Andy's Idea Factory

It's summer, you're cooking up all the home-grown goodies, and your kitchen isn't functioning to it's highest organizational capacity? Take the time to clean things out, get organized, and set little projects for yourself while you have the energy, daylight, and motivation!! Here are just a few of our ideas around the kitchen that have made our life a little easier and our budget a lot smaller. 1. Spice drawer. Spices take up room, it's as simple as that. And we didn't' have a lot of drawer space, but we had a low shelf and packed all the spices in a large, short-walled box when we moved into this house. I hate to say it, but they're still in that box. Ideally, I'll build a drawer for that cabinet, but for now, the box slides in and out nicely and all our spices fit in neatly, standing up. However, standing up, I couldn't' see what spices we had, nor did we have a system of where they were. In some cases I thought we'd been out of, s...

Summer Solstice (6/21, Sunday) is the longest day of the year, when the Earth's axis is most inclined towards the Sun, and marks the first day of the Summer season, and the day the Sun goes into the sign of Cancer. Solstice celebrations date back to ancient times, from the Druid's Alban Heruin's crop-ripening rituals to Native American's celebrations of the sun. Start your day by getting up before the sun rise and watch the colors ripen, visualizing your world to do the same as you manifest abundance, success, and security from this day forw ard. This Solstice day is also a new moon... a good day for new beginnings, planting new seeds, and starting new projects. Transplant your starters if you haven't already, and give your garden some general love by wedding, tilling, mulching, or spreading compost out for your plants on this day. For those of you with long hair, the new moon is also a great day to cut your hair because when the moon ebbs, roots turn inward, as d...

Our recent home renovations have reminded me of some wonderful ideas we've had around the house, not only for our every day living, but a couple even made the renovations go easier! We're doing quite the interior job-floors, paint, doors, molding, and blinds- but don't have an exterior space like a garage or storage shed to get furniture and belongings out of the way while we work. So we're working several rooms at a time, and using one main one for storage. When we finished the living room hardwood and started bringing out the chairs, table, and TV stand, we immediately put "sliders" on the bottom and WOW, what a difference... for BOTH of us. 1. Sliders: Sliders are little felt tabs with sticky backs that you adhere to the feet of your furniture so they don't scratch the hardwood. But what we found was not only were they protecting our floors, they were a form of accessibility! Now sliding the furniture around (even the 150 lb tv stand) were a breeze f...

Today we're on our way to Miami for the No Barriers Festival and it reminded me to share the many travel ideas we've gathered along the way! Our travels take us far and wide, and some of these ideas make us feel like we're not that far from home. 1. Lists. If you're an organizer, think about making "packing lists" based on the type of trip (we have business, vacation, and camping lists). We were forever scribbling on Post-Its before our trips and forgetting something every time, when I finally realized I could write a master list that we could add to any time and save sheet after sheet of yellow sticky paper. To take it one green step further, print out the lists and laminate them, then cross off what you've packed with a grease pencil and clean it off when you're done! Make one for every family member so they're in charge of their own belongings and forgotten items! 2. Drier Sheets. My favorite trick for the suitcase and keeping clothes fresh, ...

Some people aren't planning honeymoons any more... and this year is probably the best example of that. So how can you make the break happen while keeping it in the budget? The easiest is asking for much of it in gifts, because those are inevitable, look into the many creative options you gave give your guests in lieu of placemats, glassware, and picture frames. If you've loaded a wedding website for your guests, include some of these ideas on the "gifts" page or in the literature you mail out, so they know in advance that you'd like to trade gifts in for honeymoon help! 1. Condo, cabin, or RV usage ~ ask for the gifted usage of a lake house, RV, RCI membership week, or employee family discount to help offset the costs of lodging during your stay. 2. Airfare points ~ many of these programs will expire unused airline points, so using them will actually benefit both parties. 3. Activities, dining, etc ~ put a few activities at your honeymoon destination that will e...

This was one topic I struggled with for sure... table cloths and color accents? Window decor with light catchers? Hanging lamps or additional lighting? Chair covers? Flowers on the table, tall or short? Placecard colors and font? OMG! It was overwhelming once we'd decided on our location because the options were limitless and we didn't have a wedding planner to help make those decisions. Personally, I'm more of a simple person, and our budget wasn't limitless (as most people's aren't) so I struggled between wanting to make it beautiful and frankly not giving a damn. :) So I met myself somewhere in between, and I think so should you... GENERAL DECOR First, go back to your colors. What are your bridesmaids wearing, what colors did you choose for flowers, or what are your favorite colors in general? Typically those snappy wedding experts say to stick with only 2-3 colors, unless you want it to look like a circus, and marry (excuse the pun) those colors with you...

Last week we started a Wedding Season 101 series of helpful hints for brides-to-be. We got married in 2006 and spent an entire year preparing. These tips are just my helpful hints that we discovered along the way for those of you who aren't enlisting the help of a wedding planner. This week I've got two more ideas for you for the wedding-day party favors. We'd been to over twenty weddings before we got married ourselves, five or six just in the 18 months between our engagement and the I-Dos, so we gathered a good deal of ideas to sort through before we came up with our own. We'd seen rice sachets, seed packets, music cds, and beer cozies, and wanted to give something that people would definitely use but would still remember our wedding by without necessarily being reminded of it with the cheesy text "Andy and Craig's wedding day" on it. We wound up compromising. 1. First was my mother's great idea from her knitting closet. She wanted to give the ...