We were browsing our old friends’ Gentl and Hyers Portfolio site when we came upon some lovely images of air plants in a stylish bedroom. They are from Bring the Outdoors In: Garden Projects for Decorating and Styling Your Home, photographed, we’ve discovered, in a mutual friend’s country home, and styled by Shane Powers. The air…
Read MoreWe love the possibilities inherent in the great valentine DIY we found at Mineco Co UK, made of woven paper. All you need is an exactto knife and straight edge and some nice paper. Mineco’s site tells how-to, but there’s lots of room for improvising (were thinking cut up photographs, magazines, ribbon…)
Read MoreWe’re not big on bought gifts, preferring to donate money to charity in our friends’ name, or give food gifts we’ve made. That being said, it’s nice to have an arsenal of useful, well-designed, not-too-expensive treats to give on the holidays or otherwise — our favorite gift-giving is just for the hell-of-it when we’ve found…
Read MoreAs is our nature, we started to deconstruct this strangely beautiful fly swatter, thinking it could easily be made with a piece of hardwood and a bit of leather. Then we thought: why bother? It only costs $12.80 + $5 shipping at Kaufman Mercantile. We figure it would make a great, slightly odd, original and…
Read MoreWe’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…
Read MoreEarly 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…
Read MoreWe’ve been so busy, we haven’t given all the gifts we’ve had in mind to give to friends and family. Our fridge is still stockpiled with mason jars of Prunes in Armagnac we plan to give friends we meet up with in the next few weeks. And our favorite gift for this year, the extraordinary…
Read MoreKeeping perspective during the holiday season’s flurry of buying can be difficult. While gift-giving is a lovely tradition, so many of us get caught up in the “keeping up with the Joneses”-style of shopping: buying the newest, neatest toy/appliance/Apple product to keep pace with our consumption-centric world. The shopping-cynic in us was thus delighted by…
Read MoreWhen I saw ‘the improvised life’s recent post about christopher niemann’s fab color-tiled bathrooms, I immediately thought of the Metro Wine Map of France, created by architectural historian and wine buff Dr. David Gissen, which was introduced this past summer by De Long, a favorite resource of mine for beautiful wine region maps and clever…
Read MoreWe switched over to homemade food gifts for the holidays many, many years ago, and each year we find ourselves in the kitchen with the same tried-and-true recipes. But the repetition doesn’t come from a laziness or a lack of inspiration—over the years we’ve found that our friends and family look forward to these gifts,…
Read MoreThe other day, we stumbled on Dargelos, an online store with stylish, thoughtfully-designed products for bicycle riders (some are great for NON bikers as well). We originally went to the site to check out their Lighting Vest, a hand-netted safety vest made from a specially-developed reflective 3M material that will make you highly visible to…
Read MoreWith the holidays fast approaching, everyone we know is starting their annual scramble to find great gifts. We’ve always felt that books make the best children’s presents. Over the years we’ve posted some of our favorites, all of which encourage creative thinking. From surprising cookbooks to clever craft projects, we highly recommend these six books…
Read MoreOur friend Maureen Rolla sent us an email with two poems by her friend Don Wentworth, editor of the Lilliput Review, a print magazine dedicated to the short poem. They are from his recently released book Past All Traps. It was as though Maureen had dropped gifts into our laps. The first, above, about seeing…
Read MoreValentine’s Day is one week away so we thought we’d start thinking about it now, rather than our usual last minute scramble. Chocolate is, of course, the classic valentine, so we’ve rounded up our very best chocolate desserts and gifts, all homemade, all easy to make. Here are our recommendations, with annotations: Essential Chocolate Cake…
Read MoreIf you are in a last minute quandary about unusual and much appreciated gifts,visit public radio’s The Splendid Table where Sally talks with Lynne Rosetto Kasper about Homemade Holiday Food Gifts. All are easy-to-make and pack a big bang-for-the buck. Lemon-Scented Olive Oil with much of the flavor and a fraction of the price of classic Limonato…
Read MoreWe are big fans of d-i-y gift wrapping made of found, free, repurposed or cheap materials. Why spend the money on bought wrap when there’s so much good stuff just lying around. We really like Joel Henriques’ idea (of the ever-inspiring blog Made by Joel): use torn out pages from old art magazines… or design magazines……
Read MoreThis weekend, Sally’ will be talking about Homemade Holiday Food Gifts on public radio’s The Splendid Table. Learn how to make a Lemon-Scented Olive Oil with much of the flavor and a fraction of the price of classic Limonato – olive oil pressed with lemons – from Italy. Her Tuscan Herb Salt can be endlessly…
Read MoreEven though we mostly give charity donations as our holiday gifts, we DO like giving a few more tangible gifts as well, ones that are not too pricey and give a big bang for the buck. So we’ve compiled our eclectic list of favorite things to give…and get. In addition, on Friday we’ll be talking…
Read MoreThe recent post on innovative goody bags elicited some wonderful ideas from readers about gifts to send home with guests. Here’s ‘the improvised life’ contributor Lydia Will’s surprising variation on the theme: “Your post on Page Goolrick’s ingenious goody bags really hit home: It shifts the whole idea of a hostess gift and says to…
Read MoreIn an attempt to figure out what I might like for Christmas, my sister Susy sent me a list of fun, oddly brilliant gift ideas I would never have thought of: -cable tv subscriptions for premium channels -night vision binoculars or goggles -flash paper to make sparks fly from your hands -devices to measure volume,…
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