Home is where the heart is. And since our hearts want to be thrifty and green, that’s what we work toward with these posts. Read about home projects, cleaning and organizing, and food (meal plans and recipes).
These are delicious and so easy to make- my kiddo loves helping at every step in the process. Win win! Note: Pretzels are the base for all of these treats. We used regular and gluten-free varieties. We laid out the pretzels, put the chocolate candy of choice on top, popped them in the oven at 350 degrees for three minutes, then finally squished a nut or another candy on top. Once they completely cooled, they were ready for party snacking…
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Who says wrapping paper and bows are just for presents? These cheap but festive items can really spice up any holiday decorating in your home. We put my husband’s nutcrackers on the mantel, but it needed something to snaz it up. So, I used my daughter’s free poster from the nutcracker, wrapping paper and bows to do the job. I added the bows about the nutcrackers and the wrapping paper pieces to the wall. Festive feel up 100% ?: This…
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Due to our health insurance coverage and budgeting, we had to get some very plain eyeglasses for my daughter’s first pair of frames. You can read about that frugal experience and how we saved over $300 on the frames here. But I wanted my kiddo to love her glasses, and they were boring compared to the frames she had really wanted. So I did some brainstorming. How can you add serious personality to plain eyeglasses? And how can you change the…
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It is extremely important to clean the gutters on your home at least once a year. Twice a year is even better. You don’t want to skip it. Why? Gutter cleaning is one of those small home maintenance jobs that keeps other bigger and badder things from happening. However, it can be a bit expensive to hire someone to clean the gutters for you. For our smaller home, it would run about $100 per gutter cleaning. So I tried to…
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Are you tired of losing your child’s iron-on scout badges? But do you also cringe at the thought of hand sewing badges instead? Never fear! I’ve got some tips for you that will help you hand sew them all on without getting murderous thoughts. My daughter’s troop is very active and she ends up with a LOT of badges. I kid you not- I had over 50 badges to sew on her brownie vest this year alone. And she still…
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This is one of my favorite ways to eat veggies. Slice up two zucchini, grill them up, add a couple splashes of lemon juice and a teaspoon of chopped garlic, then sprinkle parmesan over all. Be generous with the cheese! Flip and continue to grill until cheese is a mix of crispy and melty. I apparently like this so much that I forgot to take a final photo before I scarfed it all down, so I will just have to…
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Ah, the power of power washing! I knew the patio needed to be cleaned, but I had no idea how badly. My in-laws let me borrow their power washer and I set to work spraying it down this morning. Once I got everything hooked up correctly and figured out how to turn it on, things went smoothly. Well, as long as you don’t mind getting dirty. By the time I finished power washing the patio, I was covered in a…
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Newspaper. Cut newspaper to the size of every frame you plan to hang on the wall. Then tape them where you think you want them on the wall. Take pictures, move, measure spacing, align, and review until you are happy with the groupings and look of the newspaper shapes on the wall. Then nail away! This saves a lot of heart ache and provides good results every time. I forgot to take photos of the newspaper when I hung these…
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The projector shelf was doing its job, but it was very plain. I added edging (leftover from our wood flooring install last year) that I spray painted white. This was the first time I had to cut 45 degree angles and it was a learning experience. It was really tough and I splintered the wood and scraped up the paint a lot. But I discovered that it was easily touched up with a bit of white out. Then I used…
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When it starts getting cooler, it’s time to get creative with the last of your veggie garden harvest. You can make the most of your tomato plants right to the very end, when it gets too cold for the last of the tomatoes to finish ripening on the vine. We had our first freeze this week so I had to save all the last of the tomatoes from our three tomato plants- all still very green. But hey, why let…
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