Ideas & Tips — Home

When you spend Thanksgiving at someone's home, you know they've spent all day cooking up a feast and preparing the house for guests, so you'll want to bring something along to show your appreciation of their efforts. When choosing a host gift, it's important to consider your host's particular tastes, but there are a few categories that many good host gifts fall into. Useful in many situations, sometimes even during the meal itself, these versatile host gifts will make your hosts want to invite you back next year: A serving bowl: Oftentimes, hosts who are taking on the Thanksgiving meal for...

Continuing in the Thanksgiving vein, let's talk about the confusing and intimidating process of preparing to host the big meal. Especially if this is your first time hosting Thanksgiving dinner for a large group, the sheer amount of food and supplies needed combined with the exhausting preparation process can leave your head spinning. To make sure you don't find yourself missing some crucial element on Thanksgiving itself, follow this list of things to take care of before hosting: Make sure you have all the necessary cookware and serving items. Once you have your menu planned out, mentally walk through the preparation...

We've previously discussed on this blog how to put together your own bar cart, which adds panache to any home. However, if you aren't a big drinker or you don't always keep liquor on hand, you don't have to be left out of this hot decorating trend! Here are 8 tips for making an at-home coffee bar: Delivery is key: Half of the fun of setting up a bar area is finding a pretty table or cart on which to put it. The same principle applies when you are putting together a coffee bar.  Fresh flowers: Fresh flowers immediately elevate...

Is someone special in your life leaving home to start their new life as a college student? Whether it's your son or daughter, niece or nephew, neighbor or family friend, it's a nice gesture to give them a little gift to commemorate the start of their university career. The ideal present will both be useful to them in the months ahead and be special and memorable years and even decades down the road. That may sound like a tall order, but we have plenty of beautiful stainless steel items that fit the bill! Here are several ideas:  Cereal bowl: You...

There's nothing better than a bouquet of fresh flowers to brighten up your home, unless it's a bouquet of fresh flowers that you put together yourself. You don't have to be a professional florist to learn how to make your own beautiful arrangements. Here are some tips for beginners:  Decide on a flower arrangement design: Better Homes & Gardens Magazine recommends to decide on a color scheme before shopping for flowers. Then, when you go to buy flowers, you know you're picking up colors that work well together. the key is to be "open-minded" and see what you are drawn to....