Our Eight Hanukkah Favorites

Irwin Weiner ASID - I come from South Africa, as our D2S readers know, and grew up in the small Jewish community in Cape Town. Hanukkah (or Chanukah) was never a big occasion, being a relatively minor religious holiday, but here in the States, it's become an alternative to Christmas festivities - a No Child Left Behind program for the holiday season. I wanted to salute Hanukkah in our daily blog, and you'll find Hanukkah features all over the site - but our editors have found eight fun and insightful ways to celebrate the season this year. Click on each photo or video below to check out their favorite online treasures, including recipes, projects and crafts, holiday information and quizzes, a special event, and Hanukkah decor. 

Hanukkah gift baskets galore from The Sweet Shoppe

There are over 840 pages of Hanukkah decor and crafts on Etsy

How to make a Do-It-Yourself Eco-Friendly Hanukkah Candle

Maurice Sendak picks 33 favorite menorahs for this year's NYC Jewish Museum display 

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Happy Halloween: Do You Live in a Haunted House?

Jay Johnson - Is your house haunted? Are you experiencing the presence of others ... with no logical explanation? About a third of the population believes in ghosts, and according to a USA Today article on the subject, that's about the same number of people who are baseball fans.

Well, Happy Halloween to you! On Design2Share, we look at home design in a very serious way, and we wanted to acknowledge that for some people, their home may be an uncomfortable, fearful place due to reasons other than a bad decorating job we can blame on the previous owners.

We spoke with a feng shui expert last weekend, and she says that she now combines her practice with "clearing" procedures, to help rid a home of what's called predecessor energy. That's a fancy term for ghostly residue or unresolved issues from folks who used to live on the land or in your home. Even if you live in a new-construction home, you can be dealing with predecessor energy. We know a couple who just moved into a just-opened condo building in lower Manhattan. Nothing has gone right for them, and living in their ultra-modern apartment is supremely uncomfortable. When they found out that their home was built on the grounds of an old churchyard, they said "Ah ha!" and asked us for help finding someone who could clear the energy and help them restore normalcy in their home. 

As our feng shui expert told us,

If I don't deal with house clearing issues, it's like putting fresh flowers into dirty water. What's the sense of that?

I grew up in a small Midwestern neighborhood where most everyone believed in the paranormal (it's a long story!). Let's just say that set of beliefs was part of the history of our community of 30,000 people. Many people I grew up with can personally attest to the presence of an invisible world, and I've come to think that science just has to catch up with some explanations of what's going on. My mind is open to accepting many beliefs and respecting what others are experiencing firsthand.

The following video shows you some practical advice if you find yourself experiencing what you think is a ghost or paranormal presence in your house. If you're in that third of the population who believes, then this may be for you. If you're not, then this should be entertaining fiction. But I thought, being Halloween and all, that this would be an appropriate "holiday video pick." Please leave a comment telling us of any experiences you've had in your home. Thanks for sharing.

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3 Furniture Stripping Tips and Design2Share's DIY Rules

Irwin Weiner ASID - If you're Ron Hazelton, home handyman and DIY expert, purchasing and restoring an antique dresser from a flea market is an easy-peasy snap. But you or I may have a few problems with project details. After all, in the do-it-yourself world, it's important to learn shortcuts and best practices. I found one of Ron's great, short-and-sweet tips videos on how to get stripper out of small details and recessed areas. He demonstrates three different ways to remove stripper "gunk" from hard-to-reach places, and I must say ... he makes me want to go out and find an antique door this weekend so I can try out one of his techniques. And one of them really does involve kitty litter!

The DIY rules here at Design2Share are simple: If you can have fun and enjoy a home remodeling or redecorating project - or in this case, furniture refinishing and restoration - and you can do it within a weekend or a short series of weekends or weekdays, then KNOCK YOURSELF OUT and tackle that do-it-yourself project. We wouldn't dream of stopping you. But if you won't enjoy the process, if there's a remote possibility that the project will drive you and yours nuts, and if the task at hand is too complex, then it's not a do-it-yourself assignment.

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Reorganize Kid Space to Make Way for Baby

Irwin Weiner ASID - Is it just me, or are we having another baby boom? It seems like there are a lot of pregnant women walking around the streets of NYC lately, and another boom will leave many families with the task of squeezing the older children together in a single bedroom and clearing out a separate room as the nursery for the new arrival. DadLabs offers sage advice for fathers on all-things parenting, and this how-to video demystifies the process of prepping your living space for a new baby, and I like the three-step process they use: getting rid of clutter; using vertical space to organize; and arrange furniture in a logical fashion. Go to the terrific website Arranging It All for great tips on organizing your home.

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