Easy to make origami boxes add depth, elegance and fun to LED and other string lights.
BEAUTIFUL & EASY | We’ve used a combination of origami light cubes and bare LED bulbs (in a ratio of 1 boxed light to three bare bulbs) on every Christmas tree we’ve decorated in the last dozen years. The origami boxes produce beautiful, diffuse squares of light, something you don’t normally see on a Christmas tree. Some years we’ve chosen to box only white string lights, but mostly we box multi-coloured ones. To make our boxes, we worked with vellum squares (available at art supply stores or online) that deepen and intensify whatever colour light they cover. Read more
3 Little Gifts Guaranteed To Please Any Cook
/0 Comments/in FOOD, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by EditorThree little gifts for the people in your life who can’t stay away from the kitchen.
2 Great Little Gifts For Beauty & Fitness Types
/0 Comments/in BEAUTY, Exercise, FITNESS, Skin & Body Care, View All Beauty Stories, View All Fitness Stories /by EditorInexpensive little items for beauty and fitness types.
JUST A LITTLE SOMETHING | We love all the products we feature on Frugalbits, but these stand out as perfect “just a little something” gifts that will appeal to beauty and fitness types.
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Use Kraft & Scrap To Make Beautiful Wrap
/0 Comments/in HOLIDAY, Holiday /by EditorCombine ordinary kraft paper and odd bits of wrapping and ribbon to create super attractive gift wrap.
WASTE NOT | Do you have odd bits and ends of old gift wrap and ribbon lying around that you can’t bring yourself to throw out? I was on the verge of chucking out my growing pile of scraps when Brendan Power, my good friend and Frugalbits D.I.Y columnist, suggested I combine them with commonplace kraft paper to give it a lift. What a great idea. Read more
What To Get & Give + How To Help Others
/1 Comment/in Holiday, HOLIDAY /by EditorWhat does she want for Christmas? Frugalbits EiC locks down the items on her holiday wish list.
TO GET: A down ultra light coat. Patagonia makes one that costs the moon, but Uniqlo has the one and it’s just $99. There’s a wrinkle though. The nearest Uniqlo is in Manhattan and they don’t ship to Canada—or even across the U.S. any more, for that matter. We’ve asked a friend in NYC to pick up A coat, and send it to our U.S. Christmas destination. The process is a bit inconvenient but the coat is sooo worth it; it’s stylish, inexpensive and well made— you can’t get any better than that. Visit www.uniqlo.com Read more
Three Storage Bags That Make Good Gifts
/0 Comments/in Goods & Services, HOLIDAY, Holiday /by EditorTo protect and to store, these “something extra” Christmas gifts will keep on giving long after they’ve come out from under the tree.
HOLIDAY 2011 | It’s all but impossible to imagine storage bags would be at the top of anyone’s Christmas wish list—or tacked onto the bottom of it for that matter. But the clever containers featured here perform their intended tasks so well that anyone lucky enough to receive one or all of them as “a little something extra” for Christmas will silently thank the giver a thousand times over whenever they put them to work. Read more
Wrap Stars: H&M’s Reusable Gift Boxes
/2 Comments/in Goods & Services, Holiday, HOLIDAY /by EditorWhy don’t more stores follow the H&M lead and minimize their logo on good looking gift packaging so shoppers can reuse it year after year?
FREE & FABULOUS | Too bad other big brands and major retailers don’t adopt Swedish fashion megabrand H&M’s approach to gift-wrapping, because if enough of them were to do it, gift givers would be able to wean themselves off wasteful wrapping paper in no time flat. Read more
Make Easy Origami Cubes For String Lights
/3 Comments/in DECOR & DESIGN, Holiday, HOLIDAY, HOME, Home & Garden, View All Home Stories /by EditorEasy to make origami boxes add depth, elegance and fun to LED and other string lights.
BEAUTIFUL & EASY | We’ve used a combination of origami light cubes and bare LED bulbs (in a ratio of 1 boxed light to three bare bulbs) on every Christmas tree we’ve decorated in the last dozen years. The origami boxes produce beautiful, diffuse squares of light, something you don’t normally see on a Christmas tree. Some years we’ve chosen to box only white string lights, but mostly we box multi-coloured ones. To make our boxes, we worked with vellum squares (available at art supply stores or online) that deepen and intensify whatever colour light they cover. Read more
What We Got At The One Of A Kind Show
/0 Comments/in Holiday, HOLIDAY /by EditorFrugalbits went shopping at the One Of A Kind Show and found spiffy fashion and homeware gifts for a daughter, a son and a husband.
GIVE & GET | The fourth annual winter One Of A Kind show and sale got underway yesterday at Vancouver’s Convention Centre West (it continues through December 11). Frugalbits was on hand bright and early to scour the isles for cool stuff coming out of the studios of the more than 300 mostly local artisans and designers who are participating this time around. While plenty of items caught our eye at this holiday shopping extravaganza, products from the following three companies actually enticed us to buy. Read more
Find Eco Friendly Christmas Trees
/0 Comments/in Holiday, HOLIDAY, Home & Garden /by Felicity StoneHere’s our 2011 guide to finding the eco-friendliest Christmas trees in and around Metro Vancouver.
HOLIDAY 2011 | While artificial trees come in hues to match your decor, real Christmas trees are green in more than colour. They are a renewable crop often grown on land unsuitable for cultivating much else, they remove carbon from the air while they’re growing, and they can be chipped for mulch after use. Here are three ways to get an eco-friendly green tree this Christmas. Read more
Meet The #1 Cookie For Cookie Exchange
/2 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, Entertaining, FOOD, Food & Drink, HOLIDAY, Holiday, Recipes, View All Food Stories /by EditorMade in minutes, these graham cracker caramel nut cookies are ridiculously delicious. Share them with friends and they’ll want the recipe—guaranteed!
SLAM DUNK | The next time you are asked to bring cookies to a book club, meet-up or exchange, try making the ones pictured here. After their taste, which is amazing, the fabulous thing about these caramel-covered slabs is their pan-generational appeal: sophisticated enough to seduce discriminating adults and gooey-good enough to reel in the children.
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