DIY

DIY

I Made Wine In My Instant Pot

What, like that's weird?

A few weeks ago, in a moment of tremendous prescience, I found myself wondering, "Hm. What would I do if, say, I were to find myself confined to my home for an extended period of time during which I would be expected to work full-time while simultaneously home-schooling two young children?"

The answer, of course, would be to drink.

Makeup & Beauty

The 10 Beauty Products I Am Never, Ever Without

When it comes to my beauty routine (or occasional lack thereof), I am an enormous creature of habit. Some of my favorite products have been in the rotation for literally over a decade - but my feeling is that while it's great (and fun) to discover new stuff, sometimes you just gotta find what works for you, and stick with it.

Related Read: What Do Top Beauty Bloggers Spend Their Own Money On? 

Here's what works for me, time and again (and again, and again).

Eat

The Spooky Black Geode Cake

This cake was, shall we say, a freewheeling design. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do for my son's annual Halloween-themed birthday party - an all-black cake (inside and out) with bugs somehow involved (because eight-year-old boys, et cetera), and I thought maybe it'd be cool to have the bugs sort of coming out of the cake as if they'd been inside, but when I got to the part where I'd actually do that, I was stumped.

I wanted a crack in the cake of some sort, but didn't want it to look like, you know...a mistake.

And then I remembered the geode cake. It's all over Pinterest these days, and I've been dying to try one, and you know what geodes have?! CRACKS. (Sort of; you know what I mean.)

Crafts for the Uncrafty

8 Unique DIY Costume Ideas For Kids

YES, GIRL.

For the full duration of my trick-or-treating years - we're talking 3-13 - my mother crafted my costumes entirely by hand. They ranged from the truly extraordinary (a hand-stitched cancan dancer costume with multicolored ruffles that required multiple trips to visit a sewing-machine-having family friend in New Jersey) to the slightly phoned-in (a Cher costume that was basically a piece of sparkly fabric and a fright wig), but I cherished them. I cherish them still; many of those old costumes are now parked in my kids' costume box, and are just as serviceable as they were back in the day.

Things made by hand have a tendency to do that: they last.

Before & After Renovations

A Full Bathroom Renovation…For Less Than $700

One of the major things I miss about living close to my friend Erin is our little (and big) projects. We were just constantly deciding that we wanted to try things, and then doing them. All by ourselves. And they usually worked out! (I'd venture that our success rate has far more to do with Erin than with me, but I'm happy to bask in the residual glory.)

Like remember that time we just went ahead and transformed the exterior brick on my house?