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DIY Craft Bag: Thanksgiving Handprint Turkey Craft Kit
Create lasting memories this Thanksgiving with DIY handprint turkey craft kits! Perfect for kids, these fun, easy Thanksgiving craft kits can be used on the holiday or as take-home gifts. Follow our simple guide to make handprint turkeys with cornstarch clay and keep the kids entertained all season long.
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Help! I Can’t Keep my Houseplants Alive!
Here’s how I finally broke the cycle of killing all of my houseplants, once and for all. And I’m pretty sure, no matter how many houseplants have died in your watch, you’ll like this method too. It’s no secret that stay at home Covid life has spurred interest in houseplants. There are even entire posts dedicated to IKEA plant hacks! When we moved into a beautiful traditional home, almost 17 years ago, the houseplants that had been part of our decor for at least ten years before at three other homes, soon died. After buying more plants to replace the dead ones, those too quickly joined the compost pile of…
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An Easier, Prettier, Method To Lighten Your Hair With Honey Everyday
The great thing about lightening your hair with honey is that your hair suffers no damage. The bad thing about lightening your hair with honey is that results appear slowly. You need multiple applications to get a deeper, brighter appearance — and then your hair starts growing again, and you have a whole new batch of dark hair to light. Sitting with hair “dripping” wet for over an hour is not a fun or practical way to spend an hour. While experimenting on my own, I’ve come up with a few tweaks to ensure your hair gets a daily boost of a honey’s peroxide enhancing benefits. NOTE: Please see this…
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Low-Maintenance African Violet Kokedama
Are you as enamored as I am with Kokedama hanging gardens? The Japanese style of tying the rootballs of plants in balls of moss and hanging from the ceiling? I’m in love. What’s not to love? But wait! There’s a lot not to love. First of all, the mess? Hanging plants will need to be watered, and then, how? The only way to prevent a mess is to take them down, water them thoroughly, and then keep them down until they are dry enough to not drip all over your floors. But then, won’t they need to be watered again? Ah yes, but I’m so in love with the design…
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Order This Before The Cold Spell Comes
I know you’re freezing — you’re wearing several layers of sweaters, a turtleneck AND a scarf — and of course, the hat. Inside. And you’re still cold. But this isn’t cold yet. Apparently, we are getting a cold wave that is coming through that’s going to FEEL LIKE -60 degrees?! (Fahrenheit — for those of you in Australia who do not know what this kind of cold will feel like.) Neither do we, actually. I found this amazing Anne Klein fleece nightshirt at TJMaxx — it’s pink/white and oh, so very warm. Every time my kids see me wearing it, they look down and back up and they’re just waiting…
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The Year of The Ottoman
This has been the year of the ottoman. An ottoman extends the reach of my NEW sofa, nicely accommodating all of the people you were hoping would have been held by the sectional you wanted but doesn’t actually fit in your space. Bonus: There’s nothing quite like an ottoman shoved under your feet when it’s impossible to stretch out on the sofa for a quick power nap because your son is on the other end playing a video game. (Moms understand and have mastered, by necessity, the intricacies of the power nap.) But which ottoman? It is a small space, which perfectly holds a sofa and two side chairs, so…
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As Your Children Grow, Shortcuts Become More Important
One of the strangest phenomenon to plague mothers, I’ve discovered, is that as your children age, our free time shrinks. In many ways, this does not seem possible, and I have had the chance to discuss this with other moms, (for only a few seconds, as that is all we have to spare), who have experienced the same phenomenon. We are no longer tying shoes, dressing, bathing and spooning food into our children’s mouths, so, we should have all the free time in the world. In fact, only the opposite is true. Which has led me to adopt some non-traditional menu choices, which I would never even considered years earlier……
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Origami in Retrospect
He’s had a request to make some origami dresses for a “client.” As an added benefit, he’s going to make a centerpiece — but he was at a loss of what to make. But I wasn’t. I started going through the archives here, on this blog, to find some of his creations, like the dresses, of course, the trees, stars, and cranes, the 3-d origami and the swans, the bats, the boomerangs from the class he taught when he was in third grade, the angels, the cranes that flew, the snowflake cookies, (while these are NOT origami because they involve cutting).. In all of this work, I am stunned at how…
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One Little Piece of Advice: For Fall
I can remember the crunchy sweetness of the baker’s sugar against my teeth when I bit into a dark molasses cookie – not gingerbread, richer and deeper than that. The kind of sophisticated taste that went very well with, “a nice dry red wine,” the baker assured me. She was right. It was a fall night, just the beginning of a chill in the air, and her hair was straight in a bob, that just touched the top of the turtleneck of her black cabled sweater. With a comfy, chic sweater like that… it could be Autumn any time of year. I know it’s still hot out, but fall is coming… and as sad as the…
