projects

  • tiny tip: keeping lilacs fresh.

    How do you keep lilacs alive, you ask? Pour them a drink, is the short answer. Help them to drink it, is the longer one. In Brooklyn the lilacs are already just about on…

    May 21, 2015 9 Comments
  • make your own: upholstery cleaner.

    Upholstery might be a slightly grand word for the bit of cotton canvas stretched over a 70 year-old wooden frame, but no matter. I’ve also used this same combination of simple dish soap and…

    April 30, 2015 21 Comments
  • life in a tiny apartment.

    Tip #119: Ditch the couch. Get a cot. (Do what you wanna.) We recently decided to shake things up a bit around here and go couchless. Not exactly couchless, but one couch less. I’ll explain:…

    April 29, 2015 17 Comments
  • make your own: board butter.

    It’s February. Everyonething needs special attention. It’s the time of year for slathering yourself in good smelling things and hoping for the best. Turns out the same goes for cutting boards. And spoons. Enter…

    February 17, 2015 46 Comments
  • paper snowflakes.

    I haven’t forgotten. It’s just that the time for paper snowflakes was found more easily in the quiet days between Christmas and the New Year than in the hubbub beforehand. In between eating too…

    December 29, 2014 9 Comments
  • mulled wine.

    If you’re able, the best way to drink a glass of mulled wine is out of a paper cup at an outdoor Christmas market. Preferably there’s a chill in the air enough that you…

    December 8, 2014 16 Comments
  • brown sugar & spice syrup.

    Sometimes all you need is the taste of something to get you in the spirit of things. And sometimes that taste comes in the form of a syrup. This is not a recent discovery.…

    November 20, 2014 4 Comments
  • make your own: deodorant.

    In the summer that I turned 19, I spent a month in the Vermont woods not showering. There was some trail clearing and bridge building in there too, but the not showering bit is…

    September 16, 2014 32 Comments