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The Herb Companion Guide to Healing Herbs is packed with valuable and illuminating information on more than 136 favorite herbs for growing, cooking and healing.

A 100-page guide is filled with articles on herbs that help you save money and help you stay healthy throughout the year. Articles cover everything from skin-soothing herbs to herbs that help with cold and flu.

Other articles include:

• Don't Break the Bank: Discover 15 herbs that will save you money on medical bills
• Beat Winter Colds: Treat and prevent winter colds with natural remedies
• Lower Your Blood Pressure: Help correct hypertension with four effective herbs
• Soothe Psoriasis: Control this skin condition with natural remedies

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Wanna save yourself money and time at the gas pump? Learn how to make your own electric car with Ben Nelson's DVD, "Build Your Own Electric Car."

Providing almost two hours of hands-on instructions, this helpful DVD will take you through all of the aspects of building an electric car. Nelson's idea is for you to make your own electric car for not a lot of money and be proud of your do-it-yourself creation.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $34.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Add a feeling of accomplishment to your life and personalization to your home with the ultimate practice in self-sufficiency: do-it-yourself projects from Mother Earth News. Get the know-how to fashion custom furniture, erect personal fences and more with the 479 pages of project tips and instructions in the Do-It-Yourself E-book Projects Collection on CD-ROM.

For the first time, Mother Earth News is proud to offer the complete Do-It-Yourself E-book Projects Collection on CD-ROM. This comprehensive collection includes 14 useful e-books with titles ranging from "How to Build a Pond for Fun or Food" to "How to Keep Your Basement Dry". The Do-It-Yourself E-book Projects Collection on CD-ROM is packed with practical information, innovative ideas and creative projects to inspire self-sufficiency.

E-book Projects Included in the Collection:

• How to Build Simple Furniture
• How to Build Cold Frames
• How to Build Easy Composters
• How to Build a Pole Woodshed
• How to Build a Smokehouse
• How to Build Fences
• How to Build a Pond for Food and Fun
• How to Manage a Woodlot
• How to Build Easy Bird Feeders
• How to Maintain Axes & Chainsaws
• How to Build Bat Houses
• How to Keep Your Basement Dry
• How to Build Cold Storage for Fruits & Vegetables
• How to Buy an Old House

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Here's where simple techniques meet 100% natural soaps that please the eye, the nose and the environment! Made with the safe and simple melt-and-pour method, these projects feature a delicious range of eco-friendly and animal-free ingredients — from oatmeal and lavender to honeysuckle and clay. The ins-and-outs of soap bases, colorants and essential oils all receive detailed attention. Soapmaking the Natural Way is an affordable, informative and inspiring resource.

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This definitive guide covers commercial and residential geothermal heating, ventilation, and air conditioning technologies and explains how to take advantage of their money- and energy-saving features. Geothermal HVAC: Green Heating and Cooling reviews the array of choices currently available, offers market values for systems based on varying options and conditions, and describes how to pair the best systems for each application and budget. Whether you're a contractor or a consumer, you'll find out what you need to know to implement a geothermal HVAC system in a retrofit or new construction project, and start benefiting from this sustainable, affordable technology.

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More and more homebuyers and homebuilders are focusing on "right-sizing" their dream home instead of mortgaging their dreams away. Building Today's Dream Home gives you instruction and advice on best practices for building a smaller, more cost-effective house without compromising comfort or quality. Building a right-sized, energy-efficient home can free up your investment capital for the retirement years, and this book gives you the information you need to build the right home for your needs.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $19.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Tie-dye is an easy, rewarding and affordable craft that can turn silks, cottons and simple ready-made garments into dramatic fashion statements. Author Melanie Brummer is an expert at reviving clothes, linens and draperies with this creative craft skill.

Dyeing fabric to create beautiful patterns and gradations of color is a craft tha has been practiced throughout the world for centuries. Now this ancient craft is enjoying a renaissance as a style statement on the fashion runway.

Contemporary Dyecraft features more than 50 resist-dyeing projects that are easy to do and yield beautiful one-of-a-kind results. Popular methods used are bucket-dyeing, dip dyeing and dyeing in a washing machine. Brummer explains the chemical processes and technical aspects of resist dyeing and gives instructions on choices of fabric and color. The required equipment is largely household items that are inexpensive and readily available.

The projects use eight dyeing styles: flat color, graded color, crazed patterns, circles, stripes and coils, geometric shapes, spirals and stitched patterns. The materials lists are minimal, such as fabric, string or rubber bands, a bucket and kettle, and the dye.

The projects are rated by degree of difficulty and include:

• Skirt in a ball
• Reverse camouflage T-shirt
• Candy-striped silk scarf
• Water fantasy silk scarf
• Flowers on a shirt
• Parallel-striped Madiba shirt

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Alternative Energy Secrets focuses on overlooked fuels. In its pages, you'll find extensive information regarding waste oils and their inexpensive conversion to useful fuels. Also included are plans for a super fast oil collector trailer that picks up 200 gallons in a few minutes and does not form water emulsion like a gear pump will. Author Stephen Chastain describes oil cracking, blending, filtering, testing, and the construction of centrifuges to clean waste oils and make them suitable for use in home heating or as diesel fuel. Also covered is the construction of waste oil burners and heaters, tips on off-grid power generation and converting your car to diesel. This book is a practical how to text containing very unusual material. A must have for alternative energy users!

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Masonry Heaters is a complete guide to designing and living with one of the oldest, and yet one of the newest, heating devices. A masonry heater’s design, placement in the home, and luxurious radiant heat redefine the hearth for the modern era, turning it into a piece of the sun right inside the home. Like the feeling one gets from the sun on a spring day, the environment around a masonry heater feels fresh. The radiant heat feels better on the skin. It warms the home both gently and efficiently. In fact, the value of a masonry heater lies in its durability, quality, serviceability, dependability and health-supporting features. And it is an investment in self-sufficiency and freedom from fossil fuels.

The book discusses different masonry heater designs, including variations extant in Europe, and explains the growth of their popularity in the United States beginning in the late 1970s. For the reader who may be familiar only with open fireplaces and metal woodstoves, Masonry Heaters will bring a new understanding and appreciation of massive heat storage and gentle-but-persistent radiant heat. Masonry heaters offer a unique comfort that is superior to that from convection heat from forced-air systems, and more personal than that offered by “radiant” floors. As author Ken Matesz demonstrates, the heat from the sun or from a masonry heater is genuine heat instead of just insulation against the loss of heat.

Those who are looking to build, add onto, or remodel a house will find comprehensive and practical advice for designing and installing a masonry heater, including detailed discussion of materials, code considerations, and many photos and illustrations. While this is not a do-it-yourself guide for building a masonry heater, it provides facts every heater builder should know. Professional contractors will find this a useful tool to consult, and homeowners considering a new method of home heating will find all they need to know about masonry heaters within these pages.