White kraft paper, the kind that comes in big rolls from art supply stores, is the perfect blank canvas to use for wrapping gifts. I like it plain, dressed up with beautiful ribbon topped off with greenery such as sprigs of holly or bits of twig. I also like it decorated in the ways I’ve shown here. Read more
SHOP SMART | If Santa didn’t have elves working furiously in his workshop, he’d be wise to buy all his gifts online. No crowded malls, no parking traffic, no stress – in fact, if I didn’t know any better, he probably does this already. And you probably do too. But did you know that besides saving time, you can also save money? All you need is a neat little thing called a promo code.
Chances are you’ve seen it before: that small box at the bottom of the checkout page where you can “enter promo code here”. I burned through a lot of plastic before it occurred to me to figure out how to get one. After all, you can find anything online, why not a promo code. Read more
Last year in an effort to simplify my life, I looked into buying an artificial Christmas tree, preferably one that came predecorated and opened and shut like an umbrella: I could pop it up before Christmas, then collapse and store it till next year. Then I discovered that the whole point of a Christmas tree is to bring evergreen trees or branches indoors as reminder that winter will eventually end and the world will turn green again.
Real Christmas trees are green in more than colour as they are a renewable crop and often grown on land unsuitable for growing much else. And like any crop, there are different shades of green.
WASTE NOT | The first Christmas morning my husband spent with my family was a culture shock. Before we opened our presents, my mother handed each of us a knife, which we used to carefully slit the adhesive tape instead of ripping the paper off in the mad frenzy my husband was used to. When all the presents had been opened, my mother collected and folded the paper to save until the following year. We would no more have thought of throwing it out than tossing the Christmas ornaments after dismantling the tree. Read more
SAVE MONEY + TIME | The most cost-effective time to buy Christmas wrap and ribbon is in January when it’s discounted by half or more. Almost as good is to buy it now in large and luxurious rolls. Not only is there a cost savings when you buy big, but there’s also the peace of mind from knowing you have enough paper no matter what shape or how large the gift. This year I’m going for stylish big-bulk rolls, and also for tough. I want paper that can stand up to peeking, paper that’s not bible-tissue wuss-wrap that tears at the slightest tug.
SAVE ON STRESS | Time to Hall out ye-old workback schedule If you’re like me, one month from now, December 12 to be exact, you will start to panic and pour on the holiday steam. You’ll shop madly, bake badly, decorate like a maniac and begin, finally, to think about the design for your custom Christmas card, kicking yourself as you do every year for not having jumped on it earlier. So much to be done in so little time and all of it accomplished in the evenings.
Christmas will never be as carefree for adults as it is for kids—we have too much work to do behind the scenes—but this year I’m going corporate and using a simplified version of a “work-back schedule” to get everything done in an unhurried, orderly and more enjoyable manner. Read more
DARE TO REPAIR | Wellies are the footwear of choice in Vancouver, but I also like luscious leather boots—fashion forward over a pair of skinny jeans or under a sexy skirt. I thought I was safe taking mine on a trip to NYC, but after a sudden downpour found myself wading through giant lakes that formed at the clogged storm drains at every intersection.
Undone and unglued, my beautiful leather boots were unwearable. A curmudgeonly cobbler on the West Side (who shall remain nameless) chided me for splashing around in puddles in my “cheap boots” and advised me to throw them in the bin. Undeterred, I hobbled over to Both Feet on Main Street. The hip young man there took them in hand, and, $15 and one week later, they were good as new. Read more
SPEND SMART | George Giannakos is 24 years old and has been shaving with a safety razor for almost five years. He learned how to shave using a multiple-blade system, but when his dad brought home a steel safety razor with a single, double-edge blade, the very one pictured here, and began using it routinely, it wasn’t long before George and two of his three brothers slipped into the groove. Now, five years on, two of the initial three and their father continue to shave with safety razors and see no advantage in returning to a multi-blade world gone mad. Read more
CHEAPER IS BETTER | Buying textbooks at the campus bookstore is so old school. Post- secondary education is costly enough without forking over a premium for course materials. With the average full-time student spending between $900 and $1,200 a year on textbooks, it’s easy to understand why alternatives to the campus bookstore are cropping up everywhere. Read more
MONEY WELL SPENT | One of the best things we did the first time we renovated our house, when my now teenage son was small, was to put a gigantic black chalkboard on one wall in our dining area. We had to order it from a company in Ontario that supplies visual presentation products to schools because we couldn’t find anything locally that was the four-by-eight-foot size we wanted. The board was surprisingly inexpensive, but crating and shipping it nearly doubled the cost. And the cost doubled again when we ditched the anodized aluminum trim kit that can be purchased with the unit in favour of a custom-fitted natural wood picture frame we thought would look better with our hardwood floors and furniture. In the end, I think we paid around $800 for the whole thing, which isn’t dirt cheap but certainly less expensive than a framed artwork of comparable size. Read more
