Town Talk

35 Feel Good Budget, Beauty and Design Tips

Celebrate Spring. That light, bright strip of color in that accent piece (the sofa pillow or pottery)? Paint one wall to match and complement and accent more.
Want Spring curtains? Move the curtains you have down a little, and leave foot of window at the top for the sunlight to stream in. Above the window, fashion twigs and artful leaves to complement outside.

We remove heavy sweaters in Spring, right? Consider doing the same for a room. Put one heavy furniture piece in the basement, and replace with a lush green plant.
Forget conservative photo placement. Be creative. Cover entire kitchen & bathroom w/ favorite black & whites in plexiglass boxed frames.
Place mirrors to pick up natural window light. Group different sized antique mirrors together as you would photo frames.
An hour before bed, use a heating blanket to warm things up. Before you jump in bed, turn blanket off & thermostat way down. Sleep like a baby and save money.
Need to budget your beauty more? Water down your shampoo—works beautifully if you do two washings anyways. Put conditioner only on the hair ends. Work in good, then rinse.
Revamp your lamp shades for fast, fun interior design tweaks. Dye with beet juice or blueberry dyes or grass (ground with a mortar and pestle, and paint on stripes or polka dots.
No money but carpet stains everywhere? Lightly brush beet juice over the whole carpet, then clean, for a new, lush, red carpet!
Or dye wall-to-wall stained Berber carpet into an earth color by staining entire carpet w/ tea. Experiment with different tea tannins before you begin.
If the wood floors need sanding, try painting a “carpet” on them first, e.g., checkerboards, diagonals, stripes, or paint a motif. If you don’t like the look, sand off the paint. If you love the look, you have a new floor with half the work.
Take advantage of Michael Korr’s neon look by painting scarves w/ neon paint, then use those to accent your black outfit.
Puffy eyes in the A.M. Forget expensive products. Soak cloth in salty ice water and press against eyes repeatedly.
Mascara really clumpy? Don’t buy new mascara yet! If the date life is still good, let the tube sit in boiling water for ten minutes before using (w/ cap shut tight), to heat and unclump the goo.
In a pinch, use mascara in a dual way… as a mascara and as an eyeliner. Moisturize eyelids, then dab mascara w/fingers and smudge as needed.
Save on expensive skin care. Get your good skin on! Change your pillowcase every night. Pillowcases are loaded w/ grease & bacteria.
Try these twelve steps to great Audrey Hepburn looking skin (and how to get rid of a bad spot.) An Inexpensive, Natural Way to Great Looking Skin.
Want to grow hair? Stop trimming it. All hair has split ends. If you need smoother looking ends, use silicone products.
No budget but need new curtains? Buy inexpensive white sheets, apply strips of masking tape, paint with acrylic paint, remove tape. Voila. Striped curtains.
Feeling sad? Have the icks? But don’t have money for a feel-good shopping spree? Rearrange the furniture in your favorite room. Change can invigorate and rustle up a new outlook.
You’ve come to the end of your favorite scented bath gel, lotion, etc.? Soak a cloth in the last bits of smell-good. Let the cloth dry. Then use as a closet or drawer sachet.
Extend your interior (and exterior) paint jobs. Keep some of the paint from each room in small squirt bottles. Scuffs? Dab w/ paint.
Need to stock up on food but you don’t have extra shelf space? Don’t build an add-on just yet. Instead, add small planters on top of jars of dried foods, connect planters to jars using a fat ribbon. Place anywhere you’d put a plant.
Need planters but no budget? Take your collection of old coffee cups (the ones that need to be culled, but they are too sentimental to let go). Start plant cuttings inside the cups and put on a shelf as cute bookends (attention roots.. add pebbles at bottom for drainage).
Take mass transit. The more we support it, the better it becomes, the cleaner the environment. Think of Europe!
They don’t typically give antibiotics for sinus infections in Europe. They use herbal first. Try Sinupret. Order online from Bionorica.com, or your local drugstore carries children’s syrup. Completely natural. Plus, less expensive than a doctor’s visit.
Before you buy, remember: America knows how to market. Ask yourself if you’re really buying the packaging or the product.
Save on spending money on chemicals. Strip all wood furniture down and start using only Linseed oil. Furniture is gorgeous, house smells incredibly fresh.
Love all those baby clothes, but don’t want to save them or give them away? Get bits made into a “remember” quilt or scrapbook.
Someone has a beautiful hand-me-down for you, but you think you can’t wear that color? Think again. Anyone can wear any color. Anyone. It is the depth, warmth, coolness of the color that will dictate the type of that color that you can wear.
Charm up a room for pennies. With coffee table books, add antique puzzles and games. Conversation pieces to remember.
Perfection is never as beautiful as the slight quirk that shows off the full picture. Add quirky sculpture of dog lifting leg
Create surprises: a broken vase w/ spider plants trailing out; small quotes painted in a doorway; acoat rack w/ photos; a wheelbarrow used as a book dispensary.
Some days your hair looks better w/ a flat iron than others. Why? Is it the product? You don’t need to go buy a different brand. Save your money, first, and pay attention to the direction from which you pull your roots away from your scalp.
Beauty Must Do - Smile. A smile hides so many imperfections (people are overcome by a smile and overlook any flaws). Plus, smiling retrains your brain to be happy - it’s neuroscience!
Smiling will also keep puppet mouth wrinkles away. Learn to smile more. If you have them already, smiling will still lift them up.
Eyebrow shame - over plucking looks like “hey, look at me, I over plucked!” Try to tweeze yourself to save on money. Nix the unibrow, strays, grays and leave the rest to frame your eyes. Real beauty is natural, not forced.
No special serums will make your hair and fingernails grow faster than a good massage. Type and massage scalp to get the blood flowing. When the blood flows, growth is more advanced.

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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/05/09 at 03:43 PM