House and Home Archives - Page 20 of 81

Amazing (and Easy) Halloween Decorations for Your Garden

When you take the kids out trick or treating around your neighbourhood you can’t fail to be amazed by some of the outdoor and indoor decorations that some dedicated followers of Halloween have put together.

Next up, you’ll wonder exactly how they found the components – and the time – to get it all done before the big night itself. Chances are, most of their displays weren’t that hard, so with a bit of online and junk-store shopping, alongside a smattering of craft-smarts, you too can wow this year’s crop of willing victims…sorry, trick or treaters!

Invest in some welcoming signs
Heading to My Security Sign and ordering some fun and welcoming Halloween garden signs is a great way to let people know you have a big stash of candy waiting for them inside. Best of all, the only skill you need is the ability to use a sense of humour and a buy now button!

Go to town with the spiders’ webs
This couldn’t be easier. Order or shop for an industrial amount of fake spider webbing, locate a few fixing points around the front of your house – from the roof to the ground and beyond – and get fixin’! Tree branches, hooks, garden furniture and rocks can all serve as anchor points and when the web is spun, you can scatter its victims around it. Buy the biggest fake spider you can find and place it in the centre, as well as some gruesome looking egg sacs.

Create a sinister ambience with a smoke machine
Again, this couldn’t be easier – using the dark magic of online shopping you can source a user-friendly smoke machine and the fluid then use it to spread a creepy mist around your garden. If you can get hold of some fake gravestones as well, you’ve got the set of an old-fashioned horror film right there outside your front door.

Have a skeleton campfire
Buy some plastic skeletons from the decorations aisle in your nearest emporium – three or four should do – dress them as cowboys and arrange them on logs around a (fake) campfire. The campfire is easy to make, just stack branches and twigs around some super-bright yellow and orange LED lights. You could leave a couple of spaces on the logs free for the living so they can take photos with their skinny new friends.

Hang loads of bats from your trees
You can have some fun here, because you could find some glow-in-the-dark bats, or ones whose eyes light up so that people can see them and avoid bumping into them. Then you could add some that don’t glow in the dark so that people can’t avoid bumping into them…

Carve some pumpkins
You have to, really, or it’s not truly Halloween. You don’t have to restrict yourself to scary faces, though. Or, indeed, to classic orange carver pumpkins. See if you can collect together lots of different sizes, shapes and colors of pumpkins, squashes and gourds so that there’s variety and interest for people as they walk up your garden path.

Tuna Pesto Pasta Recipe

One afternoon, I only have 30 minutes to prepare a meryenda. Why only 30 minutes? I need to prepare it in between hair coloring. Hair color needs to sit on my hair for 30 minutes. Window time! A quick scan on my supplies and I found the perfect ingredients for a Tuna Pesto Pasta snack:

PRODUCTS USED:

Doña Elena Olive Oil
Doña Elena canned tuna
Doña Elena Classic Green Pesto Sauce
Doña Elena Aldente pasta

Now you might wonder why all the products I used are Doña Elena products. This post is not sponsored by Doña Elena. it just so happens that my pantry is full of their products. Tokens from articles I posted for them.

This Tuna Pesto Pasta Recipe is super duper easy to make.

Start by boiling water.
As soon as the water boils, put the pasta and start cooking the sauce.
Put olive oil on pan.
Then add tuna and cook for 2-3 minutes
Next is the pesto sauce then cook for 3-5 minutes.
Drain the pasta.
Mix the pasta and the sauce.
Garnish with white cheese and shrimp.

And the end product is really good. The measurement of each product match perfectly with each other. 1 bottle of Pesto sauce plus 1 can of tuna is enough for a bag of penne pasta.

5 Tips for cleaning your house in Melbourne

House cleaning can be fun but can also be hectic when you have a lot of other things to do. There are ways you can make it less engaging and easier even with a busy schedule. Here are the five best tips to help you do so;

Do the simple tasks daily
One of the most effective ways to keep your house clean is to carry out the simple tasks every day. Do your dishes after every meal instead of piling them in the sink. Also, wipe your kitchen counters after a meal and take out trash often to avoid lingering smells in your house. Make your bed when you wake up and always keep your dirty clothes in the laundry baskets to avoid piling them all over your bedroom. Develop a habit of keeping things back where they belong after you use them. Doing these small things will help in keeping order in the house and will make it easy for you to clean it.

Establish your private and public spaces
Making some spaces private and leaving others public can help to step up your cleaning techniques. Your guests are likely to use some areas like the patio, dining area, living room, and the bathroom. Always ensure that these places are kept in order and clean. Other rooms like bedrooms or the study can be kept private and can be cleaned over the weekend or when you get the time to clean them.

Hire a professional
House cleaning can sometimes be hectic especially with your attention divided between your job and your kids. It can be hard to use the little evening time after work to cook, clean the house, and spend time with your kids. With the different cleaning professionals in Melbourne, it is vital to look out for the best one. Do your research well to hire an established house cleaning Melbourne company which will help your efforts to maintain a clean house. They have professional maids who will leave your house spotless, giving you time to engage in other activities.

Create time to clean with family
You can get a little help from your family to clean. Set your timer and assign different duties to your kids and spouse. You will be surprised by how different your house will look like even after 10 minutes of cleaning. Making this a daily routine will ensure that the house is always tidy and will make cleaning a little easier. Make it interesting and invent a game out of it or give the kids weekly allowances to keep them motivated with their assigned duties.

Keep the dirt outside
A good way to keep your house clean is to invest in good doormats. Placing two doormats, one in the inside and the other outside, will go a long way to help maintain a clean house. Also, coming up with a no-shoe policy is a good way to minimize the number of times you have to sweep the floor. Invest in a good shoe mat or rack and place it near the front door and always encourage your house guests to leave their shoes there.