Folksy is a new online shop of handmade goods, like Etsy for the UK.

bicycle frame lunch bag at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

Porom hat by Brooklyntweed

filzfelt, a new shop selling beautiful felt and felt objects, is up on Etsy and Supermarket

DIY vinyl shade decorations at How About Orange

candy cane sugar scrub at Craftzine

Shelterrific gets a whole lot of suggestions on where to buy upholstery fabric online.

I recently got the set of Clean & Green Twist Clean-Up biodegradeable sponges from Delight.com and I'm really happy with them. The scrubby side of the scrubby sponges is a layer of loofah. The Bamboo dusting cloths work well and might get me to kick my shameful Swiffer Duster habit. The Euro sponges are nice and big but I'm really in love with the European Sponge Cloth because it acts like a paper towel and I finally have something that can get into that narrow area behind the faucet in my bathroom sink.

Also, this is adorable, there are birdhouse and birdfeeder templates printed on the insides of the cardboard packaging bands:

Also take a look at the Better Life eco friendly and plant based cleansers that smell only very faintly of soap and work really nicely.

The other week Scott and I had an Oreo/Hydrox/Newman O's taste off for no reason at all other than to celebrate having Hydrox around again, at least for a while. We broke the tasting into Overall Cookie, Just the Biscuit Part, and The Creme, with a side consideration for dunking in milk.

For Overall I liked Oreos while Scott preferred the less sweet Hydrox. I preferred the extra crunch that the Oreos had and found that the flavors were the most balanced. The Newman O's had the crunchiest cookie and I found it had the most pronounced cocoa flavor, but I thought the cookies tasted slightly off, something which came through most when we compared the creme fillings.

Oreo had the sweetest and grittiest filling. I though the Hydrox filling had too many hints of powdered sugar/cornstarch, though Scott liked that it tasted like cake frosting from a can. I really disliked the Newman O's filling, it had a strong taste of raw grain to me, but it was Scott's favorite for being not too sweet.

When dunked in milk for two seconds the Newman O's held their crunch the best of all, with Hydrox showing signs of getting soggy fast, and Oreo's going "straight to mush!". A friend of mine uses Newman O's to mix into her homemade cookies and cream ice cream because they hold up against getting too soggy.