Cute as a button!

I've used buttons for closing things and for embellishing things, but never as a handy organization tool! The geniuses at Real Simple Magazine included a great piece in their May issue featuring buttons as a storage gadget for keeping earrings together. It's a great idea for travel, and I suppose there's no reason a button couldn't keep a dangly pair together either (if they have closures or backings). Love it, doing it, passing it along!

Baggage-free travel!

Sounds too good, or completely impossible to be true, right? Think again! For just a few dollars more than the airlines charge to destroy your bag, make you wait for ages in baggage claim or leave you with drenched or missing luggage at your final destination, you can quit schlepping bags altogether. Forever. 

Lugless, a luggage shipping company, will send your bags to your destination via FedEx for reasonable prices ($39 for a 50 lb suitcase in the US). They guarantee on-time arrival or your money back plus coverage for hold-over emergency items. Travel just became a little more pleasant!

Travel genius for your makeup bag

It doesn't take long for sleek, beautiful brushes to become chewed up and destroyed in a makeup bag, especially if that makeup bag is jostling around on the go with you all the time. Enter a simple little solution that will extend the life of your favorite makeup brushes without slowing you down...

Featured in Real Simple April 2012

Brush protectors in various sizes to keep those fine bristles under control. Slide them on and go to extend the life of your brushes and ensure a lovely blush every time. The black brush protectors in the photo above are available at Sephora for $8. A clear version is available from TheBrushGuard.com for $5.50 (also available on Amazon). 

A better butter

The recent horrific news about Cabot's dairy provider last week left me in a quandary at the dairy aisle in 

Publix supermarket last week. Who knows what the rest of the dairy industry is doing to animals if even the brands we thought we could trust are deceiving consumers. Was I going to make even more special trips to Whole Foods for items I could no longer buy anywhere else in good conscience? 

As thoughts of dry toast, milk-less cereal and a life with little cheese drifted through my head, my eyes landed on something new... Earth Balance Buttery Spread. Cruelty free because its dairy free, and even lovelier because it's free of gluten, soy, trans fats and it's GMO-free (not genetically modified). 

Vegans, get excited! 

I wondered what it tasted like and if it was full of chemicals. To my happy surprise as I read on, oils in the ingredient list are expeller pressed (meaning they use machines to get their ingredient oils as opposed to chemical extraction). And the cherry on top is that it tastes great! So far, I've used it on toast, and to make grilled cheese and it even melts like traditional butter. Next up, I'll try Earth Balance baking sticks in my next cake. It's a grand excuse to have cake for no reason, don't you think?

Detangle Me!

I recently spotted this brush in a magazine being touted as the ultimate detangling brush. My inner skeptic guffawed "pftt, riiiiight". But as I ripped through the tangles in my fine hair the next morning, my mind drifted back to this cute colorful brush and its promise of pain-free grooming. Surveying the product graveyard in my bathroom, I decided the $6 investment to give it a try was no worse than the useless fortune I'd already spent in attempts to easily detangle my mop.

One Amazon visit, $10 (including shipping), and 8 days later, I was delighted to find that the claims about this sweet little bristler weren't exaggerated in the least. If you have fine hair that tangles easily, curls, kids, or heck, even a long haired dog... BUY. THIS. BRUSH. You will not be sorry. The bristles are soft and bendable so when you brush through, magically, there's no pain! The knots somehow seem to dimply fall out. And the little balls on the end of the bristles, which I usually avoid like the plague, don't catch your hair.

Ah, it's the little things.

A gladiator never looked so summer coral fabulous!

Payless kills it again! Coral, gold, black - take your pick, they're all lovely! I'll be sporting the coral and gold! Although, at $25, I may have to get another shade for mom (that I can borrow).

Best darn little biodegradable sponge ever!

I was so excited to see these pop up in my local Publix supermarket recently. This cute little sponge won me over in a heartbeat. I'll never go back to the old holey, bacteria-magnet version.
I found them to work just as well as a regular sponge, but they wring out more thoroughly and you can truly use them for months and months! just toss them in the dishwasher or in with the laundry once in a while and they stay stink and grime free for a loooong time. I like that there are no holes to collect or hold grime and bacteria and the little edges actually work double duty when I'm cleaning the edge of the kitchen sink with Scrubbing Bubbles new non-animal tested, biodegradable formula! There's no downside, except if they're not sold by your local grocer. In which case... order them online at EcoHouseKeeping.com or BareGreen.com and ask your supermarket manager to please have a heart and order them so your fellow neighbors can help do their part too!