June 2012 - Frugalbits

3 Quick Canada Day Desserts

June 29, 2012/2 Comments/in CANADIAN CONTENT, Food & Drink, HOLIDAY /by Editor

Let us not eat cake! Three fast and furious desserts for Canada Day dinner that will leave you plenty of time to man your fireworks viewing station. (RECIPES)

DEAD EASY & QUICK | With forecasters predicating only the slightest possibility of showers on Canada Day, we’re betting you’ll want to get outside on July 1st, not drag around in the kitchen. To the rescue, then, three delicious-beyond-all-reason desserts with almost no prep time—after all, who’s got a minute for laborious productions when there are fireworks to view! Read more

Where To Find The Best Pots & Pans For Less

June 27, 2012/0 Comments/in FOOD, Home & Garden, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Stratospherically expensive All-Clad pots are among the most coveted cooking equipment on the planet, and for good reason: they last forever! Here’s how to slice their price.

SHOP WISE | My family and I have been in a horribly abusive relationship with our All-Clad Master Chef pots and pans (pictured below) every day for the past 15 years. Poor things! We cook on an open burner gas range and routinely scorch their bottoms; we’ve also allowed them to cook dry and blacken more times than we’d care to mention (gotta love built-in smoke detectors). Read more

Gluten-Free Cloud 9 Flour Is Heavenly

June 22, 2012/2 Comments/in CANADIAN CONTENT, FOOD, Food & Drink, View All Food Stories /by Editor

With this made-in-Canada gluten-free flour, Gwyneth Paltrow’s oatmeal raisin cookies are even more heavenly. (RECIPE)

BUY RIGHT | Everywhere you look these days in supermarkets, on restaurant menus and in deli display cases you’ll find gluten-free options. This is great for anyone with celiac disease, a serious gastrointestinal disorder marked by an inability to absorb the protein gluten. It’s good news, too, for those simply sensitive to wheat or who have “wheat belly,” extra body fat carried in the mid section and attributed to the wheat strains grown today (they supposedly contain more protein than they once did). Read more

Stenciled Sheers by Brendan Power - Martin Tessler

How To Stencil On Sheer Curtain Fabric

June 20, 2012/0 Comments/in D.I.Y., DECOR & DESIGN, DIY, HOME, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All DIY Stories, View All Home Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

Printed sheers make stylish window covers. If you already have drapes, try slipcovering cushions in brightly patterned sheers.

CREATIVE SOLUTION | I was never a big fan of anything stencilled until I tried stenciling on sheer fabric. Printed sheers are fashionable, make great curtains and are easy to customize on your own. Read more

Fresh Strawberry and Pineapple Popsicles - iStock

All-Fruit Popsicles Are Easy & Quick to Make

June 18, 2012/5 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, Recipes, View All Food Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

Make super fresh all-fruit popsicles from scratch in a few minutes flat.

WASTE NOT | My favourite way to enjoy extra overripe fruit happens to be the most fun and easy: a quick whirr in the blender, and I’ve got the makings for nutritious fruit popsicles. All-fruit popsicles look (they’re typically textured) and taste nothing like the coloured sugar-water popsicles most of us are familiar with, and they are certainly healthier. You can buy expensive all-fruit popsicles at the grocery store, but why would you want to when they are so simple to make from scratch? Read more

Out Of The Ordinary Vacation Rentals

June 15, 2012/14 Comments/in TRAVEL, Travel, Travel Advisory, View All Travel Stories /by Editor

This curated catalog of VRBO (vacation rentals by owner) is an invaluable resource for chic nomads wanting cool places to hide and play.

TRAVEL ADVISORY | If you are a great fan of architecture and interior design and want to stay somewhere visually interesting when you travel, you’re going to love boutique-homes.com, a website that features a collection of thoughtfully designed accommodations (both private homes and wee hotels) that you can rent around the globe for a wide range of prices.

“Temporary housing for the incurably stylish nomad” is how Californians Heinz Legler and Veronique Lievre describe their curated cache of creative digs—everything from a trailer in Texas to a palace in Italy—which you can view and book online. The couple’s handpicked assortment of VRBO (vacation rentals by owner) is a testament to their impeccable taste and investigative eyes.

CLICK THROUGH to see a few of the awesome lodgings they’ve discovered both near and far away. You’ll want to start packing now. We know we do.—Eds Read more

Can House Cleaning Make You Happier?

June 11, 2012/2 Comments/in Fitness & Health, HEALTH, View All Health Stories, Well Being /by Editor

Get out the squeegee, Margie—doing housework may well be the way to improve your state of mind.

HAPPY TALK | We don’t need social scientists or surveys to confirm that having a clean house is a natural mood booster. But did you know that actually doing the cleaning may improve your mood as much as having a house that’s clean? In her new book, The First 20 Minutes: Surprising science reveals how we can exercise better, train smarter, live longer, author Gretchen Reynolds reports that a recent large-scale survey done in Europe found an “inverse association between housework and distress.”

How To Apply Bronzer Perfectly (VIDEO)

June 8, 2012/5 Comments/in Video /by Editor

Who wouldn’t want to add subtle contour and a sunlit shimmer to their face?

A great bronzer instantly brings life to the face (just look what it does for J. Lo). Applied correctly, it adds radiance, the look of health and sex appeal. It can highlight and improve the contours of the face whether or not foundation or other make-up products are used. (CLICK THROUGH TO VIEW OUR VIDEO.) Read more

Embossed Cards by Brendan Power - Martin Tessler

Fast Relief: How To Make Embossed Cards Quick

June 6, 2012/6 Comments/in Culture & Leisure, D.I.Y., DECOR & DESIGN, DIY, HOME, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All DIY Stories, View All Home Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

The perfect alternative to E-cards, these beautifully embossed greeting cards are super simple to make.

CREATIVE SOLUTION | Embossing your own stationery is super easy. You will need 90-pound watercolor paper (although you can emboss on lighter papers), a burnishing tool and some sort of template to outline the image. Almost anything with relief will work; I used a metal drain tile from a plumbing store, a simple bracket from a hardware store and a leaf template I found at a graphic arts supply store. Read more

Our 6 Favorite Straw Handbags For Summer

June 4, 2012/2 Comments/in Classics & Trends, FASHION, Fashion & Beauty, View All Fashion Stories /by Editor

Nothing says summer like a straw carryall. Here are six we’d love to take everywhere from the office to the beach. (LOOKBOOK)

CHEAP & ICONIC | According to Wikipedia, the infamous Hermès Birkin handbag, which retails for a minimum $9,000 and has “ultimate fashion indulgence” written all over it, was conceived in the early 1980s after a chance meeting between then Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas and singer/actress Jane Birkin on an airplane. She was travelling with a bag she’d already made famous, a wicker market basket she employed as both a handbag and weekend luggage.

This original Birkin, the Jane-invented one (pictured above as she carried it in the 1960s), was a holdover from her hippie chick days, when proletarian peasant sacks and straw bags of all sorts were in fashion—as they are again today.

Here are six cool straw totes—priced from $18 to $60—we’d take along to France (where Birkin still lives), or anywhere else for that matter. —Annabel Lee Read more