13 Budget Friendly Ways to Upgrade the Exterior of Your Home
13 Budget-Friendly Ways to Upgrade the Exterior of Your Home
Give your house numbers a font upgrade. A simple change from serif to sans serif font or vise versa can make a world of a difference.
3. Frame your door
Painting the trim and adding matching molding you can get at the lumber store will add class and character to your front door.
4. Add a new porch light
Take a step in your local Home Depot or Lowe\’s store and look around at the porch lights they offer. Sometimes you can even find the perfect ones at Sam\’s Club or Costco.
5. Add tile to a plain entryway
If you want a simple update to your home, why not lose the plain cement entryway and go for something more decorative like tiles?
6. Add dimension to your porch
Adding dimension to your porch is a cost-effective way to upgrade the look. Think about a variety of plants and a doormat that is on a simple woven rug.
7. Camouflage ugly electrical boxes
Paint your electrical boxes the same color as your house so they will blend in.
8. Faux shutters
Upgrade the exterior of your home with faux shutters. Not only will it completely change the look of your house, but it will also give you a cost-effective change.
9. Repair torn screens
You can easily bring your screens into your local hardware store and have them repaired.
10. Pressure wash everything
Give everything a good cleaning with a pressure washer. You can pressure wash bricks, wood decking, concrete, stucco, windows, vinyl, plastic garbage cans, metal, grills and more. Let\’s face it everything looks better with a little scrubbing.
Weeds make your home look trashy, once you remove them they\’ll instantly upgrade the aesthetic of your home.
12. Create a flower bed
You can easily make a raised flower bed in your backyard using lumber.
13. Porch swing
Complete the look of your porch with a porch swing if you\’re able to. I know sometimes this is not feasible if you do not have a front porch, but if you do have one, you\’re doing yourself a disservice if you do not add a porch swing.
Let me know if you have any budget-friendly ways to upgrade the exterior of a house!
Five Things
Happy Plaidurday. Here in Michigan the first Friday in October is known as Plaidurday and we celebrate by wearing something plaid! Will you be rocking plaid today?
This week has definitely been a fun one for me. I actually got to do something with people. A friend and I headed to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for some adventures. I got to see a friend I haven\’t seen since college and her and I went kayaking which was a ton of fun. I also got to go to the Hocus Pocus open house at Lottie Mae which is my favorite little shop. I highly recommend visiting Lottie Mae if you are looking for gifts.
31 Things to Do in October (Quarantine Edition)
Gather around ghosts, goblins, and ghouls, in today\’s post I am sharing a list of things you can do (safely) in October. From trips to a cider mill to scary movie marathons and DIY projects, I am giving you 31 things to do this month.
1. Head to your local farm or farmers market to pick up some beautiful fall mums for your front porch.
2. Visit your favorite apple orchard and pick your favorite apples. I personally love honey crisp.
3. Give yourself a fall-themed manicure. I am loving Zoya\’s 2020 fall nail polish collection.
4. Take a trip to the pumpkin patch. Grab some cinderella pumpkins to stack and the perfect pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns.
5. Today is Do Something Nice Day! Bring donuts into work or drop them off at a friend\’s house or buy someone\’s coffee in line. No matter how small the gesture is, it will mean the world to someone.
6. Go for a hike in the woods.
7. Head out for a leaf-peeping drive.
8. Buy some fall squashes and create a meal out of them.
9. Head over to your favorite cider mill for some donuts and hot cider.
10. Halloween-themed dessert. I love making different novelty treats for each holiday, and these adorable cupcakes might be my favorite.
11. Discover new local businesses and do some shopping. My newest and cutest shop discovery is Lottie Mae.
12. Make an apple pie, apple butter, caramel apples, or apple sauce with the apples you picked.
13. Go kayaking or canoeing to check out the local color.
14. Buy a new fall candle.
15. Make a quick and easy chunky blanket.
16. Whip up a batch of those pumpkin zucchini muffins you\’ve been seeing in the Hallmark Movies lately.
17. Happy Sweetest Day. I know, it\’s a \”Hallmark Holiday\” that is only known in some states. Even if you\’re single you can still celebrate by sending some girlfriends some fall-inspired goodies.
18. Pumpkin spice season is in full swing if you\’re looking for a delicious recipe to make I highly recommend my pumpkin spice oatmeal cream pies.
19. Adventure through a corn maze.
20. Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
21. Go for a drive to a new town and see what restaurants, shops, and activities they have to offer.
22. Why not give ATVing a try?
23. Make some pumpkin fluff – it\’s way too good not to!
24. Go support a local restaurant when you grab dinner from there tonight.
25. Blanket scarves are my favorite way to stay warm when the temperatures drop. Why not make your own this fall?
26. Make your house smell just like fall.
27. Sugar cookies are my favorite for any season. I especially love these quick and easy sugar cookie leaves.
28. Take a trip around town and check out the Halloween decorations. In Michigan, there is a street called Tillson that goes all out for Halloween.
29. Looking for a simple Halloween treat to make? Why not give these Rice Krispie treat mummies a try?
30. Have a movie marathon. Since I don\’t like scary movies, you can typically find me watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and of course Hocus Pocus.
31. Happy Halloween! Today is the perfect day to rock out to Monster Mash!
9 Apple Picking Tips to Know
Picking season is here. Apple picking is always high on my autumn priorities list. Every year since I was itty bitty my mum and I would set off on an apple picking adventure, and this year was no different. A couple weekends ago, my mum and I ventured on our yearly road trip out to the country. It was the quintessential autumn day. There was a cool crisp in the air, the sun was shining, and the field had just the right about of dew that the night left behind.
Since I go apple picking every year, there are some things I have learned along the way. To help you have the best apple picking season I am sharing nine insider tips for apple picking. If you have any tips you\’d like to add, please leave a comment and let me know!
9 Insider Tips for Apple Picking
1. Find an Orchard
The first step is to find a pick-your-own orchard nearby. The apple varieties available for picking, as well as the peak time for apple picking season, will depend on where you live. For the most part, September and early October are prime pickings.
The easiest way to find an apple orchard near you is Google \”apple orchard in [your city, state].\” You can also visit pickyourown.org and orangepippin.com has a similar database but will also flag organic orchards.
Pro Tip: Different orchards will offer different varieties of apples.
2. Go early
Getting to an apple orchard right when it opens will mean fewer people. Going to an orchard earlier in the picking season—September instead of October—will also give you a better chance of getting perfectly ripened apples.
3. Pick from the outside in
Apples on the outer branches ripen first, therefore you want to work your way inward as the season progresses.
Pro Tip: Once you pick an apple it stops the ripening process. For the best taste make sure the apple is ready to be picked.
4. You can shake your booty, but please don\’t shake the tree
To properly pick an apple, roll the apple upward off the branch and give a little twist. You will know the apple is ripe if the stem is easily removed from the branch. Do not pull the apple straight away from the tree, and never, ever shake the tree. Even the slightest shake can cause a heap of apples to fall to the ground, creating bruises and unnecessary food waste.
5. Each apple variety has its own mini-season
The general pattern for apples ready for picking are as follows: McIntosh and Honeycrisp tend to ripen during September, while Golden Delicious and Red Delicious are usually ready to pick by the end of the month. In October you will find Fuji and Granny Smith.
Pro Tip: Different states offer different varieties of apples, this is just a general idea of what will be ready.
6. Avoid bruising your apples
Most orchards provide a plastic bag, be sure to gently place your apples in the bag. Bruised apples rot faster and will cause the other apples to rot as well.
7. How to store your apples
Apples keep best in a cool dark place. I typically store mine in an apple basket in the shed as well as in the refrigerator.
Pro Tip: Remove the stems from the apples to ensure the apples do not bruise each other.
8. Different apples are best for different recipes
Apples Best for Pies & Baking: Granny Smith, Pink Lady, and Courtland
Apples Best for Eating: Honey Crisp, Fuji, Gala, and Mutsu
Apples Best for Apple Sauce: Jonagold, McIntosh, and Golden Delicious
9. What to do with your pickings
Aside from eating the apples, you can also make applesauce, apple butter, apple pie, apple crisp, caramel apples, and more.
Female Entrepreneur: Angela Wei
[this is a sponsored post]
This is a man\’s world, but it would nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl. You\’ve heard the song before, and I am sure you have been told before it\’s a man\’s world. Businesses are centered around boys clubs and females tend to be the less important assets at a company (even when they work their tails off). Not only do women struggle in office settings with the boy\’s clubs, but they face challenges as a female entrepreneur. Today we are going to talk about the five challenges women entrepreneurs face and how to overcome these challenges.
4 Challenges Female Entrepreneurs Face and How to Overcome Them
1. Social expectations
My friend was recently telling me that her seven-year-old daughter suddenly no longer wanted to be a Detroit Lions fan, she wanted to be a Green Bay Packers fan. Baffled by the change of heart, she asked her daughter more about the team change and she said because a boy she likes is a fan of Green Bay so she now was. Is seven years old the magic age when a boy\’s opinions start effecting our own as a female?
Think about attending a networking event, you walk into the crowded seminar and I bet you can count the number of women in attendance on one hand. As a female, you begin to think maybe you need to adopt a stereotypically \”male\” attitude towards business practices: aggressive, competitive, and in many cases harsh. As a grown adult you are back to that little seven-year-old who has lost her own voice and did not remain true to herself.
As a female entrepreneur, the most powerful person you can be is yourself. Have confidence in who you are. Don\’t conform to a man\’s idea of what a leader should look like. You know how to be a leader, start leading in your own way.
2. Struggling to be taken seriously
At one time or another, most women find themselves in a male-dominated industry or workplace, and then men do not want to acknowledge their leadership role.
Earning respect in a male-dominated workplace is definitely a struggle, but you need to make sure you are working on creating your own reputation as the hardworking honorable businessperson you know you are. To earn respect and create your own reputation, you need to get out of your own way and get confidence that you are amazing.
3. Own your accomplishments
For many of us females saying \”I\” instead of \”we\” makes us feel like we are bragging instead of talking about the value of our accomplishments and our effort. Confidence is key to success, even when you\’re in a room filled with men.
4. Build a support network
I know, I know, this is hard. I have found that a lot of females do not want to help and support other females. However, I said a lot of females – I did not say all females. There are of course some females out there that want the support system as well. When you start adjusting each other\’s crowns instead of walking away you become not only a better person but a powerhouse in the business because you have the confidence to share yourself with others. Sometimes there are even women-only networks which means the women in there are ready to help and be your biggest fan instead of hope you fail so they succeed. Angela Wei Milk is a woman who is talking about gender roles and overcoming a man\’s world.
Fashion meets Food 