Upromise Coupons and Deals

Upromise Coupons and Deals

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Great Article in Real Simple, and a crocheted beanie for the new freshman!

I thought I would start out with a picture of the beanie I just made for our son. He will be a freshman this year, and wanted a red beaning for school. Their colors are red and white, so I'm sure I will make another one in those colors! This was a very simple pattern that I found on Ravelry. It's a cotton skull cap, or makes a great chemo cap as well. Go to: yarnsandmusings For this awesome pattern! On this particular beanie I didn't do the crab stitch, but I have made these in the past and the crab stitch makes it so cool! I'm thinking that since I have SOOOO much Sugar & Cream and also Peaches & Cream yarn, I will make some as chemo caps to take to our local Cancer services.

O.K. So now onto this great article! I am way behind on reading my magazines, have no idea how that happened, maybe because my life has been so hectic this last month! More on that later. So last night I figured that I had better organize my magazines and start reading all the august issues, since I was already getting Septembers! I found this great article in Real Simple titled "10 ways to enjoy doing nothing". I was so excited to see it! 10 ways to do nothing, and enjoy it? That is so for me right now! Tom Hodgkinson has devoted his career to the art of being idle, I so love this idea, don't you? So here are a few of the ten ideas he has for having idle time...

1. Banish guilt.. He mentions that the great monks in the middle ages spent a lot of time just praying and chanting all day. He says not to feel guilty about just lolling around.

2. This one I really liked... Choose the right role models. He tells us that most of the great poets were idlers. To name a few, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Keats. For therapy, he says to carry around some works of Keats to look at from time to time. Keats wrote of "Evenings steep'd in honied indolence", doesn't that just sound like heaven?! He also mentions that Wordsworth is also a good poet to check out. "Read a few lines, then stare out the window and ponder their meaning", that sounds like some awesome idle time to me!

3. Take a nap, and he's not talking a "Power Nap", He's talking a real nap! When I can, I actually do this, power naps just make me more tired, why try to sleep for just 15 minutes?

4. Gaze at the clouds or lay in the backyard and do nothing. He mentions that this is great way to take a break from "doing". Listen to the birds and smell the different smells of summer.

So, I thought of another thing to do, crochet! If you can just crochet something so simple that you don't really need to think about it, isn't that idle time as well?

I think today I am going to take him up on some of his idle time ideas, I'm sure I will feel a world of less stress if I just take a few minutes to think about "nothing".

HELP! We have TONS of ripe bananas!

I have a ton of organic bananas that are too ripe to eat now. We had been eating bananas like crazy, so I bought more than I usually do, so of course then we stopped eating them so much!
I peeled them and put them in the freezer, but am now wondering what to do with them. We have 2 gallon ziploc bags in the freezer full of bananas, and we are really sick of smoothies. I just got done using 2 of them for banana cupcakes using the yellow Betty Crocker gluten free cake mix, but need more gluten free ideas.

SO, your challenge, if you choose to except it, is to send me some awesome ideas for using up these bananas. Thanks so much!


On the crochet front, I am still struggling with trying to find a project that gets me excited to crochet again. Not sure if I'm going through crochet pattern overload or what, but I really want to break out of this slump. I did make some boobie beer cozies for my hubby and his friends, that was fun, but don't want to post the picture being it is more of adult content. I found the idea on Ravelry, but made the pattern up on my own to make it without a bottom, this also made it easier and faster to make. Let me know if you want to see a picture, I'm thinking of making another one, less racy, and sell the pattern on etsy. I have some other ideas for different themed cozies, so we'll see what I can come up with and not get frustrated and quit before I begin! lol.

Thanks so much to everyone for reading my blog. I really want to be posting every day about all the cool things to make my home and yours cozy, so keep coming back to see what's new.

Eating Mindfully is very frugal!!!

I was reading beliefnet.com this morning, and found this post about eating mindfully for your mental and physical health. My first thought was, wow, what a great way to be frugal too, like killing 2 birds with 1 stone!

Eat Mindfully

I have found that the key component to adhering to a proper eating plan and getting in exercise is: planning. I know, not very exciting. But it works! If I have meals planned ahead, then I am less likely to mindlessly nosh. It also helps to have meals prepared ahead--to the extent possible. Also, regular meals tends to reduce the temptation to stray from eating plan. This takes some time to do, but if you are wanting to improve your overall health, it's worth the time to do this.

Latte Cozy by Lion Brand

I just got done making this Latte Cozy by lion brand. This was such a fun and fast project! I used lion brand wool prints instead of the Vanna's choice, which I liked better because of the fun stripes it made. If you would like to make one of these cute latte cozy's please go here.

Yeah, I'm crocheting again!

This cute dishcloth was on lion brands website. I used Peaches and cream, and also some sugar and cream to make my version of this dishcloth. I am hoping to make more of these in the next few days, all different colors.

Cute Little Tommy Tiger!

I just found the cutest tiger crochet pattern on Lion Brand! Tommy Tiger<-Click there if you want to make him. I can't find the vanna's choice orange/white yarn anywhere in town, so I am going to try to make him with orange/cream/white peaches and cream yarn. Of course I will post the pictures when I'm done with him. Isn't he so cute?! There is also a Tammy Tiger made with a different vanna's choice color combo.

Menu, Great deals, New Paper Treat & Crochet!

Hey All! Above is a new little tag album that I just made in a beach theme today. I have been really itching to get crafting both with paper and yarn lately, so I started with the paper today. I am planning on putting this little tag album up on my artfire page for sale. On a great note, I sold one of my beginner crochet choker kits! I am so excited that I sold this kit, and hope that this is just the beginning on sales.

On a crochet note, I was very excited when I saw the new Mary Janes Farm magazine in my mail box today, and imagine how thrilled I was when I saw 2 crochet patterns in Mary Janes Farm, one for a upcycled market bag, and also an easy slipper pattern! If you haven't checked out this magazine please do so, it is so awesome, I'm totally hooked on it, and keep all of my issues to reference back to. You can check out Mary Janes website at www.maryjanesfarm.com.

Menu, Menu, Menu,
I have decided to just make up a list of dinner ideas of things I have on hand, instead of having every night scheduled. This doesn't seem to work when we are so busy, and never know what the weather might do. So here is my list of dinner meal ideas.....
1. London Broil on the bbq
2. Homemade pizza
3. BBQ Burgers
4. Drunk Chicken on the BBQ
5. Breakfast for dinner, pancakes, waffles, or something to that effect.
6. BBQ Catfish
7. Steak Tacos from leftover London Broil.

I also have a list of goodies for us and our fury kid Chelsea....
1. Chocolate Mayo Cake
2. Peanut Butter Cookies, Gluten Free, to use for S'mores instead of grahams.
3. Tuna Pasta Salad, with GF Shells
4. Cheesy Dog Biscuits
5. Gluten Free Mama's Scones
6. Gluten Free Muffins
7. Ranch Hummus.


And the Great Deals of the day!

I spent a total of $23.99 for the week on groceries at Wal-mart! I did do a lot of stocking up on dressing (8 cents each!), Mayo (75 cents off), and bbq sauce (50 cents off). This doesn't include the beer, but I'm thinking we have more than enough for this weekend.

1. GV unsalted butter 2/$3
2. GV 1% Milk 2 @ $1.59
3. GV Hamburger & Hotdog buns 1 each at .79 (these are for the hubby, so they last a long time. I just keep a couple out at a time, and keep the rest of the bag in the freezer.
4. GV Light Sour Cream $1.06
5. Peaches 1.35 lbs @ .95 per pound $1.28
6. Organic Salad mix, Big package.. $4.68
7. GV Freezer bags 2.48 (Had to finally throw away some bags again that I had been re-using, bummer! I hate buying zip loc bags.)
8. Red Grapes .98 lb, 2.14 lbs $2.10
9. 3 Kraft Dressing $1.58 -$1.50 coupon .8 cents each
10. Kraft Mayo $2.50 -.75 cent coupon, $1.75
11. Kraft BBQ Sauce .98 cents - 50 cent coupon, .48 cents!

Grand Total???? $23.99! Yeah!!!! I love getting good deals, and especially 8 cent dressing. I am hoping to find more $1.50 dressing coupons, really want to stock up to 19 bottles, have 6 so far.

Stay tuned for some new beanies, am hoping to get motivated to make some new beanies in some fun yarns!

New By the sea chokers!

Well I just updated my etsy store with a few of my new seashell chokers. Check them out and let me know what you think! I really want to get my etsy store off the ground, now that I am at home again, I want to be able to sell my creations to help with the little things that come up here and there. So please check out my store from time to time, I am going to really be trying to fill it full over the next few months.

A Reuse for an old metal t.v. tray!

I found this really cool idea in country living magazine this month. They used an old, metal, t.v. tray as a message center. I happened to have one lying around, but it had a very crazy print on it, like the old 70's prints that were so popular, in the 70's! :)
So, I found a can of navy blue spray paint, and some red and white acrylic paints, and TA DA! My very own, original americana message center that goes with my livingroom decor. I also used an old stamp set I had from Stampin' Up to make the design on it. I tried a stencil first, but it just didn't look good. Here is a picture of the "Message center" before I have things on it and up on the wall....

Wish I would have thought about taking some pics before I started, but I was so excited about this project that I started it without thinking about before pictures!

What to make? What to make? Maybe Drew can help!

Well, it's been almost 2 months since I did any crocheting, and really want to get back into the swing of things. I picked out some different projects, but just can't seem to get myself motivated to pick up the hook and yarn yet. I did pick out some cute flip flop coasters to make by Drew Emborsky, Here is the link to the pattern: Flip Flop Coasters. I was also thinking about making some pet snugglies and toys as well. I really should be thinking about starting my Christmas gifts, I always seem to wait until the last minute, and then not get them done.
So, the jury is still out as to if I am just in the summer mode of playing, or am at a crochet road block! Anyone else ever been in this position? Would love some feed back on how to get out of this crochet/scrapbook/stamping/crafting slump that I'm in!