by Lori Deschene

Celebrities can do a lot of things the average person can’t, like diaper their children in hundreds and commission paintings of their Chihuahuas made with liquid gold. Some use their money and status for the greater good by going green in a big way—while others over-publicize small efforts to capitalize on the eco-trend.

Regardless of their intentions, rich and famous people inspire action with their choices. Maybe you can’t build a new eco-friendly home (where you’ll park your dozen Boeing jets), but you can install a solar panel, or even just turn your thermostat down a couple degrees.

In this post, we’ll explore the world of celebrity greening, and translate that into real-person options.

 

Sheryl Crow: Launching an eco-friendly fashion line

What she’s up to: No matter what talent made you famous, you can leverage your fame into a career in fashion. (You don’t even need a talent—case in point, Lauren Conrad from The Hills.) Sheryl’s line, Bootheel Trading Co. by Sheryl Crow, will include jeans, vintage shirts, and vests, all reasonably priced under $65.

What you can do: Green your wardrobe—buy second-hand clothes, make your own pieces out of old items, swap with friends instead of buying new, and look for clothing that doesn’t require dry-cleaning, a process that uses a lot of chemicals. Here’s another great idea: recycle your shoes for athletic courts, as Earth 911 suggests.

At the very least: Use cold water when you do laundry, as it uses less energy, and wear clothes a couple times before washing them.

Will Ferrell: Will be the first to drive BMW’s new hydrogen car

What he’s up to: Will’s part of the Pioneer Program which gifts the luxury sedans to celebrities to raise awareness. (They obviously dropped the ball in recruting me; I have well over 100 friends on MySpace.) BMW’s hydrogen cars, which emit nothing but vapor water, have completed the entire Product Development Process—meaning they’ll soon be available to normal people. Theoretically. Although BMW hasn’t released the price yet, experts suggest it costs nearly $500,000 to make a hydrogen vehicle.

What you can do: Calculate your driving emissions at Terrapass and then offset that by donating to clean energy projects. Also, keep your car as clean as possible by getting regular tune-ups. Having clean air filters will help you pollute less and burn less gas.

At the very least: Green your driving style. Go smooth and steady instead of racing to make a light—which really just gets you to the next light a few seconds sooner. Flooring it for a second produces almost the same volume of C02 as 30 minutes of normal travel.

Brad Pitt: Designed environmentally friendly housing communities in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward

What he’s up to: Brad's always been an architecture buff—don't ask me why I know this—but Angelina inspired him to explore his passion altruistically. In 2007, he partnered with Global Green USA to build 150 green homes in New Orleans’ 9^th Ward, the area most affected by Hurricane Katrina. Pitt did a lot of the financial legwork, donating $5 million, creating the $12 million dollar Make It Right project, and getting 9 civic groups and 13 architecture firms to lend their services for free.

What you can do: Support the Sustainable Style Foundation, an international non-profit that provides information, resources, and programs that promote sustainable living and design. You probably won’t get that I’m-Brad-Pitt-and-I’m-saving-the-world warm, fuzzy feeling, but you’ll get a tax write-off out of the deal.

At the very least: Make some eco-friendly changes in your own home. Use low-wattage light bulbs and install motion sensors so you won’t leave lights on unnecessarily. Visit the Home Energy Saver for more ideas.

Pamela Anderson: Building a green hotel

What she’s up to: At the urging of the Dubai royal family, Pam is building an eco-friendly hotel in the Arab city Abu Dhabi. She’d traveled there with the Make a Wish Foundation charity in the past and fell in love with the people—some more than others. Apparently, she’s dating the prince.

What you can do: When making a choice for lodging, consult one of the many online directories that list environmentally-friendly properties. Do this while listening to Prince.

At the very least: Make minor adjustments during your stay—take shorter showers, reuse your towels, tell housekeeping not to change your sheets daily.

Maybe you found MyThings through your own devices and you’ve been wondering about the whole receipt-saving thing we talk about all over the site. How do you do it, you ask? Excellent question! And we have three fantastic answers.

Up until now, you had two options to save your receipt: you could either click on Save this Receipt when you made a purchase from one of our partner sites, or you could use the MyThings toolbar.

Now you have a third option for saving your receipt, and it’s so simple you could do it in your sleep. Let’s say you make a purchase at Amazon.com. You’ll then receive an email from Amazon confirming your purchase, like this:

Click on the forward button, and send it over to us at receipts@mythings.com. (Make sure to use the email account we have on file for you.) We’ll create an item page for every individual product you purchased, and create a receipt for each one. 

Next time you log on to MyThings, you can click on My Receipts at the top of the page to see all the receipts you’ve saved. When you open the Things I Own page, you’ll see another My Receipts tab under your profile picture, and you’ll also see all your newly purchased items added to your list.

Go ahead and look through your inbox now—or even your deleted messages. You probably have something in there you bought recently. Maybe an air conditioner? A new iPod? A puzzle made from pictures of you and your cat? (Really—no judgment here.) Send them on over.

We’re excited to make getting organised fun and easy, and we hope you will be, too!

 

You may have noticed some changes on the site - the most dramatic being the mysterious disappearance of the Services button. Instead of clicking on a button to see what services we have available for your item, now all you have to do is scroll down.

When you click on your item in Things I Own, your item page should now look something like this:



Everything you need is there - just scroll down and click on what you need. Repair info, donation information, downloads, how to report it stolen, how to get a valuation - all the MyThings services we have available.

You'll also see  the new Add Items optionat the top of the page. Use this to search our product catalog for something you've purchased - just click one button and all its descriptions and photos will automatically be uploaded to your Things I Own page!

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

You may have noticed the homepage is featuring something new - the MyThings Toolbar. What you may not have noticed is how tremendously handy it is.

Here's how it works - You download the toolbar:



Which will look like this on your browser. Then here's what you do

1. Buy something online. Anything, Anywhere.

2. When you get to the order confirmation page, click on Save Receipt.

3. We'll take a screenshot and get the basic info, then you can fill in anything we miss.

4. A PDF of the order confirmation page will automatically get downloaded to your Things I Own.

This is absolutely the easiest way to keep track of every receipt for every online purchase... and this is only the first version.

We're very very very excited about it and hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

One year ago today, MyThings was born. It was, admittedly, a rather ugly baby. This is what MyThings looked like December 12, 2006:



We've come a long way since then, roughly 18,000 different home pages, and 10 times as many new ideas. MyThings now has over 70,000 members and it's thanks to you that we can happily celebrate this birthday.

Another huge part of MyThings' success is our head Product Manager, Yumio (feel free to send him your birthday wishes. Don't be shy. He loves the attention). He's been here since the beginning and has been a fantastic guiding hand for MyThings, even when he yells at us during conference calls. So Toda Raba, Yumio! Happy birthday, MyThings! Somebody pass me some cake!

OK, so we've started changing things again. Hope you don't mind.

Name changes first: Everyone's Things is now Community. We hope to add much more to it soon. But that's another post.

The main change today is Recall Alert Feature.

There have been some ridiculous recalls lately - and a ridiculous number of them. We want to make sure none of our members get caught by any, so here's how the Recall Alert works:

1. We'll email me you if there are any NEW recalls on any item in your Things I Own page. We'll send you a message on MyThings and an email to make sure you know. We check several recall databases in the U.S. and U.K. daily. If anything new pops up and your items match, we'll let you know. The more things you add to your Things I Own, the more items we can check for you. We'll obviously be looking for toys, but everything is fair game (since everything can break ... or be coated in lead paint, apparently)

2. Unfortunately, we can't retroactively check for OLD recalls every day. But YOU can search our recall database. If a computer is sparking suspiciously or your refrigerator has definitively stopped running, check the Recall page to make sure there isn't a recall on it. There are literally THOUSANDS of recalls out there, on anything from sweaters to batteries - make sure nothing you own could be dangerous.

Please let me know if you have any questions and (knock on wood for the Americans and touch wood for the Brits) if you need any help with a recalled item.

Good luck!

Actually, don't panic please. They're all very nice changes - we promise.

First of all, there's the new menu:



Things I Own = Your Portfolio. Nothing was changed, removed, or messed up. We've just renamed it.

Wishlist = A place to keep the items you WANT, but don't have yet.

Giftlist = A way to find out EXACTLY what your friends and family want this Holiday Season WITHOUT ruining the surprise.

Product Catalog = a way to QUICKLY add new items from handbags to cars to your Things I Own page, Giftlist, or Wishlist.

What we're most excited about is the Giftlist. Here's how the Giftlist works:




Say you have no idea what your sister wants for Christmas and decide to anonymously send her a Giftlist.

You click on Giftlist on the menu and see this:



Click the "+Add Giftlist" button and you'll be asked who the Giftlist is for and what the special event is so you can keep track:



After you save, you'll be taken to the Product Catalog where you can fill up your Giftlist. Search for items or browse by category:




Your sister likes silver - maybe she'll want a ring? You find a likely suspect in the Product Catalog, then decide to add it by clicking the "+ Giftlist" button:



Ok, now we're getting started. You add a few different items to your Giftlist - all the things she might want this Christmas - and when you click on it, it looks like this:



You click Ask Recipient and choose whether to send it anonymously or not:



They'll get the email, sign up for MyThings and rank your items. When they do so, you'll get a message and can check to see what they want:



She tells you she loves the camera! You click on the Buy It button and we take you to Shopping.com or Kelkoo.com (depending on your location) to find out the best prices and locations.

And you know exactly what to get. Give it a try!

The hippo has been named! After many weeks of meetings, arguments, several slap fights and the loss of 2 - 4 fingers, the MyThings staff has decided that the winner of the Name the Hippo that We Got at IKEA Competition is Jules59

So may I present to you, MyThings' own ... Pomposity Hug Nap Smith (an anagram of MyThings Hippopotamus). Pompy for short.



Cute, isn't he?

Hurray for Pompy!

The battle for his name was long and fierce. But Jules59 won out. And since we're talking about Jules59 anyway, I'd like to direct your attention to the sidebar, where she's the Featured Member this week.

Nicely done, Jules. Now all we need to do is figure out where we can feature him on MyThings. I feel like we're due for a change in logo anyway.