Light Candles with a Dry Spaghetti Noodle
Real Simple magazine recommends using a piece of uncooked spaghetti to light hard to reach or multiple candles. This works great if you don’t have any extra-long matches but have a candle that needs to be lit at the bottom of a tall glass. New Uses for Candles | Real Simple
Repurpose Terra Cotta Planters Into a Bird Bath
Ceramic or concrete bird baths are nice to look at and attract wildlife, but they can be expensive to buy. For the same functionality on a budget try making your own bird bath by combining various sizes of terra cotta planters and saucers with silicone caulk. Culinary weblog The Culinary Cougar wanted a bird bath as a garden project, and after remembering a similar bird bath from a DIY show seen years ago they constructed an interesting budget bird bath using 14″, 12″, and 10″ terra cotta planters with a 16″ terra cotta saucer for the bath and a 6″ saucer to hold birdseed. After using pastel spray paint to give the planters a new look the author used acrylic-based silicone caulk to connect the planters and saucers into the configuration seen in the photo above.
In less than two hours the author made a one-of-a-kind bird bath for around $65 when similarly-sized baths went for nearly three times that at garden stores.
More Backyard Inspiration | The Culinary Cougar
Remove Hard Water Stains with Lemons
If your chromed bathroom and kitchen fixtures have hard water stains that won’t come off with regular cleaners try cutting a lemon in half and scrubbing the surface with the lemon halves. Household weblog Broccoli Cupcake reported how this method removed all the hard water stains on the author’s shower after the author was told by cleaning professionals that hard chemicals must be used to remove these stains.
The citric acid will cut through the stains. It also works to remove rust stains from bobby pins or razor blades left in the shower.
Spring Cleaning: Natural Cleaning Tips for the Bathroom | Broccoli Cupcake
If you loved the beautiful DIY wedding this morning and Nata’s gorgeous paper flower bouquets, you are in luck as Nata is sharing how she crafted them with us! She was inspired by a template created by Morgan Levine on Martha Stewart (as was I in the flowers I created for this styled shoot). I just love that this basic idea has inspired different brides to create their own version of giant paper flowers – you might remember these equally awesome giant paper flowers from this wedding I shared last year. :) Thanks so much Nata for sharing how you created your giant pink paper rose + special thanks to Studio Castillero for the photos of the DIY + her wedding!
Materials (to make one giant rose):
• 1 Roll of floral tape
• 6 18-gauge floral stem wire (can find it here)
• 4 sheets of Doublette crepe paper for petals (can find it here – the doublette crepe is $2.50 per sheet and each sheet measures 10
x 49 inches)
• 1 sheet of Doublette crepe paper in green for leaves, calyx, stem
• 1 round pencil
• Craft Glue (we used this kind)
• Crepe paper templates (download from Martha Stewart)
• 3 copies of teardrop template
• 8 copies of the heart-shaped template
• 2 copies of the leaf template
• 1 copy o
DIY Brown Sugar
If you don’t have any brown sugar and need some for a recipe you can make it yourself by mixing granulated sugar and molasses. The best part is that by making brown sugar as needed that you won’t need to find tricks to keep it soft or de-clump your brown sugar brick. Baking weblog Joy the Baker offers the admitted simple recipe for brown sugar. You only need a bowl and a fork for this process but if you need an excuse to use your new Kitchen-Aid mixer it’ll work too. The basic ratio you’re looking for is 1 tablespoon of molasses per 1 cup of granulated cane sugar. For the first minute or so of mixing you’ll think it won’t work, but eventually it’ll turn into familiar brown sugar.
