cheap + great
giverslog.com
We’d figured we had alt-easter gift covered for this year with our seedling-filled Easter eggs, when Cynthia from 50Years50Recipes sent us ANOTHER swell, novel gift. She stuffed plastic eggs with goodies and sent them through the mail, as an invitation to her her niece and nephews to come for an Easter visit (She got the idea from Giverslog.) We were under the impression that the increasingly restrictive postal system had banned oddly shaped packages years ago. Writes Cynthia:
The eggs did arrive, but it took 10 days to get from one end of Mass to the other and two weeks to get from western Massachusetts to upstate New York. So the good news is it works-the downside is that even with first class postage it takes a bit of time.
I also tried the filled bottles mentioned on Giverslog read more…
03.19.12 |
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in celebrations, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, family + friends, how-to, materials, projects + play, resources |
DrinkEatTravel
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we thought it fitting to reprise the Stout and Ice Cream Float post we published a year or so ago. It is a one line equation-of-a-recipe adapted from Coleman Andrews:
Into a big glass, spoon really good vanilla ice cream like Haagan Daz’ Five Vanilla Bean, then pour over Guinness or any really well-made RICH dark stout beer; then eat with a spoon.
The possibilities for using different stouts are vast. Check out Beer Advocate’s list of 750American Stouts.
If you are not a Guinness fan or a fan of America’s version of St. Patrick’s Day, you will be once you’ve tasted the float!
It is a perfect grown-up dessert, anytime.
Photo from Drink Eat Travel‘s feature on Kern River Brewery.
Related post: amontillado and other grownup milkshake(s)
quick homemade tropical ice creams (banana..mango…)
smoky, bacon-infused spirits for holiday cocktails
cream biscuits: easy, foolproof and divine (recipe)
the potato chip improvisations + recipe: real onion dip
03.16.12 |
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in celebrations, cheap + great, entertaining, food, recipes |
photo: todd selby
Recently the New York Times ran an interactive feature about Osteria Senz’ Oste, an inn 40 miles or so north of Venice whose name translates “Tavern Without Host” or “Inn Without Barkeep.” The proprietor Cesare De Stefani wanted to create a space that “felt like home”, so he trusts people to pay what they wish for the superb local prosecco and salumi he serves there. The piece was photographed by Todd Selby of The Selby, who is known for honing in on specific and unique details of a space.
We were charmed by this image of visitor’s notes tacked up on a wall.”Why don’t we do that?” we wondered: create a wall of visits from friends and memorable times?
We recalled various iterations we’d seen of this idea: read more…
03.13.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, elements, entertaining, family + friends, inside, materials |
photo: carol mcdonnell
Carol McDonnell sent us an email about her very cool, very impromptu wrapping paper:
Now that the NY Times has beautiful large full color photos, I decided not buy paper, but use it to wrap several books. The giraffe and the donkey head from the Whitney make a charming way to recycle . . .
I’m nuts for both these shots . . . and am going to use them as wallpaper for my laptop and phone.
We love it! (and no instructions necessary)…
…it made us think of Pamela Hovland’s charming Magazine Page Envelopes.
Related post: ‘gif wrap’ + six strategies for cool, cheap gift wrap (d-i-y)
paint your (gift) boxes!
art wrapping paper for gifts
unwrapping the holidays: alt-gifts, d-i-y wrap and……… cool blogs
magazine pages as envelopes
03.08.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, gifts, materials, reclaim, resources |
coffeedome.com
My credential as a coffee fanatic came unglued last September. It was all Sally Schneider’s fault. Yes, herself, the creator of this charming blog. I had been complaining about the skyrocketing price of coffee, and whining about the difficulty of finding a decent bean, much less a decent cup, even in New York City.
“What about roasting your own?” she wrote, sending a link to a BoingBoing piece called “How-To: Roast Coffee with a Popcorn Popper.” Within 20 minutes of reading I had won an auction on eBay for a secondhand West Bend Poppery Two. Price: $20.
While I waited for it to arrive, I had to find some green coffee beans. Unroasted, in other words. Google led me to Sweet Maria’s. This website offers green coffee beans for sale over the internet. And it was my first encounter with upper echelon coffee fanatics. read more…
03.01.12 |
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in cheap + great, d-i-y, food, paths + processes, people, projects + play, resources, resources blogs + sites, stores |
We’ve long been a fan of keeping found rocks and stones around the house. They make visually wonderful “sculptures” and they have many impromptu practical purposes, to keep a door from blowing closed, act as bookend, smash garlic or spices or weight a butterflied chicken cooking in a skillet...
Images of Max Ernst’s painted stones we saw recently on Mondoblogo takes our imaginings to new heights. Why not PAINT our found stones? read more…
02.29.12 |
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in art, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, inside, materials, people, reclaim |
We had just been mulling how much we HATE the design of shower curtain rings, that make it so difficult to remove the shower curtain for washing. Then we thought: how nice it would be to have shower curtain rings with clips instead of closed loops, so we could just clip up a big swath of fabric.
As often happens when we start to mull a question, an answer appears in our field of vision, like this picture at Plastic Sans of “nouvelle” shower curtain rings made with Ikea curtain clips and binder rings. Great!
(Then we found these stainless steel Ikea curtain clips which come in separate parts – the ring and the clip. We’re wondering if there’s a way to attach the clip part directly to a shower curtain ring…) read more…
02.28.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, how-to, inside, resources, textiles |
We’ve checked out A LOT of d-i-y shipping pallet furniture, and have been contemplating possibilities for plywood shelving with unfinished edges. Today we realized the simple key to keeping these recycled wood creations from bordering on “granola” and making them more stylish: paint them. White is always reliable (dig this white-painted coffee table), but black or dark gray can do wonders. Apart’s black sofa made (carefully) of shipping pallet wood and painted black is a great example of the possibilities, even in rougher iterations: read more…
02.22.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, furniture, inside, materials, solutions |
A friend once told us that when she was young, she learned to draw from Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book: Make a World
. We recently checked it out, and loved how Emberley breaks down a drawing: using simple shapes as building blocks, you create objects and faces one piece at a time. Even those of us who aren’t artistically inclined can follow along. read more…
02.21.12 |
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in art, cheap + great, gifts, how-to, kids, learn, projects + play, resources books + zines |
We’ve long been fans of unhemmed linen tableclothes, napkins, shower curtains – a rectangle of pure linen just ripped to leave a raw edge *. We hadn’t though of this swell embellishment: the yarn stitching accentuates the intentionality of NOT-HEMMED in a really beautiful and charming way. read more…
02.20.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, how-to, inside, materials, resources, soft, textiles |
swarm studios for antropologie
We’ve written about painting chair and table legs, and we’ve written about pink but we’ve never considered putting the two ideas together…until we came across this image of just one leg of a chair painted pink. It’s a lovely visual surprise that makes an old chair looks like it’s dressed to-the-nines.
Although in reality, every leg of this table is painted pink, this picture got us imagining how just one leg or even two legs painted would look: much better to our eye. read more…
02.16.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, furniture, inside, materials, reimagine |
Early this morning we received an email from a friend who was about to make chocolate truffles for her Valentine, and wasn’t sure how to transport them. The email was sent in the wee hours of the morning, and we realized that for many, today means a last-minute scramble to get ready for Valentine’s day – TOMORROW. So here are some suggestions we’ve found in our morning surfing, or that we include in our personal arsenal.
We love the cut-and-fold d-i-y cards Made by Joel came up with. They are meant as a kid’s project but we think they’d make a swell grownup valentine: the template ever-inventive Joel Henriques generously included as a pdf has an appealing abstract look that is great unto itself… read more…
02.13.12 |
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Ever since we wrote about the discontinuation in America of Ikea’s great Alvar-Aalto-esque Frosta stool, – it is widely available in Europe – we have been involved in a curious correspondence with Ikea’s Customer Service Department; it has been a bit “like pulling teeth” (though much more pleasant) to get the information we are looking for.
When we wrote to ask why the Frosta stool is no longer being sold in America, we were told “Unfortunately, the Frosta stool…is no longer being manufactured by our suppliers.”.
When we asked why the stool is sold widely in Europe and not in the US – hence must be available from distributors – we got the original email with a chunk added: in addition to being unavailable from suppliers “we have no control over the products that IKEA Corporate from Sweden discontinues products here in the United States.” Confusing. read more…
02.06.12 |
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in cheap + great, furniture, inside, stores |
