Time is one of those things which I never seem to have enough! Here are a few little things I've been doing to save myself some time. As a bonus, they help save a little money as well!
1. I try not to shop with children. I love my kids, but when they are with me I inevitably spend twice as much and am stuck in the store for twice as long. For those of you without kids, this may also apply to husbands! It helps that I work evenings, so I do my grocery shopping before I head home. Silly brand name items, snacks we don't need, etc. always add a ton to my bill. Plus, I never have to walk down a toy aisle or check out every kind of cookies in the store.
2. I try to plan my errands so I can get several done at once. My old clunker van doesn't get the greatest mileage, and there aren't too many places to shop here in our little town, so I am forever driving. Cutting out an extra 25 minutes or more round-trip once a week is great! I also try to combine this with #1 by running these errands on Friday morning. It's my only 2 1/2 hours each week that all three kids are in school and I'm not babysitting. I can get in & out of twice as many places by myself... even if I do give up my "alone" scrapbooking time!
3. Shop online! Or at least "preshop"; it's way easier to compare prices on the internet. And for many stores I can use discounts/rebates I receive through Melaleuca Marketplace, myPoints, eBates, or other loyalty sites. (To get referred to any of these sites, just drop me an email at the browns@earthlink.net. I can get you hooked up!) Oh, and this week be sure to get a head start on your Black Friday shopping by checking out posted ads at www.bfads.net or many other sites out there. Just Google "Black Friday ads" and you'll get a list as long as my arm! More stores are also having Thanksgiving day sales this year. For you crafters, Michael's will be open Thursday night and their Cricut cartridges will be $29.99!
How about you? Any time-saving tips you'd like to share? I'm sure with the holidays in full swing, we can all use some more pointers.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Comments
Well, I can tell I'm new at this as I just figured out that I did not have the comments turned on. So, let's see if this works now...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Disney Memories
Well, I'm finally making some real progress on scrapping that Disney trip from January! Here are a couple of my favorite layouts that were completed recently.
Here's meeting Minnie, after our hour plus in line. The patterned papers and regular cardstock are from CTMH. The scalloped cardstock is Bazzil, I believe. Title is a rub-on from a Creative Imaginations swatch book, the journaling box sticker is from Reminisce, and the colored stickers are CTMH. The fun flower is made using a Clear Scraps flower, painted on back with pearl paint from CTMH. I added small rub-ons from CTMH to the front along with doodles of yellow Stickles. Added some red polka dot ribbon, and stuck an EK Success bottle cap in the middle - voila! Layout also uses black grosgrain ribbon and red eyelets.
Here are Sarah & Holly meeting Princess Aurora. I LOVED making this layout, but it was not as simple as it looks! I embossed the white bling cardstock with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Since those folders aren't very big and I only have an original Sizzix, it was pretty interesting. (Now I think I need to save my change for the Big Shot!) Luckily, the random flower design made it easier to hide the "seams" and parts I couldn't quite reach! Light Pink CS is CTMH, white and med. pink are Bazzil Bling. Darker pink is velvet paper, brand unknown (I think I picked it up at Michael's). Sewed the edges of the white bling to the page. Title is from a Cricut cartridge. All of hte paper flowers, buttons, etc. is CTMH, and I think I have one rhinestone brad from 7 Gypsies on there.
You'll notice I didn't journal on the Sleeping Beauty page. Since I'm stepping out of my box and actually doing a theme album, there were a lot of pages where journaling just wasn't neccessary. And it left me more room to add "stuff"!
Now, an additional "saving" tip: do you toss your cardstock scraps? Use them up making cards. Even if you're not a card maker, kid birthdays are the perfect opportunity for practice! They never care if they don't look perfect, and you need nothing more than a single "Happy Birthday" stamp or sticker pack. If you're not comfortable designing your own, there are plenty of books available on the subject, and PageMaps even offers card sketches now. I guess that's a future entry: cards I've made from scraps.
Until next time...
Here's meeting Minnie, after our hour plus in line. The patterned papers and regular cardstock are from CTMH. The scalloped cardstock is Bazzil, I believe. Title is a rub-on from a Creative Imaginations swatch book, the journaling box sticker is from Reminisce, and the colored stickers are CTMH. The fun flower is made using a Clear Scraps flower, painted on back with pearl paint from CTMH. I added small rub-ons from CTMH to the front along with doodles of yellow Stickles. Added some red polka dot ribbon, and stuck an EK Success bottle cap in the middle - voila! Layout also uses black grosgrain ribbon and red eyelets.
Here are Sarah & Holly meeting Princess Aurora. I LOVED making this layout, but it was not as simple as it looks! I embossed the white bling cardstock with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Since those folders aren't very big and I only have an original Sizzix, it was pretty interesting. (Now I think I need to save my change for the Big Shot!) Luckily, the random flower design made it easier to hide the "seams" and parts I couldn't quite reach! Light Pink CS is CTMH, white and med. pink are Bazzil Bling. Darker pink is velvet paper, brand unknown (I think I picked it up at Michael's). Sewed the edges of the white bling to the page. Title is from a Cricut cartridge. All of hte paper flowers, buttons, etc. is CTMH, and I think I have one rhinestone brad from 7 Gypsies on there.
You'll notice I didn't journal on the Sleeping Beauty page. Since I'm stepping out of my box and actually doing a theme album, there were a lot of pages where journaling just wasn't neccessary. And it left me more room to add "stuff"!
Now, an additional "saving" tip: do you toss your cardstock scraps? Use them up making cards. Even if you're not a card maker, kid birthdays are the perfect opportunity for practice! They never care if they don't look perfect, and you need nothing more than a single "Happy Birthday" stamp or sticker pack. If you're not comfortable designing your own, there are plenty of books available on the subject, and PageMaps even offers card sketches now. I guess that's a future entry: cards I've made from scraps.
Until next time...
Monday, November 17, 2008
Welcome!
Well, I've finally entered the blogosphere! It seems I'm all about saving these days: money, time, my sanity. So, I've decided to share some of the things that are "saving my..." I hope you find it useful, humorous, interesting enough to stop back once in a while, whatever.
So, for my first post, I thought I would talk about saving my... money. Gratefully, gas prices have once again fallen into "normal" range, but I could use a little extra jingle in my jangle if you know what I mean! Here are two things we've done that are showing a NOTICEABLE difference and might be a good idea for you too.
#1: We've changed all (well, most) of our light bulbs to CFLs.
OK, I know, you've probably heard this a million times already. But if you haven't done it yet, what the heck are you waiting for?! Seriously, it may take some getting used to, since the CFLs are a brighter, whiter light, but once you have them you'll never want to go back. In fact, I wish they made the little decorative bulbs in CFL form. And now that the price of the globe style has finally dropped I need to replace the last few holdouts in the kitchen.
As a bonus, this has not only saved us some serious cash, but since the CFLs are cooler to the touch I don't worry so much about one of the kids getting burned touching the bulb on a lamp.
#2: We've become members of an online/catalog shopping "community".
If you belong to Sam's Club, you know how a shopping membership can save you money. Just the other day, Daryl picked up some Bisquick at Sam's for about the same price as the largest box at the grocery store. Of course, it was about twice the size, so that was great savings! (Plus, if I have Daryl go, he only buys what we're out of instead of getting distracted by the clothes, office supplies, etc.)
So, what if I told you that you could join a club like this where you could shop online and not have to lug home your giant jug of laundry detergent? Plus, it's super concentrated so you won't throw out your back getting it out of the cupboard! It's also safer for your home and saves you money! My 96 oz. detergent washes 192 loads of laundry and saves me more than $20 over the brand I normally use. And yes, it WORKS!
They have tons of other products too, all designed to save you money and be safer for your family and the environment. For more information, visit the Melaleuca link over there on the side of the page, then contact us to find out ALL the great details. If you don't know our phone number, shoot us an email at thebrowns@earthlink.net.
That's it for today as I have rambled on long enough and it's late. Next time, I'll be talking about saving memories. Really, it's just an excuse to show off some great Disney scrapbooking I've been working on!
So, for my first post, I thought I would talk about saving my... money. Gratefully, gas prices have once again fallen into "normal" range, but I could use a little extra jingle in my jangle if you know what I mean! Here are two things we've done that are showing a NOTICEABLE difference and might be a good idea for you too.
#1: We've changed all (well, most) of our light bulbs to CFLs.
OK, I know, you've probably heard this a million times already. But if you haven't done it yet, what the heck are you waiting for?! Seriously, it may take some getting used to, since the CFLs are a brighter, whiter light, but once you have them you'll never want to go back. In fact, I wish they made the little decorative bulbs in CFL form. And now that the price of the globe style has finally dropped I need to replace the last few holdouts in the kitchen.
As a bonus, this has not only saved us some serious cash, but since the CFLs are cooler to the touch I don't worry so much about one of the kids getting burned touching the bulb on a lamp.
#2: We've become members of an online/catalog shopping "community".
If you belong to Sam's Club, you know how a shopping membership can save you money. Just the other day, Daryl picked up some Bisquick at Sam's for about the same price as the largest box at the grocery store. Of course, it was about twice the size, so that was great savings! (Plus, if I have Daryl go, he only buys what we're out of instead of getting distracted by the clothes, office supplies, etc.)
So, what if I told you that you could join a club like this where you could shop online and not have to lug home your giant jug of laundry detergent? Plus, it's super concentrated so you won't throw out your back getting it out of the cupboard! It's also safer for your home and saves you money! My 96 oz. detergent washes 192 loads of laundry and saves me more than $20 over the brand I normally use. And yes, it WORKS!
They have tons of other products too, all designed to save you money and be safer for your family and the environment. For more information, visit the Melaleuca link over there on the side of the page, then contact us to find out ALL the great details. If you don't know our phone number, shoot us an email at thebrowns@earthlink.net.
That's it for today as I have rambled on long enough and it's late. Next time, I'll be talking about saving memories. Really, it's just an excuse to show off some great Disney scrapbooking I've been working on!
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