Decorating Your Apartment Walls

You’ve unpacked the boxes and arranged your furniture, but something’s missing: wall decor! Don’t get bored with blank walls; use your creativity and get something up there pronto. It’s easy to unleash your inner artist and decorate your apartment walls.

Set the scene
Painting your walls, or even just a single wall, makes a great backdrop for artwork. A neutral wall paint makes colorful artwork pop. If you are hanging black and white photos, try a bright red wall so the high contrast images can really shine. Another option is to let your wall paint be the decor. Painting stripes or geometric shapes can really add impact to your apartment walls. Here’s a tip if your painting skills aren’t so great. Try using removable stick-on decals. It’s a non-permanent way to add interest to your walls, and you’ll find hundreds of designs to choose from.

Pack in photos
Once you’ve got your walls painted the base color you want, it’s time to decorate them. Hanging photos is an inexpensive way to display your personal memories so that you can enjoy them every day. You can also use photos that other people have taken, even classic archival photography. Whatever images you select, get your photos framed (or frame them yourself,) and have fun with your frame choices. Try mixing and matching frames or pick a single color theme, but utilize different styles of framing and shades of color. You can also have fun arranging them, grouping the frames to create larger geometric shapes. Test your ideas by sketching sample layouts on a piece of paper to see which one you like best.

Invest in art
Original art can certainly add a unique touch to your apartment walls. If you aren’t a photographer or artist yourself, you could invest in others’ artwork. It’s easy to find original art or affordable reproductions of art in home decor stores. These purchases don’t have to break the bank, though art galleries will usually offer a layaway plan to assist you in acquiring a pricey piece of art. Alternatively, you could ask artistic friends to create something special for your apartment, or you could create your own masterpiece. Take an art class and hang your homework on your walls!

Objectify
Unusual objects make wonderful decorative items for your apartment walls. You can display random items or hang a collection of vintage board games, watches, or plates — anything that you love looking at. Hang shelves to display your favorite collection of objects in a creative way.

Get the ok
Do check your lease or inquire with your apartment community manager as to whether painting walls or other decorative changes you might want to make to your apartment are allowed.

Wall decor ideas are limitless and don’t have to be expensive. Look at other people’s apartments for inspiration: you can search online for virtual tours of apartments where you’ll see some amazing decorating ideas. Exercise your creative side on your apartment walls, and those walls will never look the same!

Quick Meal Cooking Tips

How much action does your apartment kitchen get? If you wish you could do more cooking but feel like you just don’t have the time, you need some quick meal preparation strategies.
These cooking tips will make it easier for you to prepare delicious, quick meals in your apartment kitchen whenever you want them.

Strategic shopping
If you want to make quick meals on demand in your apartment kitchen, set yourself up by doing some strategic grocery shopping.
Shop for items that you can cook quickly. Foods like frozen vegetables, ready-made pizza crusts, and pasta are all great options for quick meals. Keep in mind that buying foods that are a bit more expensive — like boneless chicken parts or pork tenderloin — will help you cook faster. When these items are on sale, buy extra and freeze them for later quick cooking.
Strategic shopping and cooking can help you come up with quick meals for the whole week. Buy extra food and you can prepare week-day meals in advance. Soups, for example, are quick meals that you can make ahead on a weekend and freeze to enjoy throughout the week.
You can also get creative with leftovers. If you buy a whole package of chicken breasts, for example, and cook them all on Sunday night, you can make several meals out of the chicken: Sunday might be chicken breast and vegetables; Monday night, chicken fajitas; and Tuesday could be pasta topped with chicken.

Helpful post-grocery store prep
Prepping food immediately after you bring it home from the store is another good quick meal strategy. If you perform most of the labor-intensive food prep immediately after a weekend shopping trip, the food will be available for you to use quickly in the middle of the week when you’re busy and tired. Here are some helpful post-grocery store prep tips:
•Wash and chop fresh vegetables and produce as soon as you get them home. Dry them thoroughly with paper towels, and store food safely for quick use during the week.
•Prepare individual serving snack bags of your favorite treats, like chips, apple slices, nuts, and candy, for easy grab-and-go snacks.
•Separate large portions of fresh meat into easy-to-use packages. Ground beef, for example, can be shaped into individual patties which you can store in small plastic bags. Keep the ones you’ll use immediately in the fridge, and place beef you’ll use later in the freezer.
Following these cooking tips may mean that you eat up more of your free time on the weekend, but you’ll appreciate the ease and convenience of having already-prepared ingredients on hand for your weekday meals.

Quick recipe collection
Sometimes your biggest cooking obstacle may be that you simply do not know what to make. Another good quick meal strategy is to gather easy meal plan ideas that you can execute without much time or fuss.
Start by cruising the Internet, looking for recipes for quick meals. (FoodNetwork.com and FoodandWine.com both have entire sections devoted to quick meals.) Look for easy recipes for traditional favorites like soup, one pot dinners, and no-bake desserts. Concentrate on finding recipes that not only have quick cooking times but also use just a few ingredients. Fewer ingredients make for less intensive prep.
Print out your favorite recipes and compile them in your own special quick meal plan binder. Taking the guesswork out of what to choose for dinner will help you prepare food faster.

Apartment kitchen tools for quick cooking
Another way to ensure that you’ll always be able to cook fresh meals quickly and easily is to stock your apartment kitchen with basic cooking tools. There’s nothing worse than making pasta only to realize that you don’t have a strainer — or buying canned veggies only to find that you don’t have a can opener. Having to leave your apartment in the middle of your food prep to go buy a basic tool is a real waste of time. Stock your kitchen with good tools, and you’ll set yourself up for cooking success.
With the right kitchen tools and some basic quick cooking tips, you’ll always be able to cook quick meals in your apartment. You’ll be able to prepare the nutritious, flavorful food that you love — whenever you want it.

Help Keep Your Pet Safe with Identification

If your dog or cat got lost, how would you find your furry friend? To keep your pet safer and ease your mind a bit, you’ll want to make sure it’s wearing an ID tag clearly labeled with your contact information.
Here are some tips on how to make sure your dog or cat is wearing its proper identification.

Types of tags
Simple identification tags for your pet’s collar come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and styles; you can find them at pet stores or order them online. Whatever style you prefer, make sure the ID tag includes, at a minimum, your pet’s name and your phone number. (For greater flexibility and timeliness in an emergency, you might list your cell number instead of your home phone.)

Online registration
Another way you can help ensure a reunion with a lost pet is to register the pet online. After registering with a Web site such as Fido Finder or Get Me Home, you’ll receive an ID tag with the pet’s ID number. If someone were to find your lost pet, he or she could enter the ID tag on the Web site and receive your contact information in return. This could be most useful if you share custody of a pet with another person, as you can list multiple contact numbers on the site.

Electronic identification
Another possible pet identification method is to have a radio frequency ID (RFID) chip implanted under the skin. The RFID chip, about the size of a grain of rice, is injected beneath the pet’s skin; no anesthesia is required. Unlike a tag on a collar, an RFID chip can’t be easily torn off, lost, or removed. If your lost pet ends up in a place equipped to scan for microchips, such as a veterinarian’s office or an animal shelter, the information in the pet’s chip can be coordinated with the chip manufacturer, such as HomeAgain, to reunite you with your pet.

Required tagging
Another aspect of pet tagging is a legal one. Your dog or cat may be required by state or county law to wear a tag showing that it has been vaccinated for rabies. When you take your pet in for its vaccination, ask the vet whether you’ll receive a rabies tag in the mail or should order one yourself. Keep the paperwork that comes with your rabies tag so that you have a record of your pet’s vaccination, as well.

How to Recycle Electronics and Appliances

If you’re trying to live greener, you probably already have some of the basics of recycling down. But recycling electronic equipment can be more challenging even as you keep replacing outdated machines with more powerful and sophisticated versions. Here are some tips for keeping your old electronic equipment and appliances both out of your apartment and out of landfills.


Try your manufacturer
Some manufacturers and retailers are now more aggressively promoting electronic recycling. Dell Computers will recycle your old Dell-branded computer for free. Apple’s recycling program is free in some areas. If you don’t have a Dell or Apple computer, you may be able to bring your equipment in for recycling to a nearby office supply store: both Staples and Office Depot have electronics-recycling programs.

Recycling centers
The Environmental Protection Agency offers information on “e-cycling” and allows you to search locally for e-cycling centers. Also check with your state or city to see how electronic recycling is handled. Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality, for example, has a list of local programs and “e-waste” events. The city of Chicago has a program that allows residents to recycle batteries at local drugstores and public libraries. Your apartment community will probably not have resources specifically for electronic recycling, but your managers might be able to give you local information, or even help you organize a community-wide e-waste pickup.

Should you give away instead of recycle?
Are you getting rid of the appliance because it no longer works, or because you needed a replacement? Even the most obsolete computers and phones can find homes. You can see if someone will give your old equipment a new home by describing it on your local version of Craigslist.org or Freecycle.org. People will often be happy to come to your apartment — or to a designated meeting space, if you’re concerned about your personal security — to pick up interesting items.

Programs also exist to put older computers and accessories into schools, such as those listed by TechSoup, a technology resource site for non-profit organizations. Check with your city, county, or state to see if it has such a program. Similar programs for cell phone recycling are more numerous, including Cell Phones for Soldiers and ReCellular. You can also check with your service provider about whether they’ll recycle your old phone.

Talk to your office
One final option, if you’re having trouble, is to talk to the human resources department at work. If you’re in an office where computers and machinery are changing constantly, it’s possible your company has a contract with an electronic equipment recycler. You may be able to add your electronic equipment to their next recycling haul, or even organize an e-waste recycling day company-wide.