JillFlorio

I like fashion scarves and have a lot of them - silk scarves, handpainted ones, vintage ones. Scarves are an easy way to add personality, color and versatility to an outfit. The problem: how to organize them?

I’ve tried many storage solutions, from sticking them in a drawer or a basket (in which I find I never use the scarves on the bottom), to draping them over a clothesline behind the bedroom door (which works but looks messy).

So I like my newest solution: a Scarf Hanger Spinner I found at The Container Store. It features six loops of chrome dangling from a natural wood frame that hangs in my closet. I have two scarves on each loop to store 12 scarves.

I like that this hanger spins, so I can easily view all my scarves and not just reach for the same three I seem to wear most often. With the wood handle, it’s a nice-looking addition to my coat closet (where I use only wood hangers).

The chrome loops are also attractive, but, being thin metal, tend to put bend creases in my scarves at their hanging point. So this isn’t a perfect solution by any means for scarf display and storage. It’s just the best answer I’ve stumbled across. The hanger is also rather expensive at 7.99, but there may be less expensive options on the market.

Everybody knows how useful Baking SODA is. Did you know that Baking POWDER can be just as useful in keeping your home clean?

Baking soda is actually the primary component IN baking powder, so it’s no surprise that pretty much anything you can do with baking soda, you can do with baking powder. If you get confused between the two, baking powder usually comes in a can. Baking soda usually comes in a box.

Since most people use far more baking soda when cooking, they often end up with leftover baking powder that has expired. Here are some great uses for your old baking powder.

Carpet Freshener
One of my favorite uses, it really does well with odors. Mix in a drop or two of your favorite fragrance, and sprinkle on the carpet. Let sit for 10 minutes before vaccuuming up.

Scrubbing Compound
Sprinkle the baking powder onto your counter, sink or tub. Use a wet sponge to scrub out the stains, and then rinse clean.

Dishwasher / Washing Machine
Sprinkle some baking powder into your washing machine or dishwasher to add an extra boost of cleaning power.

Even at the tail end of winter you can have brilliant blooms, all over your house, for free. Here’s how to force woody branches into flower - the easy way.

Apple Blossom Buy From Art.com

Materials Needed

• Pruning shears
• Vase, toile bucket, galvanized bucket, floral wall pocket or any interesting, watertight container
• Sugar and bleach as a preservative, with tap water
• A tree…preferably a fruiting tree, a mimosa tree or forsythia type shrub
• Step stool to reach branches

The best time for forcing is when budding has started, but flowers and leaves are not yet open. Choose a tree with lots of branches and select a branch from a crowded area (you don’t want your tree to look lopsided after you are done snipping). Do your lopping on branches at least as thick as your little finger.

Moon, Persimmon and Moth Buy From Art.com

Mix one gallon of hot water with a tablespoon of sugar (any type) and a 1/4 teaspoon of non-scented bleach. Let cool and pour in your floral container. This mixture will help feed your branches and keep the water’s fungus and bacteria counts down, long enough for you to completely enjoy your late winter/early spring burst of life and color.

Hammer or snip the end of your branches to help the plant’s capilllary vessels drink lots of water. Trim branches to fit your container. Check how your arrangement will sit and which direction you find most pleasing to showcase. Don’t place in direct sunlight or in chilly drafts. Direct sun will wilt your leaves and cook your buds, while drafts will just make your branches drop whatever they put forth.

Getting started with your own flowering trees

• For more information on trees and shrubs that flower, how to plant and care for them, etc, I recommend this book from Amazon: The Otho Guide to Flowering Trees and Shrubs
• You can also plant your own five-gallon trees and shrubs to get started with spring blooms for your yard, balcony or patio. I have selected the plum and peach trees below for prolific blooming potential:

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A creative, two-lesson mini-course sure to get your juices flowing! Learn to use plants to decorate like professional interior designers, use plants as feng shui cures to increase your wealth or improve your love life, and learn how to grow topiaries, terrariums, bog plants and cactus deserts as your own class project!Lessons include:

• Designing a grouped, or jungle effect with airy plants or vines
• Setting a dramatic tone with a specimen plant
• Selecting the best plants to clean your indoor air
• Using light to set off foliage
• Using architectural plants to add height to a room
• Using houseplants to soften harmful Feng Shui “shars” that can impair your well-being, and create a pleasing ambience by directing the energy flow correctly
• Using the right herb garden for your kitchen, whether it’s sunny or dark
• And more!

This course is instantly accessible from your computer.

You don’t need to strive for perfection in keeping house, but you CAN give yourself encouragement and kudos for the good work you do in creating a clean, tidy and serene home environment.

Here are some affirmations that work for me:

Meditation

• My home is my nest and temple. I only need what I use and love. Anything extra is only unnecessary extra cleaning effort. I am becoming lighter and purer by having less.
• My bedroom is only for sleeping and relaxation. Anything that reminds me of work or things-to-do stay out of that environment.
• Kids and dogs will be kids and dogs. I will not worry about their areas so much. I will not allow their chaos to take away my peace.
• My home office stays in my home office. I do not allow files or papers to creep into the loving and relaxing areas of my home.
• My house is clean enough. I do my best in a hectic world and I don’t have to live up to my mother’s ideas of perfection.
• Spring Cleanings are for my manic cleaning moods. Here I can allow myself to nitpick and go a cleaning rampage, complete with loud music. And when my spring cleaning fever is over, I can return to center by not worrying so much.

Focus on Indoor Air Quality

Fresh air can be yours!

In the Northern Hemisphere, things are generally chilly to downright cold, keeping you indoors, with the windows and doors shut! This is a good time of year to focus on creating a healthy indoor environment.

Start by opening those windows and doors, at least once a week, for about 20 minutes to an hour (wait for sunny days and turn off the heat!). Allow that toxic indoor air to cycle outside, and let the fresh air stream on in. Our new house are so energy efficient these days, and often our air exchange isn’t sufficient. Indoor air can be several times more polluted than the stuff outside, what with carpet and upholstery outgassing, indoor dust, house cleaning fluids, fireplace or woodstove gasses - you name it!

Getting a new vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter (like the Bissell 35755 Cleanview Bagless Upright Vacuum with HEPA will also help. You want to actually suck up the dirt, not just spew it back into the air.

Some books will help you clean up your home’s air: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living, Protecting Yourself and Your Family from Everyday Toxics and Harmful Household Products in the Home and The Healthy Living Space: 70 Practical Ways to Detoxify the Body and Home. For woodburning questions, consult: The New Woodburner’s Handbook: A Guide to Safe, Healthy, and Efficient Woodburning .

This is a good time of year to invest in some solid houseplants. Certain plants, like pothos, philodendron, peace lily, banana plant and spider plant, are adept at absorbing airborne pollutants, converting them to fresh, clean O2! Purchase a few bigger plants rather than several small ones - they are easier to keep alive (being more established), look better as decor, and allow more surface area for gas exchange. A few big plants will go a long way to cleaning your indoor air pollution! Home Depot usually has nice big economical houseplants, and your local nursery will have super-healthy ones.

Speaking of air quality, chances are your indoor humidity levels are too low. Indoor heating almost assures your air will be dry. Again, plants will help you here. Mist them every few days, and they will reward you with a nicer, moister environment.

Fish tanks also help keep your indoor environment humid, as water levels evaporate and are re-filled. Don’t have fish? Pretty bowls of water will do! Place some interesting rocks on the bottom, and call it a netsuke!

You can always use a humidifier, if all else fails. And drink more water - one or two liters a day. Your skin will be healthier, and your resistance to disease will improve.

American Dinnerware - A Collector’s Guide, by Linda Nelson, is a must-have reference for any novice-to-intermediate collector of American pottery and glass dinnerware of the 20th century.Whether your interest is Depression Glass, Fiesta, Rivera, Harlequin, Hall, Carnival, Bauer, Fire-King, American Limoges, Russell Wright, 1940s Jadite or McCoy - among others - there is something for everyone to learn about while adding to and enjoying their collections.

This personable e-Book starts with a guide to ID marks and backstamps of certain key dinnerware lines, but really kicks in with Nelson’s advice for buyers at flea markets, thrift stores and antique malls. She provides invaluable information on what to look for when shopping, how to identify “hidden” repairs and blemishes on these fishing trips, and details exactly what to bring to make your collecting excursion a success.

A highly-useful section defines how to research and price your finds, through book, Internet and antique mall comparison. Her chapters on “What’s It Worth” put the fun into dinnerware sleuthing. Her scrapbooking ideas - using vintage dinnerware ephemera - are also a fresh way to document, enjoy and display your collection.

Nelson demonstrates a lead test swab kit on her own pieces and finds one prized item in her kitchen to register as a potential hazard. She describes what to do if you find lead in your personal dinnerware collection and how to become knowledgeable about limiting your own exposure to lead poisoning.

I found the chapter on how to use damaged pieces very interesting. Just this day I purchased a gorgeous old Fiesta mug for a song, due to a small chip on the rim. I might not want to drink my coffee from this mug, but it does make a lovely addition to my work desk with my pens and antique letter openers. Nelson provides some more interesting craft and decorating ideas for using damaged pieces - even the VERY damaged items you can get for 25 cents at garage sales - that are worth the price of the book alone.

This 34-page, illustrated book is available online for $9.95 through Suite101 Publishing. You can read the Introduction and Table of Contents on the online ordering page here.

Antiques and Collectibles: The Design Periods, written by expert Barbara Nicholson Bell, is the perfect reference for 18th through 20th century furniture collectors. It’s an invaluable source for students of recent antique history who wish to place furniture and architectural styles within the larger framework of place and time.Whether your interest lies in how the Industrial Age influenced modern-day office building design, why the World Wars sparked the bold Space Age designs of 1949-1969, or when the Hoosier cabinets revolutionized kitchens, this fascinating book covers all the bases.

Bell’s language is refreshingly accessible for the historical layman. She writes about the design periods in a direct, jargon-free manner, while maintaining an admirable thoroughness for each design era.

For example, did you know the Shaker sect died off largely due to vows of celibacy and a shortage of orphans after the opening of the American West?

Bell also describes wicker furniture - did you know wicker hails from ancient Eqyptian courts and Roman palaces? Wicker furniture is still easy to collect, but a little knowledge about the differences between cane, rattan, willow wicker and fiber-reed materials goes along way towards preserving your acquisitions. Bell ensures this information is easy to understand and retain.

This 30 page e-Book divides into two sections: one on influential 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and their styles, starting with the Arts and Crafts Movement, moving through the astonishingly important Bauhaus School Era, entering the comfortable Biedermeier Period and ending with early 20th century Art Noveau design.

The latter section delves into the furniture styles themselves, including an historical look at Hoosier cabinets, Victorian wicker, Shaker furniture philosophy and the new materials of the Atomic Age.

The information in this e-Book is appropriate for beginner to advanced collectors desiring a deeper appreciation for the art, architecture and history behind 300 years of furniture collectibles.

Antiques and Collectibles: The Design Periods, is available online for only $9.95 through Suite Publishing. You can view the entire book catalogue here.

This fabulous book, written by Dr. D. G. Hessayon, should the first choice for anyone - expert or novice - looking to get a handle on their houseplant needs. Hessayon manages to create a comprehensive text to indoor gardening without churning out a heavy, massive or plodding tome. In other words, this book is great for beginners.The Houseplant Expert features profiles wisely broken into sections on Foliage Houseplants, Flowering Houseplants, Flowering Pot Plants and Cacti. I’ve always been annoyed with other plant guides that mix petunias with peperomias, and crocus with coleus. Hessayon avoids this grab-bag approach, sorting profiles so they make sense.

While Chapter Four’s houseplant profiles make up the bulk of the book, early chapters discuss just enough of the basics to encourage confidence in novice houseplant owners. Mini-chapters describe how to pick a good plant, potting info, window exposures, tips on home display, how to create a garden room, or make a terrarium.

The Plant Trouble Chapter at the end of the book presents the best diagnostic chart I’ve seen in a plant guide. Want to know the difference between scale insect and spider mites? It’s easy to decipher on page 224. While treatment information is sparse, it’s enough to get the reader started.

Overall, the Houseplant Expert’s tone is non-threatening and personable. In this era of high-usability expectations, Hessayon succeeds with a layout that even websites should adopt, in terms of navigation and content. The pictures and sketches look like the plants they are featuring. Care descriptions are right where they should be, under the reliable “Secrets of Success” subheading. Nice details, like the interspersed info on Bonsai Style, Food Houseplants and Forest Cacti, add enough spice without distraction from the main text.

My husband says this email (see below) has been floating around for at least ten years. Besides being darned funny, it got me thinking. What ARE good uses for those tiny little hotel soaps? My simple living perspective doesn’t like the idea of just throwing them away. So I came up with a small list, and I hope you can add to it:

• Use the little soaps to write on glass. If your car is for sale, or if you have a shop window, you can write on the glass for an easily removed message. Or write a love note to your sweetheart on the bathroom mirror some morning.
• Shave the soaps down and melt in a mold, in your microwave, to create a bath-sized bar. Add soap fragrances (such as lavender)and a bit of oatmeal for mild sloughing qualities. Use yourself or give away as gifts for the holidays.
• Shave down and add glycerin. Melt in the microwave and keep in a jar for a homemade liquid hand soap.
• Place in snack-sized ziplocks to have as soaps for camping, traveling and other needs. Place a bag in each duffel bag, cosmetic valise and suitcase for later use.
• Sell bundles of little soaps at garage sales for a quarter. Or send on to Goodwill for them to sell.
• Repackage in nice little fabrics and ribbons that match your guest bathroom, and put out when you have overnight visitors. Tell them they can use them or take them home. It’s a lovely little gesture.
• Place opened soap in an old sock, and hang it in the shower. it makes a wonderful body scrubby that lathers effortlessly. Keep adding used soap slivers at will.
• Shave down and use in powdered form for handwashing delicate clothes, or experiment with adding to your washing machine on the gentle cycle.
• Place scented soaps in your sock drawer, underwear drawer or lingerie drawer, to add a mild, fresh scent to these items.