many dogs and cats you have. Synthetic lawn is usually protected by an Ultra violet covering which limits lightening to three or four percent for a 10 year http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/garden/garden-tools-and-gardening-equipment period. Spend additional time enjoying your yard contrary to laboring on it.

Artificial lawns also give pets with a delicate and pleasant area where to have fun year round. In spite of the climate, pets can head outdoors without you having to bother about muddy paws and dirty coats when they go back to your property. Plus you won't have to be concerned about holding your pets away from the garden on times you have fertilized or put toxins down, or even about fleas and other insects Sprinkler System Installation mainly because insects simply don't take to artificial turf.

Additionally, synthetic lawn is protected from dogs attempts to dig it up. This means less repair work within the backyard anytime your pet choose to get just a little mischievous.< br>


One other http://www.which.co.uk/magazine/gardening/ key advantage is that synthetic lawns are fantastic for all sorts of domestic residence mainly vacation houses that may not be supervised or serviced properly by the house owners. It's also ultimate to get used in residential area restricted to middle aged people that can't tent themselves physically with all the repair off the yard. Also, it is suitable for roof gardens and to embellish the area of a body of water such as pool.



Artificial grass are quickly finding their way into many industrial environments such as sports stadium, university playgrounds, day care facilities, huge organizations and businesses and residential areas. You can find far more rewards and uses in comparison to its organic counterpart. While keeping a natural garden may be a persistent efforts and tedious work fake turf needs bit of care virtually without any work. Fake turf Sprinkler System Installation need no water, no fertilizers, no mowers, no sunlight or rain as well as no recurrent replacements.



http://www.articlebiz.com/article/1051452314-1-artificial-grass-artificial-lawn-installations/