h'Celebrating Home' shares decorating ideas

h'Celebrating Home'shares decorating ideas
A flip of the calendar page is reason enough for some people to decorate their homes. Those are the people to whom "Celebrating Home: Decorating for the Holidays and Seasons" is targeted.
The book comes from the creative team at Seasons of Cannon Falls, a holiday and seasonal accent company in Minnesota. Throughout the book are photos of decorated rooms and seasonal vignettes, all created within the company's River House, a home that is used as a showcase for the company's products.
This is a book for seasonal-decorating enthusiasts to savor, filled with ideas that take them from spring right up to Valentine's Day. Canning-jar luminarias lined up on a front porch put the reader in the mood for summer; pages later, a table laden with gourds and candles evokes the crispness of autumn.
"Celebrating Home" is published by Watson-Guptill Publications and sells for $29.95 in hardcover.
New, stylish toastersjazz up the kitchen
The toaster is not exactly the kitchen's sexiest appliance. It lacks the swagger of the stainless-steel range, the status of the KitchenAid mixer, the sheer force of the blender or food processor.
But toasters are more stylish than they've been in years. There has always been the Dualit, the Sub-Zero of toasters sold exclusively at Williams-Sonoma for years and now at other stores and online for a very toasty $200 to $400.
But there's also Hamilton Beach's Eclectric toaster in cool, retro colors (seabreeze blue, apple green and pineapple yellow) and selling for just $79.99 at www.hamiltonbeach.com.
Does this mean the toaster oven could be nearing extinction? "We still sell many more toaster ovens than toasters," said Chris John, a Hecht's vice president in charge of housewares.
Toaster ovens appeal more to families and are typically not used for toast, said A.J. Riedel, a Phoenix marketing expert specializing in home goods.
Low-tech sealing
To vacuum-seal small stuff such as food (for freezing), or to prevent tarnish or rust, put the item in question in a plastic zip-top storage bag. Insert a drinking straw as far to one side as is possible, then zip the top, suck out the air and quickly zip the bag closed as you pull out the straw. After one or two practice sessions, you'll be a regular vacuum-sealing machine.
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