Works for me Wednesday - Digital Scrapbooking Trick or Treat

Trick or Treating for Digital Scrapbooking! Now this is my idea of Trick or Treating. No calories and collecting a fun collaboration kit. When Scrap Orchard and Sunshine Studio Scraps team up, you know it is going to be awesome! So on Friday be sure to visit Ziggle Designs Blog to start the blog hopping. You can go to Ziggle Designs Blog right now and see her fabulous new kits and offers as well as snag a gorgeous free paper pack that coordinates with one of her new kits. Free digital scrapbooking goodies... Works For Me! For more fun tips and ideas on a variety of subjects visit the Rocks In My Dryer blog by clicking the image above.

Works for me Wednesday - Dropping Weight

Dropping Weight
Ok so here goes - I'm fessing up! I can't breath when I put on my jeans. You know how it is (at least I think you do) when you go all summer without wearing your jeans and then when the weather changes you pull out your jeans and act surprised when they don't fit the same as they did the last time you wore them. I have no one to blame but myself for all the indulgence of ice cream and snacks through the summer months. With the kids home all day asking for snacks at various times of the day I would treat myself several times a day when getting them a snack. I decided that rather than waiting until after the holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas) all of which tend to indulge my weight gaining trend, I would be proactive and loose the weight before the holidays and then keep myself in check over the holidays to not put it back on.

Now I am only talking about 10 pounds which can safely be lost over a few months. I am well on my way after just 3 and a half weeks and I have lost 4 pounds. The changes have been very minimal. I joined SparkPeople and have been tracking my activity level and my water and food consumption. If you have never checked out this program it is free and I have found it very motivating. Getting back into my jeans before the holidays - works for me. For more tips and ideas visit Works for Me Wednesday by clicking on the image above.

Works for me Wednesday: Fun Family Game

Fun Family Game:
Recently we went to Wendy's for dinner and the kids meal toy was a little scavenger hunt game. My kids loved playing it but I could see where we could improve upon it. I can't find where my kids have put it at the moment so I can't tell you exactly what it is called but we played it a bit differently than the rules and I intend to make up a version for our family that is more individualized anyway. In the game was a small deck of cards and on each card was a "scavenger hunt" item. This was the only part of the game we used. What I did was shuffle them and then give 5 cards to each child and then on my cue they could pick them up to look at them. When I said, "go" they would run from the room and try to be the first one to gather up the 5 items. The first one back to me with their items would win. I would then make them quickly return all the items back to their appropriate locations before we would start the next round. Otherwise you could quickly end up with all kinds of random things piled up that "you" would have to put away at the end of game playing.
The scavenger hunt cards had items like the following on them:
rock
plastic bottle
ruler
stamp
key
then there were several alphabet related cards that said "something that starts with the letter "b""
there were also several color related cards that said "something that is the color red"
So for the letter ones it was all different letters and the colors were several different colors. I hope that makes since.
Anyway the cards were very small and there were some items that were not easily accessible in our house and then of course I thought of several items that were easily available in our home that I decided I want to recreate the game and make it more personalized to our family and home. I am going to use index cards so that they can keep track of them better. My kids loved playing this and it cost next to nothing. Try it with your family and see how they like it. For more tips and ideas visit the Works for me Wednesday thread by clicking on the image above.

Works for me Wednesday

I must admit that my tip today is from one of my digi scrappin friends blogs Theresa Marie. I am going to respect her privacy and not link you over to her blog. She share some menu ideas and I am always on the look for quick and tasty. I think these will fit the bill.

One of the recipes she shared was for goulash. I must admit that in my whole life I have only had it once and do not remember if I liked it or not. So I think it is a good idea to try it again and see. The only thing I do remember is that it was what was for dinner when I went on a babysitting job at the age of 11 or so. The family had 6 kids and paid 50 cents an hour and the babysitting was awful lol. And now....

Dinner Menu Ideas

Theresa said, "Goulash recipe = 1lb cooked hamburger, slightly under-cooked elbow noodles, 1 can tomato soup, 1 can tomato paste, 1 can pork & beans, 1 can corn and water as needed if it looks dry. put all on low in crockpot for 4 hours or so.... WAY easy :) and it's comfort food here."

And she shared the links to these two recipes too.
Honey Glazed "dump" Chicken
Chili Maple Glazed "dump" Chicken
I buy my meat in large bulk packages too and so I think these "dump" recipes will work well for me. I love the idea of adding the ingredients to the bag before freezing it and then it is ready to go when you thaw it. Can't wait to try these out. Hope you'll enjoy too. Thanks my friend Theresa! For more great tips click on the Works for Me image above.

Removing Moisture From a Watch

Ok I really do enjoy the Rocks in my dryer site and now that the kids are back in school I am hopeful that I will be able to post a helpful tip each week. Today's tip:

Removing Moisture From a Watch

This summer Clayne got some water in his favorite watch. It was just a little bit of moisture under the face plate and it made it hard to clearly see the time. His watch isn't the cheapo WalMart type so I really wanted to try and save it. We placed the watch in a mason jar full of uncooked rice with a tight lid and in about 24 hours the rice had absorbed the moisture from his watch and it is as good as new. Clayne has a co-worker that removed water from a cell phone in a like manner and had good results. Hope this proves helpful to others too. Have a great day. For more helpful tips and ideas visit RocksInMyDryer.net

Inexpensive Digital Layout Printing

I am so excited about this new site I found called MyPicTales Starting July 26 you will be able to upload your already created scrapbook pages for printing of individual pages. I don't scrapbook chronologically so this is a great thing to me. Many places do bound books (and yes they do offer that service too) but since I don't work on my pages in order I am reluctant to make a book only to find that later I will create a page that belongs between the pages of an already bound book. Anyway here is the great news about this site.

5X7 - $0.50 per page

8X8 - $0.50 per page

8.5X11 - $0.50 per page

10X10 - $0.50 per page

12X12 - $0.75 per page

These are not introductory prices but will be their everyday prices. If you have priced printing at all, you will know that this is phenomenal! And this is not the end of the good news. There is a wonderful introductory offer. On the 26th, the new product will launch. At that time, you first need to make a purchase for $10 worth of layouts (excluding shipping). Immediately two coupons for 100 free layouts each will be sent to you. These coupons have different expiry dates which you will also be made aware of.

So I am planning to order 20 pages for printing when the site is ready which will cost me $10 plus shipping which I have researched and it will be right around $5. I then will get coupons to print an additional 200 free pages (any size)! I am so pumped. I plan to print my pages as 8x8 and have bought a cute album to slide them into. I bought my album at Roberts with a 40% off coupon and so will be able to have a 20 page book when I am done for less than $20 for the pages and the album! Plus I will be able to rearrange the pages as I fill in the spaces over time.

Anyway I just love to find a good deal and so was happy to share my find with you. Now I am off to create more pages so I can print them up at this fab deal! For more great ideas and tips visit Rocks In My Dryer.

Works for me Wednesday

Cleaning your garbage disposal

This tip was one that I found on Get Organized Now Take a few minutes and chop ice in your garbage disposal to clean it out. You will appreciate the freshening that grinding the ice will provide.

Works for me Wednesday and some Grocery Tips

This week the topic is recipes with 5 ingredients or less. There are already over 300 entries to scan over and pick up some new quick and easy recipes. Click here to go to that post. I am excited to take a look. I am going to share one that we like.

Slush
4 Cups sugar
3 Ounce Jell-o, flavor of your choice
2 Liter Sprite
11 Cups water
46 Ounce Pineapple Juice

Boil 4 cups of water with the sugar until dissolved. Then add Jell-o. Add pineapple juice. Add 7 more cups of water and mix. Freeze this mixture. Take out of freezer about one hour before you plan to serve it so that it will become slushy. mix with Spirte and serve.

I also wanted to share a few grocery tips that I found in the newest copy of LDS living. I don't know why it had never occurred to me to freeze these two items: Milk or Eggs! If there is a good sale on milk or if you are leaving town and it will spoil before you return, you can freeze it. Just be sure to remove about a cup from a full jug to allow for expansion. And eggs - you know when they come on sale for a great deal around Easter or occasionally just on sale for whatever reason, well you can break them open and store them in a Ziploc bag. I will let you know if I find other helpful tidbits in this article when I have time to finish reading it.

Summer Library Reading Program

Mom I'm Bored Edition

Each summer I take my kids over to the local library and sign them up for the summer reading program. I require my kids to do some reading every day during the summer anyway so why not get them signed up where they can get some prizes along the way. This also provides us with new reading material as we frequent the library almost every week. The librarian tried to talk Savannah into doing the program where mom reads to the child for one more year but she was not going to have any of that. She just finished kindergarten but is my best reader at that age I have had yet. She is doing really well at reading some of the early reader books from the library and is quite pleased with herself. When the kids earn their prizes from the library it gives us even more opportunity for outings as we visit local businesses to collect free fries or cinnamon rolls, etc.

Want more ideas of how to keep your kids entertained this summer? Head on over to the Rocks In My Dryer site and check it out.