Holiday Contest!

It’s time to kick off the first annual GrowIt! Holiday photo contest!
We will be awarding special prizes to the top three photos uploaded to GrowIt! during the holiday season.

How will we be judging the photos?

• Obviously each photo must be a picture of a living plant. Cut Greens, Christmas Trees, Food, and Silk Flowers DO NOT COUNT!

• The picture must show some sort of Holiday Cheer! No matter which Holidays you celebrate, it’s the time of year to decorate and be with family and friends.

• And lastly if you can get a picture of Santa holding your plant there may be bonus points involved.

So get out there and let’s see those Poinsettia and Christmas Cactus pictures!

An Update on all of the Updates

We interrupt this program to bring you an update from the GrowIt! studio……

Seriously though, gears have been moving behind the scenes here at the GrowIt! laboratory, and we wanted to take a little time and tell you about a couple big changes that have already happened, or are in the works.

SPEED

If you’ve updated the app recently, you might have noticed a couple things. The most obvious change is that it no longer takes years for plants and images to load! Recently we’ve upgraded our back-end servers (Tech Jargon for “we’ve done some computer coding stuff”) to make your GrowIt! experience much more expedient and enjoyable. Our upgrading process allows your phone to load more pictures at a faster rate than ever before. We understand that your time is valuable, and that nobody wants to spend hours waiting for pictures to load.

QUALITY

This is something that you might not have noticed, but the pictures that GrowIt! captures when you use your camera in the app are better than ever! We’ve upped the resolution of the photos that the app can use. We understand that pictures need to be as clear as possible to show the beauty of the plants you love!

UPCOMING: ANDROID!!!??!?!

The transformation process has begun! Our developers have already shown us multiple screens for an Android version of GrowIt! We’re learning that there can be “translation” difficulties when taking an app from one operating system and formatting it for another; however, we are striving to create an app that offers stellar performance for both iPhone and Android users. Our fingers are crossed (when they aren’t typing furiously) but we’re hoping GrowIt! should be available in the Google Play market in the next few months!

We hope all is well with all of our GrowIt! fans out there. Hopefully the snow hasn’t hit you too hard yet.

Just remember when times get cold; Spring is only a few months away, you can make it, and if you need to see something green to brighten your winter days, GrowIt! has you covered.

– Mason Day, Mustachioed CoFounder of GrowIt!

http://mobro.co/masonday – Our Movember Page!

Guest Blog: DIY Gourd Lamp by Plant Jungle

Halloween has passed and Thanksgiving is quickly approaching. You have plenty of fantastic gourds left over but what do you do? Today we have a guest blogger with the perfect answer to this question. Megan Evans on behalf of Plant Jungle in Utah, details how to turn plain old gourds into stunning works of art.

DIY: How to Make a  Gourd Lamp 

By Megan Evans 

Special thanks to Mark Burton & Graham Hickey

Brought to you by Plant Jungle

Looking for a fun DIY project or a thoughtful holiday gift for a loved one? A homemade gourd lamp is a perfect solution for both. Young bottle gourds can be harvested for culinary purposes. Alternatively if a gourd is allowed to mature it will desiccate to form a hard woody shell. This “petrified” gourd can be hollowed, cleaned and used for a number of applications.  In fact dried bottle gourds have been used for centuries to make items like lamps, utensils, bottles, and even musical instruments such as the sitar.  As bottle gourds come in many shapes and sizes, your imagination is essentially the only limitation to what you can make with these.

Building lamps from bottle gourds is our personal favorite use of bottle gourds. The gourds themselves are very esthetically pleasing as lamps. Additionally placement of a light source within the gourd provides a fantastic glow that casts light through the designs etched into the exterior of the gourd. This provides a really nice effect that will brighten up any room in your house. Construction of a lamp from a bottle gourd essentially consists of 3 major steps: hollowing a dried gourd, carving/drilling a design on the exterior of the gourd, and then fitting the gourd with an appropriate light.

Below are some basic instructions for constructing your own gourd lamp. After mastering the basic approach to using a gourd to construct a lamp we encourage you to be creative and think of new designs and other cool uses for dried gourds. Due to the material of the gourd, we do not recommend that you leave the lamp on unattended or on for long periods of time.

Materials that you will need:

• Dried gourd
• Drill and drill bits- The largest holes were drilled with 1 inch bits with the consecutive holes being 5/16^thof an inch to 1/8^th of an inch. The largest holes can be finished with a dremel
• Sandpaper (80 and 100 grit)
• Stencils
• Compass
• A pencil
• 10 watt incandescent light bulb
• Tapped thread size 1/8^thlamp couplings
• One 2” candelabra socket
• 1/8^thCandelabra base
• 1/8^thlamp nuts & washers
• 1/8^thtapped solid hex nut

Directions:

1. Sand the gourd with 80 grit sandpaper. After thoroughly sanding the rough areas, finish with 100 grit sandpaper.
2. Measure the midsection of the largest part of the gourd and then use a geometric compass to make a concentric circle from the largest section. The concentric circles will provide a systematic placement for the pattern.
3. Use a pencil to stencil the pattern on the gourd prior to drilling.
4. Drill the largest holes around the midsection with a 1inch or smaller bit. Afterward, drill smaller holes along your traced pattern.
5. Drill the top of the gourd to fit a 1/8 Candelabra base
6. To assemble the light fixture insert the candelabra base through the hole on the top of the gourd. Fasten the candelabra in place with a steel washer and hex nut. Do not over tighten the hex nut as this may crack the gourd.

Since 1998, Plant Jungle has been in the indoor plant business selling live and artificial plants as well as plant maintenance tools, pottery, custom gifts, and plant arrangements. Give a unique gift! We can create custom corporate/client, housewarming, and condolence gifts. Additionally, we offer seasonal products such as gourds, pumpkins, and Christmas trees. Plant Jungle also specializes in patioscaping and indoor plant designs including container gardening, office plants, and plant arrangement for special occasions. Plant Jungle can customize interior plant arrangements to your specifications such as custom designed Christmas ornamental plant displays or custom designed garden containers for your business. For more information regarding our custom gifts or perusing our indoor plants go to www.plantjungle.com or contact plantjungle@twistlab.com

As always be sure to check for the latest version of GrowIt! on the Apple App Store, and stay up to date on the latest GrowIt! news at www.facebook.com/growitapp and www.twitter.com/growitmobile!