hYankee Candle offers special MacIntosh issue

hYankee Candle offers
special MacIntosh issue

Yankee Candles is selling a special version of its MacIntosh candle for its third annual Light a Candle for Your Heart program. A dollar from the sale of each of the limited-edition candles goes to the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women movement, which encourages women to adopt a healthy lifestyle in an effort to prevent heart disease.

The candle sells for $19.99. Stores that sell Yankee Candles can be found at www.yankeecandle.com, and the candle can be ordered on the Web site.

Yankee Candles will also donate to the heart association for sales of other selected red candles and a limited-edition “Go Red” car air freshener.

The good book
for water gardeners

Everything you need to know to add water to your landscape is in Ben Helm’s “The Water Gardener’s Bible.”

The book takes readers through all the steps involved, from planning a water garden to keeping it clean.

Helm covers such topics as lighting, plant care, stocking a pond with fish and even making a water feature safer for children. He also included a directory of water plants to help you choose the right ones.

“The Water Gardener’s Bible” is published by Rodale Books and sells for $21.95 in softcover.

GE lighting Web site
can help you design

Just when you thought you had selected the right lighting for your bedroom, your spouse tells you it’s too bright. And after all the trouble you went through to dim the lighting in the bathroom, your spouse thinks it looks like a cave. But now you can find home-improvement ideas on the GE lighting Web site,
gelighting.com.

By clicking on the “Design With Light” link, you can find tips about layers, colors and quality of lighting.

The section also features weekend lighting projects and has video segments, step-by-step instructions and shopping lists that can be downloaded for each lesson.

‘Paint Style’ provides
techniques, inspiration

The right combination of color, texture and paint can work wonders on your walls. It can turn an ordinary, plain wall into a canvas with visual effects and patterns.

“Paint Style: The New Approach to Decorative Paint Finishes” (Benjamin Moore Paints, $26.95, paperback) is filled with conceptual inspiration and step-by-step instructions on paint techniques.

With projects by professional interior designers and architects, and more than 180 color photos illustrating the text, the guide shows readers how to create tonal effects, faux appearances, patterns and textural looks.

Other techniques covered include mottling, color washing and stenciling.

In addition to photos and instructions for each technique, effects such as layering or changing the palette show readers how to personalize different schemes.

Author puts spotlight
on green, basic plants

William Cullina admits that in a natural world where flowers wear their flashy colors to attract pollinators the way a call girl wears cheap makeup, the businesslike green plants can easily be overlooked.

But that doesn’t stop him from appreciating them, an admiration he expresses almost poetically in “Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses.”

In his introduction, Cullina, director and propagator of New England’s largest retail native-plant nursery, likens these basic plants to a canvas for nature’s portraits.

Cullina’s book is principally a gardening encyclopedia, with all the basic information on these plants a gardener needs.

“Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses” is published by Houghton Mifflin and sells for $40 in hardcover.

McClatchy Newspapers