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DIY Distressed Denim

October 16, 2013

I'm super into distressed jeans at the moment...but it can be tough to find a pair that fits you exactly the way you want them to (and doesn't cost a fortune). The solution: just grab a pair of jeans you already own and use some basic around-the-house items to quickly and easily do the distressing job yourself.

Tip: Don't forget to insert a piece of cardboard into the legs of the jeans in the spots that you're distressing to protect the other side of the fabric - the point is to create wear and tear, not to cut the legs right off.

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Decor

Quick Fix: Entryway Update

October 7, 2013

I spent a decent percentage of this weekend in exactly this position.

One project I've been putting off (and off and off) has been repainting the very chipped wood entryway to our house, partially because when I brought in a contractor to look at our floors he told me that they were so old and worn that they wouldn't stand up to the kind of sanding you'd need to do to get a really fresh-looking paint job (that's why we ended up replacing the floors in our living room entirely, leaving this spot in the entryway alone because it wasn't in quiiite as bad shape)...and partially because I couldn't figure out a multi-hour period during which I'd be able to prevent all the small creatures in our house from making adorable little permanent track-marks across the floors before they dried.

But then I realized: 1) I don't really care if the entryway looks perfect; I'd just like it to look better, and 2) When it comes to small creatures and DIY projects, there really is no good time. So on Friday night we got our son into bed, made sure our dogs looked reasonably passed-out on the couch, and broke out the black gloss.

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Eat

Oh, The Shame

October 7, 2013

Remember when I got a bread machine, and I was all excited about it, and then discovered that I was completely incapable of creating anything that resembled an actual loaf of bread that you might actually eat? It's because 1) even though I know from years and years and years of experience that you really do have to be precise when baking, I hate that, and 2) I'm lazy and those measuring cups are on a very high-up shelf and eh.

Anyway, I posted about my bread mishaps and a reader sent me her family's recipe, assuring me that it was foolproof. And it was! So I started making it pretty much every time we had company mostly because it was so fun to just casually mention "Oh, yeah, made that from scratch" while depositing a big loaf of warm bread on the table, and then wait for the impressed back-pats to pour in (when you've had the number of baking disasters I have, you'll take all the impressed back-pats you can get).

Well, I haven't baked in awhile - it's just not a thing I do a ton of during the summer months - and apparently this is one of those "use it or lose it situations."

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DIY Projects

Top Ten Yard Sale Tips & Tricks

September 24, 2013

Even I have to agree that the extent to which I have been excited about having a yard sale for years - years! - is a little bizarre. It significantly pre-dated ownership of an actual yard in which to have said sale in; I started sequestering items away in boxes marked "YARD SALE" about ten months prior to our move to the 'burbs. Which meant both that I created a very annoying storage situation in an apartment that was already more than slightly lacking in that department...and also that I had a lot of stuff to sell when the big day officially arrived.

Why all this excitement? Some combination of the following:

1. It lets you play out the fantasy of owning a boutique (which is a fantasy that I have, although I'm aware that the reality of boutique-ownership is likely not nearly as idyllic as the picture I have in my head);

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