Quick Tips – Page 2
Candle rings are a quick way to dress up your lampshades for any season. Just sit one on top of each lampshade. Here, we’ve added fall colors.
If your dollar store potpourri is short on larger pieces, add your own from nature. Include pinecones, acorns bits of twigs and/or any other decorative pieces you can gather from your backyard or the local park to make your potpourri look more substantial. In this instance, we even snipped a few wire curly-cues from a fall stem.
For a super-quick window treatment for a small window such as you usually find in bathrooms, simply fold a square (or round) lacy table topper in half and hang it over a cafe rod. You could also mount the curtain rod half way down. This idea could also work for a kitchen window. If the window is wider, use two or more table toppers.
If you have a glass-topped table, make it unique by putting seasonal accents under the glass. Here, I’ve used window clings but any flat decorating accent has potential. Just work with it to get a look that pleases. You could also opt to arrange a collage of photo memories under the glass.
Make summer barbecues with family more fun by using small bottles of bubbles as party favors. Encourage the adults to join the kids outdoors, too.
Use two dollar store chair pads to give an old chair a fresh lease on life by simply tying them together.
Dollarama is now selling Glade® plugins® scented oil refills in a two pack for only $3. I discovered that these oil refills work with the cheaper Home Sense oil warmer. Cool!
Rather than hanging pictures willy-nilly on the fridge, try making a collage out of them to give them a more intentional look. All you need are a few magnets placed in strategic spots. Use your kids’ artwork, postcards or whatever else you want to display.
Use what nature has to offer. Shells, twigs, wild flowers, pinecones, smooth stones – it’s all great for indoor/outdoor decorating and all free for the taking.
If you buy tissues in multi-packs, there are always designs on some of the boxes that you don’t like. Use this little trick to reuse the boxes you love.
Gently open one end flap on the empty box and on a new box with the design you’re not fond of. Then simply slide the whole pile of tissues out of the new box and into the old box. Use a piece of invisible tape to reseal the end flap. I have found that, in this way, I can reuse the same tissue box several times.
Have you collected a few small flower pots over the years? Use three or four of the more colorful ones planted with individual bedding flowers as an outdoor table decoration. Group them together on a summery tray or line them up down the center of the table.
Electrical products that havent been tested by an independent source like Underwriter Laboratories (UL) or Canadian Standards Association (CSA) could prove to be fire hazards. Look for either of these certification marks on the packaging before buying things like electrical cords and light bulbs at the dollar store or anywhere else for that matter.
Always test to make sure lids come off and go on smoothly before buying canisters and other items with lids. Dollarama had some ceramic and plastic travel cups recently that I couldn’t recommend. Once removed, the lids were simply too hard to fit back on.
Before buying items with zippers in them, check to make sure that the zippers work properly. A cushion cover I brought home once had a zipper that wouldn’t open all the way. Wonky zippers are a rare occurrence but it’s better to be sure before you spend the money.
Beach mats can be used to keep the sun from making your deck or patio unwelcoming at certain times of the day. Simply tack them to the wood on the inside of any overhang with the ties at the top so you can roll up your makeshift blinds when they’re not needed.
Those handy zipper seal freezer bags are good for more that just preserving food. Use one to keep things like painter’s tape from becoming dried out and brittle from sitting unused over long periods of time.
I also use these bags to keep other small objects like craft pieces, organized and easy to find.
Colorful beach towels are only $3 each at Dollarama and theyre an easy way to dress up plain patio chairs or perhaps disguise worn or mismatched furniture.
Make a magnetic memo board with a dollar store cookie sheet and some scrapbook paper cut to size and glued on. Use it in the kitchen to keep track of family appointments and school memos or in the home office to help you stay organized.
We made the butterfly magnets by hot gluing the metal accents onto round craft magnets.
You can use outdoor garden objects indoors by gluing some felt to the bottom to protect furniture and floors. This piece was heavy enough to make it useful as an attractive doorstop.
Dollar stores are beginning to stock summery looking hooks for outdoor use. But they’re so attractive, why not use one indoors to display favorite pieces of jewelry? If you put one of these hooks in the bathroom, you can use it as a place to hang the jewelry you want to wear the next day.
If you’re entertaining this spring try scrapbook embellishments as table confetti, instead of the usual. These fabric flowers come in a package with three different sizes and each one has a rhinestone in its center for added sparkle in candlelight.
