The Garage Plan Shop Blog

Are you planning to decorate your home, yard and garage with those old strings of incandescent lights this holiday season? According to the St. Louis County Health Department, it is time to make the switch to LED lights. Most strings of incandescent lights are wrapped with a hard plastic PVC coating, which protects the wire inside. This coating is a problem for our landfills taking up to 500 years to breakdown. In addition, PVC is heat resistant and sometimes contains metals such as lead, cadmium and tin that are harmful once they make it into the ground.

So what are the benefits of using LED lights for your holiday decorating and light displays? Consider the following facts about LED lighting as reported by the St. Louis County Health Department:   

• LED lights use one tenth of the energy when compared to a traditional strand of holiday mini-lights. Using less energy means a lower electric bill.
• They last two times longer than incandescent lights – that’s up to 20 years!
• LEDs can withstand, heat, cold and moisture making them ideal for outdoor displays.
• These energy efficient lights are cool to the touch reducing the risk of fire.
• The brightness of LED lights does not fade over time.
• They are durable and harder to break than traditional holiday lights.
• LEDs can be found at most home improvement centers and hardware stores.

Before you throw those old light strands in the trash, check locally for a recycling/collection program. Many hardware stores and home improvement stores offer collection programs, and some even give a discount on the purchase of new LED holiday lights for every strand of old lights you recycle.

So, be earth-friendly this holiday season and decorate your house, garage and yard with LED lights.

Tags: Christmas, Christmas lights, holiday decorating, holiday lights, LED lights, recycle

If you enjoy decorating your home, garage and yard for the holidays, The Garage Plan Shop has a few tips for decorating and storage of your light displays and other holiday décor.

1. Begin by going through all of last year’s décor. Get rid of strands of lights that don’t work (some hardware stores and home improvement centers collect non-working strands of lights and give a discount if you purchase new LED lights), throw away broken or weathered decorations. Remember to recycle anything you can. Replace any items that you discarded with new items you’ll need for your outdoor holiday display this year.
2. If you like the way you decorated your yard, porch, garage, etc., take photos of this year’s display. You don’t need to print the pictures. Just save them on your computer and reference them next year. This way you won’t have to figure out just how you made your display looks so good last year.
3. When the holidays are over and it is time to pack your lights and decorations, group them by the area in which they were used and place them is separate boxes or storage containers. Label the containers, i.e. “roof,” “porch,” “garage,” “yard,” etc. When it is time to decorate outside next year, you’ll already know which decorations are for what part of your home or yard. If you decide to print the photos mentioned in Tip # 1, include the photos in the corresponding boxes of decorations so you’ll have them for a reference.

With these holiday organization and storage tips, decorating the exterior of your house and your yard will be a snap next year!

Tags: Christmas, holiday decorating, holiday tips, organization, outdoor decorating, storage

While the kids are off school for the holidays, serve this breakfast favorite. Everyone at The Garage Plan Shop has been enjoying this tasty breakfast treat for years.

Monkey Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 (7.5 oz) cans refrigerated buttermilk biscuits

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

¾ cup butter or margarine, melted

1.    Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a plastic food-storage bag.

2.    Separate dough into 30 biscuits and cut each one into quarters. Shake in bag to coat and arrange in pan.

3.    Mix brown sugar and melted butter and pour over biscuits.

4.    Bake 28-32 minutes or until golden brown and no longer doughy in the center.

5.    Cool in pan 10 minutes.

6.    Turn upside down onto serving plate. Pull apart to serve. Serve warm.

Makes approximately 12 servings.

Visit our blog next week for more holiday recipes.

Tags: Christmas, recipes

Everyone enjoys holiday treats. Here are a couple of The Garage Plan Shop’s favorite chocolate treats. They are quick and easy to make.

Pretzel Turtles

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 4-5 minutes

Ingredients:

20 mini pretzels

20 Rolo candies (unwrapped)

20 pecan halves

1.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.    Arrange pretzels in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

3.    Place 1 rolo on top of each pretzel.

4.    Bake for 4-5 minutes or until rolo candies begin to melt.

5.    Remove from oven. While candy is still warm press 1 pecan half into each candy.

6.    Cool and serve at room temperature. Store in an airtight container.

Fudgies

Prep time: 10-15 minutes

Cooking time: 8-9 minutes

Ingredients:

1 stick real butter

12 oz. Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 14 oz. can Borden sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1 ½ cups chopped walnuts

1 cup flour

1.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.    Melt butter and chocolate chips in sauce pan over low heat stirring until silky smooth.

3.    Stir in milk and vanilla.

4.    Remove from heat.

5.    Stir in flour and walnuts. Mix well.

6.    Spoon onto foil-lined cookie sheet.

7.    Bake 8-9 minutes. (Cookies will not look done. Take out before edges look crispy.)

8.    Cool on pan for 5 minutes before removing.

9.    Store at room temperature in airtight container. Cookies will be soft and chewy.

Be sure to check back next week for a few more of our favorite holiday recipes.

Tags: Christmas, cookie recipes

It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of the holidays. But, slow down for a minute. Have you ever noticed how wasteful we are around the holidays? Recently, it was reported Americans will create an extra 25 million tons of waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. THIS holiday season can be different. Now is the time for YOU to start a new tradition, celebrating the holidays with amazing earth-friendly flair.

Avoid Over-Gifting – Many people don’t think of gifts as garbage, but the packaging it comes in is instant trash. Give one or two good gifts, being sure to recycle the packaging when possible. And with the money you save by cutting out extra gifts, you’ll be able to donate to charities that help those less fortunate.

Give Homemade Gifts – Sometimes the best gifts are homemade. They often hold sentimental value or reflect on a special memory. And better yet, they don’t come with all that fancy packaging that will end up in the trash as mentioned above.

Reduce Greeting Cards – More than 2.6 billing holiday cards are sold each year and most of them end up in the trash. Trim you card list by just a few people. Send an e-card instead saving postage and reducing waste. If you send traditional cards, buy cards made of recycled paper. Recycle the cards you receive. Cut them up and use them for gift tags next year.

Buy Organic – If you prefer to have a real Christmas tree, check with tree farms before you buy. A local tree farmer might not consider himself and organic grower, but ask if he sprays his trees with chemicals. It is healthier for you and the environment if your tree hasn’t been sprayed with chemicals or synthetic fertilizers. 

Dial Down the Amps – Holiday light displays left on 24 hours a day can potentially quadruple your energy bill. Use a timer for your light displays rather than leaving them on all night. Replace old strands of lights with LED lights. They use about 90% less energy than standard mini-lights. Or, you might consider cutting back or trimming your light display a little bit.

Light Up with Candles – The holiday season is the perfect time to illuminate your home with candles. Often it only takes one candle to brighten a bathroom or a centerpiece of short and tall candles to light the dining room. Not only is using candles an easy way to decorate for the holidays, but in many cases, it is a good way to eliminate some or all overhead lighting in a room resulting in energy savings. Furthermore, candle heat paired with your own body heat will warm up a room nicely over the course of an evening allowing you to lower the thermostat a few degrees. The result – a reduced energy bill. Remember to use caution around burning candles.

Ship Light – When shipping gifts, think light weight and small. Fewer and smaller packages take up less room on a mail or delivery truck, using less gas and wasting less petroleum.

Reinvent Gift Wrap – With tons of wrapping paper ending up in the garbage each holiday season, it is time to get creative. Anything that covers and conceals your gift is an acceptable choice for gift wrap. Think outside the box. Try T-shirts, a colorful throw blanket, a decorative pillow case, or a furry scarf. Better yet, reuse gift bags from gifts you’ve received or have the kids paint and decorate used paper grocery bags and tuck your gifts inside. As for the gifts you receive. Open them carefully saving the paper for next year’s wrapping.

Prepare Just Enough – Tons of food are wasted every holiday season due to special dinner parties and holiday get-togethers. If you are hosting a holiday gathering, don’t overdo it. Keep your menu simple. There is no need to have numerous choices of salad or dessert. Prepare only your favorites ensuring you there will be minimal leftovers. And if you don’t plan to eat the leftovers, send a to-go bag home with your guests.

Recycle – Recycle everything you can. Gifts come with lots of wrapping and packaging. As you open gifts, recycle what you can, plastic, paper, cardboard, etc. But don’t stop there. Recycle your tree. Some local governments recycle trees into mulch while others use them for animal habitats in parks and lakes. However you choose to recycle your tree, make sure you do it responsibly. Remove all ornaments, hooks, tinsel and light strands. Artificial trees can be recycled too. If you’re tired of your artificial tree, donate it to a church, community center, shelter or another place that decorates for the holidays.

It is fun and exciting to be part of the holiday festivities, just remember the holidays are waste makers. That is why it is important that you start changing the holidays for the better. These environmentally-friendly holiday tips will get you started.

Tags: Christmas, earth friendly, energy efficient, Living Green