DIY Cooking at Home

I'm almost done with my shopping so now I've got to get about the huge task of wrapping it all up. I fondly remember the first Christmas I spent completely on my own as an adult in my own apartment. I turned on a holiday movie and spent hours making each package look pretty. Fast-forward 20 years...now most of the wrapping is done after the kids are asleep and my husband and I are already dead-dog tired. So while neatness still counts, I'm satisfied if it ends there. But we do enjoy some adult beverages and watching It's A Wonderful Life while we get the job done. I do love the idea of a pretty package, though, even if I probably won't be able to make ours look that way until after the kids have graduated. But I realize they don't have to be complicated, so I've gathered up a handful of simple ideas for you. Our Suburban Farm Real Simple Good Housekeeping The Haystack Needle How About Orange And if you liked this post, try this one: More Gift Wrappin...

It's not a new concept to use old maps as art, but I've recently seen a few unique ideas for how to personalize them to make great conversation pieces. Here are a few ideas for adding DIY wall art and other accents to your abode: Cut hearts out of favorite vacation spots or other significant locations to remind you of all the places you know and love. Martha Stewart suggests stitching thread along a map to use as a visual trip down memory lane. Make several of these for a gallery wall that also displays memorabilia. Martha strikes again by showing us how to decoupage maps onto cork tiles to use as coasters . You could also use maps to decoupage letters for a typographical ode to a favorite spot. These are from Urban Outfitters , but you could easily make your own. Little White Dog on Etsy also has some that are more 3D. DIY Newlyweds has a tutorial for how to use a map of your honeymoon destination to mat a favorite photo. Or just use one large map as an impressive wall hang...

Hey there, friends! I'm writing about a polarizing topic today. Fake flowers. Do you love 'em? Hate 'em? Have no feelings whatsover? Well, I have a love-hate relationship with them, I have to admit. The really bad ones...like the ones that are completely huge (and could in no way be real because no one would spend that much on fresh flowers), or the ones that are really dusty, or the ones that just look, well, fake ? I despise those. Like, they anger me. On the other hand, smaller vases of faux stems--the high-quality ones--can be gorgeous and because I don't exactly have a green thumb (may the many houseplants I've tried RIP), I use them a lot. Joss & Main has some very high-quality faux flowers by Creative Displays, Inc. that even faked out my very discerning friend the other day. With Mother's Day right around the corner, why not choose a bouquet for Mom that will bring her lasting enjoyment? Check out some great options from Joss & M...

Hello friends! I'm really excited to show you how our fall mantel turned out this year. It's sometimes hard for me to strike the right balance between full, but not cluttered and the scale of things messes me up a lot, too. But I think I got it right this time. Special thanks to A Place For Us for her amazing paper bag flower tutorial! I followed her directions to the letter and was pleased to watch mine turn out just like I hoped. Perhaps you've already seen my pressed fall leaf pictures , but here they are again next to a couple of gourds I got at Hobby Lobby (during last year's 90% off clearance sale!). The green glass vase is from an upscale shop in Grand Haven, Michigan, but I got it on clearance. (I'm a sucker for green and blue glass.) And the leafy branch inside it is just from JoAnn's. On the left side of the mantel, I propped the acorn frame we made a couple of years ago from the hundreds of acorn caps we collect on our fall hikes. I ne...

I was so inspired by last week's Craft of the Week ( Live Gorgeously and her dollar store vases), I just had to go buy some myself. So I took the girls to our local thrift store and paid about $2 total for FIVE of my own vases. Except...although I LOVED Ashleigh's colors and the way they still looked crystal-like because she painted the inside...I decided to play it safe with white and paint the outside so they'd (fingers crossed) look like milk glass. And guess what? They actually do! Here's the before and after for ya: Cool, right? I figure I won't ever get sick of 'em because they are, after all, just white, and I'll be able to use them in any room, alone or in a group. I can see them with greenery for Christmas, bittersweet berries for fall, or sunflowers in the summer. Or maybe if I ever get me some much-coveted built-ins, I'll paint the insides a cool color and let the white "ceramics" pop out like those in the pics below. Gosh,...

This week's COW is this awesome ombre-effect lampshade brought to you by Creatively Living . I love when you can achieve a very of-the-moment look with just a few supplies. Investment pieces, like furniture, are good to keep neutral, but you can go hog-wild with accessories like Katie did by purchasing a second-hand lamp, seeing its beauty, and thinking out of the box with a basic lampshade. Love it! And of course, I'm a big fan of the colors she chose. And if you can allow me to rave a bit more...I adore the modern lamp beside the traditional painting. Ok, I'm done.

If you're a regular reader of design or lifestyle blogs like I am, you've probably seen storyboards all over the place. You know, those collections of fabrics, furniture and accessories that create a visual springboard for designing a room. They're often called mood boards, too. Young House Love has made these into an artform. You can view theirs by color or room. Now, I don't have fancy-schmancy software like PhotoShop, but I do create my own storyboards in good ol' Microsoft Word. I tried doing it in Picasa, but I find the collage function on this free software to be a bit limiting. So, basically I just right click images I see around the web, paste them into a Word document and it helps me see if fabrics and colors kinda go together before I take the plunge and buy something. I guess you could use Pinterest , but I like being able to see it all overlapped and side-by-side in one place. More on my exact process later... For now, I just wanted to share my liv...