NEW PRODUCTS

CHILDREN

Humidifiers put the fun into healing

Chances are your child will get a cold or an upper respiratory tract infection this year and let's face it, basic humidifiers are not very attractive. They look like medical machines. But not these. Crane Adorable Humidifiers are designed to disguise the awkward apparatus to look like a variety of animals and sports balls.

These cool-mist humidifiers can help your child clear a stuffy nose with numerous designs, including a frog, a cat, a panda bear, a penguin, a pig, a soccer ball, a football and more. Not enough options? This summer, the company plans to introduce SpongeBob, Hello Kitty and Thomas the Tank Engine designs equipped with nightlights.

The 1-gallon-capacity humidifiers run quietly, turn off automatically when the water tank is empty, provide up to 2.1 gallons of moist output per day and have an easy-to-refill tank. One gallon provides up to 11 hours of running time.

The humidifiers retail from $30 to $50, and can be found at Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us. For more information, log on to www.crane-usa.com

-- Copley News Service

GARDEN

Leaves, not flowers offer lasting beauty

Look to the leaf for beauty in your garden is the hope of garden writer Nancy Ondra in her book "Foliage: Astonishing Color and Texture Beyond Flowers," Storey Publishing, $35 (hardcover); $24.95 (paperback). Organized by color and texture, chapters illustrate the features and requirements of dozens of plants used to enhance a variety of landscapes. Readers will discover leaf colors that range from chartreuse to silver to maroon to black, with textures that are rough, spiky, smooth and lacy. Chock-full of color photographs, "Foliage" shows the palette of possibilities available that offer gardeners seasonlong interest.

"Foliage" is available at most major bookstores.

HOME

Bottled-water-quality H2O on demand

Bid farewell to those dozens of empty water bottles, heavy trips to the trunk of your car and the regular expense of buying caseloads of bottled water with Diamond Water's whole house reverse-osmosis system by Good Water Co. of Las Vegas.

According to company President Mike Paice, the system provides bottled-water-quality water to your entire home.

"This product is surging water to the next level in terms of purity," said Paice. "Not only does it provide better-tasting drinks, but it essentially presents a bottle- water experience in the entire home. With the system, people are bathing in pure, bottle-like water, washing dishes with it and more. The difference is amazing. It also eliminates the need for water softeners and other chemicals which only feed back into the water supply and pollute it further."

Utilizing GE-patented technology, the Diamond Water system provides the ultimate in water purification. Certified by NSF International/ANSI, the authority on water treatment device standards, it removes nearly all of the substances found in tap water by passing it through a series of filters and membranes to reduce up to 98 percent of substances, such as arsenic, lead and radium. The four-stage design uses a KDF carbon prefilter, two reverse-osmosis membrane elements and a carbon post-filter. Benefits include no scales in pots, coffee makers or dishwashers, spot-free glasses, spalike water for bathing and showering, and the elimination of calcium build-up on pipes to name a few.

A complete Diamond Water system starts at $3,400. For more information, visit www.diamondpure.com or call 243-9400.