Page 1 of Ellen Bell's writing

1. Cut Out Cookie Recipe Tips: How to Perfect the Holiday Sugar Cookie Baking cut out cookies at Christmas is a time honored family tradition in many homes. Most of us have childhood memories of helping mom or grandma flour the countertops, roll out the dough, and choose from an assortment of holiday shaped cookie... (posted by Ellen 1 year 157 days ago.)

2. Christmas Tree Decorating: How to Design a Show Stopping Tree Christmas tree decorating is more than just a family tradition; to some, it's an art form. While it's true that anyone can decorate a Christmas tree, decorating one well does require some talent, forethought and planning, and a good eye for... (posted by Ellen 1 year 163 days ago.)

3. How to Install a Basement Bathroom It's something that many people face: You want to put a bathroom in the lower level of your home, but the contractor who built your house didn't stub the basement in for a bathroom. So what can you do? Just to install a toilet would require... (posted by Ellen 1 year 277 days ago.)

4. How to Trim Trees: 4 Ways to Enhance Your View and Your Landscape Almost every suburban home in America boasts one or two large landscape trees on their property. These large trees provide us with shade, privacy, and are an anchor for our landscape designs. Therefore, we want to take good care of our trees and... (posted by Ellen 1 year 280 days ago.)

5. Curb Appeal Ideas: 5 Ways to Improve Curb Appeal and Sell Your Home With so many homes on the market these days, you've got to make yours really stand out from the crowd if you want to sell it quickly. Never underestimate the power of curb appeal at drawing in prospective buyers and generating interest in your... (posted by Ellen 1 year 287 days ago.)

6. 5 Keys to Making Your House More Eco Friendly Living a more eco friendly lifestyle has come into vogue in the last decade. With our country and the world facing many environmental issues ranging from global warming to increased water shortages, people are beginning to realize the full impact... (posted by Ellen 1 year 293 days ago.)

7. Garden Color - Not Just for Flowers Anymore When most of us think of a colorful garden, we envision beautiful expanses of flowers blowing in the wind. While flowers do provide a great deal of vibrant color in a landscape, there are many other options for adding color to your outdoor areas.... (posted by Ellen 1 year 298 days ago.)

8. Man Cave Necessities - Top 5 Requirements for Your Manly Retreat If you are thinking about creating the perfect spot where you can relax in comfort without the interruptions of your spouse or kids, then we have some tips for you. While each person has different ideas of what they really need in their man cave... (posted by Ellen 1 year 307 days ago.)

9. Composting Toilets-Will One Work in Your Home? When trying to decide whether a composting toilet is right for your home, there are many important factors to take into consideration. Will your family and any houseguests be accepting of a different type of toilet system? Will your lifestyle and... (posted by Ellen 1 year 315 days ago.)

10. Sun-Mar Composting Toilets - A Few More Frequently Asked Questions Let's face it, composting toilets are a very complex and little understood product. Many consumers don't even realize that compost toilets are actually odorless and present a great eco-friendly alternative for residential homes in urban and... (posted by Ellen 1 year 351 days ago.)

11. Sun-Mar Composting Toilets - Top 4 Frequently Asked Questions As dealers of composting toilet systems, we are accustomed to getting a lot of questions about how our units work and how they're able to operate without odor. To that end, we've compiled a list of some of our most frequently asked questions... (posted by Ellen 2 years 7 days ago.)

12. Container Vegetable Gardens - Growing Vegetables in Pots Small space gardening is a reality for many urban and suburban families. Even though we've left the roomy rural farms of our forefathers, we haven't lost the desire to grow some of our own food, and so we are faced with finding ways to garden with... (posted by Ellen 2 years 7 days ago.)

13. Garden Wedding Decorations: How to Decorate the Outdoor Wedding of Your Dreams As the weather gets warmer and spring arrives, so do the many wedding invitations that come in the mail this time of year. June is a very popular month to get married, especially if the bride and groom are planning a garden ceremony. While there... (posted by Ellen 2 years 27 days ago.)

14. Composting Portable Toilet Systems for RVs--An Alternative to Holding Tanks and Pump Outs Anyone who's ever traveled by RV knows what an unpleasant job it is to empty and clean the waste holding tank. Furthermore, improper maintenance of the holding tank can lead to real problems down the road--no pun intended! What if there were a... (posted by Ellen 2 years 41 days ago.)

15. Homemade Mothers Day Gifts Using Flowers With Mother's Day fast approaching, many dads and children are wondering what to get for mom this year. If you're looking to create something unique and homemade, but aren't sure where to start, we've got a number of great ideas to share, all of... (posted by Ellen 2 years 41 days ago.)

16. 5 Ideal Locations for a Composting Toilet There are an almost limitless number of applications for composting toilets. These water saving, odorless, eco friendly fixtures can be installed literally anywhere because they don't require hookup to a traditional sewer line or septic tank. With... (posted by Ellen 2 years 47 days ago.)

17. Outdoor Design Ideas: Creating Privacy in Small Outdoor Spaces Many individuals enjoy being outdoors but don't have a huge amount of outdoor space to call their own. With millions of people downsizing and giving up their large homes, yards, and gardens, a number of us now have to find ways to enjoy smaller... (posted by Ellen 2 years 47 days ago.)

18. How to Plant a Vegetable Garden - 10 Easy Steps After a long winter, many of us are ready to get out into our yards tackle some small home improvement projects. One popular project that many American homeowners will be taking on this spring is putting in a vegetable garden. With many of us... (posted by Ellen 2 years 56 days ago.)

19. Composting Toilet Performance in Various Climates Did you know that the your local climate can have an impact on the performance of a composting toilet? It's true. Whether your climate experiences especially cold and long winters or very humid summers, the weather does play a role in how you will... (posted by Ellen 2 years 56 days ago.)

20. Tomato Trellis Gardening: Using a Tomato Trellis to Maximize Your Harvest Growing tomatoes is such a popular summertime activity that it could possibly be considered the American pastime, perhaps second only to baseball. Every spring, millions of home gardeners find at least some small space in their yard or garden, or... (posted by Ellen 2 years 64 days ago.)

21. Pyramid Trellis Designs and Uses Pyramid trellises, also sometimes referred to as obelisks, make awesome focal points in a garden or landscape design. Available in a multitude of styles, sizes, and colors, choosing one that's right for your yard can be difficult. In this article... (posted by Ellen 2 years 64 days ago.)

22. Composting Toilet Do's and Don'ts Homeowners with septic systems are accustomed to being cautious about what goes down their toilets. These folks know that you don't want things like sanitary napkins, harsh chemicals, or an excessive amount of toilet paper going into a septic... (posted by Ellen 2 years 64 days ago.)

23. Outdoor Design Ideas with Movable Garden Structures Designing an outdoor living area can be daunting, particularly when you feel like every decorating decision you make is set in stone. However, it is possible to create an outdoor space that can be changed slightly with movable garden structures.... (posted by Ellen 2 years 71 days ago.)

24. Composting Toilets - Do They Meet Building Code? When a homeowner is considering purchasing a composting toilet system, one of the first and most important questions they must answer is whether the system will comply with their local building codes and regulations. This can be a tricky topic... (posted by Ellen 2 years 76 days ago.)

25. Coldframe Greenhouse Gardening - How to Stretch Your Planting Season A coldframe is essentially a type of low cost, highly efficient miniature greenhouse. To understand what a coldframe is, envision a very shallow box whose sides are made of transparent or translucent glass or plastic, and whose bottom is open. The... (posted by Ellen 2 years 83 days ago.)