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CLUB cabin-low

CLUG: An Easy, Elegant Way To Store Bikes

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Designed in Vancouver, the CLUG is an easy and elegant way to store bikes.

CLUB cabin-low INEXPENSIVE & AWESOME | If this isn’t a fabulous idea, I don’t know what is: a practically invisible clip that you can attach to almost any surface to store your bike in a space-saving position. Use the stylish CLUG—it’s a blend of the words clip and hug—“to keep your place tidy and display your ride without damaging it or your walls,” say the trio of industrial designers (with a Fuseproject connection) at Vancouver-based Hurdler Studios. They are currently crowd-funding on Kickstarter in an effort to speed their clever product to market.   Read more

Shine Your Silver To Perfection Quickly Without Commercial Polish

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This homemade concoction will put a shine on your silver with minimal cost and effort. (VIDEO)

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THIS STUFF WORKS | Until recently, I have polished my wee cache of silver—both sterling and plate, everything from jewellery to flatware—with pricey silver polish from a local jewellery store. “Why do you use that stuff?” my friend and Frugalbits contributor Brendan Power asked one evening after I complained about the bits of pink paste that had become lodged in the nooks of my newly cleaned Tiffany bracelet. I could avoid this residue, and polish up everything nicely, he explained, “using tin foil, soda and salt.” Read more

Starck Happy D.2 BATHTUB

Magic Eraser Really Does Remove The Most Stubborn Stains

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The stain was so stubborn I thought I would have to replace my bathtub. Turns out all I needed was a small miracle.

Starck Happy D.2 BATHTUB

 

THIS THING WORKS | Shortly after we moved into our house, the acrylic tub in the master bathroom became stained. It looked as though something had spattered the finish and damaged it, but whatever the cause, the problem was finding a solution. Read more

ikea-regolit

4 Ways To Dress Up Plain Paper Lanterns

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Tissue Paper Stars
Kate Daudy - NYTimes
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Peel and Stick Letters - The Swell Life


DIY | While inexpensive paper lanterns used en masse contribute enormously to the festive mood in a room (try imagining the space pictured above without them), a plain pendant lantern used on its own can easily look like an uninspired afterthought.

Of course a single Noguchi Araki light sculpture would be beautiful, but shades like these, which are fashioned from handmade washi paper and authentic bamboo ribbing, are anything but cheap.

If you are going to use a cheap Chinese paper lantern alone in a room, why not personalize it in a way that makes it distinctive? Here are four of our favourite eye-catching ways to embellish paper lanterns, plus a how-to video from Martha Stewart that covers some of the basics. Read more

deluxe-down-pillow- Linens N Things

The Best Way To Care For Bed Pillows

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Most of us are fastidious about changing bed linens, but pillows often fall by the wayside. Here’s how to keep them fresh.

deluxe-down-pillow- Linens N Things

HOME SCHOOL | Is there anything more ewww inspiring than a big perspiration stain on your bed pillow? Or knowing that in the time it took for the stain to materialize, entire nations of allergy-inducing dust mites have taken up residence inside the cushion where you lay your sweet head every night?

While most of us are fastidious about keeping sheets and pillowcases clean, pillows often fall by the wayside. Here’s what we know about keeping bed pillows fresh and in tiptop shape. Read more

Puddle of olive oil

How To Remove Oil Stains From Clothes

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Here is a dead easy way to remove any cooking oil stain from clothing.

Puddle of olive oil

 

THIS STUFF WORKS | Quick, which home cleaning product has grease-cutting properties as a big part of its raison d’être? Anyone who has ever watched daytime television even once knows the answer is dishwashing liquid. What I didn’t know until this past weekend is that the grease-cutting effectiveness of liquid detergent on pots and pans can also be applied to clothing. I learned this the hard way, of course, when I dropped a big glob of salad dressing containing olive oil on my A&F Bermuda shorts. Read more

Stack Of Cloth Napkins shutte

Why You Need To Use Cloth Napkins Daily

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Here’s why you should use cloth napkins every day—and how (and where) to sew beautiful mitered-corner ones for yourself. (VIDEO)

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MONEY WELL SPENT | You should be using cloth napkins every day not only because doing so will save you money by cutting down on paper waste but also because you deserve nice things, and cloth napkins are nice all around: better next to the skin than paper ones, generally larger and more absorbent. Read more

Crow finial

6 Fun Objects To Move Around The Garden

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Six objects—no chairs or pots among them—that can be relocated around the garden again and again to make it look revitalized.

Crow

 

SWITCH IT UP | Because so many elements of a garden’s design are fixed I sometimes like to shake things up by introducing objects that can be repositioned according to the season or to whim. In my own garden, I have three metal crows that travel from tabletop to fence top routinely, and two, old wooden obelisks that have at one time or another bunked in every quarter of my suburban lot. Read more

Glimma-tealights- IKEA

Which Tea Lights Burn Longest? Read This.

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When using tea lights to illuminate a special event, you need to know exactly how long they will burn. Here’s what we discovered.

Glimma-tealights- IKEA

 

BUY RIGHT | One thing I know for sure about tea lights is that the burn time listed on the package never lives up to its promise. I have only my own experience to back up this claim, but over the past few weeks, I have been testing tea light burn times for an upcoming wedding reception, and, without exception, every wee candle came up at least one hour short. It may be possible for tea lights to burn for as long as the manufacturers contend, though I can only imagine that to do so, they would need to be in a place where the air is still. Read more

Give Old Planters A New Cement Overcoat

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Turn old pots and planters from blah to beautiful with a concrete overcoat.

Concrete on Old Planters - Clinton Hussey

 

DO IT YOURSELF | Do you have a hodge-podge of unattractive garden pots and vases collecting dust in the recesses of your storage area, containers you’ve been thinking about shipping off to the Sally Ann? Well, if you like the look of concrete, a binding agent the late, great Canadian architect Arthur Erickson called “precious …. the marble of the 20th century,” you could mix up a batch of the material and paint it on your old planters the way I did on mine. It made me want to keep them. Read more