emily

Housewares that Help

by emily on 02/21/2012

Back when I wrote about what I wanted for the Holidays, I went on etsy to find trinkets that would also “give back,” a la TOMS Shoes and Warby Parker eyewear.

I wear my new green Warby Parkers every day (thanks mom!) but I also wanted to start doing a more frequent post on things you can purchase that give back to awesome charities.

I’ve tried to do as much research as possible on these charities– they all seem to be ones that I would support myself. They are not directly religiously affiliated so there’s no danger that one day your 10% of proceeds is suddenly going to go to anti-choice or anti-GLBT motions.  That’s just where I stand on these things.  If you do know more about any of these charities and think there’s something I should know about them, please leave a comment.

Ok, so these aren’t housewares.  But I had to put in these gorgeous “Fierce” earrings from Whimsy Beading. 20% of sales go to Planned Parenthood. Why? According to the seller, “Because nothing makes us more fierce than protecting women’s access to healthcare.” Damn straight.

These are hand-stamped yoga cards from the etsy store Blissful Turtle.  The seller makes “handmade yoga stuff,” and donates 10% of her profits to a revolving charity.  February and March’s charity of choice is Share Your Soles, a non-religious organization that has donated 1.25 million pairs of shoes to those who need them over the past 12 years.

The “Pretty Bird Possibility Pillow” is quite stunning and would actually look really cute in my living room. Also? 10% of sales go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  FYI for those of you who don’t want to support Komen, but do want to keep supporting breast cancer research.

The Giving Bowl is an online shop (on etsy, natch) that sells felted wool bowls.  Aren’t they lovely? The proceeds go to benefit a girl’s youth home in Indonesia, run by Foundation 18.  The home provides education, health care, food and clean drinking water to children at risk– and best yet, it keeps intact the cultural environment of Bali, so the kids (currently just girls) living there aren’t becoming “Americanized” while being cared for.

Seller linaloos recycles old sweaters into mug holders.  This one is her “ivory owl” design, and I absolutely love it.  Better yet? She donates proceeds to a handful of charities, including One Family Inc. which helps homeless families in Boston; she also gives money to microloan charities to help women become self-sufficient around the globe.

Do you have a favorite charitable product? Share in the comments!

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Some Finishing Touches

by emily on 02/20/2012

For the first time in the two years that David and I have lived in our strange little house, the bedroom actually feels like there’s *stuff* in it!

I’ve written before about how much I dislike this room.  It doesn’t get any light and the ceilings are so high, I was afraid I was going to have to put up ugly-ass, ahem– culturally insensitive– tapestries from Urban Outfitters to make the room feel less drafty.  The ceilings were clearly vaulted/ removed to the roof line a while back, and it feels like a damn cathedral in there. (It gets freezing in the wintertime, and no, there isn’t a heater.)

So, with some added color and hanging of enough knick-knacks, it doesn’t echo.  Here’s where we stand now.

Also, sorry for the yellow photos. The room gets no natural light (thanks to the fact that it faces east AND it has a large awning off the French doors, so all light is blocked from entering).  I did my best to try to Photoshop them to be more natural looking, but they all look like they’ve been dipped in acid.

I painted those wine crate shelves and re-arranged the stuff on them. I added some more colorful books (the two on the end are by Simon Doonan– pink and purple, of course).  And I finally got that Domino decorating book that everyone raves about– read it front to back in one night.

I love the green of the hourglass on the blue.

The white (battery-operated) candles pop nicely.  This is actually a really accurate color representation of the blue crate.

We finally re-hung our otter portrait, on the wall next to the closet.  It feels a bit low, but I think that’s because that’s the only part of the room with a normal-height ceiling.  The top of the frame is about eight feet of the ground.

My last little finishing touch was to finally put a knob on my gold desk.  I repainted my corner desk gold a long while back, and never showed you!  It was knob-less for a while but it finally works properly again.

Here’s how the whole room looks now– clearly, I haven’t figured out a drapery fabric yet, but it’s getting there!

I may “accidentally” break those 1980s track lights one day, too…And put up some molding around the unfinished closet doors? Maybe.

Have you ever had to fill an unusually-proportioned room?

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It’s Beer O’Clock! (& A Beer Cocktail)

by emily on 02/16/2012

I really am a beer girl.  Despite the fact that I work in the wine industry, I vastly prefer a bucket o’ suds after a long day than a glass of vino.

Beer cocktails are usually kind of gross.  I mean, I’m just not one for boilermakers (mixing a shot of vodka with beer) or Irish Car Bombs (Guinness and Bailey’s? No thanks), and I can’t get black-and-tans to layer right (that’s pouring a lager, like Bass, on top of a stout, like Guinness– the taste would be fine for me, but I just don’t have the skillz to make that happen).

I was introduced to the idea of a shandy, or beer mixed with lemon-lime soda or ginger ale, by an old friend from way back, who grew up in Zimbabwe.  He used to drink shandies in the morning during football season, because early games on Sunday start around 11am here on the West Coast, and he purported that you couldn’t possibly drink anything other than beer when watching football.

Shandies are great when it’s super hot out, or if you do want to cut the alcohol of your beer.  Generally, they’re made with light lagers, but all I had in the house was the craft beer you see above, Allagash white.  Allagash is brewed in Portland, Maine, and I used to drink it a lot in college.  It’s really good and light in flavor, but it has a bolder body to it than lager (think Heineken).  Allagash is, well, wicked expensive ($8-9 for four bottles), so if you don’t want to “waste” a good beer on a shandy, pick up a pack of some other lighter-bodied beer.  But do us all a favor and stop buying that crap, swill, garbage,

stuff from Miller, Bud, and Coors.  Support your American Craft Brewer!  It’ll cost more but it’s worth it.  Here’s a long list of all the brands owned by Anheuser-Busch. Avoid.

White or wheat beers are normally served with a slice of orange or lemon on the side, so I decided to garnish my shandy with a pretty wheel o’ citrus.  The above orange is a Cara Cara orange– it came with this week’s CSA box from Farm Fresh to You. It is far and away the best orange I have ever eaten.  The Cara Cara orange is somehow smoother than navel oranges– delightfully citrusy, but without the pungent bite.

Basically, a shandy is made to taste.  You can do half-and-half, or you can make it stronger or weaker.  I ended up drinking most of the beer, then cutting the last little bit with Sprite to make a shandy!

If you’re not up for a beer cocktail, visit my cocktail page for more ideas!

Do you ever experiment with beer cocktails?

 

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Going Bold With Color: Wine Crate Shelves

February 15, 2012

My post about making wine crate shelves has been one of the most popular posts on the blog in the last year.  But they recently got an update: In case you forgot, here’s what they looked like before: The corner of our bedroom has always been bland and boring.  It’s a 3 foot stretch of [...]

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Should Pinterest Stay PG?

February 14, 2012

I don’t know why I’m posting and thinking so much about Pinterest lately. Jezebel had an interesting piece on the site– how, because Pinterest is a site used mostly by women, that of *course* the male-dominated internet and its worst trolls have sought to cast it to the side, and say that it’s useless and [...]

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2012

David and I usually don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, because our anniversary is February 7th.  We kind of roll it all up into a week-long festival of smooches, you know? Tonight’s plans are to watch back-to-back DVRs of the Westminster Dog Show and enjoy some take-out Thai.  Martha’s chow, Genghis Khan, won best in breed for [...]

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Whole Wheat, Banana Flax Muffins

February 12, 2012

After last week’s rant about Pinterest, health, diet and the evils of “butter-fried-butter,” I wanted to try to make something healthy and good for you this week for my sweet treat! Aren’t the little polka-dot muffin liners cute? Gasp of gasps– they’re from Paula Deen’s product line.  Got ‘em on sale at Michael’s. So, I [...]

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