Supernatural Botanicals

Super easy decor straight from the produce department.  Fill clear jars or bowls, or in this case, a candle holder, and fill them with colorful fruits (as shown, Granny Smith apples and oranges).  Huge wow factor, easy to do, inexpensive, and healthy.

Do you obsess over your home’s design?  Are you constantly looking to books and magazines for great interior design ideas?  Is your DVR full of HGTV design shows?  Then you’ll love Design Sponge.   Design Sponge is one of the most popular design blogs in cyberspace, and has a celeb readership (Nate Berkus reads it regularly).   Design Sponge is packed full of great ideas to transform your home into your sanctuary.  Jump over and check out the blog here.

It’s always a surprise to see how overlooked our makeup vanities are.  Women spend an exorbitant amount of time and money on makeup purchases, so their makeup vanities should have equal exceptional value.  Creating a beautiful and functional vanity to your home will not only make your home more beautiful, it will make you more beautiful!  A functional, well-lit, well-organized vanity will naturally provide a better end result…beautiful makeup application.   One of our former makeup vanity blog posts continually elicits comments and inquiries on where to purchase them.  The following makeup vanities can be found at Pottery Barn Teen, www.PBTeen.com.

Keep the summer going all year long and grow a windowsill herb garden.  Herbs are very easy to grow, great to spice up any breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and looks so pretty in your kitchen.  Find some great containers (flower pots, coffee cups, dip bowls), and make sure they fit in your windowsill securely.  Pick up a good bag of soil and plant some seeds.  Huge wow factor!

Having no choice but to pay attention to it, as it’s displayed in every grocery store in America, a bottle of Skinnygirl Margarita made it’s way into my refrigerator.  Skinnygirl is a brand created by reality turned mainstream personality, Bethenny Frankel.  I immediately loved Bethenny for her entrepreneur-meets-lunatic personality …let’s just say I’m familiar with that territory.  There’s a laser-focused drive amongst some in the world that just sets them apart, and that’s exactly how Bethenny just landed a reported $120 million for her Skinnygirl Margarita brand.

You know a product has a successful PR and marketing strategy when you purchase their product, even though you don’t necessarily like it.  That’s what I did.  I was pretty sure I didn’t like Tequila, yet I purchased a bottle of  Skinnygirl anyway.  Not only do I adore Bethenny, but I also think her Skinnygirl line in genius.  The logo is spot-on.

So I have an entire bottle of Skinnygirl in my fridge.  The bottle is so cute, I don’t mind it having center stage in my fridge.  But here’s how it’s keeping me skinny…if I dare open the fridge for a snack or something with too many calories, like Parmesan cheese,  I see the Skinnygirl staring me down.  Then I think of Bethenny looking skinny-fabulous (I’m guessing 118 pounds on a 5’6″-ish frame??).  Then I think of Bethenny sealing a deal for $120 million.

Thanks to Ms. Frankel, I now have some more will power, skinnier thighs, and a goal to conquer the world!

If you have lots of wood surfaces in your home, you know that the costs of furniture polish has skyrocketed.  And when prices start to soar sky high, so does our creativity.  How can we do it cheaper, better, and to boot….all naturally?  While there are numerous “green” recipes for homemade furniture polish, they all have the two basic ingredients…oil and lemon.  And as luck would have it, it’s all you need.

To make homemade furniture polish, simply whisk together olive oil with an equal amount of lemon juice (you can also use vinegar, but lemons smell so much nicer).  Simply leave it in the bowl you mixed it in and dip a rag in, or put the liquid mixture in a spray bottle.   The bowl method is easier and less wasteful, as you can mix only the amount you’ll need for the days’ chores.

Use a dry rag, dip the rag into the oil mixture, and buff down all your wood surfaces.  It brings the wood back to life in an instant, and makes it appear brand new.  All natural, less expensive, and oh-so-crafty!    We love this!

Ensure that bedside lamps are the correct height with this little trick: When you’re sitting in bed, the lampshade bottoms should be at eye level so light will shine on your reading material not in your eyes.

Love to decorate with fresh flowers?  Skip the roses or lilies this month and go straight for the tulips. 

Shop seasonally for the best value. This month, your best value at the florist is tulips.  You will get the best deal on tulips every February.

Add instant oooohh- factor to your room with fresh flowers.  It’s much easier and much less expensive than you might think…you just have to know how to do it right.

Carnations are widely available (local florist, grocery stores, etc.) and are relatively inexpensive.  The key to carnations is to group them together tightly in a small vase.  This will produce a huge, snowball-type cluster bouquet.  You should keep the carnations all one color…it’s much prettier and expensive-looking this way.  An all white group of carnations is gorgeous and works in every room of any color.  Carnations come in almost every color, so color coordinate with your room’s color.

Keep them on your nightstand, your desk at work, your kitchen island, everywhere.  They lightly scent the air with a light, fresh scent and look gorg.  And now you know how to do carnations right.

Utilize plants all winter long to reduce fatigue, coughs, sore throats and other cold-related illnesses by more than 30 percent, partially by increasing humidity levels and decreasing dust.  Plants do wonders for the aesthetics of a room.  Home retailers, such as Home Depot, have beautiful 6′ plants for about $30.  Turn up the design element in the room with an up-light (also sold at Home Depot).  Putting a light underneath the plant’s branches will cascade shadows all over the room…it’s a gorgeous look.