Silent Snooz promises to reduce snoring with a reusable plastic nose clip. It slides into your nose and hugs the wall between the two nostrils. It is supposed to open up your nasal passages kind of like those Breathe Right strips – but from the inside. Mr. Spork found Silent Snooz to be reasonably comfortable and did not impede with his sleep. Unfortunately, it didn’t work well. His snoring bursts were a little shorter, and a little softer, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t enough to ditch my earplugs. Also, it fell out at some point during the night, and we never were able to find it.

It didn’t work for us, but maybe it would do better for someone with more normal snoring levels.

To purchase, visit SilentSnooz.com

Felt Furnishings: 25 Accessories For Contemporary Homes by Anne Kyyro Quinn is a beautifully illustrated book with patterns and tutorials for making home accessories out of felt. Felt is a great fabric because it is inexpensive, easy to work with, and has come a long way from the inexpensive craft felt from your kindergarten days.

Some favorite projects: the decorative throw pillow with huge ruffled rosette over the front; throw pillow with bulbous, padded pleats down the front; throw blanket with asymmetrical mod circles appliqued over it – and semi-matching throw pillows; table runner with contrasting cut-outs; throw pillow cover made of strips of felt woven and sewn together; spiral-top ottoman; and striped tab-top drapes.

The felt offers a fun, mod feel – perfect for a first apartment or dorm room. Plus, the projects are easy, require little knowledge of sewing, and great directions are included for true sewing beginners like myself.

A Few Goody Gumdrops and Chickdowntown.com are giving away a necklace from the House of Harlow by Nicole Richie. Enter to Win!

Bags, Bling and Beauty invites you to check out swimwear tips from Shoshanna Gruss.

Being High Maintenance, not Bitchy is getting summer ready with ChickDowntown and you can too – just read and win!

Couture In The City Shop sandals and save with Smartbargains.com.

Fashion Fille loves colors- and welovecolors.com! Find out what’s her favorite on the awesome tights site!

Raging Rouge blows her diet with a 2,000 calorie treat by MAX Factor.

Shopping and Info found Blake Lively’s brown cross body bag.

Spork Fashion braves the heat to check out the Silver Spoon Dog and Baby Gifting Suite. These are some spoiled babies!

Style Eyes would love to invest in a beautiful, flattering and expertly draped dress

The Bare Skinny knows where Kim Kardashian got her Balmain inspired vest.

Suffering from a breakup? The Well-Heeled Society breaks it down with The Relationship Journalist Lisa Steadman’s new workbook (that gives her gift registry kudos on page 77!).

The small, sleek appliance fits easily on the kitchen counter, and looks stylish. Simply fill the one liter bottle with cold water, hit the button a couple of times to activate the CO2 tank and carbonate your water, and add your desired syrup. No batteries or electricity required. No mess – just rinse out the bottle before making another batch. Fresh soda in seconds, less money, less waste, more deliciousness.

I just love this machine. So does Mr. Spork – he hardly lets me zap it with carbonation. He loves that he can over-carbonate his soda. I love that I can under-flavor mine (the syrups are a little too sweet, so I usually use a little less than half the recommended amount per liter). It’s quick, easy, and fun. Plus, when you release the carafe from the machine, it make a cool sci-fi vacuum sound. With over 25 different flavors of regular, diet, and caffeine-free sodas, energy drinks, and flavor essences, there aren’t many flavors you can’t get.

Save the Earth
• Carbonator cans are reused – send them back to the company, they will sanitize them, refill them, and send them back out.
• Carafes are reuseable and BPA-free.
• No excessive packaging to worry about.

Save Your Health
• Regular soda mix flavors contain less sugar, sodium, and carbs than leading national brands.
• Diet flavors are all made with Splenda – no aspertame anywhere.
• No lugging cases of soda.

Save Your Pennies
• Depending on the model you choose, the cost averages out to as little as $0.20 per liter of seltzer water and $0.57 per liter of flavored soda.
• Smaller bottles mean you don’t have to stock up on soda, only to realize it has gone flat. Mr. Spork and I will usually make a bottle and split it over a meal.
• Exchanged CO2 cans are nearly half the price.

Is there anything I am leaving out? I don’t think so: healthier for you, healthier for your wallet, healthier for the planet… so why haven’t you bought your own yet?

I love granola, but I am the world’s pickiest eater, and I can never find granola that has the perfect blend of Spork-approved ingredients. So Mix My Granola is my new favorite site.

You start with your choice of four granola bases, and then select from over 50 add-ins, ranging from dried fruit, nuts, seeds, cereal, even candy – all organic. Your choice is then blended together and shipped straight to you. You can even name your creation. Complete nutritional information is available for all ingredients, and your tube of granola even has a nutritional label label right on it.

“Spork’s Special Blend” included plain granola, oat bran flakes, rice crispies, dried apples, dried strawberries, dried melon, dried apricots, dried blueberries, and – because it was getting a little too healthy – chocolate caramels. And I must say, I am now beyond addicted to this stuff. Every bite has a different flavor and texture – and each one is something delicious. It suits my taste buds exactly. No more searching for granola without almonds, pecans, or other nuts (which I hate). The cereals were crispy and fresh; the fruit was sweet and perfect (I have never had dried strawberries but now I can’t get enough).

There is one downside to my new granola addiction: it doesn’t come cheap. The granola in and of itself is not unreasonable. The base starts at $4.99, and each add-in varies in price. My mix came out to about $12 before shipping, for a 16oz tube. At the rate that I eat cereal, I could easily go through the tube in under a week.

Get started on your granola addiction! We’ve teamed with Mix My Granola to give away a $20 gift certificate for your very own granola mix (that’s enough to get two tubes of granola). Simply fill out the form below and you are in!

Want an extra chance to win? Just blog about this contest, and post a link to the post in the comments section.

Get your own granola mix at MixMyGranola.com

When we bought our house, I was excited that it had a verdant yard filled with fruit trees, rose bushes, and a myriad of colorful flowers that would bloom seemingly overnight. One problem: I have no idea how to care for plants.

Enter Easy Bloom. This nifty device collects all sorts of crazy info from your soil and provides plant care tips. Simply plug the Easy Bloom into your computer via USB (don’t worry, every computer has a USB port), select the mode, then simply stick the Easy Bloom in the desired location in your yard. Let it sit for at least 24 hours, then plug it back in and upload your data.

The Easy Bloom can be set to three different modes. Recommend mode takes soil, water, temperature, and sunlight readings. It will take this data and recommend different plants that would thrive in that area. Monitor mode is for existing plants. It will tell you what nutrients it has too much or too little of, and gives you care advice. Water mode – best used for indoor plants – can instantly tell you if your plant needs water.

Easy Bloom has a well-designed, easy-to-use website that will store and track your data. Over 5,000 plants are listed on the website with photos and extensive care guidelines. There is no setup, so this is perfect for any gadget-phobe.

A few things that I didn’t like. First, I would like to be able to change the Easy Bloom mode right on the device, rather than having to plug it in to do so. Second, I would like a better way to identify plants. I wish that it could tell you the exact plant just by taking soil readings, but I understand that that might not be possible. I would like a better search method within in the plant library so that I could more easily identify what is growing in our yard – a way to narrow down the library by more options than color, height, and soil.

Just about the only thing the Easy Bloom can’t do is turn my black thumb green. But it does get it closer to an olive green.

But with Bolt, that ol’ Disney magic is back – hopefully to stay. Bolt is the star of his own TV show, where he plays a dog with superpowers who is always saving his person, Penny, from the clutches of the evil mad scientists. In order to preserve the “authenticity” of his performance, the producers of the show never let Bolt leave the studio (it’s a kids film, roll with it). When one episode they shoot ends in a cliffhanger, Bolt escapes from his trailer to save Penny, and ends up lost in the real world. He must make his way cross-country to find her, but has no idea that his super powers aren’t real. Along the way, of course, he picks up a couple friends: Mittens, a streetwise alley cat with trust issues, and Rhino, the comic relief hamster in an exercise ball who idolizes Bolt.

It is your typically sweet Disney story, but with a well-crafted script and plenty of humor to keep it from becoming too juvenile. The blu-ray combo pack is loaded with goodies: the film on three different media: blu-ray, DVD, and a digital copy. The Super Rhino short is adorable but way too short. The deleted scenes are fun to watch, though most are just animatics. A slew of behind-the-scenes featurettes include voice over recording sessions with stars John Travolta and Miley Cyrus; how the look of the film was created; and how the film was brainstormed. A music video and a childish video game round out this massive set.

Just because you are sleeping doesn’t mean you don’t need a touch of whimsy. Enter Snooze City Designs, launched in 2007 by Derek Mosher and Mikey Azria (yup, Max’s son). Their pillowcases are a little bit punk, a little bit mod, and have more than a little bit of attitude. Among the designs are lips, guns, skulls, and mudflap girls. The pillowcases come in pairs, and often have complimentary designs. “Bird on a Wire” has a wire stretched diagonally across the two cases, with a bird perched on just one case. “Aviators” features a pair of sunglasses split directly down the center – one half per pillowcase. The cases are affordable – around $25 per set – and made of a poly/cotton blend. The good: they are inexpensive and easy to care fore. The bad: they are not particularly soft.

Also from Snooze City comes David & Goliath, an off-shoot line of pillowcases that have just as much attitude, but a little more cuteness. My favorite is, of course, the utensils in love, with the phrase “Spooning leads to forking.” Because, of course, forking leads to legions of little sporks. David & Goliath’s pillowcases are 100% cotton jersey – it is like sleeping on your favorite T-shirt.

Organize Now! by Jennifer Ford Berry offers many of the same tips and advice. But the big difference in her book is the way it is organized. The spiral-bound book is arranged into seven different areas to focus on: yourself, your papers, your things, your high-traffic areas, your personal spaces, your storage areas, and your special events. Each of these is further broken down into specifics: organize your emails, your recipes, your medicine cabinet, your photographs, etc.

It’s not as overwhelming as it sounds. Each mini-section is its own week. Week 21 is Organize Your Living Room. She offers a check list of a dozen or so goals for the week, such as organizing current magazines in one basket and recycling the rest. There are tips for a tidy living room – like buying a coffee table with drawers for storage. A Stay Organized checklist gives you simple tasks to do once a month, once every six months, and once a year to keep clean and organized. There is even a section for your own notes and to-dos. Each week offers similar tips and advice.

While none of the tips are particularly earth-shattering, the small, focused chapters make it easy to concentrate on one task at a time, and helps prevent against the overwhelming feeling that I know often makes me throw up my hands in disgust and go watch TV.

The Pros

FiTrainer can be purchased at itami.com