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Our homes are made up of lots of working parts — bedrooms, redecorated kitchens, upgraded baths, ogle-worthy renos, ticks and tricks for cleaning and organizing, and real home tours all live here to represent the spaces of your Offbeat Home.

Get scary nerdy with these geeky Jack-o-Lantern stencils!

While brainstorming ideas for our Halloween wedding, the first project my guy and I agreed on were these nerdy Jack-o-Lanterns. We wanted them to cover a broad range of our interests from comic books, to TV fandoms, and classic literature. In the spirit of love, we want you to steal this idea for your Halloween pumpkins! All of the templates we have are pre-sized and ready for you to print and carve.

What is “home” to you?

I’m in my 50s, and getting ready to move, again. As I look at new apartments, etc, I realized I am really looking for a place that feels like “home.” But… I am having trouble visualizing what I’m actually looking for. Do you know what “home” is for you?

How to make your own Borax-free laundry soap

How to make your own Borax-free laundry soap

This recipe is Borax free, Naptha free, perfume and dye free, and about as gentle as it gets. It’s great for babies, people with allergies or sensitive skin, and doesn’t leave residues. Natural laundry soap is great for hard and soft water towns. And if you DIY it, it costs five times less than commercial detergents, and you can use less of it!

Joining the life-changing cult of tidying up: My foray into KonMari organizing

If you are a person who reads the internet, you have probably heard of Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Most people who succeed in reading it, join her KonMari tidying cult. I’m reading the book and feeling inspired to clean. Okay, I read the book because I was inspired to clean and felt overwhelmed by how much stuff I have…

Pigs, dogs, and hand-drawn trees in this eclectic little house on the farm

Our family are our neighbors. There are over a hundred acres owned by my husband’s family, and we can visit each other by taking a walk through the woods or across the orchard. But everything in the house is old, outdated, or run down. We’ve spent a lot of time updating the house to fit our style and fix it up.

The Holidays are coming: We dare you to send this hilarious “holiday application form” to your family this year!

Each year, The Holiday Conversations in our extended family starts in mid-July, when our little unit begins strategizing with our in-laws, to get out ahead of the game. It’s preemptive damage control. Much like leaving a play-date en-masse, we like to present a united front when the parents-in-law begin sniffing around our holiday plans. Our plans for this year’s Thanksgiving were already solidified weeks ago, but I’d like to share it here in case anyone finds it useful. I’ve updated it for the 2015 calendar year…

Create colorful vases with crocheted Mason jar cozies

Who does love a shelf full of colorful jar awesomeness!? Got a lot of Mason jars and a lot of yarn? Wanna make these yourself? I don’t blame you. Here are a couple of YouTube tutorials to get you started…

How do you live in a space that doesn’t fit your style?

Unemployment has brought my years of living in quirky shared apartments to an abrupt end. I’m now renting a room in a dear friend’s house, and I think I may go NUTS. I mean, I’m glad that living in a pastel-hued environment makes her happy. I really am. But being surrounded by “soothing” shades of aqua, “adorable” knick-knacks, and “inspirational” quotes is inducing serious angst for me. What’s the Offbeat Homie in a stiflingly decorated environment to do?