Amateur Hour with Meg

For Halloween this year, we're going as lawn gnomes. Or just gnomes? I don't know. Anyway, in an effort to continue the family thread of creativity that my mom had (she made most of our Halloween costumes growing up), I decided to DIY our gnome hats. You could totally adapt this to be a princess or elf hat. It's pretty darn easy, and you don't need to know how to sew. You'll need: A yard or two of felt (depends how many hats you're making) Scissors Glue gun + glue sticks Disappearing ink fabric pen (if you have one) Let's get started. 1) Measure your people's heads. My kiddos' noggins were both about 20" around. The adults were 21" and 22". 2) Cut an isosceles triangle (yay geometry!) The base of the triangle will be the head circumference you measured. The hat height is up to you. I made my kids' hats roughly 13" tall, and the grownups' 17" tall. *Be sure to leave 1/2" to 1" leewa...

I've ruined my fair share of furniture in my lifetime. I once spilled air freshener plugins on my parents' coffee table that we were borrowing indefinitely, not realizing it until the liquid had soaked in for a good couple of days, removing allll the finish underneath. Sorry, Mom and Dad! A far more common problem is the dreaded white ring from a wet glass or fog from a hot plate. We've all done it, right? (Or perhaps one of your guests has.) I'm surprised it hasn't happened more often around here, because I got rid of all our coasters in a minimalist rampage. Anyway, the other night, I set a super hot plate of food on top of a slightly damp towel on my dining room table. In the chaos of trying to feed the kids and myself before the quickly approaching bedtime hour, it didn't register that this was a recipe for disaster. Here's what I discovered the next day: 😭 Biiiig ol' white ring from that dinner plate. Naturally, I went to the internet ...

The quest: make a pumpkin syrup that actually tastes like pumpkin. I love a good pumpkin spice latte, but most of the commercial ones are too sweet for my liking. So of course I had to DIY it! Last year, I tried some of the recipes floating around out there on the internets, and while delicious, they weren't particularly pumpkiny. All of the spice, none of the PUMPKIN spice, ya know?! The problem with making pumpkin syrup is: you gotta dispose of all the gloppy pumpkin puree if you don't want that mess in your coffee or on your pancakes. Most recipes out there have you strain the puree out to get a more clear syrup. But I'm starting to think that maybe the gloppiness is a necessary evil if I want to keep the pumpkin flavor in my pumpkin syrup. Anyway, let's get to it: Basically, you make a simple syrup, add pumpkin puree and spices, let it simmer, then strain it. I already had on hand a jar of pumpkin pie spice that I mixed myself last year, so that made things ea...