All Around Our House 10.25.07

October 25th, 2007

My son stayed home with a belly ache today so I took a few pictures of things going on around our house and what we are up to. I was having difficulties with the memory card on my camera so I didn’t take as many pictures as I usually do this week for my blog. Here is my way to make up for it!


This first picture is the bench that I purchased for our entryway. I found it at our local Meijer and was pleased with the quality of the piece and how comfortable it is too. I am trying to work on making our home more inviting and making guests stand to take their shoes off didn’t seem too inviting to me. This is the first step towards the direction of what we would like to do for our entryway. We are also planning to wainscot the entrance to make it feel more inviting and get a new light fixture to replace the seventies version that is currently there.

We also relocated our own shoes and belongings and hung some hooks for our coats now in the garage. My bench was moved out there so that the kids can sit down to pull off their shoes. I got a couple of cheap milk crates to throw our backpacks and bags in there.

Yesterday we finally got a chance to do some leaf crafts together. While Emily took her nap, Ethan and I got some special time together to pick out leaves from our front yard. Even though I mowed this past weekend, the yard is filled with leaves. We brought them in the house and traced them, colored with them, and decorated our kitchen window. Ethan wanted to hang part of them upside down since they were “falling from the trees.” This was a fun craft to work on, to practice his cutting skills, and gave us an opportunity to talk about nature. I don’t feel like I do enough of this with him so we both really enjoyed ourselves yesterday.

I threw a chicken in the slow cooker for our dinner tonight. We have been doing really well this month with our menu plan. This will be our first month really on my husband’s once-a-month pay schedule and doing my menu plan has really helped us from going out so much and it has been much easier to figure out what to make when entertaining our friends & family.
I am also finally getting around to reading “Eat Pray Love”by Elizabeth Gilbert. It is hard to explain the book, but it is truly has been a great read for me and an interesting look into another person’s travels and spiritual journey. Everyone had been telling me to read this, but I had other books in my to-be-read piles. I am so glad I am finally sitting down to read this- it is a fascinating and fun read.
I also finally found a place to store some of my ribbon so it will be more organized. The pretty suitcase that my “sister” sent from that sister swap is the perfect place to keep all of it. It looks so pretty in the case and it is a clever place to store it without it taking up additional room.

Big Lots Deals

October 25th, 2007

I hit Big Lots this week and I am so glad I did. They had beautiful bolts of grosgrain ribbon (5 yard rolls) marked for $1 each. I bought 22 rolls for my ribbon stash. This might sound excessive, but it will be a great investment for making bows for my daughter and for my little side business. Thanks to Meredith for the mention on her blog because now I am filling a few out-of-town orders too! (Note: For all my local friends, I have just started back up since my mom was sick so if you are still wanting to place orders with me, just shoot me an email at amy@momadvice.com. I apologize that I had to take a break, but am hoping to get the ball rolling again).

I bought all the red and greens that I could find, in anticipation of the holiday season, and also bought some pretty autumn colors for my daughter. The ribbon bolts were hidden away in a small box by the gift wrap and gift bags.

Another steal of a deal were the boxes of hair color. Since I run my own beauty parlor over here, $2 for a warm fall shade seems like a reasonable investment to me. They had all different brands marked between $2-5 a box.

It looks like I will have some fun projects this weekend-hair bows and hair color!

The stores are putting their holiday decorations and goodies out this week. They had lots of holiday linens, mugs, gift sets, and lots of other fun treats.

Amy’s Notebook 10.25.07

October 25th, 2007


Good news! We are putting the finishing touches on our new product review blog, The Motherloot! I can’t wait to share it with all of you and it will be so nice to have a separate home for our reviews.

Other places you might find us this week:
Frugal Hacks
The Carnival of Family Life & The Carnival of Recipes & Make it From Scratch sharing our make-ahead appetizer ideas for Thanksgiving.
The Festival of Frugality shared our bubbly magnet post and named us an Editor’s Pick!
The Carnival of Personal Finance included our fun & frugal wrapping ideas post.
I was also on WSBT-TV this week, but I haven’t seen the segment posted yet. It also ended up appearing on Wednesday instead of Tuesday due to another interview so unfortunately I don’t have anything to share. I will be sure to post if this goes up!
I also spoke to the Middlebury,IN MOPS group on cleaning- thanks for the opportunity to share with those moms and meet others from the Michiana community!

Now on to my notebook entry for today…There were so many great ideas this week so be sure to visit these!

I love these pictures of additional ideas for things you can do with your pumpkin this year.

How cute are these dressed up magazine holders?

These hats are so cool- I especially love the curlers idea!

I have been saving my coffee canisters for awhile now and I love these pumpkin canisters. I think I might need to make some snowmen ones too!

These flower pot canisters would make a lovely addition to my daughter’s room and would be a great way to organize all of her hair accessories.

I am going to have to make some ghost toast for the kids.

I love these ideas and designs for window films.

This post gave me some great ideas for some creative Halloween & fall decorations.

These witch kitchen jars look like a lot of work, but those are some amazing results!

I like this idea for a kid’s table for our Thanksgiving dinner. Much more fun than a plain old table!

I love this old-fashioned basket for library trips. I will have to keep my eyes peeled at the thrift store.

I think I might make some of these witch hat treats for some of the fun Halloween events we are going to.

I am also going to add this Potato Soup and Pumpkin Crunch Cake to my menu planner for next month! Yummy!

I love these organizing ideas for my desk! There are some very creative and frugal solutions!

Be a Wrap Superstar: Use What You Have

October 24th, 2007

Sometimes it is more fun to spend money on the gifts themselves than it is to spend it on wrapping your gifts. While I love an elegantly wrapped gift, I do enjoy sharing on creative wrapping solutions too. In fact, sometimes those creative solutions are right under your nose. Wouldn’t Hallmark be disappointed if we used items we already had to wrap our gifts instead of keeping them in business with their gift bags and wrapping paper?

Here in this first picture is a grocery sack. This paper bag was purchased for five cents from Aldi Supermarket. This was, of course, before I had made the switch to cloth grocery bags so I have many of these useful bags laying around my house that aren’t being used.

You can leave the paper bag plain or you can decorate it. I happened to have a Christmas stamp that I stamped onto the paper. The gift tag came from a book of scrapbooking tags that I happened upon at Michael’s. I used my coupon to buy them and they were $2 (less with the coupon) for 24 tags. Tie it up with a bow or a piece of raffia, and you have a beautiful gift out of items in your home.

This second gift is wrapped in a map of our hometown. You can pick these up in the different cities that you visit or in different hotels or restaurants. Save them in a folder for wrapping paper and use special areas for the special people in your life.

The gift tag was made out of my business card and then the gift was tied with green raffia. Business cards can be a fun way to tag your gifts to coworkers. Considering many companies overbuy in the business card department, this is a great way to use some of these cards up and also reminds your boss how much he should appreciate your efforts, particularly for large companies where employees and superiors can be a bit more disjointed. Just give it a hole punch and loop it through the ribbon.

Last, but certainly not least, don’t forget all of those lovely coloring pages and how useful they can be for wrapping gifts.
Kids love to feel special and they love to contribute towards the making of and the purchasing of the gifts for your family. These scribbled drawings, while not as appealing to the eye as many fancy gift wrap choices, are true beauty to grandparents and other family members.

If you like to have more control over the color choices and such, give your children crayons in your color scheme that you are going for or make suggestions for drawings (“Grandma LOVES snowmen, maybe you could draw her a really special one?”).

The gift tag was made from scrap cardstock that I had and then I stamped the tag with the same stamp that was pictured above in my paper bag wrapping job.

Don’t forget the other solutions that I have shared on like tailoring your gifts for their recipient and using wallpaper for gift wrap!

I hope this offers some other creative solutions for your wrapping needs! I plan to put this all together into an article for our website for future reference!

***For more great solutions for your family, be sure to visit Rocks In My Dryer for more great ideas for this edition of Works-For-Me Wednesday***

Frugal Hacks: Soup Supper

October 23rd, 2007

I don’t have a lot of restaurant weaknesses because I enjoy the food we cook from home a lot more, but I have been giving into one weakness recently…Broccoli & Cheddar Soup from Panera Bread.

After ordering it twice in the past month, I knew I needed to figure out how to make this from home and after trying a couple of recipes, I have finally found THE recipe that tastes just like this soup from the restaurant.

If you have a craving for Broccoli & Cheddar Soup, make sure to give this recipe a try and see what you think! I followed the instructions exactly and it was absolute perfection! A bowl of cheesy goodness with a yummy loaf of crusty bread. It reheats well and would be wonderful to entertain with!

In the spirit of good soup and chilly nights, be sure to read my post over at Frugal Hacks about throwing a special soup supper of your own.

Thrifty Treasures: Autumn Container

October 22nd, 2007

I found this container when I hit our local Goodwill this past Friday. Saturday was their official half off day, but my husband was going to be gone all day and I was not about to brave the crowds with two little ones to take care of.

Lucky for me, they had discounted their seasonal items down to 75% off the day before their big sale day. This beautiful glass container ended up costing me less than a dollar after I got my discount.

I filled it with marshmallows and placed it on a serving tray along with hot cocoa and freshly popped popcorn. It was a fun treat for a freezing cold evening and a great way to start our weekend. I always try to do a special snack and the marshmallows looked so pretty in this!

I am going to have fun filling it with all sorts of fun goodies and it is the perfect size to be functional, but not take up too much room in our house.

Displaying a Collection

October 22nd, 2007

Last week, while we were out running errands, I was listening to a question and answer session on the radio. The question for their listeners was, “What do you collect?” and they had tons of people calling in to share their weird and interesting collections. People called in and shared about their massive beanie baby collection or crazy key chains that they had begun collecting.

The two things that struck me when these people came in were two things that have always bothered me about collections. The first was that the collections were usually started by someone else in their family or by a friend. It started with the love for one particular thing and it became as though everyone in the world now knew exactly what to get them for Christmas. And their birthday. And their anniversary. And to help cheer them up.

The second thing that seemed to resonate with me was that almost everyone who had a collection had it stored somewhere. When asked where they kept their thousand key chains, the listener would say, “In my basement.” Other answers varied, but they all boiled down to them being put away in boxes because people didn’t have a place for the items or didn’t know a good way to display them.

These are the two things that have always bothered me about collecting items (not to mention all of that dusting). I like to enjoy items, but I don’t enjoy collecting things unless they are useful and are used in some capacity in my home.

I did become obsessed with collecting one item though and as I tsked-tsked the people that called into that radio show, I realized that I had done the same exact thing. My beautiful apron collection, while worn daily, was becoming a disarray of items that were tucked away in the depths of a pantry closet and were brought out rarely. I love aprons and I appreciate their beauty, but what beauty were they bringing me pushed in the back of a closet?

I went to Target and purchased two bronze hooks. The total cost was less than four dollars and I had my husband mount them on an empty wall in our kitchen. I picked four of my favorite aprons and hung them from the hooks.

I am now enjoying my aprons and the true beauty of them in a much greater capacity than I was before. They make me smile when I see them and each of them was given to me by someone special in my life.

Sound Off: What do you collect and how do you display them? Do you have a collection of something stored away?

MomAdvice Friday: Dyslexia?

October 19th, 2007

My Freebie Friday is not very interactive so I thought it might be fun to do a MomAdvice Friday where you all can share your advice on different issues. People can send questions to me (send to amy@momadvice.com) and I can post them each Friday for our community to answer.

I thought I would get the ball rolling with a question about our son. Ethan has been doing really well recognizing his letters and numbers. I have noticed though that all of his papers have his name written completely backwards. Not just the letters written the wrong way, but written in such a way that if you held it up to a mirror, it would be perfect.

He is five years old and I know that with time, this will hopefully straighten itself out, but I was wondering when does his become dyslexia and what can we do to work towards resolving this problem?

If you have had a child that has done this when did this become diagnosed as a disability or when did this correct itself?

I know nothing about this subject, but I am hoping someone else does.

Help!!!! Please!!!

Freebie Friday: October 19, 2007

October 19th, 2007
Happy Friday, everyone! Please enjoy all your freebies and thank you for coming to my site. Have a wonderful weekend!

Health & Beauty:

GoodNites Boxers

Get a mammogram get a free blow dry and hair cut.

Entertainment:

Complete the survey to receive a coupon for a $1.99 Blockbuster Rental (not free, but cheaper than the normal $4 price tag!)

World Magazine (Eight free issues)

Arizona Key chain (The form was taking awhile to come up, just be patient. Click on Promos and then “Free Key chain”)

Home & Garden:

Fire Safety Video (for entire family)

Amy’s Notebook 10.18.07

October 18th, 2007


Make some spiced pumpkin seeds.

Make autumn leaf sun catchers.

I am going to make this Lego Birthday Cake for my son this year.

Throw the perfect first birthday party.

Make your own fabric buttons.

Find a creative way to store your dish soap.

Sew a simple girly skirt.

Boo your neighbors.

Make some yummy apple bread.

Learn how to store your bulk items.