It’s all about fun in the sun when dressing little girls in the ultra bright and cheerful colors of the season. Nothing better suits their bubbly personalities than golden sunflowers, blissful seahorses and garden ladybugs. Go wild but don’t forget the sunscreen (summer’s most crucial fashion statement).

EarthGroovz Sunflower Tunic from Etsy, $26, blooms nicely over jeans (above)

Baby Blend Natural Beach Cruiser Tee, $23.50, for catching buttery waves

Faeries Dance Ladybug Oneside, $20, can wing it during her summer daze
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Protecting the environment is never cut and dry. Take, for example, the issue of  hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Used in the 1990s to replace ozone-depleting gases that air conditioners, refrigerators and insulating foam emitted, HFCs helped to shrink the hole in the ozone layer, seen as a serious global environmental crisis of the time.

But now scientists are saying that these very same HFCs are no longer helping the environment. Instead, they are actually making things worse. These odorless chemicals are leaking out of refrigerators and air conditioners in minute amounts (and in larger amounts when …

My mother, the nice Jewish lady seen here at her box at the Hollywood Bowl,  is among the biggest paper and water consumers in the country. It hasn’t been easy getting her to turn over a new leaf. (Or rather, fewer of them.)

She has a varied and colorful history of helping herself to fistfuls of disposable napkins at restaurants, collecting hundreds of brown paper grocery bags from Gelson’s Market and requiring daily soaks or showers. She’s pretty darn clean, my mother.

“I never, ever get …

There’s something so inviting about gathering around a fire.

A handful of you might admit that some of your best conversations were had around one be it campside, hearthside or backyard with a fire pit. But what about inside a piece of architecturally pleasing furniture?

Enter Planika Fires, a company that specializes in indoor and outdoor furniture pieces that actually contain fires that burn without smoke.
A nice feature for homeowners who want the ambiance of a fire without the smell, residue and allergens produced with smoke.

Fueled by a special ethanol-based liquid called …

We go because we love movies. We go for the delightful or frightful experience of being swept into another reality for a couple of hours. We go crazy when bombarded with highly stylized Mercedes and Coke ads before previews and a show.

The big screen in a darkened room has always had a dramatic impact on the captive viewer, more than a television screen and much more than a computer monitor or iPhone. And they know it. They bet on it. They exploit it. They profit from it.

They are corporate advertisers for soft …

Cell phones, laptops, the Blackberry, iPods, texting, Twitter. Do you ever feel a little too in touch with the world? Next time you’re suffering from technology overload, cut the cord and spend some quality time with Mother Earth for a weekend. Here are some basic tips for a few days off the grid and out in nature.

Make a list of everything you need and check it twice. There won’t be a convenience …

Sugar coated tablets are meant to protect people from the medicine upsetting their bodies. But now a new study has found sugar coating might itself be bad for the body.

The study, sponsored by the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority and published in Toxicology Letters, has found that just one sugar coated tablet of an easy to obtain over-the-counter medication “can raise the levels of phthalates in the body by 100 fold before being quickly eliminated.”

The fact that it’s quickly eliminated is great, but …

As hungry workers nationwide kiss moral-boosting bonuses and office parties goodbye, at least one Minnesota employer is adding rather than subtracting a perk for his people: an organic vegetable garden for enjoying the fruits of their labor.

The Dude Ranch in Delano, Minn. (30 minutes outside downtown Minneapolis) is the brainchild of Fred and Sarah Haberman, Co-Founders of Haberman Public Relations. Based on a community-supported agriculture (CSA) model, the plot is a working garden that has replaced the water cooler as the employee gathering place. But …