Take a cue from entertaining expert Amy Sedaris and host an unforgettable fete that will have your guests raving. No matter the style or size of the gathering-from the straightforward to the bizarre-I Like You provides jackpot recipes and solid advice laced with Amy's blisteringly funny take on entertaining, plus four-color photos and enlightening sidebars on everything it takes to pull off a party with extraordinary flair. You don't even need to be a host or hostess to benefit-Amy offers tips for guests, too!  (Number one: don't be fifteen minutes early.) Readers will discover unique dishes to serve alcoholics (Broiled Frozen Chicken Wings with Applesauce), the secret to a successful children's party (a half-hour time limit, games included), plus a whole appendix chock-full of arts and crafts ideas (from a mini-pantyhose plant-hanger to a do-it-yourself calf stretcher), and much, much more!

    Well, readers can just relax and unpack the (plastic) bags -- no guilt trips today! All You Need is Less is about realistically adopting an eco-friendly lifestyle without either losing your mind from soul-destroying guilt or becoming a preachy know-it-all whom everyone loathes. It's all gotten kind of complicated, hasn't it? This whole eco-friendly thing seems to have devolved into a horrific cycle of guilt, shaming, and one-upping, and as a result people are becoming exhausted. It doesn't have to be this way. It is possible to take baby steps towards a more Earth-friendly lifestyle without stress, guilt, or judgmental eco-shaming. Top eco-blogger Madeleine Somerville is here with really original ideas on how to save money and the planet. Her ideas are even fun! Somerville has emerged as the voice of reason on urban homesteading that is stress-free, sanity-based, and above all do-able.

    Now The Complete Tightwad Gazette brings together all of her best ideas and thriftiest thinking into one volume, along with new articles never published before in book format. Dacyczyn describes this collection as "the book I wish I'd had when I began my adult life." Packed with humor, creativity, and insight, The Complete Tightwad Gazette includes hundreds of tips and topics, such as:Travel for tightwads¸ How to transform old blue jeans into potholders and quilts¸ Ten painless ways to save $100 this year¸ Picture-framing for pennies¸ A comparison of painting versus re-siding your house¸ Halloween costumes from scrounged materials¸ Thrifty window treatments¸ Ways to dry up dry-cleaning costs¸ Inexpensive gifts¸ Creative fundraisers for kids¸ Slashing your electric bill¸ Frugal fix-its¸ Cutting the cost of college¸ Moving for less¸ Saving on groceries¸ Gift-wrapping for tightwads¸ Furniture-fusion fundamentals¸ Cheap breakfast cereals¸ Avoiding credit card debt¸ Using items you were about to throw away (milk jugs, plastic meat trays, and more!)¸ Recipes galore, from penny-pinching pizza to toaster pastries¸ And much much more . . .

    They don't have to be matchy-matchy or rigidly modern. They can just be comfy and unique and reflect who you are, no matter how small your budget or space.That reader is one of the 75,000 unique daily visitors to Design*Sponge, who make it the most popular design site on the web. The site receives 250,000 pageviews every day and has 150,000 RSS subscribers and 280,000 followers on Twitter. Design*Sponge fans have been yearning for the ultimate design manual from their guru, Grace, and she has finally delivered with this definitive guide, which includes:Home tours of 70 real-life interiors featuring artists and designersFifty DIY projects, with detailed instructions for personalizing your spaceStep-by-step tutorials on everything from stripping and painting furniture to hanging wallpaper and doing your own upholsteryFifty Before & After makeovers submitted by readers of Design*Sponge real people with limited time and realistic budgetsEssential tips on modern flower arranging, with 20 arrangementsWith over 700 color photos and illustrations and projects that are customizable, relatable, and affordable, this is the democratizing design book everyone has been waiting for and all for only $35.00!

    You can live in an architectural masterpiece, but if you can’t see the floor, it is hard to appreciate it. How to Organize Your Life (At Home) takes you room-by-room through your house and shows you how to organize and enjoy your home again.The first book in this series, How to Organize Your Life (Every Day), provided detailed steps for organizing your daily routine. This sequel helps you bring that kind of order to your home space. Both books are for people who want to live an organized life, but are not sure exactly where to start.How to Organize Your Life (At Home) also includes tips for people who live in small spaces, have limited time, or have roommates. So whether you own a mansion or rent a room, this book can help you take your home from chaos to order.

    You will learn which vegetable oils, herbs, floral waters, essential oils, plant-based emulsifiers, and natural preservatives to use, how to pack and label your own beauty products, and how to store them safely.The book contains more than 200 recipes and step-by-step techniques used by the author, holistic nutritionist Julie Gabriel (THE GREEN BEAUTY GUIDE) to create her own organic skincare line, Petite Marie Organics.Free from artificial ingredients and based on traditional beauty wisdom, recipes and advice in this book are easy to follow and cost very little to prepare. Practical, straightforward, and fun, these recipes are equally suitable for green beauty enthusiasts as well as professional beauty practitioners.After reading this book, you will be able to create your own creams, lotions, cleansers, toners, masks, hair treatments, sun protection and baby care products. Facial cleansers, moisturizers, anti aging serums, sun protection lotions, hair treatments, and even deodorants can be prepared easily at home using only natural, easily available ingredients.In just minutes, you will be able to prepare a green, organic beauty product at a fraction of a cost of conventional chemical brew. You can pamper yourself head to toe with luxurious hair masks, deep cleansing home facials, aromatic massage oils, nourishing body lotions, and age-rewinding moisturizers in the most natural, luxuriously green way!

    It's about living tangibly in a virtual world. It's about being resourceful, saving money, reducing consumption, and increasing self-reliance. Join the many who are raising backyard chickens in the city and tilling their side yards: tapping into natural energy, managing homes more efficiently, and getting back to the earth.Explore the homesteading arts: gardening on small and large scales, raising dwarf fruit trees, sprouting grains, smoking meats and fish, grinding grains for flour, making cheese, making wine, cellaring, heating without fossil fuel, harvesting rainwater, composting, and much moreThe City Homesteader provides all the basics, including how to find supplies and step-by-step instructions that make it easy to follow along. Original illustrations throughout help you create your very own homestead on any piece of earth.

    Mellen has created unique, lasting techniques for streamlined living, bringing order out of chaos for the chronically overwhelmed everywhere. Acknowledging that it's often the "stuff behind the stuff" that holds people back, Mellen offers a surprisingly simple, yet effective solution in his step-by-step guide, guaranteed to help achieve organizational bliss for everyone from perpetual key misplacers to hard-core hoarders.From basement to bedroom, kitchen to car, and into every corner of life, Mellen’s system yields lasting results. Discover how to:Never lose your keys or wallet again Stop mail, magazine, and paper pileups for good Feel empowered to tackle bills and budgets Reclaim space and time once dominated by clutter Built on the principle that we must distinguish ourselves from our possessions, Unstuff Your Life! starts with truly achievable goals and works toward the nightmare projects everyone tries hard to avoid. With humor, honesty, tough love, and foolproof advice, Mellen makes it easy to finally let go and embrace the decluttered life.

    If you need to fit homesteading into a few hours each weekend and would like to have fun while doing it, these projects will be right up your alley, whether you live on a forty-acre farm, a postage-stamp lawn in suburbia, or a high rise. Permaculture techniques will turn your homestead into a vibrant ecosystem and attract native pollinators while converting our society's waste into high-quality compost and mulch. Meanwhile, enjoy the fruits of your labor right away as you learn the basics of cooking and eating seasonally, then preserve homegrown produce for later by drying, canning, freezing, or simply filling your kitchen cabinets with storage vegetables.As you become more self-sufficient, you'll save seeds, prepare for power outages, and tear yourself away from a full-time job, while building a supportive and like-minded community. You won't be completely eliminating your reliance on the grocery store, but you will be plucking low-hanging (and delicious!) fruits out of your own garden by the time all forty-eight projects are complete.

    "Urban Homesteading" is the perfect back-to-the-land guide for urbanites who want to reduce their impact on the environment. Full of practical information, as well as inspiring stories from people already living the urban homesteading life, this colorful guide is an approachable guide to learning to live more ecologically in the city. The book embraces the core concepts of localization (providing our basic needs close to where we live), self-reliance (re-learning that food comes from the ground, not the grocery store; learning to do things ourselves), and sustainability (giving back at least as much as we take). Readers will find concise how-to information that they can immediately set into practice, from making solar cookers to growing tomatoes in a barrel to raising chickens in small spaces to maintaining mental serenity in the fast-paced city environment. Full of beautiful full-color photographs and illustrations, and plenty of step-by-step instructions, this is a must-have handbook for city folk with a passion for the simple life.a"

    'It's practical AND beautiful . . . an ideal gift ' Graham Norton, BBC Radio 2Britain's best-loved cook and national treasure Mary Berry lets readers in on her very own household secrets . . . A comprehensive, beautifully illustrated guide that shares her greatest tips on how to care for your home. 'This book is a collection of skills I've learned for running a home. Gleaned from years of practical experience, along with all the hints that friends and family have imparted to me, I hope it will be a helping hand' - Mary BerryInside you'll find . . .A KITCHEN KNOW-HOW for the heart of your home - Freezer tips - Organize your food - CLEANING & CONFIGURING YOUR HOME - Create cleaning products from store cupboard items - LAUNDRY & WARDROBE WISDOM - Banish moths from your home for good - Remove stains from every kind of fabric - get green fingered with GARDENING & FLOWERS - Bring greenery into your home even without a garden - Create beautiful flower arrangements - And finally master the art of HOSTING & ADDING THE EXTRA TOUCHES for sparkling parties at home.Easy to use, practical and gorgeously illustrated, Mary's Household Tips & Tricks covers everything from Mary's golden rules for baking to her favourite flowers for each season, from how to polish silver to whether tea should be poured before or after milk. With secrets for accomplishing the most challenging home-keeping tasks with ease, Mary's wonderfully simple book will help turn any house into a home. 'The Queen of British baking has whipped up a recipe for home happiness' The Independent 'A domestic goddess' The Daily Telegraph

    Stretch the resources of your small backyard garden further than ever before, without devoting hundreds of hours to canning! This informative and inspiring guide shows you not only how to construct your own root cellar, but how to best use the earth’s naturally cool, stable temperature as an energy-saving way to store nearly 100 varieties of perishable fruits and vegetables.

    Through poignant and humorous stories, she inspires us to get rid of the "life plaque" we've allowed to build-up there.That junk drawer (you know that drawer) in the kitchen? Empty it! Those old regrets? Throw 'em out! That make-up from your "old" look? Toss it! That relationship that depresses you? Dump it! Once you've hit fifty-you'll be surprised how easy it is to get there-and once you've thrown out that too-tight belt and too-small view of yourself, you'll be ready to step out into the clearing and into the next, and greatest, segment of your life.

    They embrace free-spirited, no-rules lifestyles and apply that attitude to all areas of their existence, including their homes. With little distinction between work and play, the new boho home often includes an office, art gallery, showroom, photography studio, restaurant, or even a pop-up shop. The New Bohemians explores 20 homes located primarily on the East and West coasts. Exclusive interviews with the owners, 12 DIY projects created by Blakeney and inspired by objects found in the homes, and a "Plant-O-Pedia" offer insight into achieving this aesthetic. In addition, each home is accompanied by an Adopt-an-Idea section that offers general decor, styling, and shopping tips for easy duplication in your own home.

    Readers will learn the fundamentals of gardening--from what, when and how to plant--presented with options for container gardening, raised-bed gardening, traditional gardening and even covert gardening where they blend edible plants into their flowerbeds. The authors will draw from their real-life experiences as they teach readers how to keep bees, chickens and even goats in their backyards while still keeping the peace with their neighbors and their municipalities. Seventy-five recipes will show readers how to turn the eggs, honey, beeswax, goat milk and plants they harvest in to natural skin care products and non-toxic cleaning products. Readers will also find plenty of ideas for cute handmade gifts for family and friends. Finally, in true homesteading fashion, readers will find advice on how to build community in their neighborhood with babysitting co-ops, meal co-ops and barter systems.