Blog Posts by Real Simple Magazine

These 10 projects are fuss-free, add stylish touches to your home, and keep your favorite old linens out of the rag bin a little while longer

Recycle Pillow Shams into Place Mats

David PrinceThe mod stripes were, perhaps, visual overload as an entire bedroom scheme. Repurpose the smaller shams from this forgotten set -- while peppering your home with manageable pieces of op art -- by using them as place mats.

What You Need: Boudoir-size pillow shams (usually 12 by 16 inches). (Related: How to Create the Ideal Bed)

What You Do: Nothing -- the simplest project ever. Boudoir shams will cover much of the table when used this way, so you can skip a tablecloth.

Also Works With: Napkins and dish towels. For a French-bistro effect, use a king-size sham draped across the table, with place settings at opposite ends of the sham.

Recycle a Tablecloth into a Seat Cover

The tablecloth's floral pattern is not quite bold enough to mask the wine stains, testaments to happy times spent around the Read More »from Instant decorating upgrades with old linens

There's no reason to spend valuable time weeding though piles of tangled jewelry. Here's an excellent way to manage and display your prettiest pieces at the same time. Watch the video at Real Simple Real Life.

What You Need
Jewelry, modular linen-covered tiles or a linen-covered pin board, glass-headed straight pins, screw hooks

FOLLOW THESE FOUR EASY STEPS

Time Inc. Studios1. Start with a piece of pin board

Purchase a piece of fabric-covered pin board, or buy an uncovered piece of Homasote board and cover the front of it with linen or another fabric, in a shade that complements your room. (Smooth the fabric across the board and secure at the back using a staple gun.) Decide where you want the pin board to hang and then mount it to the wall.

Aha! Homasote boards -- made of compressed, recycled paper -- can be found at hardware stores.

Time Inc. Studios2. Attach screws to the board

Purchase screw hooks at a hardware store; these will hold larger items such as necklaces. Decide what you'd

Read More »from How to: Organize jewelry

Think of criticism as a gift, then follow these steps, and you'll bestow and receive it with ease

Greg ClarkeI'll never forget the first performance review I ever received. I wish I could. I was 25 years old and a marketing planner at Avon (a company that I miraculously stayed with for more than 20 years), and it was a doozy. The review lasted 2 1/2 hours, and by the time it was over I had a terrible migraine, felt like throwing up, and asked my boss (we'll call him Ken) if I should leave the company.

What went wrong? Well, for one thing, Ken wasn't much older than I was, and he'd had about as much practice giving feedback as I'd had getting it. He quickly glossed over my single strong point and hammered away at my major weakness: "You're certainly creative, Gail. But you've got a lack of knowledge about the operational side of our business. A total lack of knowledge."

As for me, I was so busy taking everything personally and being appalled that I was so very far from perfect that I

Read More »from How to Handle Criticism

Mealtime love and longing from one mom who is very, very good at takeout

Coral Von Zumwalt I often daydream about an ideal dinner. In these admittedly rather mundane flights of fancy, I have a gleaming, serene kitchen (with new appliances!), and I cook lovely, nutritious meals for my family. Stuff like swordfish and pasta in a fragrant tomato-fennel sauce. We would start with Caesar salad, the kind I used to make when it was just my husband and I. I would toast croutons and shower the romaine leaves with a lemony vinaigrette. There would be sautéed broccoli on the side and for dessert a fresh fruit tart (made by me, of course -- it's my daydream!). My husband and I, along with our children -- Zoe, age 12, and Isaac, 9 -- would sit down together to eat, drink, and talk.

I love to cook, and I love my family ... so why is it so hard for me to make this seemingly ordinary event, homemade tart or no, a reality?

My own mother worked, she had three kids, she took care of her aging mother, and we all sat down

Read More »from Coming to Terms with Dinner

Four effective ways to quickly do away with dirt

Mikkel VangDisinfectant Wipes for Quick Clean-Up

Dilemma: The kitchen and bathroom need constant cleaning attention.

Solution: For quick clean-ups in the kitchen, bathroom, and even living room, keep Clorox Disinfecting Wipes on hand.

Use on all hard, non-wood surface in your kitchen -- your sink, counters, refrigerator door, and stove tops. Wipe down bathroom sinks, tubs, tile, and the toilet exterior. And in the living room, spot-clean switch plates, phones, and doorjambs. Learn How to Speed-Clean Your Kitchen from Real Simple.

Pet Hair Removal Tricks

Dilemma: Pet hair -- everywhere.

Solution: Try one of these Real Simple reader solutions.

To pick up cat hair, put on a wet rubber dishwashing glove and wipe your hand over surfaces. The hair will stick right to it.
This tip comes from Real Simple reader Theresa Demonte, Long Beach, California.

I have two dogs who love my bed. Rather than constantly removing and washing the duvet cover to

Read More »from Frustrating cleaning dilemmas solved

Knowledge is power, so arm yourself with up-to-date answers to your most perplexing questions about breast cancer

Miha MakeiQ. How do I know if I'm at high risk for developing breast cancer?

A. Anyone with an immediate family member who was diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of menopause or with multiple relatives suffering from the disease is at high risk; you should start getting mammograms at age 30 or younger, depending on your case. If you're not at high risk, begin at 40. Calculate your own chances by using the Breast Cancer Prevention tool, a short questionnaire at www.cancer.gov/bcrisktool.

Q. Do birth-control pills increase my risk?

A. Any links between the Pill and breast cancer appear to be weak. While estrogen exposure can potentially increase your risk, today's birth-control pills contain far less of the hormone than earlier versions. However, women who take oral contraceptives in their mid- to late 40s to help mitigate perimenopausal symptoms have not

Read More »from Breast Cancer Questions, Answered

How happy are you -- really? If there's room for improvement, then Gretchen Rubin has some suggestions.

A few years ago, on a morning like any other, I had a sudden realization: I was in danger of wasting my life. As I stared out the rain-spattered window of a New York City bus, I saw that the years were slipping by.

"What do I want from life?" I asked myself. "Well…I want to be happy." I had many reasons to be happy: My husband was the tall, dark, handsome love of my life; we had two delightful girls, ages 1 and 7; I was a writer, living in my favorite city. I had friends; I had my health; I didn't have to color my hair. But too often I sniped at my husband or the drugstore clerk. I felt dejected after even a minor professional setback. I lost my temper easily. Is that how a happy person would act?

I decided on the spot to begin a systematic study of happiness. (A little intense, I know. But that's the kind of thing that appeals to me.) In the end, I spent a year test-driving the

Read More »from 10 Ways to Be Happier

Since the U.S. economy started its recent roller coaster ride, I've received a few e-mails asking for simple money-saving tips around the home. This list is thoroughly incomplete, but here are a handful of my suggestions for ways to save a little green:Unplug consumer electronics when they're not in use -- especially electronics that get their juice through AC/DC converters. (In my house, we call these big black boxes "wall warts.") A simple way to do this is to have all of them on a power strip separate from a power strip holding your essential items. Unplug the nonessentials in one single action. As your current light bulbs burn out, replace them with LED or compact fluorescent bulbs. The amount of energy to run these types of bulbs is significantly less than standard bulbs.

Use ice cube trays or turn on your refrigerator's ice maker only as you need ice cubes.Make a meal plan and grocery list, and then stick to your grocery list when you're at the store. Avoid impulse buys like

Read More »from Simple money-saving tips for your home