Leah Hannah's Profile

I, too, like using old maps and calendars. Also, I've used kraft paper and brown paper bags, but I like to doll them up with a round paper doily. Around the holidays, it looks snowflake-esque and the entire effect hits a nice balance between plain and fancy. When re-using materials, I think little touches like these, or like those that Fontessa describes, make the package feel special and intentional rather than last-minute and unprepared.

Putting books so close to a sink makes me nervous! Makes me think of spills and water damage.

Why, the ambiguously dragonish pink and purple winged feltie, of course!

I like the freshness of the green, red and blue accents against the white. This is a beautifully done room. However, I'm voting longshot because:

1. Only one room is represented, and
2. While the colors work nicely, I don't think that color is really the defining element of this space.

Obviously this is meant as torture. I'd go completely nuts in that awful place.

Not sure this is the question, but I'm a nerd about organizing/clearing out financial paperwork, so here goes:

For anything tax-related you have to keep it for seven years. That's the window during which you can be audited for a past return. I just keep a separate tax file for each year. When it's older than seven, I empty it, give it a new label for the current year, and move it to the front.

As far as statements go: For utilities and things, just keep the most recent one, if that. For bank statements, same, as long as you're keeping track of things. You can access most of these things online, anyway, but it's a good practice to just check your latest statement against your own records, and if everything agrees, it's toss-able.

If you save receipts, it only makes sense to keep the ones you are using for tax purposes for seven years, flex spending/cafeteria plans until you get reimbursed, or things you might need to return (appliances that could break or anything from Nordstrom, etc) indefinitely.

I'm a big advocate of using Excel to keep track of things. I use a "Monthly Numbers" template I designed for myself that I use to build an end-of-year spreadsheet as well. Really helps eliminate clutter!

Hope that spoke to your question and wasn't just a gratuitous revelation of my utter OCD state.

:)

Oakland, CA

Harley,

I'm pretty sure this one's just a "Small Cool Extra," not eligible for the competition, so I, too, wonder why the three-photo rule is in effect...

Other people have covered my ideas for constructive criticism better than I could've. That said, I like the way these elements are not matchy, but speaking to each other: coffee table, porthole mirror, green color in the chair (if not the chair itself), and throw pillow. Something about the interplay of these harmonizes the honey-colored wood tones with the darker wood tones. That is nice. The style that is hovering about that first picture does seem much too dissonant from that of the other two.

I was too late to vote, but I would've said Stellar! Insta-finalist! This is gorgeous. The dressing room is genius.