I'm back with a few wedding pictures!

An adorable couple who just happen to be my parents-in-law:) I did her hair and make-up!

Me dancing with the handsome groom, Matt:)

I reactivated my husband's old Facebook just long enough to steal all these pictures from Michelle, then I deactivated it again, ha! Thanks, Michelle;)

 The whole ginormous family!

And now for some random updates ...

I got a new 20th century portrait for my collection a few weeks ago. Isn't he awesome? I love his glasses.

And my friend Zoe noticed how much I love black and white sketches, so when I told her that I'd love to own some of her art, she was kind enough to give me this gorgeous sketch of the woman in the evening gown:) Thanks, Zoe!

Whenever I have a bunch of random stuff I want to display, but there's no rhyme or reason to it, I just throw it all on a tray and suddenly it looks like a collection!

This picture is here for two reasons. One: because I upgraded my compost to an actual compost container instead of the gallon water jug I'd been using.

This cute white container came from World Market, and it has this charcoal filter thing on the top that seems to really help keep the bad smell at bay.

And the second reason for the picture? Because it has my little birthday girl in it! Jemima is 4 years old today:) Happy birthday, Jemima! I love everything about you!

Even your underbite.

part 3 of three: 15 quick and easy green cleaning tips

1. Invest in a few microfiber cloths. They're great to clean with, and over time you'll save a fortune on paper towels.
2. Old t-shirts make great dusting cloths.
3. For a natural and chemical-free way to make your home smell great, put vanilla extract in a little "bowl" made of tin foil in the oven on low heat.
4. De-gunk your microwave by boiling a cup of water for 5 minutes. Just make sure it's a microwave-safe bowl! Once it's done you can open up the microwave and the gunk will wipe right off. For a freshening scent, squeeze a lemon in the water first. 
5. Pour baking soda in coffee filters, tie it off with string and then pop them in cabinets, fridge shelves, inside shoes and other places that could use some air-freshening.
6. Put a bar of good-smelling soap in dresser drawers to make your clothes smell great.
7. Put a splash of vinegar on a plain white cloth and use it to rub scuff marks off of walls. It works just like those Magic Eraser pads!
8. If you use a Swiffer mop, attach a microfiber cloth to the bottom and mop with that, rather than buying those expensive pads.
9. For window and mirror cleaning, replace Windex with vinegar, and paper towels with old newspaper. It works even better and leaves no streaks behind!
10. To get rid of water rings on wood furniture, cover the spot in mayonnaise and let it sit for 5 minutes.
11. If oil spills on your carpet, first blot up the oil, then liberally sprinkle corn starch on the area and let it sit for 10 minutes. Vacuum up the starch, repeat if necessary.
12. If something in your fridge or kitchen pantry goes bad and leaves behind a nasty odor, fill a mug or bowl with white vinegar and put it in the fridge (or cabinet) overnight.
13. Baking soda works wonderfully as a de-gunker for stovetops, toothpaste spills, sticky food spills, and more.
14. Fill a spray bottle with water and a few drops of tea tree oil to use as a mold-preventing spray in your bathroom.
15. Buy houseplants. They freshen and detox the indoor air (but if you follow all the other tips, your indoor air will be a lot less toxic to begin with!)

Don't forget to check out my new section in the tabs at the top: green cleaning! Hope this little series has been helpful:) Please don't hesitate to ask questions!

green up your clean up: part II

Today is part two of three in my green cleaning series. Click here to check out part one: kitchens and bathrooms. I added a recipe for a drain cleaner to that section today, because I totally forgot to put in there when I first wrote that post! Don't forget to click over and check it out:)

Furniture and Laundry

Furniture Polish: use on wood furniture, wood cabinets, and some leather (do a test patch first).

• 2 parts olive oil
• 1 part white vinegar
• lemon essential oil (optional)

I save old t-shirts, cut them up into large squares and use them as dust cloths. They work great! I just make the polish, pour it in a small bottle, shake it up, then pour it into one of the cloths. 

Laundry Soap: powder laundry detergent.

• 1/2 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup borax
• 1 cup grated organic soap

I've blogged this recipe before, but it was a while back so I thought it might be worth posting again! For the organic soap, I use Shea Moisture's Organic Coconut & Hibiscus Shea Butter Soap with Songyi Mushroom. You can get it at Target and it smells heavenly! You can substitute baking soda for washing soda, but first spread it out on a baking sheet and cook it for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Fabric Softener: Simply replace whatever you're currently using with 1/2 cup vinegar per load! You can put it in a Downy Ball or in the part of your washing machine where you'd put normal fabric softener. I'm a fabric softener junkie, and I like plain vinegar better than anything else I've tried. It makes your clothes soooo soft, and they don't come out smelling like vinegar, I promise;)

Today is the first of a three-part series: Green Up Your Clean Up! I am a big advocate of green cleaning. Not because I'm out to save the planet (although that's very important, too), but because I don't want to fill our house with nasty chemicals on a weekly basis. I don't want to get too preachy, so I'll just leave it to you to do your own Googling about the harmful affects our common cleaners have on us. 

Kitchens and Bathrooms

All-Purpose Cleaner: use on windows, mirrors, counter-tops (check to make sure the vinegar won't ruin yours first), glass, bathtubs, sinks, faucets, toilets, refrigerators, microwaves and stove-tops.

• 1 part distilled water
• 3 parts white vinegar
• a few drops tea tree oil (optional)
• essential oil (for fragrance - optional)

That's all you need! It's the cheapest way to clean imaginable, and it's just as effective at getting rid of germs as your store-bought cleaners. Adding the tea tree oil works as an extra-strength disinfectant, but I leave it out because I don't care for the smell. Also, if your hood or stove-top have built-up gunk on them,  sprinkle some baking soda on the spot and rub it. It works wonders!

Drain Cleaner: use to clear your drains, get rid of odor, and clean out disposal.

• baking soda
• white vinegar
• small pot boiling water

Sprinkle about 3 tablespoons into the sink drain, then follow with about 1 cup of vinegar. Allow it to sit (and fizzle) for 5-10 minutes, then pour the boiling water down the drain. This is an excellent way to routinely clean out your drains and pipes without using a lot of chemicals, and it's also a great way to get rid of bad smells, and keep fruit flies from buzzing around when bits of food are in the sink and the disposal can't get to them:)

homemade laundry soap

This is about the easiest thing in the world to do, it's dirt-cheap, and it will help you get rid of some of the nasty chemicals in your home! What's not to love?

Here's what you'll need:

1/2 cup washing soda*
1/2 cup borax (you can find this at Wal-Mart and Target in the laundry isle)
1 cup grated organic soap (I love Shea Moisture's Organic Coconut & Hibiscus Shea Butter Soap w/ Songyi Mushroom, which you can buy at Target, of all places!)

*The washing soda can be hard to find, so if you can't find any, just substitute baking soda. Put the baking soda on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 for at least 20 minutes. This gets rid of the carbon dioxide (or something like that), effectively converting it to washing soda.

Mix the ingredients together, and and use about 3 tablespoons per load. For a healthy and chemical-free fabric softener, I put vinegar in a Downy Ball and pop it in the wash. Your clothes come out soooo soft, and they won't smell a bit like vinegar. Fabric softener is something I'm a bit of a connoisseur of ... I've tried every kind out there, and vinegar works better than anything else I've tried.

The Mr. snapped this picture of me while I was making the soap. I look soooo sad! It's an illusion, though. I was happy, I promise:)

If you buy these ingredients in bulk, it will last you FOREVER. I read that making your own laundry detergent with these ingredients cost about 10% of the cost of regular, store-bought detergent ... and I believe it!

unplugged: getting the heebie jeebies!

So our adventure with going unplugged continued last night, and thanks to my husband's great ideas, we stepped the fun up a notch! We went by the library before it closed, and checked out a book of scary short stories! We ate dinner, waited for dark, then bundled up, grabbed some blankets and a flashlight and hopped in the car for the beach.

It's kind of amazing how something so calming and beautiful as the beach can turn creepy and sinister if you set the mood right. It was a chilly night, so no one was anywhere around us, so we had the beach all to ourselves. We wrapped up in the blanket and read one of the stories. It was SO fun and so creepy. By the end of the story I was jumping at every little sound we heard.

I'll leave you with some fun pictures I've taken recently. Check back tomorrow for a dresser "before & after"!

unplugged: let the games begin!

In addition to my design blog, I also follow several hippie-ish, green-living blogs, and they're all talking about the same thing: unplugging! The idea intrigued me, and I wanted to give it a shot. These days we're all so very, very dependent on our electronics. We send emails, browse the web, watch our TiVo or a movie, then hop in bed ... after we check our email one last time, of course! Sadly it's just not possible to totally unplug. You have to have your phone and your computer to get by in the world, these days ... but there's really no reason that you have to use any of it at night when you could be spending time with family.

I mentioned the idea to my husband on Sunday, and the first thing he said was "how will I check my email?" ... we're very addicted to our email, haha. But after I explained it to him (you can check it up until dinner time), he was excited to try. We decided to start this week! Our agreement is that Monday - Thursday we will put the computers, phones, TV, DVD's, Roku, etc. away, right before dinner, and we'll stay unplugged for the rest of the evening.  Then we'll just do whatever people did for fun before the TV, cell phones and internet made their way into everyone's home!

It ended up being a lovely evening. We took our time cooking a delicious meal (baked salmon, steamed veggies and whole wheat pasta), we played Bananagrams, and we read aloud in our current book.

We even had time to fold some laundry, tidy up the house and go to bed a little earlier than usual! It was really great. We're already making plans for fun things to do while we're "unplugged" this week, and I'm especially excited about our plan for tonight. Stay tuned!

Dogs are always unplugged, so Jemima just chose to make a "fort" (her new favorite pastime) and hit the hay early.

Have you ever tried anything similar? Feel free to join us!

a handy dandy notebook (or three)

Can you spot my newest little DIY craft project?

I stole the idea for these adorable little notebooks from a magazine. I wish I could remember which magazine it came from, but for the life of me, I can't! I can tell you that it was either Coastal Living, Southern Living, or Country Living ... but I'm afraid I just can't remember which one of those three it was!

You'll need:

• Paper grocery bags, 2 bags per book (I used Trader Joe's bags) 
• Scissors
• Embroidery floss (I used yellow and blue)
• Something to poke small holes with
• Stapler or paper clips (but a stapler works better)

(yes, what you see there is a real-live, genuine Mary Grace grocery list. That will be worth a lot someday;)

Here's what I did:

• Remove the handles
• Split the bags open at the bottom and side seams and lay the bag out flat
• Iron the bag on high heat to flatten the creases
• Measure out and trace an 8x12 rectangle onto the bag, cut it out, repeat.
• Stack the papers and fold them in half 
• Staple or paper clip them as a temporary "binding"
• Poke 7 evenly spaced holes for the binding
• Thread the embroidery floss through, then thread it back again so that it covers both sides all the way
• Tie it up, and remove the staples

Now you just reduced, re-used and recycled .. and you got a brand new notebook!

ingredients for spring, part deux

You may remember this post: it had 5 fresh and fun ideas for welcoming in spring! I'm back with 5 more ideas to get you feeling springy:)

1. Get out and enjoy nature:

It's easy to let your days off slip by quickly, because you turn on the TV or computer and before you know it, half the day has gone by. Plan ahead to get out and soak up some sunshine or greenery! You can click here to find trails in your neighborhood.

2. Take a class: 

Spring is all about things becoming new again, so why not celebrate by learning something new? Most communities and cities offer free or inexpensive classes on everything from watercolor painting to dog obedience training. Lots of stores like William Sonoma and Home Depot offer free classes, as well.

3. Go green with your cleaning! 

This is something I've been slowly working on for the past year or so, and at this point ... all our cleaning products, from laundry detergent to window cleaners, are homemade and green! If you think your cleaning products are harmless, just Google "harmful chemicals in cleaning products", and you're in for a surprise. There are tons of great recipes on-line for everything you need to keep your home, clothes and dishes clean. You'll feel better, breathe easier, and save tons of money.

 4. Work with what's in season: 

We get a bit spoiled by convenience, because these days every sort of fruit and veggie is available all year round. Since moving to CA, my husband and I have tried to shop at the farmer's markets as much as possible, and it's been a fun challenge to learn to cook according to what the farmers are growing. You can click here to find out what fruits and veggies are fresh and in season now, as well as recipes to try!

5. Enjoy a meal al fresco:

Whether it be a picnic at a beach or park, lunch at an outdoor cafe, a springy snack on your porch, or a BBQ in the back yard, plan at least one meal a week to be enjoyed outside ... before it gets too hot!