Street Sign - No Left Turn

Why You Want To Avoid Left Hand Turns

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With gas prices soaring, here’s a surprising, absolutely free way to economize.

Street Sign - No Left Turn

 

SAVE MONEY & TIME | Is the high and climbing price of gasoline weighing on your mind? On Saturday, the Vancouver Sun reported that over the past week the price of gas across Metro Vancouver jumped to $1.40 a litre and that locals should brace for increases as high as $1.60 a litre heading into summer (CLICK HERE for the story). Last spring The New York Times ran a practical piece on ways to save on gas with reporter Michelle Higgins recommending, among other things, that drivers download an app like GasBuddy.com to help them find cheap gas while on the road (locally try online at VancouverGasPrices.com); that they fill up with regular instead of premium; and that they check to make sure their tire pressure is right (CLICK HERE for the story).

Fabulous as Higgins’s 13 suggestions are, she neglected to mention a proven way to economize on fuel, save on time spent in traffic and reduce injuries to drivers and passengers: Avoid turning left. Read more

Toasted coconut marshmallows - Laura Flowers

Marshmallows Are Super Easy To Make

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Gourmet marshmallows are sooo easy to make and sooo damn addictive.

Toasted coconut marshmallows - Laura Flowers

 

EASY & DELISH | Made-from-scratch marshmallows are having a moment. That’s the headline that jumped out at me last month in T, the New York Times style magazine. This may be what T’s editors think, but actually, among foodies, fresh-made marshmallows have been enjoying a moment since 2008, which is around the time Vancouver’s Butter Baked Goods began making and marketing its delectable gourmet marshmallows ($7.99 for 10) to an appreciative audience—and famous food bloggers like Deb Perelman of smittenkitchen.com could be found whipping up marshmallows and visually documenting the process on their websites. Read more

Computer Frustration

Why You Want A Password Manager

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ç with this dead-simple password manager.

Computer Frustration

 

LIFESAVER | Everyone has their own definition of personal insanity. Mine is wasting colossal amounts of time trying to log in to all the Internet stuff—websites, social networking platforms, and software applications, whatever—I subscribe to. Experts warn us to mix up passwords to keep hackers at bay, but that’s created a nightmare for me, and plenty of embarrassing moments when I’ve needed to access key information quickly and couldn’t do it. Read more

Topbox

2 Top Beauty Box Services In Canada

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Subscribe to an inexpensive beauty box service to receive monthly packages in the mail filled with top products geared to your specific needs.

Topbox

 

CHEAP & CHIC | I have been using the same brand moisturizer for over 10 years. Ditto eyeliner, mascara and toner. The facial cleanser I use? It’s been my staple since high school. It’s not that I’m not curious about other beauty products or uninterested in new things, but I am overwhelmed by what’s available these days. I need my own personal beauty editor, someone to curate the beauty aisles and find the best products for me. This is why I love the latest idea in e-commerce: the subscription beauty box. Read more

Yellow Pages - Shutterstock

How To Stop Getting The Yellow Pages

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If unwanted telephone directories go straight to your recycling bag, here’s how to opt out of receiving them.

Yellow Pages - Shutterstock

 

WASTE NOT | According to a 2010 Globe and Mail article, plenty of people still let their fingers do the walking through the physical pages of a hard copy version of the Yellow Pages. Funny, I don’t know even one of them. Everyone I know from 8 to 80 has switched to the computer to find the telephone numbers of their favourite businesses. For me, the Yellow Pages has become a shelf-grabbing dinosaur, and I cannot remember the last time I leafed through my copy—oh wait, yes I can. It was last week after two copies of the latest tome arrived on my doorstep and I picked up one them to look for a way to opt out. Read more

Marni H&M

See Marni’s New Collection For H&M

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In a little over two weeks, women will be lining up at H&M around the world for a chance to snag Marni’s spectacular fashion at a bargain price.

Marni H&M

 

SAVE ON CHIC | With a lookbook that surfaced online only days ago, Marni’s new collection for H&M, which will be available in 260 stores worldwide on March 8, has the blogosphere buzzing, and it isn’t just because the international luxury brand, founded by Italian fashion designer Consuelo Castigilioni, has produced the next big high-style low-end line.

Marni’s diffusion collection is considered to be as sophisticated and idiosyncratic as the original fashion, clone clothing and accessories that mimic the Marni you see on the runway. All of which is died-and-gone-to-fashion-heaven news for the arty, discerning, Sofia Coppola types that make up the brand’s fan base. Read more

Smashbox Makeup Brushes

6 Best Makeup Brushes + 2 Top Brands To Buy

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Allison Emery selects 6 must-own makeup brushes—and shares her two favourite brush brands, one expensive the other not.

Smashbox Makeup Brushes

 

As a makeup artist, I’ve accumulated a variety of brushes. Because I often do multiple makeup applications in a short period of time, having two or three of the same type of brush means I don’t have to cleanse and disinfect them between clients. The average woman, however, is not applying makeup to several different people, so she really doesn’t require a multitude of brushes.

So which brushes do you really need? PICTURED BELOW are the essential brushes to have in your collection—plus my picks for the best brands to buy. Read more

Woman With Coloured Washcloth-iStock

All Washed Up: White Washcloths Are Over!

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Forget about the colour of your parachute. We ask, what colour is your washcloth?

Woman With Coloured Washcloth-iStock

 

BUY RIGHT | Blame it on the spa industry, or decorating magazines if you want to, but the idea that thick spa-white bath towels and washcloths are the best and only way to wash and dry yourself is hogwash. White towels go with any style décor and feel indulgent in a good way, but white washcloths? No way, never! Easily stained light-coloured washcloths look dowdy quickly. Their low life expectancy means having to replace them frequently, which is both expensive and wasteful. Better to adopt the approach of more and more luxury and “cheap chic” hotels by having dark-coloured washcloths on hand, particularly for washing off stubborn makeup. Read more

Eva Markvoort

Watch 65 RedRoses, Oprah’s 2012 Hot Doc

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Make Valentine’s Day more than a Hallmark moment—give someone a new lease on life.

Eva Markvoort

 

PASS IT ON | Talk about hot documentaries. The locally made film 65_RedRoses about New Westminster’s Eva Markvoort, the irrepressible artist/writer/blogger who squeezed 10 decades of loving—and living—into a quarter of a century before succumbing to cystic fibrosis two years ago, is the 2012 official selection of Oprah Winfrey’s Documentary Club. The film, which has won a boatload of other honours for filmmakers Philip Lyall and Nimisha Mukerji, will premiere on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, sometime this spring, but you can watch it for FREE on March 8 (and meet the filmmakers) at the Nat and Flora Bosa Centre for Film and Animation at Capilano University. Read more

Superswoon.com Printable Valentine's Day Cards

Download Fabulous Valentines For Free

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Why would you ever buy another box of classroom cards for Valentine’s Day when you can download, print out and personalize dozens of fabulous ones for free!

 

FREE & EASY | One Valentine’s eve, a few years ago, I arrived early for a movie date with a friend so decided to kill the time at a bookstore nearby. Inside I saw red (and pink and lots of hearts), and it hit me: we hadn’t bought or made cards to give my daughters’ classmates. I needed 40 cards, but was I prepared to spend $20 for boxes of 15? No. Read more