I Saw The Sign: And It Rocked My Kitchen

I’m a sucker for monograms. And also dogs and babies. But it’s not as easy to pick up a new model of those at your favorite boutique. 

So I content myself with monograms. On towels. Beach totes. You name it, I’ll monogram it ;)

What’s better than a monogram? A full on personalized item with your whole name. Like when you were a kid, spinning the drugstore rack of mini-license plates, searching for one with your name. If you were Jennifer or Lisa, you scored. If you were guru girl? Not so much.

But these days I’m in luck! Because these days there’s Etsy, aka my own personal kingdom of artists, ready to do my bidding. Now if only they had an Etsy for laundry and food prep!

My latest whim is a vintage looking sign personalized with my last name. Because I saw a similar one in a magazine featuring a celebrity kitchen, and it’s too fabulous for words.

It offers just the right touch of classic charm. And the personalization thrills my inner pre-teen. Sometimes listening to Inner Pre-Teen isn’t such a great idea. Like when she tells me to wear glittery eye shadow. Or roller skate.

But when my inner voice tells me to order up this personalized sign – a steal of a deal at $46 – I listen with no fear of regret. Or embarrassing, sparkly pictures tagged on Facebook. (Click this link.)

Light It Up, Up, Up

The guru crew is going to the City Of Light in a few days. Otherwise known as Paris, which we’ll visit after beginning the big trip in London.

So you’ll get a 2 week break from guru girl’s misadventures and product recommends. Instead I’ll be focusing my considerable energies on bobbies and baguettes. Re-read that last sentence. It said “bobbies”. Not what you think it said.

Since Paris is the city of light I have light on the brain these days. And the front porch too, thanks to this fab new lantern I got at Cost Co. (It's available for around $60.) Love it because it’s big, solar powered and gives the porch such a nice “We’re home so don’t rob us” glow. Even when we’re secretly away, causing trouble across the pond!

Get one for your front porch too and go on vacation worry-free! The other recommend for today is this fantastic website called Ciao Bambino.(Click this link to go to ciaobambino.com.) It has great ideas about where to travel with a family and creative things to do when you get there.

Thanks to this site, I’ve hired a special guide to do a scavenger hunt with us at the Louvre. What could go wrong? Don’t answer that. I’m taking a vacation… from worry, from blogging, from advice-giving. In other words I'm taking a vacation from my basic personality ;)

Happy summer vacation, guru girls & guys! Check back in a few weeks for more guru girl.

Why DIY Should RIP At My House

There are a few things you do once in your life.

Refinish a table. Master cleanse. Garage sale.

And then you learn.

The good news is I never have to do a furniture project or garage sale ever again. It’s too bad in a way. Because my sales team was top notch this weekend.

The 9 year old was almost too good a sign spinner. Hopefully her skills in this area won’t encourage her to forego college.

Stanley also fulfilled his duty to lure people in by looking cute (and not biting them).

My DIY furniture team was less talented. Mostly because it consisted only of me and my dad, who offered cryptic advice via text.

I have learned my lesson, and I am trying to remember the mantra, “There is no such thing as failure. It’s either a success or a learning experience.”

Here’s what I learned from the DIY Debacle:

1.      Google expert advice.

2.    Do it before you’re in the middle of the project and have already screwed it up.

3.    Google multiple sources.

4.    Read all of them.

My refinishing project was a bit of a bust, but my next DIYer will not be. Because, for once, I am taking my own advice.

My next project is going to be a giant magnetized wall so the 9 year old can display artwork in her room.

I have, of course, already bought the magnetized chalkboard paint. Last year.

But I’ve now searched multiple sites that say magnetized chalkboard paint looks cool but is not, in fact, strong enough to hold up anything by magnet.

So if this is your goal, stay away from magnetized chalkboard paint. Instead get a giant galvanized steel sheet from the hardware store. Make sure to test that it’s magnetized. And then you can paint it any color you like (this won’t interfere with its magnetic surface). 

Finish by putting picture hangers on the back so you can pop it on the wall. (You can get a sheet that’s 12 x 24” from Home Depot for $12. Jo Ann Fabric has them too.)

This is the route I’ll be taking. In about 8 months. When I finally tackle this project, having forgotten the frustration of the last two weeks.

Because I don’t know about you, but DIY is in my DNA. 

Or not.

1 Meaningful & Memorable Mother's Day Gift

This morning a television ad featured a perky woman who chirped,

“DIY is in our DNA.”

DIY does not appear to be in my DNA. I am currently in the middle of a home improvement project, and I am not at all chirpy. What I am is irritable, fearful and light-headed from 5 days of fumes.

I decided to refinish the kitchen table. I made this decision last year and foolishly announced it to the guru crew. The 12 year old has asked me about this project every week for a year. Clearly, she doesn’t know my decorating project method:

1.      I announce.

2.    I plan.

3.    I procrastinate.

4.    I do a half-ass job.

5.     I delegate the rest to Guru Guy.

Am currently ramping up to Step 5. Success is likely because – hello! – it’s Mother’s Day Weekend, and nothing says “Happy Mother’s Day” like resuscitating furniture your wife has destroyed with “improvement”.

So Guru Guy won’t be making a last-minute run to the mall for Mother’s Day gifts. And you don’t need to either! Even if you’ve forgotten a gift and you’re fearful of the drama you’ll face from your Baby Mama, if you have kids and a pencil you’re all set.

Have the youngest kiddo draw a picture of the family. Bonus points if it includes speech bubbles for all family members filled with their catch phrases.

Pick a really ornate frame for this simple drawing and voila! a meaningful memento for under $5. 

If you really want to make Mom melt, play the “I’m Thinking Of A Time When…” game at dinner but have it focus on favorite memories you’ve shared with mom. Waterworks (and hugs) guaranteed.

Have a great weekend, guru girls & guys! 

Bring On The Glow: Get This

This weekend the unthinkable happened. I beat my fella at tennis. I did it by employing this tricky and easily replicated strategy:

1)     Take 6 months of lessons compared to his 1 month

2)   Wear a shamelessly short tennis skirt

It was like taking candy from a baby, as they say! So today I am sharing another tricky and easily replicated strategy. This one’s for how to add that extra sparkle to your home.

Twinkle lights! Wind them around candles. Nestle them in greenery. The sky’s the limit.

These little numbers are great because they’re battery operated so you’re not stuck disguising an ugly cord. And you can put them anywhere.

Perhaps as a crown around one’s tennis visor for twilight play? Talk about distraction!

The only way these twinklers could be better is if they also played music. Then, like the baseball boys, I’d program them with my very own walk up song: “She’s A Bad Mama Jama”.

And I would not lose a tennis game to Guru Guy again. Ever.

For bragging rights off the court, go get these twinkle lights. You’ll “love” them. (That pun was bad, I know. Almost as bad as bragging that you beat your husband at tennis. “Love” you, TN1970;) (Click this link to go to joann.com where you can buy a string of lights for $3.99. Or visit your local Joann Fabric Store.)

What's Better Than Spray Tan? The Spray Grip!

Spring is in the air, and you know what that means at chez guru.

Spray painting! I have no fewer than 5 spray paint projects in the works: a wicker chair, a basket and some giant picture frames.

My pointer finger already has PTSD, and I haven’t even started yet.

This is the only bad part of spray painting. Trigger finger overuse.

Symptoms in finger: uncontrollable shaking and dull ache you’re aware of, um, all the time.

It’s like being stuck on a ski lift in the middle of a blizzard. Shaking and aching, with the occasional spasm of complete and total terror.

Possibly this is why I spray paint more than I ski. And now those geniuses over at Rust-Oleum have negated the painting downside for me.

They invented the Spray Can Grip Handle. This little gizmo does away with trigger finger forever! You pop it on top of the paint can and use any finger you like to control the spray.

Hot dog! I’m ordering some up by the case load. Because it’s so cheap ($3.29 each), it’s basically free. My fella might quibble with my math here, but he will not be quibbling with my math when he sees all the money I save by giving our old stuff new life. With spray paint! (Click this link to go to amazon.com to order some up.)

Happy DIY-ing and Huck-Finn-ing your friends & family into “helping” you, guru girls & guys!

The HoloLens &The Ben Affleck Of Plants

  

This just in: Microsoft has a fab, new product called the HoloLens headset. Pop it on your head and hologram images are projected onto your actual surroundings. You can see, hear and interact with them. Like those creepy 3D rides at Disneyworld.

As soon as I get my HoloLens I’m going to dial up some Ben Affleck. Because I love him already. And I would love him even more if I could conjure him up at will. I’m also going to program him to wink and say,” Lookin’ good, guru.”

Goodbye, winter blah’s.

Then I’m going to program my HoloLens to display lush greenery. Plants, waterfalls, grass. Anything but snow. Because right now I have enough real world snow to last me, oh, forever.

The big wrench in this plan is the HoloLens doesn’t go on the market until later this year, and it’s gonna be spendy. So my Ben Affleck fantasies are gonna have to wait awhile, but my lush, green fantasies are not.

Because, in the meantime, I’m going to buy a fiddle leaf fig. This is not just a plant. It’s a design world darling. It’s tall and sculptural and gives a room that extra something. Just like Ben Affleck!

And it costs just $20 at your local Home Depot. Apparently it’s also a bit temperamental, but what movie star isn’t? If you put it in a good place (bright, indirect light, preferably in Malibu) and lavish it with care (only water once a week and sponge off its torso, I mean, leaves when dusty), it will reward you with dazzling good looks for years to come.

 Happy plant-buying/winter-survival, guru girls & guys!

Secret Decorating Source: Pottery Barn-Good But Without The Sticker Shock

It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, but the seduction going on in this house isn’t coming from my fella. It’s coming from the Pottery Barn catalog that just arrived in the mail.

That darn catalog positively radiates seduction. 

“Guru Girl,” its perfectly curated rooms call to me.” Buy me, style me and live a life of crisp order, beautifully lit.”

There are no cereal boxes in Pottery Barn kitchens.

No dog hair on Pottery Barn bedding.

No jumbled piles of sporting equipment in Pottery Barn mudrooms.

Even its mudroom clutter is color coordinated. And consists of nothing real children actually use. I would like to meet the family that owns a pewter-colored bocce ball set but not one neon-colored Nerf gun.

Intellectually, I know Pottery Barn interiors are a sham. Furniture and gew-gaws don’t bring a balanced, ordered life. They do, however, bring a fearfully unbalanced Visa bill.

Unless you get the look on the down low. Enter: Hobby Lobby. It’s one of my favorite sources for tchochkes that look like Pottery Barn’s but without the PB price!

Directions For Seductive, PB Style Without Non-Sexy, PB Price:

1. Circle favorite small items in catalog.

2. Take catalog with you to Hobby Lobby.

3. Let the hunt begin.

4. Yes, you have to sift through some decorating oddities, but it’s worth it. 

Those burlap table runners that are all the rage? $50 at Pottery Barn. $7 at Hobby Lobby.

The blingy box above? $63 at Pottery Barn. $23 at Hobby Lobby (because glassware is ½ off this week).

This Hobby Lobby version is basically the same exact box as the one pictured above. Love it because it's mirrored in the back so will bounce light around the room. 

And every week Hobby Lobby publishes a 40% off one item coupon. So you can always use a coupon on your designated item.

Happy hunting, guru girls & guys!  And also, Happy Valentine’s Day. Especially to my fella, who puts up with Guru Girl, gew-gaws and all:)

It's The End Of The World But Decorist.com Can Help

We are breaking the world. Scientists just released a report with dire news: There are 9 deal breakers when it comes to the environment. We’ve busted through 4 of them and pretty soon the planet’s gonna redline.

Of course the report didn’t say it exactly this way, but that’s the gist. The report said stuff like, “The likely destabilization of the Earth could occur in decades to a century.”

So if my kids have the kind of life span boasted by their great-great-grandma (who lived to be 100), Earth could close. In their lifetime.

Huh.

This news doesn’t make me want to compost or reduce my carbon footprint.

It makes me want to redecorate.

Because the Dynamic Duo are gonna need to know how to make their spaceships cozy when they’re 100 years old and living on them permanently.

Because apparently that’s the plan. Scientists say technology will help us so we can “live outside planetary boundaries”. On spaceships. Like that weird Tom Cruise movie.

I am not making this up. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that neither am I making up this great, new design website: decorist.com. (Click this link to visit decorist.com.)

Decorist.com brings the services of a professional designer to the masses without the hefty price tag.

Here’s how it works: You e-mail a picture of your problematic room to the site. Include important details like your style and budget for the project and a designer sketches out 2 different plans for your room, complete with info on where you can buy the items she’s chosen. All via e-mail. All for $199.

Total win. And it's much more fun to consider redecorating than it is to consider relocating to another place. Like the stratosphere. 

1 Design Rule All Of Us Break

Don’t you hate it when there’s conflicting expert advice? Today we’re covering the thorny topic of photographs on display.

I’m already bracing myself for the hate mail I know I’m going to receive on this.

But I’m going to go ahead and make a pronouncement: Masses of photographs on display have got to go.

Your home should not be a photographic shrine to every fun event you’ve experienced. It shouldn’t have a framed pic of every stage of your kiddo’s development.

This is bad design, say interior designers. And it’s bad for household maintenance because girl, you’ve gotta dust those frames. Or they start to resemble the dusty relics of a bygone age that, in essence, they are.

Here’s what designers say is okay: you can have one photographic shrine in your home.

One.

The frames should all be the same style. And it will look more cohesive if the photos are black and white instead of in color. 

But then I went and read The Secret Of Happy Families where the author says we should have masses of photographs in our homes. These images of the happy places and people in our lives increase our – say it with me now – happiness.

What is a happiness-seeking, clutter-busting girl to do?!

Here is the answer: observe the “one shrine in public” rule but add a second one on the sly. In your closet! 

I did this myself and am so pleased with the result. In fact, my closet shrine is my favorite because I look at the pictures every day, while dilly-dallying over clothing selection.

I actually think having a closet bulletin board would be even better. You could pin your favorite pics here. 

Easy to put them up, easy to swap them out. Like Beyonce and hair extensions!

Now you see them, now you don’t. This should be your mantra for both hair extensions and photograph displays.

Now enough with the reading, go take all the photos off your fridge and put them up in your closet instead!

Happy Wednesday, guru girls & guys!

1 Good Thing (Frasier Fir Candle) & 2 Bad Ones

This is me, upon hearing the bad news about stress.

This just in: if you’re a woman leading a high stress life, it can increase your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease when you’re old. This scientific finding was reported today by Lara Spencer on “Good Morning America”.

Why can’t Lara Spencer just stick to flea market finds instead of upsetting scientific ones?!

Right now my stress level is as high as my Visa bill, which is pretty high this month because of things I’ve had to purchase to make up for my stress-induced screw up’s.

Like the new mailbox.

Because the old one got backed into.

And the neighbors weren’t especially psyched by the resulting “redesign”. 

Maybe I just didn’t sell the idea to them with enough Lara Spencer zest?

This purchase happened just weeks after I had to buy a new bumper for the car because the car’s old bumper had an unfortunate meeting with the side of the garage.

Grrr.

So my fall shopping budget is busted, except for one, little item that’s a gotta get. Because this little number makes me feel like I’m in a tranquil, pine forest, instead of near a smelly garage, where I've just wrought havoc with my too-big car. 

It’s called the Frasier Fir Aromatic Candle (by Thymes). It retails for a spendy $28. But it’s worth every penny. Because it brings your stress level down and the cozy house factor up. Perfect fresh forest scent, I promise. (Click this link to go to amazon.com where you can order the Frasier Fir Candle from Thymes for around $28.)

Happy fall, guru girls & guys! 

Fall Vignette Style In 3 Easy Steps

It is fall. Season of cute fashion, pumpkin lattes and bake sales.

Bake sales unglue me. This is because I am not a good baker. And not a good packager.

So I am a little apprehensive that I have signed up to provide 18 cutely packaged, baked items on Friday.

I am about to call my mother for some ideas. Grandma Guru is the only domestic goddess I know who owns and uses a glaze gun intended to seal elaborate desserts.

Probably I will not be using her glaze gun for my bake sale items.

Because I had an unfortunate kitchen fire incident just last week. And there weren’t even any glaze guns involved. Just a paper napkin I was using to pry a hot muffin out of the tin, which was sitting on the oven, next to a burner that was on.

That napkin went up in flames pretty fast, but not as fast as guru girl, who shot over to the sink and doused the whole mess before the flames further exploded.

I am already agitated about the bake sale. I don’t need to add any more excitement to the prep.

But here’s a prep I do enjoy: decorating the front porch for fall. Exciting, easy and involves no fire!

Luckily, Grandma Guru is also an expert in this. Here are her top tips for…

Fall Festing Up Your Front Door:

1.      Varying heights put the “wow” in a fall vignette. Visit your local garden center and look for 3 to 4 different types of filler.

2.    In the picture above, Grandma Guru has selected mums, garden cabbages and dried grasses. She’s artfully arranged them in cute containers. But if you don’t have any of these, you can buy mums that come in cheap, wooden baskets. These won’t last more than a season, but they look cute and are reasonable. (Most grocery stores sell the mum/container duo for around $12.)

3.    You do need to get a basket for the dried grasses and shafts of wheat in the background. Line the bottom of the container with floral foam so you can wedge the grasses into it, and they’ll stand up straight.

4.    Once you’ve styled up your fall vignette, it will last a month or two as long as you remember to water the mums. Bonus! The dried grasses/wheat last forever so you can save them for next year’s vignette.

This fall vignette will make you look and feel like your home is straight out of a Pottery Barn catalog. Until you open the front door and the illusion is shattered by pesky real life things like flaming napkins, which give your kitchen entirely the wrong kind of amber glow.

Happy fall, guru girls & guys!

1 Great Poster & Attitude: Comin' Up

I don’t want to brag, but last night I figured out the LCM. (Or was it LCD?) No matter. There it was on the math worksheet in front of me.

The worksheet wanted to know the LCM.

The confused 6^th grader wanted to know the LCM.

I wanted to know the LCM.

But the scribbled example made no sense. 

And we’ve established I can barely remember what I learned last week, much less what I learned 30 years ago.

And there was my cell phone. Just begging to skype Guru Guy for a quick LCM tutorial.

But we didn’t do it. Instead, I sat down and, with the 6^th grader, puzzled it out.

I hate puzzling it out.

Because the costs are high, in terms of time spent and likelihood of failure. 

But when you puzzle it out successfully? What a high.

I don’t puzzle new things out very often. I have an elaborate defense mechanism in place. My internal monologue is quick to protest, “I’m far too busy/productive/old to do _____(insert whatever task I’m afraid of here).

Because that’s what it really is: fear. Fear of failure or subpar performance. Or embarrassment.

Fear protects us from those feelings of vulnerability, but it also keeps us from experiencing those feelings of accomplishment when we’re successful at something that’s hard, something we’d rather just delegate to someone else.

I’m not saying the next time I get a flat tire I’m gonna be the one out there changing it. I know my limitations, and someone’s gotta keep those AAA guys employed.

But maybe my limitations aren’t as great as I sometimes think. Maybe I should give it a try before I write something off completely.

I went paddleboarding for the first time this summer.

Shockingly, non-sporty me didn’t fall off the board once. And I had a blast.

Who knew?

I’ve overdone it on the motivational sayings here at home, but if not, I’d totally get this poster. As a reminder to just say yes. And also, a reminder to learn some Latin. 

Because shoot, I know the LCM, how hard can Latin be? (Click this link to go to the etsy shop that offers this poster, for around $9, and lots of other great ones too.)