Living in San Francisco most of my life, I feel very spoiled by the amount of attention and high level of interest and support we have for the green movement.

Most recently, the City of San Francisco and partnership with non profit LightsOutSF.org has issued a "Lights Out" ordinance from 8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. The city’s landmarks like Alcatraz, TransAmerica building, and parts of our lovely bridges will shut off their lights to announce the importance of energy conservation.

My friends at SF CityDish tell me that there are numerous trendy restaurants in town that are hosting "romantic candlelight dinners" in support of the Lights Out event on October 20th proving once again that activism is sexy.

For Columbus Day, my cousin and I took the "Not Martha" challenge and created our own little sun jars. The project was quick with a total of 30 minutes to complete not including the wait time to store the sun rays and shopping of the supplies used. Also, it was fairly inexpensive at about $20 to make and fun to boot. Definitely a great way of showing how you can have a little green tech in your home, plus a different approach to home improvement and gift giving.

I’m going to try and recreate them for Halloween and holiday gifts in place of pumpkins and candles. Maybe add a stencil designs to them like the word "Boo" or a picture of a star or ornament. The only concern I have is the toxicity of the glass frosting spray that I used. The spray definitely made me feel a bit faint at the end of the day and I couldn’t help but hum the tune from Macgyver.

Sun jar instructions:

http://www.notmartha.org/tomake/homemadesunjar

Supplies needed: Handy assistant, frosting spray, jar, solar lamp, iced mocha to keep up with the excitement.

Don’t blink!

Oh you blinked and missed the set up because it was that quick!

See more here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/earth2joy/sets/72157602337039519

*The title of my flickr set "How to make a BOMB ass sun jar" was in reference to me trying to get through security for my flight home. They did search my bag and instead of saying "science project," I told them it was my solar lamp gift per my smart cousins’ husband’s suggestion.