weck love

Oh Weck Jars! How do I love thee? I would count the ways, but I'm afraid it would take far too long.

 The J. Weck company has been making canning jars in Germany for over a century. The classic glass jars with the strawberry logo have become increasingly popular in the last few years, as they've become easier to find in the states. Crate and Barrel started carrying them while I was registering for my wedding two years ago, and I was so excited I quickly added all the different size jars to my registry. When we received a set of the small jars as a gift, my husband accused me of registering for them just because they were cute. He was right, of course (I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but they were so tiny!), but I assured him they would be very useful. I haven't actually canned anything in them yet, but I have found all sorts of other uses. And, ironically, the smallest size has turned out to be the size I use the most!

Mini Coco Fizz float, anyone? The small jars recently proved to be the perfect serving size for a petite chocolate float to compliment Oakland Bakes' Neapolitan cake.

I am currently using two of them in my bathroom to store bobby pins and hair elastics. After removing their clips and rubber seals, they make an adorable little storage container. I honestly can't believe it took me so long to figure this one out. I shudder to think of the thousands of ponytail holders I've lost over the years.
 
I've also used them as vases, votive holders, and the fanciest storage for leftovers my refrigerator has ever seen! I like to use the small size for bringing salad dressing or salsa with me when I bring my lunch to work.
Do you guys have any fun uses for jars?

[canning photo via Williams-Sonoma, cake photo by Michael Pieracci]

punch party

With New Year's Eve right around the corner, it seems like the perfect time to whip up a batch of punch. I love serving punch at parties. It's a great way to serve a fun cocktail without having to play bartender all night. To really up the cute factor, try searching your local thrift store (or grandma's cabinets) for a vintage punch bowl. I recently scored one- with 12 matching cups- for only $10! 

If you really want to take your punch to the next level, try making your own decorative ice block. Not only will it look fancy, the block will melt more slowly than ice cubes and keep your punch from getting watery. Making an ice block is super easy. The hardest part is remembering to make it the day before your party, so it has time to freeze overnight.

Click below for the how-to:

chickens: a retrospective

I've been missing our chickens lately, so I thought I'd share a few videos I found from the first year we had them. This photo is of Dorothy the first day we got her. Being a two-day-old chick is so exhausting, you often fall asleep in your food dish while eating.

This first video was taken in March 2011, when the chicks were about two weeks old. This was their first trip outside and their minds were blown!

This video was taken the very next day. It didn't take them long to feel more comfortable testing out their new wings outside.

Just two short months later in May 2011- the ladies have entered their awkward teenage phase...

And then by January 2012, they were full grown chickens fighting over a dish of oatmeal and flinging it all over each other.

Sadly, we had to find a new home for the chickens when we moved, but I'm looking forward to the day when we have a big enough yard to get more baby chicks! Only next time we'll know better and won't try to raise them in our living room.

muji muji muji

The new MUJI store opened in San Francisco this weekend and I went to check it out!

The store is 7,250 sq feet spread out over two levels. It seems larger than the MUJIs I've been to in New York (though I'm told its small compared to their stores in Asia).  The first floor is mostly clothing and stationery, and the second floor is furniture and housewares. 

As soon as I walked up the stairs to the second floor, I immediately took back anything bad I've ever said about minimalism. As much as I usually gravitate towards bright colors and patterns, there's nothing like a MUJI store to make me want to organize all my possessions in matching white boxes and swear to live a life of Japanese simplicity. 

It's hard to argue with their philosophy of "no-brand quality goods".  I find it so refreshing to visit a store where everything is not covered in logos. They focus on design and quality, streamlining their products to just the essential components. Where else can you buy a blank notebook that actually has a blank cover, with no writing at all? 

Plus, what they lack in branding they more than make up for in merchandising...

What is it about a well-stocked display that makes me swoon? 

Somebody better hide my credit card. 

[all photos except MUJI sign courtesy of Michael Pieracci]

corner book nook

Once I set up the frame cluster and mini bar on one side of our living room, the wall opposite was looking a little blah. The TV sort of dominates that corner, so I needed to find a way to distract from it. Ideally, I would have filled the corner with a set of bookcases or floor-to-ceiling shelves. Unfortunately, we're renting and have no idea how long we'll end up staying here, so I wasn't looking to make a big investment in custom shelving. So here we have the quick and cheap solution!

Here's the before photo:

I looked around a bit for shelves that would fit in the corner, but of course ended up at everyone's favorite source for cheap solutions: IKEA! They didn't have shelves that were the right size, but I did score these brackets for only $3 each! 

Next stop was the hardware store, where I was able to have them cut a 10' pine board into two shelves that fit the exact dimensions of the corner. Technically they're only supposed to make one cut per board, but usually if you do the measuring yourself and mark it for them (and ask nicely and maybe bat your eyelashes a little) they'll do an extra cut or two. Buying one long board and having them cut it is always less expensive than buying multiple small pieces of wood. The board was only about $12, which was even less than the fake wood shelves at IKEA.

 

Once I brought everything home, I realized I forgot to buy sandpaper again, but I decided to just paint anyway (why am I so bad about sanding??). The cut ends of the wood were a little rough, but it wasn't too noticeable after a couple coats of paint. I let everything dry overnight and then it was time to put them up!

And presto! Quick and easy corner shelves for under $25! I think the most difficult part of the project was deciding which books and "flub dubs" (a term my husband has taken to using, after he learned Abraham Lincoln used it to describe his wife's knickknacks) should go on the shelves.

Can I interest you in something from the mini-bar?

Our new apartment is somewhat lacking in cabinet space, so I decided to set up a little bar in the living room to store our booze and drinking accoutrements (at least until I can score the bar cart of my dreams). I thought this would be a great excuse to go shopping for a fabulous tray to contain everything. Unfortunately, most of the trays I found were surprisingly expensive for just a simple rectangle of wood. 

Then I remembered I still had this kinda ugly tray stored with my BBQ supplies:

I nabbed this from my mom's pile of give-aways when she moved a few years ago. I was never crazy about the cherry motif, but the tray was a good size and shape. Time for a makeover!

If you want to try your own version of this project, you can usually find trays like this in thrift stores for next to nothing, or Target has a plain wood one for pretty cheap here.

See the how-to after the jump:

Movin' on up?

My Dear Readers,

I would like to apologize for leaving you hanging for so long. I’m sure many of you have been laying awake late at night asking yourself, “Why aren’t there any new kinda pretty great posts?? Where has she gone? How could she do this to us?!?”

Well, the short answer is: I moved.

We only moved across town, but it felt like much farther. After our previous landlord went bankrupt, we had to move out of our ground floor apartment in a big beautiful old house with an enormous yard. Thanks to the insane rental market right now, the only place we could find was a smaller (and more expensive!) unit in a duplex with a small chunk of dead grass for a front yard.

The previous tenants were a bunch of dirty hippies (I’m using that term very literally here), so we’ve had our work cut out for us:


(If only they’d left us that chair that looks like a hand!)

Scrubbing everything down to remove the funk has taken some time (and a lot of trips to Target), but the new place is slowly starting to come together with each box I unpack.

The most tragic part of the move was having to say goodbye to our chickens. Our new apartment allows dogs, but there was no room for six hens. We found them a great new home with a very excited old lady, but it made for an extra sad moving day.



Stay tuned for more photos and projects as I work to turn this hippie cesspool into a home!