1) Outdoor lights bring cheer all year. Mary T. passed along the idea of keeping your Christmas lights up after the holidays and many of you can get behind the notion. Nutmegg says: “I love that idea! January is such a bummer of a month.”

2) We’re ready for tasty alternatives to wine for the host. Salt plates, peppercorns and honey all made our list. David says: “Excellent ideas! I can’t wait to put them to good use. I always feel a kinda lame when everyone invited shows up with a bottle of wine- myself included. I know wine is the go-to standard, but it rapidly starts to lose it’s thoughtful touch when everyone does it by default.”

3) You don’t have to throw that shower liner away! Save money and time by washing yours and reusing it. Sarah E. says: “It might last through more washes than you think! I wash the shower curtain liners in my house every few months using the same method. We’ve had the same liners for at least four years now and they’re still practically as good as new. Good luck with your eco-efforts!”

4) We could be wrong, but, well no, we’re not wrong: you HATE doing dishes. Megan B. asked about your preferences between using a dishwasher and hand washing, and let’s just say we’re hoping Santa has room in his sleigh for some dishwashers next year. Kat says: “After years of living with a dishwasher, I’m in a condo with a tiny kitchen and none. I wash dishes by hand and absolutely HATE it. I can’t seem to bring myself to do them when its only a few dirty, so they pile up. Then I have a huge mess to clean up.”

5) Forget pancakes, we’ve got flapjack fever and the only prescription is Megan B.’s recipe. Ula says: “I have GOT to try these! Thanks for sharing.”

Take an exclusive tour of the swinging mid-century pad of Mr. Peabody at Stopping Off Place. His influence has obviously been huge on design today. Via Dinosaurs and Robots.

Readymade is helping to make midwinter bright and cheery with this charming little DIY starlight candle in a jar.

CasaSugar clues us in to Amy Butler’s new quilted coverlet collection, a more muted version of Amy’s delightful pattern magic.

Helpful hints for the dreaded speed clean, courtesy of Design Pop Interiors.

The Paint Quality Institute released their list of 2011 paint trends, and Charles & Hudson was there to disseminate the info. Looks like we’ll be seeing even more of the blues…

Likelihood is that there’s snow where you are right now. Swiss-Miss has got the perfect winter multi-tasker — the beautiful Elephant chair, designed to also be used as a sled. All kinds of awesome!

And after a grueling day of chair-sledding, what could be more comforting that cozying up to a warm bowl of baked mushroom risotto with caramelized onions at the Kitchn. No stirring required.

This “ceiling fan upgrade” DIY at House*Tweaking really has fans, so to speak — I first saw it when an enthusiastic friend posted it to Facebook. I can certainly understand wanting to hide a fan you don’t like, and her ceiling fan isn’t the kind I’d choose, but it looked new and is fairly inoffensive — a lot better than the 1970s version currently hanging above my bed. (And we own our house so we have no excuse; we should have replaced ours by now.) I also worried that the chandelier would make noise when the fan is on (or at least distracting movement), but Dana at House*Tweaking says that it’s not an issue as long as the speed doesn’t go above medium. (And just in case Dana sees this post, I do just love lots of what’s on her site — this mini mudroom for instance! Genius!) What do you think of the fan fix, and have you come up with any other quick fixes for unattractive fixtures in your space? — Mary T.

P.S. Speaking of Facebook, just a reminder that you can canoodle with Shelterrific on our Facebook page!

For those of us who decide not to leave up the lights…

I finally got around to taking my holiday decorations down this weekend … my little fake Christmas tree gets stuffed back into its garbage bag, and my holiday wreath into its box. I also had several strings of holiday lights up on my porch that need to be tucked away. I got to thinking — every year I spend 20 minutes untangling lights, no matter how neatly I think I wind them up the year before. Next year will be different though! I did a little brainstorming and came up with a storage trick that I think will help – I wrapped my lights around a cardboard paper towel tube, cutting a slit in one end to keep the cord and plug from unraveling. I think this will make putting up my lights a snap next year! What storage tricks do you have? –- Rebecca F.

Dishes are my business. Really. I feel like they are ALL I DO sometimes. And at work, where I do the bulk of them, I have to manually wash everything with the “three sink system”, an effective, albeit labor-intensive method. Thankfully, we had the budget to put in a dishwasher when we bought our house two years ago. It helps to alleviate my day to day dish workload immensely, and I can’t even imagine a time where I lived without one, though I did for many years. I know people, though, who own dishwashers and don’t use them, preferring to hand wash everything. As crazy as that sounds to me, there are obviously two schools of thought on this one. So where do you stand? Do you scrub it up with good old-fashioned elbow grease, or do you let technology do the work? — Megan B.

photo courtesy of flickr user Avrene.

The closest thing I have to color in my garden right now is Nandina berries, but that hasn’t stopped me from dreaming of spring plantings. After a quick search online, I found plenty to get excited about. Four new Coreopsis varieties, which require less water than a lot of perennials; a chartreuse-leaved Bleeding Heart; almost a dozen new Helleborus (Lenten Rose), which although slow to get going, are a great solution for shade beds; and eight new Heuchera (Coral Bells), another old-fashioned shade plant. You can find photos and info on the varietals I mentioned on Perennial Resource, as well as the rest of their new for 2011 list. — Sarah L.

New York based artist Olek put her crafting skills to use this holiday season as she worked through the freezing Christmas night crocheting a cozy sweater for Manhattan’s iconic Charging Bull sculpture. The guerrilla art is so bright and cozy (especially against the gray of Wall Street) that I can’t help but fall in love with it. Alas, the neon pink greatness didn’t last long — the park’s caretaker reportedly tore it apart early Sunday morning. No matter, according to Olek, the sentiment stands. She told CNNMoney.com that, “This crocheted cover represents my best wishes to all of us. It will be a great, prosperous year with many wonderful surprises”. – Katie D.

Pancakes these aren’t. I’m talking about British flapjacks : oaty, buttery, sweet bars of delight that are the perfect packable snack or breakfast on the go. Reminiscent of a granola bar, flapjacks are a traditional UK breakfast treat made with butter, oats, sugar and golden syrup, a jar of which I just received as a gift from an English-born co-worker. Making them is terribly simple, but keeping them around is difficult — which is why this is my second batch in less than a week! I have a feeling that jar of syrup will be gone quick… — Megan B.
click for the recipe after the jump!

When I stumbled across my first Cornishware canister, I had no idea what it was — only that unlike all the new canisters I had looked at, it would hold considerably less than a five-pound bag of flour and take up less counterspace. Perfect. So I bided my time and won the right-sized blue and white canister on ebay UK. Then I bided my time a bit more while it made it’s way across the water to me. And then, I fell in love. In the years since, I’ve had plenty of time to read up on T.G. Green’s Cornishware and acquire a few more canisters until — gasp — the staple since 1926 shuttered its doors in 2007. Fortunately, a group of fans resurrected the brand in 2008. Now you can buy the iconic blue and white ware through their online store or Amazon. If you’re looking for the older canisters with the serif typeface, ebay is still a good place to start.

If blue and white isn’t quite your thing, now there’s Cornish red, too. Initially designed in the 50s, the red color proved to hard to consistently reproduce so except for samples, it was never produced. Of course, a few samples escaped, a following was built and now, 50-odd years later, technology is on the side of die-hard red fans. Cornish Red is available in all 50 pieces of the Cornishware collection. Get yours here. — Sarah L.

Journalist Nancy Nall had an interesting proposition on her blog the other day. I’m not sure she’s even adhering to it (sounds like her husband is a hard sell), but she suggests that we take down the obviously holiday-related Santas and such, but leave the lights up to get us through this bleak time of year. She explains:

The idea is to say, Christmas is over and we’re not going to depress anyone by leaving Santa on the lawn until April, but it’s a long few weeks before we start to see anything approaching the softer light of spring, and so we’re going to let the candle of civilization burn in the dark a while longer. Until Valentine’s Day, say. Who’s with me?

I am, Nancy! I am! The tree is long down, the wreaths are retired, the Rudolphs are packed away for another year. But the blue and green twinkle lights above our deck? I’m calling them “outdoor cafe chic.” The pink lights by our front door? A salve against winter’s chill. Anyone else? — Mary T.