Book Review - Decorating with Candles

I admit I love candles. Lit candles, singly or in groups, offer an ambience that electrical lighting simply cannot simulate. Candles are a boon for both budget-conscious home-makers and luxury-level interior designers alike.

Country Living’s “Decorating with Candles: Accents Throughout the Home” is a pleasure to page through. Written by Maria Ricapito and lavishly photographed by Keith Scott Morton, hundreds of candle decorating ideas are presented.

Some of the book’s candle decorating ideas that I especially enjoyed:

• Pouring wax, with a wick, into large seashells, and lighting in the bathroom, for a seaside theme.
• Lighting treasured artwork and unique pieces on the mantle with tiny tea lights.
• Lighting small candles inside milkglass vases and placing them high on shelves for ambient lighting.
• Placing lighted candles in hurricane lanterns on each step of foyer staircases, to provide architectural height and interest. Alternatively, small votives can light the path from an entry hall into the rest of the house.
• Found objects can make great candle holders - mis-matched china cups and saucers, terra-cotta flower pots from the shed, old candy and tart tins - whatever you have squirreled away, or whatever you dig up at garage sales.
• Filling the fireplace with lit candles of all sizes and shapes to enhance your hearth.
• Mixing floating candles with tiny, lovely wildflowers in clear glass vases. They even suggest floating a few lemons in vases, with the candles and yellow flowers, for a kitchen citrus theme that delights the nose as well as the eyes.
• Filling Mason jars with sand and inserting tapers, and placing around outdoor porches for a nighttime glow.

I enjoyed the text in this book as well. The author reminds us that not too long ago, candles were the main source of household illumination. She carries the reader through each room in the house, providing interesting candle uses, and suggesting the best kinds of candles to use for each purpose. There are also sidebars full of “secrets” - How to Make Ice Lanterns and Snowball Lanterns, Citronella Secrets, Giving Candles as Gifts, Removing Wax, Uses for Aromatherapy Scents in Candles and much more.

The last part of the book showcases fabulous holiday candle decorating, starting with Halloween and ending with New Years. This section is well worth a look for those collecting new and unusual decorating ideas for the extended winter and Christmas holiday season.

Living Simply Book Review Archive
Living Simply Holidays

Improve Indoor Air Quality

In the wintertime, 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 houses are so energy efficient these days, that often our air exchange isn’t sufficient. Indoor air can be several times more polluted than the atmosphere outside, what with carpet and upholstery outgassing, indoor dust, house cleaning fluids, fireplace or woodstove gasses, and candle/incense/air freshener particulates.

Getting a new vaccuum 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 plus a great staff.

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 Zen Water Feature.

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.

10 New Years Cleaning Resolutions

Ready to have a perfectly clean house? You want your home to STAY spotless? Ha! Try these easy resolutions and give yourself a break this year.

Buy Ring in the New at Art.com
Ring in a relaxing New Year
Resolve to:

1. Pull out your fridge and vaccuum those coils! You’ll get big energy savings and your appliance will run longer.

2. Run a hot vinegar rinse through your empty dishwasher, just to clean out the interior. Add lemon juice for a fresh scent.

3. Stop apologizing when people stop by and the house is a ‘mess’.

4. Bring in your dog for a professional grooming. PetsMart does a good, reliable job, and their groomers can teach you how to brush, bathe, clip nails and care for doggie teeth on your own.

5. Get rid of your seriously clunky old vaccuum cleaner. Buy one of those fabulous new wet/dry bagless vaccuums that work like a charm. Or an Robotic Vacuum that does it all for you while you sleep.

6. Have a professional clean your place at least once every season, for peace of mind and that extra-special attention to detail.

7. Go get your car detailed while you’re at it. And wouldn’t that make a nice Valentine’s gift for someone special?

8. Tackle massive cleaning projects one stage at a time, even if that means over a series of weeks - don’t get overwhelmed by ANYTHING. Life is too short to worry about the details.

9. Here’s a quickie: purge leftovers from your fridge. And old condiments, or weird food items you just don’t know what to do with. It’s easier to cook, and keep your fridge interior clean, when you can see what you have.

10. Next sunny day, turn off the heat, throw open the windows and doors, and let the clean air carry out your musty indoor atmosphere. Fluff your bed pillows outside in the sun, and turn them over to air after an hour or so. Drag everything outside: couch cushions, blankets, dog beds, upholstered chairs, your sock drawer. The ultra-violet sunshine will kill off any clinging microbes, while the fresh air will linger inside your home for weeks.

Get Rid of Trash Can Odors

Hi Jill,

I need an idea of how to get rid of odors in the large trash can - the one that the garbage company empties. I realize that it is a trash can and will not smell wonderful, but at least it would be nice if didn’t smell sooo bad. I have tried baking soda, Simply Green and etc. - with no luck.

Thanks for your help.
Lois Nagelberg

Hi Lois. Sorry to be so long getting back to you! I hope I can offer some ideas to help with your garbage can odor.

Here is what I would do:

You need a sunny day. First, take a hose and spray out the can. Then, pour in a gallon of water with 3 cups of regular bleach added. Carefully slosh it around and let it sit for a hour, agitating every ten minutes. Use a toilet bowl brush to really scrub down the insides. Then, pour out the liquid (down the tub will help keep your pipes clean, too). Don’t forget to scrub the lid well too, with some more water-bleach mix.

Then this part is key - let the can and lid dry out in the sunshine! Ultraviolet light kills most smell-causing microorganisms.

Don’t add any new garbage until the can is completely dry.

If this doesn’t work, you might just need a new trash bin. Hit up the City for a new one by saying that yours leaks. This is a last-ditch effort for really bad bins.

Preventative maintenance
Now you need to keep those odors from seeping back into the can. Make sure you use baking soda in your kitchen trash - everytime you throw away food products or anything wet - and tie up bags securely before carrying outside to the main trash.

And on days that your city trash can is emptied, let the bin air out overnight (that means with an open lid), before adding new trash.

Starbucks Offers Free Coffee Grounds for your Compost

Sometimes I write a post where there’s overlap and I am not entirely sure which blog it belongs in. So I wrote about the great deal gardeners and composters can get at Starbucks on my local town blog Camp Verde Life.

This is a real win-win for those who are green and frugal - Used Coffee Grounds Free at Starbucks.  You can pretty much just keep going back and getting as much grounds for your soil amendment purposes as you need. And this keeps potentially thousands of pounds of grounds daily out of the landfills. They go through a lot of coffee.

And if that wasn’t enough caffeinated good news - all Starbucks now offer free WIFI.

Book Review - The Scented Christmas

Ooh, I was practically smelling the nutmeg already when I got my hands on this book. I love spiced winter beers and hot buttered rum, pumpkin pies and cinnamon sticks, potpourri and new pine branch wreaths. What these all have in common are their evocative scents, traditionally associated with the Christmas season.

*Raffia Wreath *Buy From Art.com

Adding scents to Christmas crafting seems a natural idea. This book is a marvelous fount of aromatic wisdom for decking the halls or holiday hosting. I appreciated the plethora of gift ideas that will smell good through the gift-wrapped box.

The ideas in The Scented Christmas offer the chance to express deeply buried holiday fantasies: making rosemary Yule logs, decking the halls, dipping bayberry candles and making rich, spicy Christmas pudding.

There are hundreds of crafty ideas - scented place names, cards and garlands. Spice ribbons, scented pine cones and citrus pomanders. Advent potpourri. Scented teddy bears and angel dolls.

Then there are the classier projects - scented finger bowls (use herb infusions or scented oils in warm water, topped with a sprig of herbs in a small pretty bowl at each place setting); Christmas incense (with scents of frankincense, sandalwood, rosemary, clove and lavender); potpourri of the Three Kings (you guessed it - gold, frankincense and myrrh); spiced bath oils, skin-softening body vinegars, spicy colognes and rose petal toilet waters. Scented talcum powder gifts! I feel like a kid in a candy store.

Most of these projects would be super to work on with children. Since the olfactory areas of the brain are intimately tied in with memory, you will be actively tracing your children’s future holiday scent paths home to you.

Here is the link to this book, from Amazon:

Book Review - Peaceful Gardens

This gorgeous book offers insight and creative project ideas for people wanting to set aside an area of the outdoors for relaxation and peace. The subtitle, “transform your outside space into a haven of calm and tranquility,” has an undeniable appeal in this hurly-burly modern age.

Simplicity is the keyword here. Stephanie Donaldson’s introduction starts the reader on the right foot, advising that it’s better to take away garden clutter and fussy design to promote restfulness to the eye. Restricting the color palette is a good beginning, she advises.

The book offers historic techniques for designing soothing, emotionally satisying yardscapes: from the deceptively simple Japanese-style courtyard, to carefree plantings of prairie grasses and wildflowers.

The serene world painted by Peaceful Gardens is well-populated with elements lending an air of mystery, including arches, benches, winding pathways, outdoor artwork and beckoning, half-overgrown doorways.

Chapters on choosing soothing colors, delightful textures, fragrant appeal and unusual plays of light and shade make for a rich, multi-sensory reading experience. The sidebar lists of plants to select for these options are handy. Also helpful is the coda chapter on adding water elements, and selecting plants that rustle in the wind - the better to add the sense of soothing sound to your visual and olfactory haven.

For centuries, people flocked to sanctuaries for respite from their cares. Monasteries, tea gardens and even resort hotels understand the power of restful plantings to promote spiritual well-being. Now you can take these lessons home for your own personal retreat.

This would make a great book for the office (read a page when you want a break), or a wonderful gift for busy friends. It reminds us we need a place to restore our sanity and let cares fall away. As they say, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Peaceful Gardens - transform your outside space into a haven of calm and tranquility, by Stephanie Donaldson, 2003, Ryland, Peters and Small.

Book Review - The Scented Garden

This unusual workbook is a pleasure to browse, sure to get gardenphiles excited about planning pleasing aromas for their flower beds. Gorgeous photos by Jonathan Buckley entice the reader to plan out projects both alluring and diverse: projects include Herb Path, Scented Wall, Carpet of Thyme, Catmint Walk, Sweet Pea Obelisk and Chamomile Seat. Are you drooling, yet?

Good, clear information instructs the gardener to avoid clashes of scent to make each walk around the garden an “olfactory safari”. Bird also advises spreading out the seasonal flowerings so you’ll have scents to enjoy each month of the growing season. A plant directory in the back of the book tells you what plants smell the best and provides tips on how to grow them.

Using the fold-out instruction pages, I laid out my own Honeysuckle Porch. It was easier than I thought. By the end of the season I expect my sweet clingy vine to cover my entire patio with leaves, flowers and scent.

Some good tips from the book:

• Place an outdoor seat near your garden displays so you can actually SMELL the fruits of your labor.
• Keep mint well-pruned so it doesn’t run rampmant (unless you like that)
• fragrant flowers tend to have subdued hues, so mix in colorful annuals with your rosemary and lavender.
• It’s possible to make a night-scented border, using white flowers pollinated by moths. Plants in the Nicotania genus are a good start for a dusky garden.
• While “knot gardens” are among the earliest forms of decorative planting, they are also among the most long-lived features in any planned garden. Keep them well-trimmed while they mature.
• You don’t have room for a garden at all? Even containers and window boxes can host scent-sory delights. Stick with narcissus, pelargoniums, hyacinths and primulas, in their scented varieties. Culinary herbs work too.

  The Scented Garden: A Step-by-Step Project Workbook, by Richard Bird, 2000, Ryland Peters and Small, ISBN: 1841724335

Christmas Recycling - Re-used Ornaments and Decorations for the Holidays

Christmas is a holiday that everyone seems to go nuts over, and every year the fervor starts earlier. I’ve had my gifts ready to go before Halloween this year, but that’s because I buy used and start shopping in August.

But when do you decorate the tree? While I’ve been known to wait til Christmas Eve, when it’s my turn to host the family get-together, I start getting excited about ‘decking the halls’ around Thanksgiving. Any why not? Spread the cheer!

Here are a few ideas to help you decorate on a budget this year, with an earth-friendly consciousness (as opposed to “Crazy Christmas Consumer Mentality”):

• Pull out last year’s ornaments and hall-decking paraphernalia. Throw out what has been broken, or lights that are hopelessly tangled. Start fresh and plan your needs in advance.
• Think about a theme this year - maybe just Angels on the tree, or blue-colored lights and baubles. One year my mother did an all-blue tree and it was spectacular. The all-red theme was just as nice, a year later!
• Here’s the environmental part: don’t buy anything new for the tree or mantle or centerpiece this year. Eschew the Ol’ Christmas Shoppe and the craft stores. Take a trip to your local Savers, Goodwill, Salvation Army or other thrift stores, and look at the displays they are setting up for your holiday needs. These reused goods sellers save up their holiday stuff all year and there are some really lovely offerings to pick thru - all for a song.
• These same places also sell donated craft supplies all year. If you need candles; yarn; glues; fabrics; vases or bowls for centerpieces; wreathe templates; paint tubes or whatnot, chances are you can close the loop by using something already in the consumer system, rather than contributing to the massed-produced culture that abounds this season.
• Maybe you like to make things with the kids every year - those popcorn garlands and cookie-cutter ornaments, et all. Consider finding items from your local woods or park as well. My forests abound with pinecones, which make dandy garlands and centerpiece beddings. I can harvest pine boughts for my door wreath and glue pine cones on as accents. If you live in grasslands, think about lovely, fragrant boughs of harvested long grasses as bedding on your mantle. Or collect interesting, leafless branches from your own trees and stand them in a vase on your coffee table. You can stand the branches as-is, for an elegant look, or decorate them with ornaments for a festive air. Be creative!

  A Recycled Christmas - making enviromentally friendly gift wrap
  Every year I have this same dilemma - what to wrap my Christmas presents in that is both environmentally-friendly AND attractive? Here are some simple ideas for your holidays this year!

  A Recyled Christmas - Your Earth Friendly Christmas Tree
  The tree itself: live or fake? The source of many family arguments. Here is MY opinion, for what it´s worth, on trees, from most-to-least earth-friendly tree options, plus some ideas on how to create your own new tradition for decking the halls!

  A Recycled Christmas - Reused Goods as Gifts
  There are plenty of reasons to buy used for Christmas presents, and only one reason not to: you probably think it looks bad. Here’s why you should buy used gifts and encourage the same from others.

  Book Review - Decorating with Candles
  Lit candles, singly or in groups, offer an ambience that electrical lighting simply cannot simulate. Candles are perfect for home decorating - whether all year long, or through the Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years “winter season”!

Christmas Recycling - holiday decorations from fabric scraps

You’ve just finished a holiday project. How about reusuing, or using up those ends of balls of thread/yarn, or scrap fabric and ribbon?

BellaOnline Tatting site editor Gillian Buchanan says, “I always find that it really goes against the grain to throw away those oddments of yarn or thread and fabric. There often isn’t enough to do anything much with them; yet pure wool and cotton is so expensive now that it’s a shame to waste it. I have things like Knox’s Linen skeins from around 1910 which I can’t use, because the original owner cut the folded end to use them for embroidery. It’s such a shame because the quality is incredible.”

I agree, and am always seeking unique and USEFUL ways to make the best use of all the resources in my home. I hate to throw anything away if there is a possible use for it. Smart businesses do this too! Think of the donut holes sold by bakeries…what else ya gonna do with the little wads of dough?

Here’s an Inter-Bella Brainstorming to get your green Christmas juices flowing!

• Buchanan recommends some ideas for using up those scraps of thread you can´t bear to throw away in her Tatting article, Using up Oddments of Thread.
• Old, ratty Christmas balls can get a new life by tying or glueing old ribbon pieces and fabric scraps around them. This would be a good kiddie project, for evenings around the fireplace. You can glue sequins on them, old buttons, or pieces of old, brkoen costum jewelry. Take a look at what you have lying around. Glue a loop at the top for tree-hanging, or place those “new” balls in a silver tray, glass bowl, or rustic basket lined with pine boughs.
• Bits of ribbon (or little pieces of leftover wrapping paper, fabric materials, last year’s christmas cards, whatever can be glued together in strips)can be made into festive holiday garlands, just like the construction paper chains you made as a kid. But this way, you are recycling! You can use all-ribbon for a delicate look, or mix and match materials for a festive, eclectic mood-setter!
• How to Make a Quilted Doll Blanket - BellaOnline Doll Making site editor Susan Kramer has a wonderful idea for using those old fabric scraps - make a doll quilt! That would make an adorable gift - or you could use the blanket on a tabletop to accent your coffee table centerpiece. You could make a quilted runner for a mantle, your sofa console, or for the dining table. I could also see making a small quilt into a lovely Christmas Tree Skirt, given the right shape. I’d ask Susan for more of the sewing details…
• Kramer also has an easy christmas tree ornament idea using ends of yarn skeins - Making Boy Yarn Dolls and Girl Yarn Dolls!
• And a wonderful gift for the craft-minded: I put together a huge basket of leftover ribbons, button, fabric scraps, tubes of glue, tubes of fabric paint, and bits of crafty whatnot, for my mother-in-law, who is just nuts about making things. I’m sure it will be her favorite Christmas present, and one she can play with all year!

  The Living Simply Holiday Articles
  Book Review - Decorating With Candles

  Christmas Recycling - holiday decorations from fabric scraps