It’s just about, so close, very near…can you feel it? It’s spring, and here it’s sneaking through the cracks every few days. Today was a day that was dark, damp, and sleeting, though: very winter-like. If you’re feeling the winter blues, what can you do to add some spring to your home and hopefully to your step? 1. Flowers and plants Nothing says spring like adding a few flowers to your home. My favorite is the forced bulb. It’s so easy to force bulbs to bloom. Just place a paperwhite in a pot and place it in a sunny location … Continue reading →
Getting ready to kiss 2012 goodbye, I am eager to embrace the New Year. But I am also ready to conquer what I believe has become a lost art in today’s society, housekeeping. If you think about it, it’s kind of an old-fashioned word. Homemaking has mostly replaced it. But it means one and the same. It can also be a concept viewed in a negative light. It might conjure up images of women donning aprons, scrubbing the floor on their hands and knees (forget the Shark Steam Mop!). Or you might picture June Cleaver in her dress and heels, … Continue reading →
Do you have your Christmas tree up? I know there are many people who set-up their trees on Black Friday, but I just can’t motivate myself to decorate a tree when I am still stuffing myself with Thanksgiving leftovers. A string of Christmas lights in one hand, a fork filled with pumpkin pie in the other. I stink at being ambidextrous. That and I don’t think I would be able to keep a tree alive until Christmas if I were to put it up on November 23rd. Still, tree trimming is an exciting undertaking in our family. My 8-year-old delights … Continue reading →
A few years ago I attended a class at my church on homemaking. I remember the woman who taught shared some ideas on how to make your dinner table more inviting. At the time I had small children, thinking more about how I was going to keep the food on the table rather than on the floor or in the dog’s mouths…let alone worry about decorating the table. Now that my children are older, those ideas have been creeping up in my mind. And I would like to try implementing some of them. But first we have to deal with … Continue reading →
Did you have fun with the quiz? Do you find out anything you didn’t know about your spouse? Sometimes a quiz can highlight areas where we are different. Many times it won’t matter if his favorite color is red and yours is blue, except maybe when it comes to decorating. If you want to paint a room a color he can’t live with or vice versa, then it could create problems you will have to work through. For example a man I knew years ago would not have any green in his house at all. He hated green. Another male … Continue reading →
Now, I know that my gardening habits are a little eccentric at the best of times, but you know that these habits have gotten to seriously silly proportions when your four-year-old begins to find you amusing. This weekend I spent an inordinately large amount of time in the garden, and this was a wonderful thing. I spent some time cat-proofing it (fingers crossed) and a lot of time moving my perennials. I discovered that I am the proud owner of sixteen berry bushes, which is pretty good for someone who counts her garden space in meters instead of acres. My … Continue reading →
Thrift stores can be amazing places, which is why I try to avoid them whenever possible. I almost always end up spending more money than I intended when I first walked in the door. Case in point: my daughter has been growing, so yesterday we visited a fantastic thrift store in a neighborhood we visit often. They have children’s clothes for a dollar. I walked out with $30 of goodies, including a wonderful new spring jacket for me. Yes, I needed the jacket, but I didn’t really need to spend the money! One of my greatest failings or pleasures in … Continue reading →
The other night my family and I were going through the hectic night time routine. My youngest was about to pop into the bath, and we had just finished up dinner. The phone rang, and there it was, unexpected company on the way. Fortunately, we set in place a way to focus on our home’s first impression, to make it all seem uncluttered and welcoming, even on a moment’s notice in the middle of a hectic time. The secret to focusing on your home’s first impression is to, for the moment, ignore the rooms that you usually focus on, such … Continue reading →
The idea of making festive Christmas garlands out of food is nothing new. In the Victorian era, when the Christmas tree first came into fashion, folks hung all sorts of things on the tree and around the home to celebrate Christmas, and food was no exception. Today, though, we have a wealth of new “materials” available to us for festive food garlands. I’ll share some of the basic traditional food garland ideas, along with some new more modern takes. Orange and Apple Garland This garland not only looks good, it smells good too! The orange and apple garland gives you … Continue reading →
Why not get everyone together to do some fun and frugal decorating for fall? You don’t have to spend $100 on pumpkins and hay bales, either! Hand print turkeys Nothing is more cute in the fall, I think, then all of those hand print turkeys. I made my first one in school (standard fare), and have since taught this craft to my kids. Basically, you trace a hand on a piece of fall colored construction paper. Make sure to have the fingers splayed out. Then, you turn that hand print into a turkey, using the thumb for the head and … Continue reading →
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