Spooky Halloween Treats!

It's that time of year!! Costumes, pumpkins, parties and creepy treats.

Here are a few of my favorite creepy Halloween goodies:



On the menu are "Monster Toes", "Frankenstein fingers" and "Dracula Eyeballs".


Here is everything you will need to make this creepy platter:

Monster Toes:
The recipe calls for "Lil' Smokies" cocktail wieners, but when I went to buy them yesterday, they were over $4.00 a package!!! :O I passed on those, and used normal hot dogs this time. I've used the little ones in the past, and they do look a bit creepier.

1. All you do is cut the ends of the hot dog off, and make a small cut in the top for the "toenail".
2. Cut strips from a flour tortilla.
3. Wrap "toes" with tortilla bandage and secure with a toothpick. Place in oven on 350 for 7-8 minutes until heated through. (a microwave would also work)
4. "Paint" each toenail with Ketchup.


Frankenstein Fingers:
Take Pretzel rods and break them into "finger" size pieces. (I broke them in 1/2)
Dip the broken end into caramel dip (optional) and then in melted chocolate.
lay on wax paper and press a slivered almond on the end for the "fingernail".
Dracula Eyeballs
Mix 3/4 cup peanut butter
3 T. butter or margarine
slowly add 2 cups powdered sugar
and milk a little at a time (about 4 T.) to help it stick together.

Form balls, and let sit on waxed paper for 20 minutes.
Then cover peanut butter balls in white chocolate, again sit on waxed paper until dry.

Press M&M candies into each "eyeball" and add veins with red frosting or red decorators gel.
Makes 20 eyeballs.

One more idea I didn't do is to make Sugar cookie dough and dye it purple. Make small balls and press through a garlic press. When baked, the cookies look gray and like little brains!

Year Round Christmas Shopping

So.....I'm done with my Christmas shopping....how about you? :)
Okay, that's not entirely true.
I'm done shopping for my 3 boys. (with the exception of movies that haven't come to DVD yet)

I gather things all year that I find on sale or on clearance and save them for Christmas. My boys are young enough that they don't really care what they get. I know I will not be so lucky when my boys are asking for Snowboarding equipment, Lagoon passes or video game consoles. And I'm sure I'll find a few more things along the way before Christmas comes. But for the most part, I will not be running around crazy with all the other "last minute shoppers" paying whatever price is asked and trying to find Zhu Zhu pets, Tickle me Elmos, or whatever it is that will be popular this year. My boys understand that "the cool toy" this Christmas will be on clearance in April.

(Now is a great time to check for clearance summer items to put in Easter baskets. (Sand toys, bubbles, water toys) Even summer outfits, flip flops, water shirts, hats and water socks would be a great deal right now. I've seen kids size patio furniture and outdoor toys on clearance recently.)

Some things that I have gathered for stocking stuffers in the past are:

If you have boys, look after Halloween for plastic costume swords, axes and knives. I found some very sturdy swords and axes at Target last November for .99 normally $7. Santa gave them to my boys (as I type this, I find the irony in Santa giving toy weapons to my kids.....ha ha) and they LOVED them. They still play with them and they were such good quality that they still look brand new.

For little girls, you might be able to find some cheap costumes you could use for dress up costumes. What little girl wouldn't want a princess dress for the dress up drawer?

I also found some Iron Man coloring/activity books on clearance after the first movie came out. I stashed them, and now that the 2nd movie is out on DVD, my boys will be getting them in their stockings.

What about giving a new crayon package that you bought at the back to school deals? Or even a 10 cent notebook? My boys love to have their own notebook to draw and write in. (they are getting Spiderman ones I found on clearance after the back to school sale this year)

I've been able to find Backugun toys, Pokemon toys and action figures on clearance. School book fairs are currently underway and books make a great gift. (my husband is a teacher, that is my teacher plug for the day) One lady I know buys her kids each a book from the book fair for their grandma to give to them for Christmas every year. What a great way to give to the school, it's a great gift, grandma doesn't have to go out shopping and guess what size, or what the kids would like and it's something the kids want. I thought it was a great idea.

I've read of friends getting together and doing a "Stocking Stuffer Swap". That means that each person buys or makes enough small items for all the kids in the group. Then like you would a cookie swap, you all get together and "swap" items. You go home with all new, unique items.

Example:
Kathy makes 12 finger puppets
Shelly buys 12 Christmas erasers with pencils
Pat finds a deal on wedding bubbles and brings a dozen
Debbie brings 12 new packages of crayons

Each woman has 3 kids, so they all take 3 of everything and have enough goodies for all their kids.

I've never done it, but it sounds fun!

You also might want to check out this deal that was posted by freebies2deals:

Toys R Us has some sales this week that match with the Hasbro ads in the Sunday paper. Keep in mind that Walmart price matches. I've read that Toys R Us is running low on the ad items that have coupons with them. Walmart might have a larger stock of those items.

The trick is to remember what you have hidden away. I have a designated box in my storage room that holds all my finds. I went through it yesterday and was excited to see what I already had because that means I don't have to buy much if anything later on.

How do you prep for Christmas shopping?

Vacation Planning-Hotel Deals, Beyond the norm

Hotel's are a necessity for many families on vacation. Beyond the chain hotels, where else should I look?

First things first. For me.....HOTELS ARE NOT THE DESTINATION. Hotels are nothing more then a bed, and if your lucky or I should say, if you are good, a free breakfast.

Starting with a search engine is a great place to start. Trip Advisor and Virtual Tourist are our favorite sites to search for hotels. We have also used hostil.com to search for specifically hostil type hotels.

Trip Advisor
This is a great site for reviews of any hotels you are looking into. People that have stayed at that hotel rate location, cleanliness....etc. Some people list rates that they got at that hotel. When my husband and I backpacked through Europe, all the name brand hotels were way out of our price range. My husband and I used Trip Advisor to find a cheap hotel every place we went. One that we found and settled on in London was The Wellington. The location was AMAZING. It was walking distance to Big Ben, Parliament and Victoria station and the Victoria train stop.
In Prague we chose the U Melounu hostel (translates to "The Watermelon"). We were able to pay for a private room at a fraction of the price we would have paid elsewhere. The location was a little out of the way, but for the price we paid, we gladly walked where we wanted to go and we also took the city bus.
Our most recent awesome deal was in Australia where we stayed at the Hides Hotel in Cairns (gateway to the Great Barrier Reef). This hotel was another one with AMAZING location. Right in the city center in the middle of a walking mall just West of the docks.

*NOTE, all 3 of the above hotels were "shared bathrooms". (Very popular in Europe) Which means it's set up like a dorm would be here. Rooms which have sinks, a TV and a mini fridge (if you are lucky) and the bathroom and showers are located down the hall. When we first booked our "shared bathroom" room, I was a little nervous. Sharing a bathroom with the entire floor? ~I was not excited. But I soon realized that I usually had the bathroom to myself and would only occasionally see another person in the restroom at the same time. My room had a mirror and sink so I could get ready in the morning without using the community bathrooms.
**All 3 hotels also had a complimentary breakfast which means we didn't have to waste time in the morning looking for a place to eat, we woke up, ate and hit the city to see the sites.

Dorm rooms

I have also read that universities that are off season or on vacation often offer their dorms for rent for very reasonable prices. It would definitely be worth a phone call or email to the university housing department to ask if they do that.

Family and Friends
Think outside the box when looking for chain hotel deals. We are luck and have family that work in the hotel industry. If you have any friends that are in the hotel industry, they can often get a "friends" rate....it's worth calling your contact and checking into it.
Next week we are staying in a hotel on the campus of our Alma Matter. When I booked the room I asked if they had an "alumni" discount. They did. Our rate went from $79 a night to $64 a night.........because I asked....too bad they don't offer discount Football tickets too! ☺

Home made mirror

My friend shared with me her AMAZING project that she finished over the summer. I wanted to Spotlight her creativity on my blog in a special "Feature Friday" segment.

This project came from the creative mind of Chandler! :) She went to the thrift store, found and purchased an unfinished frame with a "vision" in mind. She painted the entire thing white, then she FREE HANDED.....yep, I said FREE HANDED the zebra stripes on it!

To finish it off, she added a mirror behind it.
How stinkin' cute is this?! It's useful, and unique....I LOVE IT! She could have added cork board instead of the mirror, or ribbons to hold hair clips, or even left it blank to show the wall behind.....the possibilities are endless. (I really like the mirror though)

If you have a project you would like to have featured on a "Feature Friday" send me photos and a description of what you did! I would love to see them!

My favorite websites

People always ask me where to find certain deals. Well, here is a list of my favorite websites:

www.slickdeals.net (I have this as my homepage) This site is constantly updated with great deals for all types of things. I've bought many things from Amazon, got an underwater camera case for my Cannon digital camera and tons of cheap toys.

www.kayak.com This is where I start EVERYTIME I start to price vacations. See my Vacation Airfare post for more in-depth details on kayak and travel tips.

www.allthingsthrifty.com I check this site daily too. It's mostly furniture refinishing. Brooke uses a lot of color, mostly turquoise....it's a little too crazy for me, but the ideas she has are amazing! Check out her Piano makeover, talk about motivating! Here is her version of my laundryroom art work.

www.freebies2deals.com There is also a FB page, Freebies2deals. I check the FB page daily, and every so often I check the actual website. Lots of coupon tips, free trials, and local deals.

www.thesavvyshopperdeals.com Amy also has a FB page, savvyshopperdeals. This is where I got the idea of the coupon organizer notebook that I posted here. I make it a point to take my notebook into every grocery store I go in. Yesterday I was able to get 5 marked down Kraft grated Mexican style cheese for 99¢. I bought 5 of them, and used a coupon from my coupon notebook for $5 off the purchase of 5 Kraft items. So I technically made 5¢ on the purchase.
I didn't go in with the intention of buying cheese at all, but since I had my notebook with me I scored 5 bags for FREE!

What sites do you follow that should be on this list?

My latest project

I am starting to decorate my office/craft room with a NYC/travel decor.
I have wanted a magnet board to go over my craft table for a while now. I've been looking and the size I wanted are quite expensive! I had an idea in my head of what I was going to do, I just needed to find a magnet board for the right price.

Well, after searching and searching, I decided to make my own. I had a piece of metal that we used for my sons preschool "Alphabet Town" that was blank on the back. He doesn't use it anymore, and this way I didn't have to buy a new magnet board.

I went to Home Depot and bought some wood to make a frame. I came home and cut it to size, and made the 45° angle cuts in the corners with my Miter Saw. I attached the corners with Joint Fasteners.
I then strengthened it with wood glue and filled any gaps with wood putty. (mind you, this was the best corner I used for the photo. ☺) Then I sanded it all smooth, and if there were any uneven joints I sanded them flush.

I then used the same black high gloss paint I used on my kitchen table makeover and painted the whole thing black.
I then attached the metal to the frame using large head screws. I positioned the screws so the heads caught the metal and pressed it into the wood. Hardware was attached to hang it with.

I really liked it painted black. It had a nice crisp clean feel to it.
But my vision was to Modge Podge a pack of "Landscape" flash cards I picked up in the Target $1 bin all over it. Because the black turned out so well, I thought I might want to have a solid black frame later on, so I used hot glue, sticky dots and double sided tape to attach my Landscapes so I could take them off later if I wanted to.
I really like the way it turned out. I started off wanting to bend and cut the flash cards so they were molded to the frame, but I kind of like how they look like post cards now. And I like how they are temporary so I can move the magnet board to another place, take the flash cards off and have a nice black frame around it.

Cost:
Magnet board-Free (I originally paid $7 for it from my sons preschool)
Wood for frame-$1.67 each. I used 2.
Joint fasteners-$1.40 for a box of 30. I kept bending them, I was grateful they came with 30 pieces!
Wood glue and putty-Free, I already had them. They are about $2 a bottle
Paint-Free, left over from another project. I could have used spray paint, that would have been cheap
Hardware-$3.00 I bought a packet of 20 different pieces for future use.
Landmark Flash Cards- $1.00

So total cost for me was about $7.00. From scratch, this would have cost about $20.00.

I have a ton of joint fasteners left if anyone wants to do a project! :)

The Biggest Loser Boot Camp For Chasers Fund

I read about Chase on one of my favorite sites: www.allthingsthrifty.com

She posted about Chase here.

His family was contacted by Sione and Filipe from Biggest Loser about doing a fundraiser for Chase. Click on the link below for details.

The Biggest Loser Boot Camp For Chasers Fund

Laundry Room decor

I wanted to add some color to my laundry room, but nothing permanent. I went to Home Depot and bought a scrap piece of "puzzle board" that happened to be the exact size I wanted. I don't know the technical term for it, but it's smooth on one side and has an unfinished soft back side....like in the old wooden puzzles we use to play with.

Here's what I did:
I painted the entire board white.
Using different size dining plates and lids I traced circles on my board. (make sure some go off the edge)
Then I used 3 different colors of tole paint from Walmart and filled in my circles.
I debated on hanging it vertical or horizontal...horizontal won. :) I used Mirror hangers to attach it to the wall. I love the way it turned out, and that it's not painted on the wall. I can take it down whenever I want.

If you wanted to you could use embroidery hoops to give it some depth, or you could even make a frame to hold it in. A finished project with the hoops can be seen here.

I also added some vinyl:













I loved both of these vinyl signs. I thought the laundry logos were so unique and I fell in love with the Laundry Room sign. My friend Lexi at www.ramblingsvinyl.blogspot.com made them for me. She's amazing, she can do anything.

New Living Room Revealed

Before:
After:

I am SO in love with my new front room! So here's the break down of what I did:

1. Got rid of the ugly green couches and dark coffee and end tables that were a hand me down gift when we got married 12 years ago.
2. Got rid of old area rug and shampooed the carpet
3. Added NEW Ashley Furniture couch set we got at an AMAZING price at the new store opening Manager's Specials over Labor Day.
4. I got the accent rug at Shopko on sale for 40% off
5. I wanted a "dark chunky table" to put photos on where the 2 couches meet in the corner. But I didn't want it to show very much. The measurements had to be 36" X 36" and 24" high. I was so excited to find the exact table I wanted at Target on clearance!
   

(the photo is of the picture on the box)
The box said "36 X 36 X 30. We thought "close enough". 6" isn't that much, and it will be in a corner.
We took it home, put it together and set it up where we wanted it and......it was too tall. (you could have used it for a dining room table it was so tall) I loved the table and loved the price....So this is what we did to it:
:)
Now it's the PERFECT table that we wanted and at less then 1/2 the price we were willing to spend!
Now......it's time for new carpet through out the house......hummmm! ha ha!

As I posted before, I have realized that, for me, "less is more" when it comes to a clutter-free home. We were looking for a new coffee table, I'm SO glad we waited till we put the room together. I like it without a coffee table in the middle of the room to be a catch-all....and we saved the $100 we would have spent on it. I think that's pretty thrifty!

Refinishing a shelf

My grandma was cleaning out her basement and found this shelf and offered it to me for my sons room. (to hang his sports medals on)
I painted it with spray primer I had in the garage:
(this was the beginning of my primer application. I covered the entire thing evenly)
Then I painted it with some Black High Gloss spray paint I also had in my garage. Here it is!














I loved the way it turned out! I'm going to hang it in my sons "castle" room. (Don't worry, you will see that one revealed later) Now he will have a place to hang his medals so they can be displayed and not just hung in a massive bunch on one hook.

Total cost: FREE!! :)





And here is the finished project hanging in his "castle room".

Clothes shopping tips

We had some cold weather here a few days ago, and my eight year old informed me he had no pants that fit him. I didn't believe him so I checked and in fact, he had no pants that fit him.

So armed with an assortment of coupons, I headed to the Old Navy Outlet in hopes of finding some cheap pants...(in season, YA RIGHT!...) The ON Outlet was having a 40% off of everything sale. I had a coupon that wasn't working at the register (it should have), so my AWESOME cashier over-rode it. So here is what I did:

$19.99 1 pair Painters Jeans, size 8
- $10 gift card I got in the mail
-40% off (outlet store sale)
-20% off Outlet mall coupon
+ tax
For a grand total of $2.33 It was amazing. I was afraid that I was shopping "in season" and was going to have to bite the bullet and pay RETAIL!!!! I ♥ Old Navy.

This experience brings me to another great shopping tip:

DO NOT SHOP IN SEASON. (if you can help it) ;)
Now is the best time of year to stock up on sandals, shorts, and swims suites for next year. Just buy a size bigger then what your kids wear right now and you will be all set for next Summer! Also be on the look out for swim shirts. They can be really pricey if you get them in season.

I found a few swimsuits (Tankinis) on clearance last February for $2.50 a piece (top and bottom). So my whole suite cost me $5.00. We go through suites very quickly in my family, so I'm not too picky about what they look like, but these were REALLY cute suits! And funny thing is, they are the ones that get the compliments when I wear them. After my sisters tell me how cute my suite is, it's so fun to say "Ya, I got it at Target for $5". :)