thursday thought by tuiss :: Anyone can upcycle

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This is fabulous, the ‘What Watt’ by Tim Fishlock. It took 1243 spent incandescent light bulbs to create a very nice chandelier indeed.

Whatt Watt

Making a chandelier is upcycling on quite a grand scale, but anybody can do it, and here’s the proof.

Faced with a snowy drive that we needed to clear but only a narrow shovel to hand we needed to make a wider tool. We had a bit of old plywood but what to use for the handle? Aha, one Christmas tree stalk later and a few nails and we were there!

Clearing the snowClearing the snow

Have you upcycled recently? We’d love to hear about it.

Pantone Colour of the year is turquoise :: tuiss turquoise blinds

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Each year the people at Pantone select their colour of the year. For 2010 we have the pleasure of turquoise and in their words:

Combining the serene qualities of blue and the invigorating aspects of green, Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of well being.

Owing to its strength and depth turquoise is often used as an accent colour rather than the base colour of a room. It works very well with white injecting a zap of brightness. With other bright colours it’s positively tropical, take a look at Botanic Jardin to see what I mean. With earthy moody colours such as browns and greens then there’s drama and warmth.

At tuiss we have lots of blinds in this beautiful colour, some are deep and rich while others are soft and light. We have even more than choices than those shown here in both roller blinds and roman blinds.

Bright Turquoise

Vermont Turquoise

Vermont Turquoise roman

Real Silk Viridian

Real Silk Viridian roman

Shaolin Karma

Shaolin Karma roller

Soft Turquoise

Habitat Turquoise

Habitat Turquoise roller

Embrace Duck Egg

Embrace Duck Egg roller

dr-glamour-jade

Shimmer Jade roller

Just a touch of Turquoise

Banda Torino

Banda Torino roller

Botanic Jardin

Botanic Jardin roller

Biba Delft roller blind

Biba Delft roller

Interior ideas with ……. turquoise (and blinds to match)!

Bedroom

tuiss Embrace Duck Egg roller blind would work so well here with its soft colour and elegant lines, of course it's blackout too.

Sitting Room

Such a luxurious room calls for tuiss' Real Silk Viridian roman blind, it would harmonise effortlessly with such fabulousness.

Hallway

tuiss Shaolin Karma would look a treat echoing the elegance of the turquoise accents and the clean brightness of the walls.

If you’re a fan of turquoise then you must visit House of Turquoise which is a blog dedicated to this evocative colour.

Thursday thought by tuiss :: De-icing the car

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You just know its wrong, squirting foul smelling chemical filled de-icer at the window. After a quick bit of searching here’s some top ideas for the annoying seasonal problem of de-icing your car.

  • Get an ice-scraper, cheap and really quite effective.
  • Use a windscreen shield or a black bin liner (just make sure you keep using the same one!) Old carpets and sheets will work ok too.
  • Place a (hot) hot water bottle on the dashboard while you have your breakfast!
  • Place a milk carton filled with water on the radiator at night then pour onto your screen in the morning. (Make sure the water is only lukewarm, any hotter and you may crack the screen.)

Hot Water BottleWindscreen ShieldIce Scraper

Igloos need tuiss NRG energy saving roller blinds

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Here in Nottingham it’s snowing and my head is turning to making my home as warm and cosy as possible. I have my eye on the Eclipse NRG15 Cream thermal roller blind for the coldest room in our house, I just need to locate the tape measure!

Naturally my head then turned from my home and the 2cm of snow we have to igloos. A quick Google later and I was happily surfing images of ‘cool’ igloos on GrandShelters.com. Personally I think that this igloo is crying out for an energy efficient NRG blind. To order an NRG sample or blind simply click here, or to read the low down all the benefits then have a look at this recent blog post.

Igloo 2Igloo

We wish you a merry Christmas

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The tuiss blog is hanging up its pen a little early for Christmas. We have some exciting new products and developments for next year so it’s all hands to the pump to make 2010 a cracker!

Thank you to everyone who follows the blog and a big thank you too to everyone who is now the proud owner of a tuiss blind.

From the whole team at tuiss we wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

See you in January!

tuiss-venetian-xmas

Thursday thought by tuiss :: Sign up to 10:10

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1010 Business Logo

Here at tuiss we’ve just signed up to 10:10, we’ve decided that we wanted to help stop the world from changing quite so fast.

10:10 is an ambitious project to unite every sector of British society behind one simple idea: that by working together we can achieve a 10% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions in 2010.

Anybody can sign up, individuals, businesses or organisations. We’ve just received our welcome pack telling us the things that we can be doing to reduce our footprint by 10%. Our Green Team is on it so pretty sure we’ll all be! We’ll let you know how we get on.

Thursday thought by tuiss :: Reflective radiator panels

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Want to save 20% on your heating bill? We do!

Here at tuiss our green team has just completed the Carbon Trust’s Energy Walk Around checklist. We’ve decided that purchasing some radiator panels is the way forward, particularly for our customer services office where the wind whips up the hill straight onto the wall!

Placing a radiator panel behind a radiator ensures that the heat doesn’t disappear into the wall but instead gets circulated into the room. Pay back is estimated at just under a year. What a no-brainer!

Heatkeeper Radiator Panels

Heatkeeper Radiator Panels

Ecosavers Radiator Reflector Foil

Ecosavers Reflector Foil

Heatsaver Radiatior Panel

Heatsaver Radiatior Panel

Thursday thought by tuiss :: Crush a can

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As we recycle more and more we have to get cleverer at storing the recycling. Crushing aluminium cans can save a lot of space and here’s three nifty gadgets that all crush in a flash.

Alternatively there’s the Nnew can, a great invention that cuts out the middle man. With a deft twist of the hand the can reduces to a third of its size. In the shops soon!

gdgdgdg

Works the triceps too

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Crushed bottles too

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From Lakeland Limited

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Crushing is so yesterday