Refreshing Friday

Windows are the face of your home - give them a face-lift without surgery!

We all love gorgeous window treatments. Especially in the city, where our nose neighbors might well be trying to peer into our fantastic lives, we need something to cover the windows, and it might as well be fabulous. We love beautiful textiles, great hardware, couture details- and it gets costly! Drapery always gets the most sun exposure at the center of the window. If you have a split pair of drapes, the inner edges that lie on the glass will probably show the most wear- which will make you want to replace them.

If your budget this month doesn’t have room for new curtains in it, try this trick: on a symmetrical pair of drapery, you can switch the two panels with each other so that the sun damaged edges are hidden at the outside of the windows. This exposes the fresh edge that’s been protected against the wall next to the window, and draws way less attention to the fade zone.

If you originally opted for function over fashion, and installed blackout drapery or plain shades, try this trick. Go to a flea market (or your parents’ basement at home) and find some vintage tablecloths. Hang them with a spring-loaded rod that has clip-rings on it. (Bed Bath and Beyond carries nice-looking rods that won’t put you in mind of your shower, or your freshman dorm room.) You can probably fit the rods in front of your functional shades, and for picky landlords, these leave no damage to the walls- just quick color and style, for around $40 per window.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

Off of the Street Corners and Into the Stores?

We all know that in life, when someone copies you, you’re supposed to be flattered that you are special enough that they want to be just like you. For designers, the concept is not quite the same. If someone on the street is selling a near-identical copy of your LV Speedy bag for $100, I can see why they might not be pleased.

In this case, Macy’s has begun to stock a bag that looks suspiciously like Lauren Merkin’s bags. Oh, there are differences. The fabric is not the same, and I’m sure the overall quality of craftsmanship is lower, but the shape and ‘read’ of the bag is identical. Furthermore, Macy’s has priced the bags at a ridiculously affordable $34.00, plus, they are running a 25% off sale at this time. With competition like this from the very retailers who should have been selling their legitimate products, designers are going to have a tougher time selling to the middle of the market customer. These customers are the ones that pick a bag, save up for it, and maybe, maybe, buy one per year as an investment. If they can buy nearly the same thing to serve the same purpose (cute, sparkly clutch that is going to be placed on a table or booth in a bar anyway) for a fraction of the price, they just might.

I personally love my Lauren Merkin bags, but there might be something in the idea that I could have the ‘real’ ones for the more refined events in my life, and save a ‘knockoff’ for a sandals-and-beer sort of an event this summer. Worth a thought?

How to go From NP to Just Plain P

"Bling" water- not exactly Bloomberg's Best

On a recent grocery store visit, I came across this ‘gem’. “Bling Water” is a glass bottle of water embellished with Swarovski crystals (61 of them, if you were wondering.) The bottle doesn’t seem particularly reusable, and other than the sparkles, not that pretty. While I can perhaps understand paying an extra $0.50 for the privilege of carrying in shiny water bottles to an outdoor party or something, these completely blew my mind.

That’s right, folks, the picture above does not lie. The water was priced at $29.99. Again, not that bad, since for that price you’re obviously getting a whole case of these bedazzled bottles, right? WRONG. One. Bottle. If you are in the no doubt tiny minority of customers purchasing this water, we love you, but you’re probably reading the wrong blog. On that note, if you want to buy water for $30, I’ll be happy to bedazzle some bottles for you. For the ten cents and five minutes it’ll take me, I think I’d make quite a profit.

Getting My Michelle Obama On

Freedom Food

    

Having grown up out in the country with a big city mother who completely embraced the whole Green Acres thing I suffered through years of gardening and had to eat home grown produce and fruit.  We had raspberries so plentiful I cannot eat them to this day.  I harbor suspicion about dishes named zucchini surprise and would be very happy never to meet another melon.   While my friends got to eat Wonder Bread with Cheeze Whiz, my mother was making home made wheat bread served with stinky moldy cheese (intended to be so), or home made jam that did not come in a Flintstones glass.   

 

When I moved to the city my greatest pleasure was the joy of buying produce cleaned and washed and neatly packaged under cellophane.  I had no concept of what produce should cost, nor did I grasp the premium price attached to food that was out of season grown in a greenhouse across the planet for our eating pleasure.  I simply delighted in this nice and tidy world of produce and, thankfully, my husband never complained about the grocery bills. 

My delight in the process began to wane as I realized that most of the fruits and vegetables we buy bear no resemblance to those we harvested ourselves on Green Acres.  Tomatoes have been made square to fit cartons.  Strawberies are cardboard consistency to avoid bruising.  Peppers are coated with wax - perhaps to send them flying down the conveyor belt more quickly??

 

I’ve now come full circle and taken matters into my own hands and become a farmer.  On a modest, miniature scale mind you.  Living in the suburbs I do have flower beds in my back yard as well as large pots normally planted with flowers.  I thought I’d take a bold step and buy some vegetables, interspersing them amidst my flowers in both the beds and the pots.  You can try this too even if you only have a pot on a balcony.  I bought heirloom tomato plants.  They were pretty big because I’m kind of anxious for them to produce so I paid $2.29 each for them.  But have you priced a good tomato lately?  If I got one per plant I wouldn’t be sad.  I also bought peppers- they were 4 little plants for $2.29.  Feeling emboldened I added eggplant which I understand will grow in pots also.  For the pretty purple color I got cabbage, and as an homage to my Mother (the Zsa Zsa character in Green Acres) I bought a zucchini plant.  Mixed with the usual flowers and herbs my pots are quite charming, out of reach of varmints and hopefully working very hard on growing my salad as I type. 

  

Happy Weekend

Enjoy the long weekend everyone! Go out in your own neighborhood and make a staycation for yourself, visit a flea market, take in a local theater production, find some great sales (what a good weekend to be NP!). Invite friends over for an indoor barbecue if you can’t do one outside, or have a picnic in the park! We’ll see you back here on Tuesday

xoxo

Take Two, They’re Small

Smaller Store, Bigger Bargains

I am visiting my homeland, Minnesota, firmly ensconced in the the practical and friendly Midwest, and am reminded of a trick I once used to employ when shopping and attempting to save. (I was not so much ahead of the curve with predicting the recession as at the end of my monthly shopping budget, and without a job…) Anyway, this tip will most help our suburbian friends that are familiar with the foreign-to-NYC concept of a shopping mall.

Many mall stores these days have their own children’s store counterpart. Some make me incredibly nervous think The Limited, and its mini-me Limited Too. Others, like Abercrombie or the Gap often pull one particular trick- they produce the exact same item of clothing for their adult and children’s stores. I ran into a very fashionable young lady yesterday who had clearly just gotten a great bargain and needed to tell someone. She had purchased a tank top running in the $50 range from Abercrombie at their kids department for $16. She was not even that small of a person, she just had no qualms about purchasing the largest size and rocking it, at a savings of nearly $40. I admit, these bargains are probably few and far between- but worth a look if you’re in the mall!

Helliot

Henry Elliot

The Gates to Nightlife Past

The Gates

Kudos to The Gates for their attempt to bring a 2005-era ultra-luxury nightlife spot to a semi-peripheral, yet not quite chic, NYC neighborhood in the midst of the city’s Nouveau Poordom.

They certainally have their rhetoric down cold.  The Gates’ Ambassador Program is described as “a select group of influential invidivuals who have been chosen by The Gates because of their shared vision and potential to contribute distinctive styles and personalities to this unique destination.”

Say what???

We certainly hope that this lofty vision succeeds.  After reading a review online that described it as a blend between Gold Bar and Rose Bar we were quite excited to check it out.  Unfortunately, it is unclear who their clientele is – unless a blend of B&T teenagers and Cougars are their target market.

On the upside, the many oval-shaped glass-topped tables were not bogged down by bottle service clientele so there were plenty of places to sit!

The space itself is opulent and sort of fantastic, if a bit large and lacking in nooks and crannies: hopefully the ambassador program will succeed.

If not, The Gates may be destined to host a large variety of corporate-sponsor events which usually come with free booze.

Drink up, NP friends.