weight lifting - istock

Quick Little Workouts For Sedentary Types

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These efficient, targeted, quick little workouts are great for sedentary types.

weight lifting - istockSAVE TIME + ENERGY | Before I got involved with this online magazine, I worked out pretty hard at least four times a week. Now it’s just twice—if I’m lucky. Most of the time I sit in front of a computer screen; I can actually feel my bottom deflating (dare I say spreading?) as I type these words. Yikes.

It’s hard to stay in shape when you sit for a living, but I do not intend to let my whole bod to go south without putting up a fight. So I won’t get bored I need a multitude of seriously quick and efficient workout routines I can do in street clothes (if I need to) in my weensy office space. Read more

Win Two Heritage House Tour Tickets

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Subscribe or Invite a friend to receive Frugalbits FREE daily email by MAY 27, and be entered to win 2 tickets to Vancouver’s 2011 Heritage House Tour (value $80).

(23.05.11) Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s 2011 Heritage House Tour is a one-day, self guided tour of a selection of historic buildings in Vancouver. Now in its 9th year, this event has brought over 15,000 people into over 100 privately owned, unique heritage buildings in our city. Each year, a different selection of homes is opened, showcasing a wide variety of traditional house styles and interesting historic neighbourhoods.

Your ticket is a 28 page guidebook with a map in the centre showing you where the homes are located, a full page write-up about each house, lunch suggestions and guest essays by local authors such as Michael Kluckner, Bruce Macdonald and James Johnstone.

Visit any or all of the participating homes on June 5th between 10 am to 5 pm in any order you prefer. Your guidebook is a numbered passport that will gain you access into the homes.

SUBSCRIBE or INVITE a friend to receive Frugalbits’ FREE daily email by May 27, 2011, and you will be automatically entered for a chance to win two tickets to Vancouver’s  2011 Heritage house Tour, and so will your friend, if they subscribe.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE; CLICK HERE TO INVITE

Photo: courtesy Vancouver Heritage Foundation

Fashion On The Racks - Dreamstime

Fashionista’s Ball: Couture & Thrift Collide

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The Fashionista’s Ball promises to be the best sale ever, with clothes for couture tastes on a thrift-store budget.

Fashion On The Racks - DreamstimeSALES WE LOVE | Mark your calendars, fashionistas, and don your ninja shopping suit (that’s tights and tees for quick changing) because Sunday, May 29, promises to be one of Vancouver’s biggest—if not THE biggest— charity/shopping events of 2011.

The Fashionista’s Ball, insanely well organized by Pixie Riddle and her pals to benefit United Way, is a one-day pop-up fashion extravaganza (think department store scale rather than boutique) that includes 3,000-plus garments, gently worn or never worn (some definitely couture); hundreds of pairs of gorgeous shoes; beautiful handbags, Louis Vuitton and Bottega Veneta models among them; and accessories including sunglasses, scarves and both costume and fine jewellery items.

And guess what? Prices for all this donated merchandise are shockingly low. Read more

Classic Whoopie Pies With Sprinkles - Antonis Achilleos

Make Whoopie Pies

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After overwrought cupcakes and posh macaroons, the next big sweet thing has just got to be humble {whoopie} pie.

Classic Whoopie Pies With Sprinkles - Antonis AchilleosSIMPLE TO MAKE | This past week, my favourite francophile foodie/writer Dorie Greenspan reported on her entertaining blog that while the cupcake craze is alive and well in Paris, “the cupcake’s American cousin, the whoopie pie, is squeezing in on its territory.” What she didn’t mention is that in North America, the whoopie pie is also squeezing in on the territory currently occupied by its French cousin, the chi-chi macaroon. Read more

Blue Trees - Konstantin Dimopoulos

Shocking Colour Will Make Your Garden Pop

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A jolt of crazy colour is an unexpected and inexpensive way to make your garden pop.

Blue Trees - Konstantin DimopoulosCHEAP TRICK | A Vancouver architect friend of mine has a sideline as a garden photographer, and not long ago he grumbled to me that one of the magazines he works for in the U.S. never puts his photographs on their cover. “I take great plant portraits,” he said, “but unless I am willing to include a brightly coloured chair in my shots, not one of them will ever make it.” That’s because art directors know the swiftest way to catch the attention of gardeners cruising the magazine racks is to hit them with a jolt of unexpected colour. Read more

Bioderma

Skincare Diamonds From The Drugstore

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These three less-expensive skincare products perform so well they’ve acquired legions of loyal fans.

BiodermaCULT PRODUCTS ALERT | Getting gorgeous isn’t inexpensive, which is why we get excited when we find fabulous beauty and skincare products that get stellar reviews, have legions of satisfied users and don’t cost an arm and a leg. We’re lucky in Vancouver that drugstores like Shoppers Drug Mart have a beauty pipeline to Europe where dermatological skincare, products with strong science behind them, is thriving and more thoughtfully priced than a lot of cosmetic skincare lines. Read more

Fiam Caadre Mirror

Luxury Lovers Will Heart This Moving Sale

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Livingspace Interiors is having the mother of all moving sales, and the prices for high-end merchandise are surprisingly low.

Fiam Caadre MirrorSALES WE LOVE (11.05.11) | It’s rare to read the words “deep discount” and “luxury brand European furnishings” in the same sentence. That’s because retailers that sell furniture by recognizable high-style manufacturers, like Minotti and Paola Lenti for example, are more interested in showcasing sublime design at a warranted price than they are in unloading merchandise at bargain basement prices. High-end furniture retailers do put their products on sale but seldom at the blowout prices of the Livingspace Interiors everything-must-go moving sale. Read more

Nepeta, 'Walker's Low'

This Variety Of Nepeta Is A Bulletproof Plant

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A gorgeous, indestructible, low-maintenance, high-performance, cost-effective garden: Is that too much to ask?

Nepeta, 'Walker's Low'

 

MONEY WELL SPENT | There are people who derive tremendous satisfaction from garden chores, but I’m not one of them. I love garden design and history, and enjoyed researching and planning our own garden with my husband, who is a garden designer. I loved choosing the plants and installing them, and I don’t mind occasional watering or weeding. But after that, I want to spend my time doing other things. I need my garden to be bulletproof: a gorgeous, indestructible, low-maintenance, high-performance environment—and of course I expect my investment in plants to be cost-effective. Read more

Go Green And Go Home Awesome Salvage Sale

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At this one-day warehouse sale, architectural salvage is beautiful, sustainable and cheap.

In Vancouver recycling is part of daily life. Reusing, on the other hand, doesn’t always come so naturally, particularly when it comes to old buildings. The Vancouver Heritage Foundation is aiming to change that, pointing out that reusing an old building is a literally huge form of recycling, the greenest building materials are both renewable (like wood) and used, and old house parts are often better made and higher quality than comparable new ones. Read more

This Little Teapot Can Relieve Allergy Symptoms

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This little contraption is a time-honoured tool for the relief of allergy symptoms.

CHEAP + GOOD | It’s great when you can find a simple and inexpensive item that actually does what it claims it can do. I’m talking about the Neti pot, that little contraption that looks like a mini Aladdin’s lamp, only instead of rubbing it, you use it to engage in a strange water dance with your nostrils.

The practice of nasal irrigation, which is what the Neti pot is used for, is old as Shiva and pursued by yoga practitioners in India to clear their nasal passages for enhanced breath control, controlled breathing being central to yoga. Read more