The Snow Is Gone, But the Photography Is Not!

Here in Minnesota, the snow seems to last forever.  Now, earlier than usual, we have no snow this year.  My favorite season is summer.  We have too little sun here and I cherish every moment of it!  In saying good-bye to Winter, I am sharing this photo.  This was taken during the first snowfall of 2009 and I thought you might enjoy it.  Thanks to my honey, Jeff, for making sure I got time for myself and taking me out to photograph that day!

Are you finding beauty and love in your world?

I hope you enjoy the new look to my blog!  I want to start focusing more on artsy things!  Trust me, I will still do all the things that I talked about in my very first post; I just want to bring some beauty and love to the world... and this blog is where I am going to begin!  I hope you enjoy it. 


In addition to the new look and colors, I have changed the little snippet description of the blog; it now reads...

"Are you finding beauty and love in your world?" 
This is my new focus! I hope you find that this blog adds beauty and love to your world. As well as some knowledge, fun, art, home remedies, straight talk, and whatever I think of next ~ ENJOY!

That pretty much sums up my intention.  You will be seeing a new banner heading soon too.  I hope you continue to come back here and check things out.  I have a giveaway coming soon too!  Please leave me comments letting me know what you think of the new look.  And if you are not already a follower, I would love it if you would click the little button and follow me!

Baby Shower Game

This was a really fun baby shower game!  I received a large pickle or olive jar (institutional size) from my wonderful sister, Tricia!  I filled it with bunches of little things for the new baby and the new parents.  Some things that I put in this jar were bath toys, baby wash cloths, hand sanitizer, q-tips, suckers with tags for each of the parents, a matchbox car, a bottle, wipes, teething ring, toy link, baby spoons, mini-first aid kit, on the go juice packets, and ...  because my brother, Bill, the new Daddy, is a super hero fanatic... a spiderman mini-ice pack, and spiderman socks!  I then added the blue polka dot fabric top with ribbon.

We passed the jar around for the women at the party to look at, and they could only look at it for 10 seconds each!  Then guess how many items were in the jar!  It was a fun game and the new mommy, Rachael, got to keep the jar of goodies!

You could use this idea for a bridal shower or centerpiece for an over-the-hill birthday party too!

For the Guys!! Deal of the Day - TOOLS!

Here are some for the guys, I don't know any that don't like tools!

Great Gift Ideas and Handy Things for the House!

Tooliday's new tool every day

One Tool A Day's site

And one for my oldest son - Automotive Tools!  He is an automotive genius, all I know is he can fix or figure out pretty much anything mechanical! (Sorry, link removed, it appears that tooliday no longer has a separate tool special for automotive - updated 4/5/11)

I even found a great soldering iron for myself on one of these sites, one day! Woo Hoo!

More Crafting Daily Deals!

I have more daily deals for all my Artsy Crafty friends!  Back on February 1, I believe, I wrote about some great daily deal sites and now I've found more!  I will also be having some sporting and general ones coming up.  If you ever want to just see all the Daily Deal postings that I have done, just click on the daily deals link in the topic cloud in the left column.  Also remember when visiting these sites, to right click on the link and then left click on open in new tab, so that you can stay on this page too!
Updated 2/2015 (Some links that no longer work have been removed).

Kindred Creations Deal of the Day

Crazy Scrap's JW Deals

Scrapbook dot com's Featured Deal


Now, how fun is that!?  Enjoy!!

Spring-Easter Craft Project

This adorable Spring or Easter bucket is simple to make.  I just used one of the paint cans with clear plastic base that you find in the craft stores.  I cut circles for the top, a colorful one the exact size of the top and a coordinating plain colored one for inside of that.  I stamped a cute little message on it.  I did the same procedure for the center stripe inside of the can.  I also tied a bunch of coordinating ribbons to the handle.  I put some colored strips of paper on the base, inside the can.  Finally, I added the coordinating tootsie-pop suckers!

My baby brother is having a baby!  This is actually going to be a prize for one of the games at the baby shower on Sunday!  What a fabulous little door prize or hostess gift!  Whatever season or occasion it is, you can make it coordinate!

Healthy Nachos & Healthy Substitutions!

It’s all about the choices! Simple substitutions for ingredients that you normally use can make a huge impact on your calorie intact. If you are trying to eat healthier, try some of these simple substitutions taken from Nachos that my honey and I made.


Tip #1: Use baked instead of regular tortilla chips, 8.5% less calories and 68% less fat! A minor change would be white corn instead of yellow corn, but this change alone is 14% less fat.

Tip #2: Add lots of veggies! We added corn and zucchini; it was delicious and more nutritious for us.

Tip #3: Lima beans have no fat! They are by far the best choice for beans. Even if you don’t go with the lima beans, you can still save calories and fat grams. Choose Kidney Beans, Black Beans, Pinto Beans, or Red Kidney Beans over Navy Beans and Chili Beans. This simple choice will save you 30% in calories and ½ the fat! And, the Lima bean would save you 36% in calories and all the fat grams would be gone!

Tip #4: The Cheese. Yes, the cheese is a huge culprit no matter how you look at it. However, you can still make better choices, Use American, Mexican Blend – Reduced Fat, Cheez Wiz, Velveeta, or Mozzarella instead of Swiss, Monterey, Colby, or Cheddar. Now cheese is my biggest weakness, so I won’t, probably, follow my own advice. If I did, I could save 28% of the calories and 67% of the fat grams.

Tip #5: Ground Turkey vs. Ground Beef. This one’s simple. It hardly changes the taste and saves 15% of the calories and 20% of the fat grams.

Tip #6: Salsa is Fabulous! Load it on! No fat grams! One ounce has only 7 calories. Make up for smaller portions of meat and cheese with more salsa and more veggies!

Tip #7: Taco sauce is similar to salsa; very low in calories and no fat grams! The green is ½ the calories of the red however. One ounce of green is 7 calories and one ounce of red is 14 calories.

Tip #8: Most spices have very few calories and fat grams. You can use quite a bit to make your foods taste better. There are a few to watch out for though; check the powders. Chili powder and onion powder have more than you would think.

Tip #9: Use sites, such as nutritiondata.com, to compare ingredients and determine what is best for you and your health!

Imagine, you can have 1/3-1/2 the calories and fat by making simple choices! Take these notes with you the next time you go shopping, or check the labels!

Now, if you save ½ the calories, that doesn’t mean you can eat twice as much!

Portion Control is the key!

Free Music

 

There are still places on the internet that you can get free music and it's legal.  Amazon has a fabulous selection of free and reasonably priced music.  I thought I would pass this on for those that want to add some new music to your mp3 collection! Free Music Downloads on Amazon

Daily Health Habits

 

We all need to be concerned with our health.  It makes the difference on how we feel, how functional we are in a day, and how long we live.  I feel that health is the most important thing we have.  If our body is not healthy, it is very difficult to enjoy anything else in this life!  With all of this in mind, I am trying to get into the habit of doing some healthy things EVERY DAY!  So, I've created my DAILY HEALTH HABITS list.  Let me know if you think I'm forgetting something important.

1. Drink Plenty of Water

2. Take Vitamins

3. Stretching & Exercize

4. Eat Healthy & In Moderation (count calories etc)

5. Moisturize & Sunscreen

6. Relax/Meditation/Spiritual

7. Mind Growth & Learning

8. Affirmations & Personal Growth

9. Brush your Teeth

10. Hug Someone!

Now that's not so bad is it?!

Another Daily Deal! *PROMOTIONS*

As you know, I love these daily deal things!!  Well, here's one that you can't miss if you have a business, non-profit, website, blog, or anything else that you would like to promote!   You need to check out this daily deal type website! They offer a promotional product deal a day, but it is always limited and quickly sold out, so you have to keep checking back! You can also sign up for their advance notification and get emailed one hour in advance of the promotion being posted.  Enjoy!