A new project to take on spring showers is up at The Washington Post. This was a great project to create and work on because, really, when do you ever consider an umbrella DIY fodder? Give one of your dark workhorse umbrellas a punchy makeover with bright stacks of nylon circles, tacked down with buttons for extra dimension and homespun charm.

Get the step-by-step right here.

You may remember back to my rhapsodizing about making candied fruit peel this winter. Well, the smell of all that citrus and the resulting peels that were bright as stained glass inspired me to circle back and try bona fide marmalade. I used a recipe from this book, which I cannot say enough wonderful things about. Its straight talk and gorgeous photos and preserving wisdom totally and utterly demystify the process. And, whoa! I just this second found out this very book will be published in the US this summer. Giddyup!

One of the great things about traditional marmalade recipes is that you cut all the peel and pulp and let the whole shebang soak for 24 hours. So you can chip away at the process and steal a little bit of a sunny morning to do some prep work, then skip off to work knowing you have a pot of winter sunshine in the works.



This is a gauzy, haphazard embellishment that will likely make true seamstresses cringe. But sometimes you need a down-and-dirty 30 minute project to flounce up a shirt that is otherwise so very grey.

Follow along with instructions and photos right here.

I have written about my love of cooking with seaweed before: how startling it is to stir a pot that includes cream, lemon and – oh wait, that IS seaweed, I forgot.

I was not intentionally fishing for more seaweed uses, but then I was flipping through the back pages of my favorite old school Irish cookbook and came across a recipe for a seaweed throat syrup, just as my throat was feeling scratchy. So I it cooked it up and holy moley, it was fiercely bad. So bad that I felt it must work for people to have choked this stuff down for years. The hot tea smells and tastes like a humid aquarium, flavored ever-so-slightly with lemon and honey.

I couldn’t make it through the big mug, so I let it cool and now have this syrupy concoction in the fridge. Somehow, it tastes a little better cooled. And the seaweed makes a natural syrup so I can take it by the spoonful, even though it looks a little like frog spawn or sci-fi protoplasm.

Now that I have really enticed you, here is the recipe, adapted from The Ballymaloe Cookbook by Myrtle Allen:

Soak ¼ cup carrageen moss for 10 minutes in a cup of water. Remove, discarding water. Add moss to a saucepan with 1¼ cups fresh cold water and bring to a boil slowly. Strain and add honey and fresh lemon juice to taste. Drink hot or cool and add a couple tablespoons to tea, or take straight spoonfuls from the bottle.



Here in kooky California, the cherry trees have just started erupting in airy, delicate blooms and a perfume that smells just as light. Here, we walk through drifts of fallen blossoms on the sidewalk, while across the country, my parents’ front door remains sealed against more than four feet of snow.

So goes the weirdness of growing up on one coast and making a home on the other.

As I’ve been admiring the pale new clumps of blossoms, I noticed that we have an early spring still life of sorts on our mantel. We picked up this little glass fitting at a flea market recently, and turned it into a lamp with the flicker of a candle (there’s a little opening in the back so it doesn’t get too hot – but you could use a battery “candle” too). And the candlesticks in the background were a kind of accident: we were taking apart a busted lamp realized that the blocks making up the base were perfect candleholders, as is.

One of those happy realizations that surprises me as much as cherry blossoms in February.

Smitten Kitchen provided the recipe and she was right (natch): these homemade marshmallows are ridiculously springy and buoyant, and the process feels a little like alchemy. I made mine ever-so-slightly pink and went for my favorite, easy-peasy packaging.

I know that I am no longer in the second grade, but I am still an unabashed cheeseball. I love sending out late-winter sugarbombs in the form of valentines.


Do you remember the great salve disaster of 2009? Well, I am now bravely re-attempting this project based on some of your suggestions and recommendations. These herbs are now covered with oil, and the little pots catch the sunlight just so as they sit in the windowsill. So even if the infused oils are a flop (again), I have been cheered by the process and the fact that I found a terrific local herb store. But still, I’d really like it to work. So fingers crossed, and I will report back.

I have a new project up at The Washington Post to make this stationery kit. Hopefully it will help me make good on my resolution to write more letters.

As I confessed in the column, I based this project on a great gift that one of my sisters made for me. Her stationery kit was sewn, and this one is paper-based, so the sewing is optional. Is imitation still considered the highest form of flattery? I hope so. You can check it out right here.


For all of us who admire all the lovely but pricey J.Crew accessories, here’s a ribbon flower embellishment that is a breeze to make, and can be worn on a belt, as a brooch, or as a hairpin.

I found this vintage grosgrain ribbon at an all-ribbon store in San Francisco (I know, who knew? Certainly not I, until this week). I took one yard and folded it back on itself to make it more rigid. Using a hot glue gun, I glued the two layers together, working a few inches at a time. Once it was doubled over, I folded and re-folded at asymmetrical angles until I liked the arrangement. Then I lifted the folds and glued underneath. Add a decorative button in the center. To finish, cut a circle of felt for the back, glue in place, and glue or sew a pin backing onto the felt.

I found this studded synthetic leather ribbon at Britex to pair with this brooch for a little hit of preppy-meets-punk. Please excuse this very front-on view of, as Jack Donaghy would say, my swimsuit region.


From the why-didn’t-I-think-of-that department:

Stamps made from rolled up corregated cardboard. So cleaver. From Martha Stewart, with more ideas here.


If you have not popped stovetop popcorn in a while, say since childhood, get thee to a heavy bottomed pan. The process is so quick and awesome, I can’t believe that air-popping machines ever gunked up our nation’s pantries.

In a matter of minutes, your kitchen smells like a movie theater and you’re transported to the eight year-old version of yourself, cheering every victorious pop.

When we were kids – before microwave popcorn took hold – we would stove-pop enough kernels to fill our huge yellow mixing bowl, and melt an entire stick of butter to pour over top. When we got down to the bottom, the last pieces of popcorn were like icebergs in a sea of butter, and we would elbow each other out of the way to drag the last squishy pieces through the butter before it completely congealed.

And when you could still rent film projectors at our local library, we would turn our sunken conversation pit (yes, this is actually the name of a room in the barn I grew up in) into a movie theater, with the projector set up at the back. My sisters and friends and I would make little-kid versions of those cigarette girl trays, filled with candy and popcorn, and walk the “aisle”, even though sometimes we only had four customers. I can still hear the sound of the end of the movie, with the end of the reel slap-slap-slapping around the projector and the whir of the motor.

I just read that there’s a new anniversary edition of Gone with the Wind. While it isn’t real film, it sounds like the only reason I need to stovepop a big bowl and marvel at Scarlett and all those dresses.

And if you find yourself having a popcorn epiphany like me, then read this great post by Willi. It may make you realize that, while you never aspired to growing and drying your own popcorn, that is now exactly what you want to do.

The decorations are coming down, and honestly, I’m not that sad to see them go. I love putting them up and basking in the glow of the lights when they’re up. But then it feels equally right to pack everything up after the hoopla winds down, and move into the new year feeling a little more unencumbered. Plus, we do get a last hoorah: we push our tree out the front window of our apartment and then drag it to the corner, which always provides a final little burst of joy.

You may have noticed I have a thing for hauling branches and fallen bits of trees inside. This one came home with me on a morning dog walk, and I set up it in a neglected little corner to arch over a doorway. The only other thing to do was hang some simple straw ornaments from Ikea.

And while I’ve been getting antsy to put everything else away, this is one that might linger (or not, I still haven’t decided). The bare, wintry branches are lovely to see when you come into the front hallway.

In this last photo, you might just make out the fuzzy silhouettes of paper decorations I made and hung to create a kind of curtain effect above the stairs. They added a clean, wintry touch and were super quick and satisfying to slice up one evening.

So long, holidays. It’s been nice spending time together.