While some people may be cringing with the cold, or with the ever-nearing holiday season, I am getting super-stoked for the holiday season!  I, like many of you, love this time of year because I get excited to make my  home a fun welcoming place and I love preparing both food and my home for holiday gatherings.

In my profession, I work with home goods: housewares, textiles, and everything in-between!  The home business booms around this time of year for the very reason that I like to buy fun home goods this time of year: people love to prepare for get-togethers with family and friends.

Take a look at some of my favorite websites for home items of great design and function.  Maybe you’ll find that perfect thing you’ve been looking to serve your homemade cheeseballs in; and, keep these sites in mind for holiday gifts as well!

1.  Bodum

Bodum is no big secret. Bodum has expanded to sell all over the place, including mid-to-high-end department stores, but I listed them first because I always enjoy their products’ design and functionality. Also, when I think of home entertaining, I immediately think of making coffee.  Check out the Brazil Set: a colorful 8-cup french press with four matching cups.  Great for entertaining, OR as a holiday gift!

2.  Greener Grass Design

Greener Grass Design’s mission statement is plain and simple: they want to provide interesting goods.  Boom.  GGD carries everything from bold barware, to playful pet-homes, to whimsical dishes, to charming trash bags.  And come on fellow squirrel-lovers, what home doesn’t need an adorable squirrel-shaped nut bowl?!

3.  The Curiosity Shoppe

The Shoppe always has some cutesy goods perfect for gift-giving, like a cheese board in the shape of France (ooh la la!), or these well-dressed napkins for your not-so-well-dressed family to jam in the necks of their T-shirts and look fancy.

4.  Reiko Kaneko

Let’s switch it up for a second and move beyond the entertaining items, and go straight to a purely holiday gifty item – because it’s just that damn special.  Based in the UK, Reiko Kaneko hand-crafts contemporary designs in bone china.  Their items are interesting and fun, like these cat and dog bone china Christmas tree ornaments. Hand-crafted people!

5.  Perch!

Perch is a small company (um, three people and a cat?) based in Brooklyn that produces home items that can perform double duty! A freeform basket can also be hung as a bird-feeder, a mason jar can be used as a vase or pitcher…you get the idea.  Whatever you use them for, their designs and products are beautiful, modern yet organic, and environmentally friendly.  Perfect for entertaining, or gift-giving!

Main Article Image features Perch! Rosette Vase

For under $10, the cost of a can of spray paint, you can make an otherwise boring tray (or most anything, really) look more expensive and/or fit with your décor.

• If the tray has a finish on it, sand it down lightly.
• Clean the tray by dusting it and wiping it down with a damp cloth. Allow it to dry completely.
• Go outside (no spray painting indoors, okay?) and lay down some rags underneath your project.
• Spray the tray with long, even strokes for as many coats as it takes to cover the whole thing, following the directions on the can.
• Allow to dry overnight if possible.
• Enjoy looking at your masterpiece!

I’ve also used spray paint (this time, gold) to make over an ugly wooden frame:

Before you buy something new, look at what you have and ask yourself: could this be better with a coat of new paint? For less time than the trip to the store and certainly less money than the cost of a new frame, tray, or what-have-you.

I know that Summer is the popular guy in class but Fall has always been my personal favorite. Yeah, Summer has a good tan and doesn’t make you go to school, but Fall smells good and means crisp air, crunchy leaves on the sidewalk, new outfits, Trapper Keepers, and sneakers are back! Plus, as far as seasonal holidays go, you guys can keep 4th of July; Halloween is obviously the coolest!

As it’s still early in the season, here is a project that will keep your pumpkin around for the next couple weeks instead of slowly caving in on itself until Halloween rolls around. Plus, it’s mess free and you can even use the pumpkin itself for bread, pie or roasted seeds at the end of the month!

TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Pumpkin, photo print out or drawing (to scale), scissors, Sharpies, and dry erase pen.

1. For the image you plan to use you can blow up a photo or choose from lots of awesome silhouettes out there in the cyberworld. There are plenty of templates out there but I choose to keep it personal and made mine using a picture of my dog Gigi. Obviously.

2. Start by cutting out your silhouette as carefully and detailed as possible.

3. Next, tape the silhouette down to hold it in place.

4. Using your dry erase marker (which wipes off with warm water when you are done. So mistakes are no problem!), trace your silhouette. Remove the tape carefully as you go around.

*Tip* if you prefer to carve out your silhouette and avoid any pen marks, you can trace it by poking tiny holes with the end of a paper clip or safety pin. This way you have a very faint tracing to work off of.

5. Once you are done tracing, remove the silhouette, make any changes with your dry erase and then carefully trace over your lines with a sharpie. If you would like to add a border, draw out an oval on scratch paper (folded in half a la elementary school helps for symmetry) and trace around your silhouette with the dry erase pen. Then trace out the oval in Sharpie.

6. Next, fill in the body of the shape. I recommend a jumbo sharpie to cover more ground! You may need to do two coats to cover the orange.

7. Once the Sharpie is dry, you can simply dampen a paper towel and the dry erase will come off easily.

Voila! Step back and admire!

For more cute no-carve ideas, here is a series I recently made for Real Simple Magazine.

Here is a pretty amazing carving pumpkin idea – leave it to Martha’s team of crafters!

Oh and before you go! Here are a couple recipes to make the most of your pumpkin, inside and out!

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*Classic Roasted Pumpkin Seeds*

1 1/2 c raw whole pumpkin seeds

2 tsp soy margarine

1 pinch salt

- Preheat the oven to 300°.

- Toss the seeds in the margarine and salt mix.

- Spread the seeds on a sheet in a thin layer

- Bake 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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* Sugar and Spice Roasted Pumpkin Seeds*

1 cup pumpkin seeds

1 Tbs melted soy margarine or vegetable oil

1 Tbs granulated sugar

1/2 to 1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp allspice

[Same baking directions as above.]

For more flavor options try: garlic salt or powder, black pepper, cayenne, chili powder or Italian seasoning. Recipe found here.

Happy Halloween, girls!

The season’s are changing, and while spring is time for cleaning, fall is the perfect time for fixer-uppers! Now is a great time to attend to accessory malfunctions and wardrobe switcheroo’s. Let’s face it, on top of all the other chores you have to do in your life, cleaning your jewelry is probably a task that never even makes it on the to-do list. So I plan to make it super easy for you!

All you need are four things to tend to your jewelry needs now and all year long:

1.  A Soft or Children’s Toothbrush

This is useful for gently brushing your jewelry free of debris.  Many pre-packaged jewelry cleaners can have abrasive materials and/or chemicals that are not recommended for soft fine gemstones.  A soft toothbrush,  however, won’t harm gems or metals, and helps you scrub in the tiny little areas under gems and in detailed recessions.

2. Sudsy Ammonia OR Mild Dish Soap

Most grocery stores carry these cleaning agents, which can clean your jewelry safely without leaving a coating or film! Dilute the Sudsy Ammonia by adding it to a bowl of lukewarm water (equal parts Sudsy Ammonia and water).**  You can let your jewerly soak in a cup of it and give it a gentle little scrup with the toothbrush. This solution is what is often used in professional ultra-sonic cleaners in jewelry shops, and has been used on a wide variety of gemstones without harming them (avoid cleaning opals this way). If you can’t find Sudsy Ammonia or don’t want to deal with Ammonia altogether, a single drop of mild dish soap in lukewarm water will work as well.

3.  Silver Rouge Polishing Cloth

These cloths do wonders for all types of jewely, but especially sterling silver jewelry that has become oxidized!
As you may know, silver oxidizes—or tarnishes—with exposure to the air.  The outermost molecules on a piece of silver interact with the oxygen in the air, and turn black. Rouge cloths, such as the fabulous Fabulustre, are treated with jeweler’s rouge. Simply rub the jewelry item and you’ll see the black tarnished layer come right off onto the cloth, leaving your silver jewelry bright and shiny!*

4.  Silver Protector Strips

Prevent frequent re-oxidation on your silver jewelry by placing one of these strips in your jewelry box, or in a small bag or box you keep the jewelry in.  The strip will interfere with the chemical interaction of the oxygen and your silver item, so you have to clean your jewelry even less frequently!

Please Note:
**Store Ammonia safely.  Be careful not to splash Ammonia near eyes, and NEVER mix it with Bleach!
*It is difficult to get into recessed areas with the cloth, so recessions will remain blackened – a look many people prefer. If you wish an item to be completely free of oxidation, the safest treatment is to have a professional jeweler polish it on a polishing machine where tiny bristles can reach into the recessions as well.

Photo by simone-walsh on Flickr

Just like a pair of earrings can solidify your look, small home accessories can act as further (and affordable) hints of the interior design look you’re going for. If they serve a purpose other than decoration, all the better! Coasters are a great, cheap way to express your home style while performing double-duty and protecting your tables from rings (my cocktail table is glass, not wood, but I obsessively use coasters anyway so I’m not wiping it down twice a day).

So if you’re going for a Hollywood regency look, try some agate coasters, mid-century modern: marble or coasters made from vintage records, craftsman: Frank Lloyd Wright patterns, vintage: glass and silver, and so on—no matter what you’re taste, there are coasters to match. And if you entertain frequently and want to help everyone keep track of their glasses, slate coasters paired with some chalk are stylish and fun.

Coaster Round-Up by icelandicody on Polyvore.com

My apartment is palatial by New York City standards, so when The Beau suggested getting a storage space for some items we couldn’t figure out what to do with, I put my foot down. No way should two adults with as much space as us spend their money on a storage space! Instead, I decided it was time to empty out all of our storage areas around the house and reorganize, repack, and re-put away. Between our two trunks in the living room, dresser in the dining room, console in the bedroom, three storage closets with built-in shelving, and second bedroom-turned walk-in closet, we had a lot of stuff to go through, but also a lot of storage space to work with. Certain items, like our holiday decorations or CD collection were in the same place we put them when we moved in six years ago, despite the fact that over the years we haven’t needed to get to them that often and more pressing items had been stashed on higher shelves. This was our time to rectify the situation, as well as go through everything and decide what stayed and what went. It was a three-weekend project, but absolutely worth it—our home feels larger and we both feel less cluttered both physically and mentally.

So what are you waiting for? It’s fall. You’re going to be inside for the next eight months. Make the most of your space with the following tips from an organization-obsessive:

Get Inspired By Other People Who Are Worse Off Than You:
Watch a few episodes of Clean House or Clean Sweep or even Hoarders as prep. There’s nothing like seeing grown adults crying over the idea of parting with a painting of a kitten on a branch to toughen you up for making the hard decisions.

Make Rules:
While it’s easy to make the argument that something like, say, a racquetball racket, isn’t really taking up that much space and it would suck to have to buy another one if you do ever decide to pick up the game again, if you haven’t touched it in 15 years, it’s gotta go. That tee you tie-dyed in Junior High, however…

Get Inspired By Amazing Storage Solutions:
There’s nothing like seeing storage done beautifully to inspire me. Do a search for “storage” or “closets” on Apartment Therapy, Habitually Chic, Design Sponge, or Unclutterer. Seeing how lovely your closets/bathrooms/shelving/etc. can look with a little work will help get you going and might give you some new ideas.

Prioritize Your Belongings:
When’s the last time you needed to access your childhood photo album? High school yearbook? Swimming goggles? Reorganize your storage spaces so that the things you use most often are the most easily accessible. Sounds like a no-brainer, I know, but when you’ve been in one place for several years, your storage tends to stay put and new stuff gets stored in the farther reaches, even if you need it more often.

Give It Away:
Know your game-plan for disposal before you start and mark out piles, bins or bags in the categories that make most sense to you: give to other people, trash, donate, sell, recycle… Just be sure these categories don’t simply end up taking up more space in your home! If you’re going to give items to others, make sure to make a point of getting these items to their new owners within a week or two. If you’re going to donate, check the hours of your local drop-off facility and get it in your calendar. There’s nothing worse than doing all the hard work and then dumping crap back in your closet for when you’re ready to get it out and then a week goes by, then another one, and then before you know it, you’re stepping over it every day and creating an even bigger mess. Get it out of there!

Creative Solutions:
In the future, when looking for furniture or accessories for your home,  think about how it might help with storage. A minimalist clear acrylic coffee table might look really cool, but if you have nowhere to stash your remotes, it might not be the best bet for you. Vintage trunks, suitcases, and even airline crates can add a lot of personality to a space and double as storage.

Keep It Together:
When storing items, keep things that are similar together: magazines together, sports equipment together,  games together, art supplies together, and so on. Not only will it make your storage areas look nicer, it will also help you find things when the time comes.

Photo by Miskan on Flickr

Plants don’t live long in our household (well, except this one). We either water them too much or too little or the cats get to them. It’s unfortunate, because I like having flowers in the house, but refuse to buy cut flowers since they simply don’t last. So one day, on a whim, I bought a beautiful orchid from Whole Foods (they were right by the register and I fell into their little trap). When I got it home and placed it on the mantle, I was really impressed at what a difference it made right away—it certainly classed up the joint. Even better, at $20, it’s about the same as cut flowers and lasts much, much longer (ours last about 6 weeks). With proper care, I’m sure they could last even longer, so for cheap you can always have some classy-ass flowers prettying up your pad. And then you can live like this guy.

The objects we choose to surround ourselves with say a lot about us. They can inspire us, make us feel happy and remind of us of people we care about. The problem is when there are so many things, you stop seeing them and they just become a jumble. There is a big difference between a cohesive collection and a cluttered space. As we move into adulthood, our living spaces need to grow up with us. The first step to structuring your belongings is deciding what you really can’t live without. I can promise you that everyone has enough to fill at least one box destined for the thrift shop, probably more.

Some people are collectors by nature, whether it be a mix of things they love or focusing their interests on very specific items like Pez dispensers or porcelain cats (to each their own!). A lot of people have collections they started as kids and hate to part with. Unfortunately, amassing lots of little objects that fill your shelves and countertops can make you look more like a hoarder than an art collector. This doesn’t mean you have to get rid of your collections altogether but it does mean you need to find a better way to show them off.

I love anything in a series and am most definitely one of those aforementioned collectors. So in order to keep my collections in check, and prevent my boyfriend from moving out due to claustrophobia, I had to create some structure. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the objects they treasure usually have a common thread and can be displayed together to form a unified piece, rather than taking over your entire apartment. Here are a few examples of how I made it work (more examples available in my studio tour at VanessaBoer.com):

1) Take it to the walls: Not everything needs to go on a shelf. I collect vintage children’s books and my favorite parts are the old silkscreened covers. In order to display them as a group without lining my bookshelves, I hung them as a group using two small nails on top and below to hold them in place (not through the books, of course, just sandwiching them).

2) Use a display case: A friend gave me this sweet vintage house as a gift, knowing I collect all things tiny. It was the perfect way to house lots of small things that don’t necessarily have a common theme but work together as a group.  Old letter box drawers are available at just about any flea market and come in all sizes. They are the perfect way to display small things but the older ones are beautiful enough to stand on their own too!

3) Keep it in the family: Of course, things that share a theme always look great together! Another one of my collections is vintage children’s instruments, so I placed these together on top of a bookshelf as a group where they can be admired from a distance rather than fill up valuable shelf space. Another note on displaying items on a shelf: things grouped in a triangle shape are more pleasing to the eye. It also helps you travel from one piece to the next. Just a thought! If you want to learn how to perfect your shelf display, you can go right here!

4) Hang objects in a structured grid: Things look great when they are displayed as a series. And by things, I really mean anything. It could be necklaces, lunchboxes or bundt pans! I found some of these great examples at the flickr group ‘Creative Collections’. People have pooled together all sorts of collections, some of which are pretty unexpected and really beautiful! They may inspire you to look at your favorite things, and how you display them, from a whole new perspective.

No matter what you collect, whether you have a thing for plates, tiny toys or birds’ nests, there’s a way to make it really pop. So yeah, I guess that means you have my permission to go buy another troll doll.

Handbags, I have them. Lots of them. And I need to have them stored in a way that not only allows me to get to them easily, but also lets me see them all, not only to admire them, but also so I use them. I had this really fantastic back-of-door hook system that I loved, but since I rearranged my apartment and no longer have a convenient back-of-door to hang my bags on, I wanted something that was something along the lines of what I could imagine seeing in a posh walk-in closet… Without the price-tag (I need to save money in order to buy more bags, you see).

I bought 2 kitchen shelves from Ikea, then extra hooks for hanging below (normally used for hanging pots) and voila! 32 bags at my fingertips… And not squished. And for under $50. Unfortunately, there is bad news: Ikea doesn’t sell this particular shelf anymore (probably because it’s better at holding up empty bags than heavy post and pans). It’s a bummer, I know. But I’ve found a couple of alternatives (like this one or this one) and besides, this is supposed to help inspire you, so maybe you’ll come up with your own brilliant solution that works well for your space! The moral: shelf plus hooks equals very cool, walk-in type handbag storage.

Okay, so I’m sure you read Vanessa’s amazing article on how to mat your own artwork. But maybe you haven’t tried it yourself yet. Well, that stupid. Because I have. And I have to say… It’s saved me a bundle, improved the look of my home, and allowed my artwork to shine. It’s also provided a few fun craft nights for me and the beau. So what are you waiting for? Get to it!