Let’s be honest: we college girls do most of our drinking out of red plastic cups. It might get the job done (and it’s usually free), but it’s far from classy. And sometimes we all need to be a little classy.

If you’re looking to add some class to your weekly routine, consider having the girls over for some wine and cheese. And add a little something special with these adorable, unique and classy wine glass rings!

While they aren’t a necessary addition to a wine glass (because wine is the only necessary addition, am I right?), I really love the extra fun these rings bring to the table. They are super classy and elegant, and they definitely look as if you bought them at Pier 1.

Plus, you can put them on anything. Since I don’t drink, I hang mine on the handles of my coffee mugs, but you can also clip them to kitchen-cabinet handles, keychains . . . the list goes on.

Each ring takes about five minutes to make, and it will only cost you about $5 in supplies to make a bundle of ‘em.

Here’s What You Need:

• Thick jewelry wire
• Thin craft wire
• Pliers (to bend the thick wire)
• Collection of small, colorful beads
• Some bigger, prettier glass beads

Here’s What You Do:

• Use the end of the pliers to bend one end of the piece into a tiny loop to keep the beads from sliding off.

• Start putting the beads on, forming a pattern or just loading on one solid color, filling the wire half way.

• When you’re done with that, use the loop you made on the thin wire to thread the glass bead onto the thick wire.

• Finish it off by filling the rest of the wire with beads, then bend the end of the thick wire forward to fasten through the first loop you made, and twist the whole thing into a circle shape.

• Clip it onto your wine glass stem, and you’re ready to roll. Bust out that chardonnay!

Yeah, that's right. This cork board makes people want to party.

A dorm isn’t a dorm without the staple brown cork board on the wall. You post reminders of exams, pictures of your friends, phone numbers (of that hottie you just met!), and other important info on your life.

Problem is that the ugly brown cork board is a little bored. I know it doesn’t match the rest of your gorgeous room decor, so here is an easy and creative way to transform that ugly board into an artistic and functional piece of wall decor.

What You’ll Need:
*2 Sets of Cork Tiles: You can find these at Wal-mart, Target, or any office supply store. They usually come in sets of 4. You can make your cork piece as big as you want, but I usually use 8 tiles (so, 2 sets).
*Spray Paint: Use any color you want. The spray paint will be for the background color of your piece.
*Art Paint: Again, choose any colors you want. This paint will add accent colors and design on the cork tiles after they are spray painted. Skip this step if you prefer to have a plain color cork piece!
*Ribbon: Use any color/design you want. Just make sure the color of the ribbon goes well with the paint colors.
*Small paint brushes

Easy Instructions
1. Outside in an open area, lay down some newspaper so you don’t make a mess. Lay out the cork tiles on the newspaper. With the spray paint, paint each of the cork tiles in a side to side, up and down motion until the entire tile is painted. Don’t overdo it – just make sure the color of the cork doesn’t show through the spray paint. Set aside to dry.

2. Now that your cork tiles are all painted, feel free to use the other paint to add designs on top of the tiles. Draw stripes, circles, flowers, swirls, whatever design you choose! You could also paint a letter on each tile to spell out a word or your name. Let that beauty dry.

3. Now it’s time to hang your creation. Using the adhesive stickers that came with your cork tiles, place the cork tiles on the wall leaving room between each tile (big enough for the ribbon you chose). I usually put 2 rows of 4 tiles to make a rectangle, but you could also make a square of 4 tiles, an asymmetrical pattern, or whichever looks best to you.

4. Finally, tack ribbon to the wall between your tiles so it creates a border around all the rows of your tiles. You don’t have to do this step, but it adds color and makes the tiles come together as an art piece instead of just a bunch of tiles on the wall.

5. You’re done! Now add pictures, posts, and anything else you put on your normal cork board, which is not so normal anymore.

Beach days are over, flip flops have been thrown to the back of the closet, and our skin has gotten so dry our resemble a reptile. Hello, winter!

We might be feverishly counting down the days to summer, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy December, January, and February. Hey — at least they’re not as rainy as March (usually). The next time you start cursing because you can’t feel your fingers…or toes…or face… reflect on some of the best winter offerings. Besides, if it was sunny and warm year round, we’d have to be perpetually ready to don a bikini.

1. The Holidays

First there’s Thanksgiving break, and the excuse to gorge yourself on home-cooked meals (a welcome change from the dining hall); then, after some grueling finals, winter break rolls around, with Christmas and Hannukah following closely behind. Lights and decorations are everywhere, NSync, Mariah Carey, and Adam Sandler take over the airwaves with “Merry Christmas (Happy Holidays),” “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and “The Hannukah Song,” respectively. And then there’s the long-awaited return of the Starbucks Gingerbread Latte.

By the end of December, winter is only half over, and we get to look forward to party hard on New Year’s Eve, with Valentine’s Day rolling around just a few weeks later. As winter trails off, we can say goodbye to snow over pints of Guinness for Saint Patrick’s Day, and then we have nothing left to celebrate until July. Thank you, winter, for giving us school vacations, seasonal treats, and an excuse to drink heavily at themed bar nights.

2. An Excuse to Layer

‘Tis the season to accessorize! There’s no way we could show off a cute new pashmina in 90-degree humidity, or color coordinate knit sorell caps, gloves, and scarves. Without a drop in temperature, we wouldn’t be able to jazz up a sweater dress with a chunky belt, sweater boots wouldn’t have even been invented, and there would be no room in our closets for cashmere!

3. Winter Sports

Football season gives way to basketball season, and students across the country get to continue to show their school spirit as their teams vie for a spot in one of the many tournaments across the country. For die hard fans, these tournaments also mean….ROAD TRIP! I mean, if you really can’t stand the cold, you can always pick a tourney in a warm climate – preseason tournaments so far have included the Maui Invitational and the Anaheim Classic. And that’s just b’ball getting started — take it from a Big East veteran, nothing will warm you up like a half-gallon thermos of beer at Madison Square Garden while you join thousands of other die-hard fans.

Of course, the list of winter-centric games goes on. Ice hockey, skiing, snowboarding, and skating are reason enough to brave the frigid temperatures, and if you can get your hands on a snowmobile and a few acres of land, you won’t even miss the beach. Who says you have to gain weight over the holiday season? With all these winter sports, it’s easy to find fun ways to burn calories. Hell, next time it snows, organize a snowball fight and tone your biceps while pelting your roommate!

4. The Romance Factor

Okay, seriously? Snuggling by the fire… or, if you don’t have a fireplace, an excuse to stay in bed under the covers for the whole day. There’s also the excuse to dress like a naughty Santa’s helper, a la Mean Girls to seduce your man, and with some mistletoe around, you’re bound to lock lips with the hottie of your choosing. Also, the winter sports previously mentioned can be a great ice-breaker (no pun intended). You can flirt over the snowbanks and then take a hot shower together to prevent frost bite. Can’t be too careful! If Currier and Ives proves to be an aphrodisiac, you get to celebrate your newfound relationship by bringing the honey home for the holidays.

5. The Scenery

If you can catch the first snowfall before the snowplows hit, it’s gorgeous. When the hills are mounds of white, the trees are shrouded with snowflakes, and the sun gleams off of an ice-covered pond, winter can make you forget about the stress of midterms and holiday shopping…until the world wakes up, shovels out their cars, and turns the Norman Rockwell-esque landscape into a mound of muddy sludge. Sure, the leaves turn pretty colors in the fall, but there’s a period between fall and winter where the trees are just barren, ugly, and dead-looking. Once the first snowfall hits, it’s an instant reminder of why we love regions that have all four seasons, and why we’re willing to deal with the cold year after year.

So the time had come again at Syracuse for Alcohol Awareness Week. Basically this is a week where students, okay mainly Greeks, are supposed to be more “aware” of alcohol. This “awareness” is culminated in an event called “mocktails” on Friday night. Each sorority is paired up with a frat and then they have a sober party. Not like “let’s just take a little shot beforehand” kind of sober, not “just one joint” kind of sober, not “a bottle of wine with dinner” kind of sober, but actually sober (yeah, the frats were confused about it too and asked if the mocktail money could possibly go towards the purchase of a keg).

While I’m usually the first to hop on (and steer!) the Friday night drinking train, I coudn’t help but be a wee bit reluctant to get my ticket for the Friday night sober train. I mean, really, what could that possibly be like? Unfortunately (or fortunately if you like to look at your mocktail glass as being half full) the thing about the Friday night sober train was that it was mandatory and my ticket had been purchased for me.

So, you ask, what goes on at a completely sober party? And how do people party withut the aid of mind numbing alcohol? Below is a pro/con list of my sober Friday night experience. And let me tell you; getting ready for the party without playing 3 games of Kings was a very strange feeling…

Con: (Yes, I’m starting with a con, cause that’s how the night started.) Upon arrival, things look like a middle school dance: boys on one side, girls on the other. Socialization seems to be severely impaired by this new idea of sobriety.

Pro: The thing about drinking a mocktail is that they don’t make you want to vomit! Yay! Pro!

Con: Unfortunately, other thing about mocktails is that they turned out to be a pitcher of Kool-Aid…

Pro: As the night went on, my make-up stayed in place, my hair stayed where I put it, and I ended the night without looking like a clown!

Con: It turns out people are generally confused about what to do without alcohol. Without some sort of set activity or drinking game, people seem to not really know what to do with themselves, leading to much couch sitting.

Pro: Not spending money on alcohol led to some pretty sweet decorations: aka streamers

Con: Soberly, dancing consisted only of girls; I guess guys are not as interested in dancing if they don’t have alcohol to lend confidence to their moves

Pro: Alcohol-free parties apparently include snacks! Delicious snacks! Gotta replace those alcohol calories some way…

Con: Time seems to drag on when you were sober. You know how when you are drunk suddenly you look up and its 5 AM? That doesn’t happen when you are sober…It’s 9:15 and then what seems like an hour later…it is 9:18…

Pro: Okay I’m out of pros.

Call me an alcoholic if you will, but after a week of stressful classes I want a cocktail, not a mocktail. Sure, having to do this once didn’t ruin my life, but this Friday I’m gonna have to drink a few extra shots of Svedka to make up for it…

Halloween can be a great holiday; candy, being able to wear those 4-inch glitter pumps you bought for some occasion that could only be Halloween, weird-colored drinks that taste like an explosion of sugar…we could go on. Halloween is just badass.

But you know what? Halloween can also be really, really inappropriate. Inappropriate body parts shoved into spandex, inappropriate masks that scare the bejeezus out of people on the street, inappropriate dances to inappropriate song selections such as “Monster Mash” — if you’re not careful, this holiday can quickly go from good time to complete epic FAIL.

Here’s a few ways that can happen…

Lame photo montages of you in a stupid costume posing with cops. You know who else has “been handcuffed by cops!” in a photo before? EVERYONE.

Using Halloween as a chance to basically get naked in public is a sure sign that your assurance in yourself is massively inappropriate. Oh yeah, you are also a huge douche.

Halloween rule #1: You need to f*cking BE something. Running around in your underwear and knees socks and calling you and your girls “a gaggle of sluts” is pretty much grounds for immediate death.

Cheap costumes suck. Don’t be proud that you force your children into them. (Editor’s Note: Anyone who sees this child is going to have inappropriate thoughts of tea bags/tea bagging. Don’t do that to your child.)

The only thing worst than cheap costumes on kids are slutty costumes on kids. Don’t put your little girl in a short skirt. It’s f*cking cold and short skirts are for ADULTS.

Using your child as an agent of fear is worse than stuffing them in a cheap costume or a slutty costume. Babies are supposed to be cute, not scarred for life.

Over-decoration. It’s not Christmas — and even then, over-decoration is always stupid. DON’T YOU KNOW WE’RE IN AN ENERGY CRISES?

Nerdy and “ironic” couple costumes.

Nobody ever laughs at these (except behind your back).

There’s slutty, and then there’s SLUTTY.

The bold kind are the ones who get no respect. Ever. From anyone.

Please keep these things in mind as you contemplate your Halloween plans this year. Seriously, don’t make us leave our bowl of Twix Bars to drag your slutty-not-a-real-costume ass home. Thanks much.

It’s back!

After trying a few months of looking at the positives in life, I decided to put a halt to my weekly rant “Is That Really Necessary”. There is already so much negativity out there that I figured I didn’t need to bring anymore attention to it all. But I couldn’t help but get irked over this… and I am sure many of you are feeling the same.

Is it just me or should it be December 25th right now? Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas. I don’t even celebrate the holiday but I find myself more excited over Christmas specials, Christmas decorations, Christmas drinks at Starbucks, and sitting on Santa’s lap (creepy?) than my Christmas celebrating counterparts.

But people, (and by people, I mainly mean people of the radio and retail worlds) Christmas music already?! What is that about? How many weeks of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” can one person endure? Stores have been carrying Christmas goods and decorating their window shops with candy canes and reindeers. Shopping bags and coffee cups have made the ‘holiday switch’. The cute little gingerbread men are being slaughtered- families torn apart in larger numbers because they are already on bakery shelves! I know its ‘tis the season to be jolly’… except one major factor: TIS NOT THE SEASON YET!

We haven’t even had Thanksgiving. In fact, Thanksgiving is still two whole weeks away. Let me enjoy my stuffing and pumpkin pie, (and biggest bar night of the year) before you go all caroling and Christmas tree on me.

Radio station after radio station are playing Xmas songs. (this radio station happily claims to be “Detroit’s Official Christmas Station” Yipee) that I can’t get out of my head… and might I add by far the worst would be: Feliz Navidad/I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart”—you all know what I’m talking about.

So let me just say- enough with the Christmas music. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas you can ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Santa Clause is Coming to Town’ all you want on me… but two months before Christmas? Is that really necessary?!