giveaway friday: hammocks & high tea!
We can’t help it. We’re still obsessed with those gorgeous drawer liners from Hammocks & High Tea that we showed you back in January. They add such a sophisticated, “pulled together” feeling to our dresser drawers, and make us even more excited to head to our closets every morning. Plus, their subtle scents make us feel a bit like Grace Kelly when we open our delicates drawer (though we’re guessing she didn’t rely as heavily on her trusty collection of Gap boyshorts as we do).
Summer seems to be the season in which we finally unload our closet and actually undergo a clean-out – something about the switch from cardigans to tank tops just brings out the organizer in us. We were thinking: maybe we could help a few of our readers with their summer closet overhauls!
And so, we’ve teamed up with the wonderful people at Hammocks & High Tea to give three Shelterrific readers their favorite set of drawer liners. That’s right: we’re giving you new drawers! (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
To enter, just leave a comment letting us know what you’re most excited to pull out from the back of your winter closet and wear to death all summer long. We’ll choose a winner on Wednesday, June 15 via random number generator, so please have your entries in by 5 pm Pacific time. US residents only, winners must choose from available stock.
Good luck everyone!
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throw a modern-day swap meet!
It’s that time again — time for the semi-annual apartment purge known as spring cleaning! And now I have a nice pile of things that need a new home, so I’m thinking I should throw a modern swap meet. I’m going to invite my like-minded friends over and trade goods. So far, my pile to swap includes:
Extra kitchen tools — I seem to end up with extra wooden spoons, spoon rests, wine openers …
Magazines — Design and cooking. Great for inspiration or craft projects. I have plenty to keep me busy for a while.
Tech supplies — extra stereo cables, speaker wire, iPod cables, thumb drives
Office supplies — Who needs a giant box of business envelopes?! Not me!
Houseplant seedlings — I have about a half-dozen succulent cuttings that could use a windowsill of their own.
Workout gear — extra weights, bands, workout DVDs
Now all I have to do is give my friends a little time to gather their things, and make an afternoon of it. What’s leftover, we can donate to a nearby shelter or Salvation Army. What do you do with your extras? — Rebecca F.
Photo credit: Amazon.com
get ready for summer with kartell plastic cleaner
If you have any plastic furniture, I’m sure you’ve done what I’ve done: you notice your chair is a little dingy, so you get out Windex or some other cleaner and give it a spray. And then you have a chair that’s only clean in stripes from the drips the cleaner left behind. My beloved Verner Panton chairs have been through two moves, two dogs, and five years, and they were the poster chairs for this situation. Even scrubbing them with an SOS pad (I probably don’t recommend that) didn’t fix the drips. So when I came across Kartell Plastic Cleaner at a local modern furniture store, I wasn’t very hopeful: my S chairs have more texture than what I’ve seen from Kartell. Well, I needn’t have worried. A spray with the foamy cleaner and a rub with the enclosed cloth, and suddenly my entire chair was clean and bright again, not just in spots! It really took minimal effort to get them both looking good again.
The downsides to the cleaner? Though it’s free of ozone-depleting chemicals, the spray is petroleum based, which I’m sure will be a barrier to some. (Yes, plastic is also petroleum based, but plenty of us aren’t buying new plastic but instead buying vintage pieces.) Also, it honestly smells terrible to me, a lot like the spray a car wash place might use when detailing your car. So my advice is to use it outside if you have that option. — Mary T.
steal this idea: diy reed scent diffusers
Looking for a fabulous-yet-frugal gift for the moms in your world? Something easily thrown together in minutes with things you probably have around the house? Well, then let me suggest these DIY reed scent diffusers — they are way cooler than the ones you see for $15 each. I’d been thinking I should make my own ever since I saw the first crazy-expensive air fresheners in a specialty shop years ago. They just looked TOO SIMPLE. So this year, when wracking my brain for mom’s day gifts, I remembered my stash of used SanBitter bottles, and decided to give it a shot.
I did a bit of Googling to see how it was done, and I found this post from Young House Love in 2009, but I was disappointed to see that they had just used Mrs. Meyer’s Household Cleaner as their scent (nothing against Mrs Meyer’s — I SWEAR by the lavender products). I wanted to custom-blend my own scents. Thankfully I found this helpful post at TipNut to help me make my own uniquely scented gifts. I used a mix of grapeseed and sweet almond oils as my “carrier oil”, added a splash of vodka to help it diffuse, and my favorite essential oils, gave it a shake — and BOOM. That’s it.
What you will need:
Bamboo skewers
small bottles or narrow necked vases
vodka
essential oils
grapeseed or sweet almond oil
Trim the pointed ends off the skewers with wire cutters or sturdy kitchen shears. To mix the scented oil, measure out 1/4 c grapeseed/almond oil, add a splash of Vodka and 12-20 drops of essential oil. Shake. Pour in your vessel (no more than 3/4 full), add the skewers, and flip them a few times to start the diffusion more quickly. Favorite scent combinations are grapefruit & sandalwood, lavender & clary sage, and black pepper & palmarosa. Have you ever made them? Share your results in the comments! — Megan B.
kinda genius: banish hand odors with crate & barrel’s rub away bar
Whenever I make my favorite, garlic-ridden hors d’oeuvres I glean the added benefit of protection from every vampire in the tri-state area courtesy of the garlic that inevitably stays under my nails for weeks. No matter how much I scrub, I can’t seem to conquer the smell. Rubbing your hands with salt or baking soda is a tried-and-true remedy, but for another quick fix, look no further than Crate & Barrel’s Rub Away Bar, $7.50. Incorporating simple chemistry, the stainless-steel bar reacts with odors on contact to banish them for good, and the clever soap-shaped design is dishwasher-safe for easy cleanup. Stainless steel silverware will also do the trick, but as many happy reviewers note, the small investment might be a useful addition to any wedding gift. — Sarah C.
