Make Magic: Put String Lights In The Garden

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Inexpensive string lights in the garden make it feel magical, inviting and fun.

Cheap + Beautiful | Many of the clients in my residential landscape design practice can afford whatever kind of outdoor lighting they want, so it surprised— and delighted— me a few years ago when one of them suggested we find places to put white string lights in her large and rambling garden. “I love the way they look and the kind of feeling they bring to a garden,” she told me, rattling off a list of “happy, fun” string light sightings that included weddings outside, hill towns in Europe, those blocked-off laneways with shops and bistros in San Francisco.

My client may have been a romantic, but she was definitely on to something. Of all the ways to light a garden—up-lighting, down-lighting, moonlighting, etc.—few methods can match humble, cheap low-voltage white string lights for creating a genuine feeling of enchantment. Read more

A No-Fail Way To Get Kids To Turn Off Lights

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There is a NO-FAIL way to get your kids (or anyone else in your house) to douse the lights when they leave a room.

 

WASTE NOT Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the times were desperate around my house. After what seemed like eons of continual nagging by me and my husband, our children, lovely individuals all, continued to leave the lights on when they exited their rooms, or any of the other spaces in our home they frequented with regularity.

“Turn off the light when you leave a room” is one of our basic house rules, along with “Do not take hour-long showers” and “Avoid drinks in disposable containers” if at all possible. But where wasting water and steering clear of junk plastic seemed to click with my tribe, remembering to douse the lights remained an issue. Read more

Paint & Install This Glass Guard Yourself

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Annoyed by the high cost of back-painting and installing the glass behind her gas range, this adventurous renovator took on the task herself.

 

DIY | When Terri Brandmueller renovated her Vancouver kitchen awhile ago, she thought a lot about how the surface materials and finishes would look when viewed together. She had dark wood and white laminate cabinets; butcher-block countertops and a solid beech island; and stainless steel appliances—everything set against a backdrop of white beadboard wallpaper. What was missing, she figured, was a serious splash of colour, and the surface behind the range seemed like the perfect place to put it. This is how she hit upon the idea of installing the light-reflecting sheet of glass pictured here, back-painted ocean blue. Read more

Crowd Scene - 123RF

How To Crowd Fund Your Creative Project

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If you want to raise money for your own charitable endeavour or creative project, crowdfunding is the white hot way to do it.

Crowd in Vancouver - RootsAFFECT YOUR CAUSE | Last month, when popstar Adam Lambert asked his then 860,000 Twitter followers to help him raise $290,000 in under two weeks for his current favourite cause Charity: Water, even his own father expressed skepticism. But fans, in a testament to Lambert’s power to mobilize the troops, crashed the charity’s website on the last day to donate, and Lambert wound up just $10,000 shy of his goal.

Last week Lambert tweeted fans to visit kickstarter.com and check out his pal guitarist Monte Pittman’s campaign to raise funds for a self-published album. That shoutout helped Pittman surpass his financial goal in less than a day.

Both Lambert and Pittman were tapping into the power of crowdfunding—Lambert for charity, Pittman for working capital—and you can tap into it too, to support a personal cause or a creative project of your own. Read more

M Missoni

Champagne Labels At Beer Prices Till Feb 26

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Like their store tagline says: “You never know what you’ll find at The Treasure Room!”

M MissoniSALES WE LOVE | Talk about well-kept secrets. For the past two-and-a-half years, The Treasure Room, a nondescript hole-in-the-wall boutique on Granville Street at 63rd Avenue, has been selling deeply discounted—and we do mean deeply—luxury label European fashions by word-of-mouth to women more accustomed to shopping along the poshest blocks of Granville Street between Broadway and 16th Avenue. Read more

Standing Rib Roast - iStock

Perfect Prime Rib: The Easiest Way To Cook It

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How to cook a standing rib roast to perfection without a meat thermometer or having to think about it even once.

Standing Rib Roast - iStockDEAD EASY | See the perfectly cooked standing rib roast in this picture, the one cooked to medium rare, the hunk of beef that looks like it belongs on the cutting board at a buffet carving station at the St. Regis in NYC? Well, I had one that looks exactly like it resting and ready to serve on my kitchen counter last week. I called it my beautiful no-brainer roast.

My road to roast perfection was pretty much bump-free thanks to a recipe I read in The New York Times a few weeks ago (see the link below). It originally appeared in the newspaper in 1966, and food writer Amanda Hesser reprinted it recently “so that rib roast can finally have its no-knead-bread moment.” Read more

Top Up Your Old Silver Service For Less

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Where to find the missing pieces for your grandmother’s old silver service for less.

SPENDING SMART | Early last April when we were busy launching Frugalbits, I was also busy buying sterling silver flatware. The only other time I’d purchased sterling silver was the last time the U.S. and Canadian dollar were at par. Whenever the dollar is near par, I think about buying things south of the border that I’d otherwise consider an indulgence; much as I love it, sterling silver flatware falls into this category. Read more

Cocodot Invite

How To Throw A Last Minute Oscars Party

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How to throw a last-minute, stress-free Academy Awards party that everyone even the host will enjoy.

Cocodot InviteEASY DOES IT | Pamela Anderson, one of Frugalbits’ favourite food writers, says people should stop entertaining and “have people over” instead. “Having people over,” says Anderson, is about coming together casually with good pals and enthusiastic acquaintances. It’s about serving uncomplicated food and having no other expectation for an evening other than that it be fun. The Oscars this Sunday is the perfect “having people over” occasion. No worries that today’s Thursday and you’ve only got four days to get your event together. We started planning our Oscar party yesterday, and you’re welcome to follow our game plan and our menu.

Frugalbits Oscar Party Day-By-Day Game Plan Read more
2009 Lexus

How To Buy A Pre- Owned Car In The U.S.

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Ever thought about importing a pre-owned car from the U.S.? This could be a good time to do it.

2009 LexusMONEY SPENT WISELY | Buying a pre-owned car in the U.S. is not the sizzling topic it was in 2007 when the price of relatively new used cars was much higher this side of the border (I’m told Canadian dealers have made an effort in the past few years to mitigate the disparity). Still, the Canadian dollar is at par right now and could go higher, while the U.S. economy remains in a slump. One can only imagine that a larger than average number of U.S. car owners are defaulting on payments, and that lots of auto dealerships are staring at overstock—circumstances that could work to the advantage of Canadians car shopping down south. Read more