Blog Posts

Fun & Random Holidays in September

This month you can find all kinds of fun and quirky holidays happening in the month of September. Here on the Artistry Blog we are highlighting some of these holidays for you to celebrate here in Indianapolis, IN. Celebrate a holiday or two and enjoy! Cheese Pizza Day (Sept. 5th) Do you love pizza? This holiday is a perfect excuse to indulge in warm cheesy goodness of the classic cheese pizza. Ideas for celebrating can be as simple as ordering pizza and having it delivered to your apartment! If you are up for it, you could make your very own homemade cheese pizza with just a few ingredients! National Video Games Day (Sept. 12th) Video games are a fun hobby for many people. This holiday is a great excuse to get together with some friends and play your favorite video games together. Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, and Super Monkey Ball are all great games to play with a group! You could also choose to celebrate by playing one of your favorite video games by yourself! International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept. 19) Talk Like a Pirate Day came from humble beginnings — while playing racquetball, John Bauer and Mark Summers began to talk to each other in “Pirate-speak" and after leaving the court, they decided that there was a need to create a day for everyone to talk like a pirate. Their efforts remained localized until they contacted humor columnist, Dave Barry. The rest, as they say, is history. Hobbit Day (Sept. 22nd) This fun holiday marks the birthdays of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, fictional characters from The Lord of the Rings. Some fun ideas for celebrating including throwing a hobbit-themed party, walking around barefoot all day, and eating seven meals instead of three. What other fun September holidays do you plan on celebrating this month? Share your ideas with the rest of our apartment community in the comments. We hope you have a fun-filled month here in Indianapolis!

Campfire Recipes

August is the perfect time to get out of your apartment to go camping here in Indianapolis, IN! Gather your friends together for a fun weekend camping trip right here in Indianapolis. The Artistry Blog is here to help with a few campfire-friendly recipes that are both delicious and easy to make. We’ve included a link and a brief description of each recipe below. Campfire French Toast from This Lil Piglet Enjoy this classic breakfast favorite cooked over a campfire. Wrap a sliced loaf of bread in parchment paper and then again in foil. After pouring the egg mixture over the bread, cover the top of the loaf in foil and cook over the campfire for 40 minutes or until the bread is no longer soggy. Campfire Quesadillas from Dirty Gourmet Satisfy your craving for delicious Mexican food with campfire quesadillas. This recipe using pepper jack cheese, red onions, mushrooms, and corn, but feel free to change things up or add your favorite cheese. The campfire melts the cheese perfectly and makes for a nice, crisp tortilla. Campfire Nachos from Pip and Ebby You will need a cast iron skillet for this one pan recipe that is sure to be a crowd pleaser. This recipe just goes to show that nachos can be enjoyed anywhere, not just at a sporting event! Feel free to mix things up and try different toppings or types of cheese. For example, you could switch out the ground beef for ground turkey to make a leaner option. Foil Pack French Dip Sandwiches from Chelsea’s Messy Apron This pull-apart version of a French dip sandwich is perfect for sharing. You will need a loaf of French bread or a sliced baguette, pre-sliced provolone cheese, deli roast beef, onion powder, dried minced garlic, Worcestershire sauce, au jus gravy mix, unsalted butter, and heavy duty foil. Thanks for visiting our blog! Have fun camping this month and trying out these awesome campfire-friendly recipes.

Tips for Healthy and Hydrated Skin

Welcome back to the Artistry Blog! For the month of July, we’re sharing tips on how to take better care of your skin . Summer can get hot here in Indianapolis, IN and that’s why it’s important to take good care of your outer layer. From “eating well” to “moisturizing” we hope these tips help keep your skin hydrated and healthy! Start improving the health of your skin by taking simple steps inside your apartment today. Hydrate and Eat Well Maintaining a healthy diet is important for a host of reasons. Your skin can reflect what’s going on inside your body , so be mindful of what you eat. Staying hydrated keeps you hydrated and flushes out toxins. Diets “rich in processed foods, sugars, saturated fats, and dairy can deprive your skin of the vital nutrients needed for a healthy glow,” according to The Quench. Opt instead for fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, and foods rich in antioxidants. Exfoliate Skin cells die, and those dead skin cells make your skin look dull and unappealing. Scrub those away by exfoliating to reveal the healthy, beautiful skin underneath! Exfoliating does more for your skin than just removing the dead particles. It also helps the skin cells regenerate quickly, which gives you a more youthful look. Just be sure not to overdo it! Follow the instructions on whatever scrub or peel you use. Usually exfoliating once or twice a week is fine. Moisturize Give your skin the hydration it needs to stay fresh, strong, and healthy by moisturizing regularly. Moisturizing is great for reducing the negative effects of sunburns and for helping it feel less uncomfortable for you. Look for moisturizers with SPF to protect your skin from the sun, as well. Thanks for visiting our blog! We hope you have a great month.

Is Your Apartment Too Vanilla?

“Vanilla” is a term often associated with things that are considered boring, plain, ordinary, and standard. So we have to ask this question: Is your apartment too vanilla? If you feel like you’d like to add a little splash of color to your apartment’s walls and breathe a little more life into your living area, we can help. Here are a few simple tips that will hopefully take your vanilla apartment and turn it into something extraordinary. Lay Down a Rug Apartment Therapy suggests adding a “ statementy rug ” to a room for more pizazz. In their own words it “ties the room together.” We like these rugs as suggested by Elle Decor , particularly the Peacock Blue Rug, the Tibetan Rug, and the Geometric Gray Rug. Purchase a Throw Pillow...or Three We love throw pillows! They can be comfortable and colorful. You might be surprised how much life something so small can breathe life into your apartment. Check out these stylish colorful and bright pillow options from Amazon. Light a Candle The first thing you smell when you enter an apartment can tell you a lot about the person living there. For us, lighting a candle does more than just fill the air with a pleasant aroma; it sets a tone, one that’s warm and inviting. Try this out the next time you invite friends over. Your apartment should be a place where you can feel comfortable being yourself. If that means going with bare walls or a minimalistic style, don’t let us stop you — we’re all for that kind of stuff! But if you’d like to add a little more pizazz to your apartment, we hope that the above suggestions will help get you started in the right direction for a positive change. Thanks for visiting the Artistry Blog! We hope you have a great month in Indianapolis, IN!

Tips for Organizing your Freezer

When it comes to conversations about freezers, the only thing we really like to discuss is what flavor of ice cream to store in them. Today, we’re branching out from that subject to share tips about organizing the freezer. Join our Artistry apartment community as we share a few helpful tips that can benefit you from day to day. Tip 1: Wrap your food properly If you store food in zipper storage bags, be sure to seal off as much air as possible. Air that is trapped inside zipper storage bags can quickly cause freezer burn. Tip 2: Label your food If you look in your freezer now, do you remember when everything was stored? When storing food, use masking tape and a marker to record what the food is and when you’re storing it. Tip 3: Move the ice cream Okay, you got us… We might not be discussing ice cream flavors, but we can still share a tip about keeping your ice cream cool. The door of the freezer is the warmest part of the unit. To keep your ice cream nice and cool, place it farther into your freezer. Tip 4: Defrost your freezer When you open your freezer door, does it look like Antarctica? Is there a thick layer of ice built up? Follow these online instructions to defrost your freezer. Tip 5: Throw out the boxes A lot of food we store takes up a lot of space — space that could be used to store even more food! While we don’t encourage anyone to stuff their freezer to its limit, we do think it’s smart to take items out of boxes and store them in bags or compact plastic containers. Thanks for visiting the Artistry Blog! We hope you have a great month in Indianapolis, IN or wherever you are!

Life Lessons from The Hobbit

Welcome back to the Artistry Blog. Today we’re excited to be focusing on the theme of adventure. Have you ever read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien? For many of us, our lives are not unlike the character Bilbo Baggins, sitting all cozy within the walls of our Indianapolis, IN apartment home — safe like Bilbo Baggins was in the Shire in Tolkien’s timeless tale. Like this hobbit before he went on his grand adventure, many of us are comfortable: we take afternoon drinks when we like, we stroll outside when we want, and we get around to adventuring when we feel up to it. But life, as The Hobbit teaches us, is filled with unexpected adventures around corners that are often considered calm. Today the Artistry Blog invites you to consider your life as an adventure, one that’s filled with bad or unfortunate experiences (losing luggage, experiencing a broken heart) and good adventures (falling in love, traveling the world) to even things out. In today’s post, we share two lessons learned from one hobbit to us — lessons that can help even the “weakest” person on their greatest adventure. Opportunity May Come Knocking We’re not always looking for adventure. Sometimes the opportunity comes at a most unexpected time. Remember to take chances in life. Have the courage to say “yes” and go on an adventure for yourself when the chance arrives. Friendship is Important One of the strongest and most repeated themes in The Hobbit is friendship. During Bilbo’s daring adventure, he is often surrounded by companions. Without these individuals, there were times when Bilbo could have died. In our lives, it is important to remember who our friends are and to stay true to them as they are to us. You may not need them now, but who knows when a mountain troll will come knocking on your door? Whether your adventures happen in Indianapolis, IN or somewhere else, we wish the best for you. Share your own lessons by leaving comments about your adventures below. We’d love to read about them!