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Shared Dec 15, 2011 comment

21 Days to a More Organized Christmas: Turn on the Christmas Music

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21 Days to a More Organized Christmas: Turn on the Christmas Music

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Christmas would not be Christmas to me without wonderful Christmas music playing in the background. When I was growing up, we always had a special stack of Christmas records and cassettes (yes, remember those?) that we pulled out to play only at Christmas time. Pulling out the Christmas records and cassettes always signaled that Christmas time was really here.

We decorated the Christmas tree, baked cookies for the neighbors, made homemade gifts for the grandparents, drank hot cocoa, wrapped Christmas presents, and celebrated our family gatherings with Christmas music playing in the background. It set the tone for so many special memories.

Today, we’ve traded the records and cassettes for MP3s, but Christmas still wouldn’t be the same without the music. I like to buy a new album or two each year to add to our family’s collection. And then we rotate playing our Christmas music all December long.

Here are three of my favorite Christmas albums:

A Hymnworks Christmas

Merry Little Christmas — this album is a new one for us this year and we’ve loved it. You can download a free song here.

He is Born — This CD is by my sister so I happen to be a little biased. 🙂 You can listen to sample clips from most of the songs here.

What are your favorite Christmas albums? I’d love to hear!

Practical Application

If you haven’t done so already, pull out your Christmas CDs or download some free Christmas music and have it playing in the background at your home over the next 10 days. You can also create a Christmas station on Pandora to have playing on your computer or listen to Abiding Radio’s livestream Christmas station.

photo by yvestown

Shared Dec 15, 2011 comment

Fun & Frugal Gift Idea: Homemade Marshmallow Shooter Kit

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Fun & Frugal Gift Idea: Homemade Marshmallow Shooter Kit

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Thrifty and Thriving has a tutorial for how to make a homemade marshmallow shooter kit complete with a printable label and instructions.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Dec 14, 2011 comment

When a broken furnace suddenly became inconsequential

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When a broken furnace suddenly became inconsequential

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It was a bitterly cold morning outside that morning. And our usually snug and warm home felt freezing because the heater had stopped working in the middle of the night. We had friends at our house and it was steadily getting colder.

We shivered in our coats and tried to stay active until the repairman arrived. He discovered our thermostat had gone bad and then there was a wiring issue, so it was another four hours before the furnace was fixed. It was a long and cold day and I was so relieved that we finally had heat again after shivering under layers trying to stay warm all day!

Two weeks later, we were driving downtown on another frigidly cold day. We passed the local homeless shelter where many were gathered and huddled outside the doors waiting for 5 p.m. to arrive so they could go inside for a hot meal and a bed.

It struck me anew how much we take for granted. It felt like a fairly big inconvenience to not have our furnace working for a day. But we still had shelter, an oven to cook warm food in, space heaters, electricity, and coats. We had money in the bank to pay a repairman to come fix the furnace. We had a car with a working heater we could have piled in had it gotten too cold. We had friends’ houses we could have gone to to hang out at if our furnace had been broken for longer than a day.

These people standing outside the shelter had nothing but the well-worn clothes on their backs and the possessions in their tattered grocery sacks. They had no home to go to, no car to drive, no refrigerator full of food, no closet full of coats, probably little or no money, and likely no steady source of income.

All of a sudden, the “big inconvenience” of one day without a working furnace seemed so minor and inconsequential. I’d wager that every person standing in line at the homeless shelter would have excitedly jumped at the opportunity to have a non-working furnace be their biggest problem for the day.

So today, in the midst of whatever problems and struggles you’re facing in life, remember that if you have a place to live, a working vehicle, more than three changes of clothes, running water, and food to eat, you are immensely blessed.

If you haven’t read it before, go read Amy’s fantastic post, Somebody Wants What You Have.

photo credit

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Dec 14, 2011 comment

Ask the Readers: Is it worth it to upgrade to a smartphone?

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Ask the Readers: Is it worth it to upgrade to a smartphone?

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Today’s questions is from Liz:

I’m looking to upgrade my phone soon. Could I save enough money with the apps to make it worth paying extra to buy a smartphone? Also, any suggestions on phones you’d recommend or money-saving apps? -Liz

Do you have a question you’d like to ask Money Saving Mom® readers? Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.

Shared Dec 14, 2011 comment

Fun & Frugal Gift Ideas: Colorful Crayons & Soap Crayons

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Fun & Frugal Gift Ideas: Colorful Crayons & Soap Crayons

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It’s Gravy Baby shows you how to make your own crayons.

And she also shows you how to make soap crayons. Love this idea!

Have you blogged about a unique and inexpensive last-minute gift idea? Submit it here for possible publication in the next week.

Shared Dec 14, 2011 comment

A Handmade Christmas: Pottery Barn Vase

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A Handmade Christmas: Pottery Barn Vase

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Guest post by Amy from While Wearing Heels

This Christmas, why not wow with a gift that looks like it came straight from Pottery Barn?

Where else would you go to create your Pottery Barn inspired gift?  The Dollar Store, of course.

Load up your basket with a glass candle stick, a tall glass vase, a pillar candle, some white tissue paper, and a bag of cranberries (okay, you might have to go to the grocery store to buy the cranberries).

To create your hurricane, you’ll need some Gorilla Glue. Apply some Gorilla Glue to the top of your candle stick. Be warned: a little goes a long way. Put the candle stick on top of the vase and allow plenty of time for it to dry and adhere.

Now to give your pillar candle some Christmas cheer. The possibilities are endless, you could add a black and white picture or a poem to your candle. I decided to add some Christmas music to my candle.

Whatever you decide to add to your candle, you’ll need to print it onto your tissue paper. First, grab a piece of card stock (the color does not matter), some tissue paper, and some tape.

Tape your tissue paper onto the card stock.  To prevent printer jams, make sure you tape all edges of the tissue paper onto the card stock.

Make sure to load the tissue paper into your printer in the direction that will result in the tissue paper side being printed on and not the card stock. Then print your design. You may also want to guide the card stock/tissue paper by gently pushing down on it as the printer is pulling it through.

When it comes out of the printer, it should look something like this:

Cut the edges to free your printed tissue paper. This is far easier then trying to remove the pieces of tape.

Wrap the tissue paper around your pillar candle. I secured my tissue paper into place using a few push pins.

Grab your hair dryer. Set it on high or hot and begin to apply heat to the tissue paper.  You will start to see the candle wax grabbing ahold of the tissue paper.

Continue working your way around the candle, heating every part of the tissue paper to the pillar candle.The last step, putting it all together. Put some of those cranberries into the bottom of the hurricane vase.

Then add your pillar candle.

What’s better than a Pottery Barn gift? A gift made from the heart on a Dollar Store budget.

I’m Amy from While Wearing Heels. I am an avid DIYer and find it so much more satisfying to either make something myself for a fraction of the retail cost or find something for an incredible deal in an unexpected place. If you liked this money-saving idea, please feel free to stop by my blog and check out some of my other ideas.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Dec 14, 2011 comment

The 5 Best Toys of All Time

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The 5 Best Toys of All Time

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Silas, in April of 2010, playing with a box (It’s amazing how much he’s grown up in the last year and a half!)

Who says you need to spend hundreds of dollars on fancy gadgets and gizmos for children to have fun? GeekDad says the top five toys of all time are:

1. Sticks

2. Cardboard Boxes

3. String

4. Cardboard Tube

5. Dirt

Go read the full article if you need a laugh or just a reminder that sometimes the best things in life don’t cost any money.

Related: Dealing With Toy Overload

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Money Saving Mom
Shared Dec 13, 2011 comment

21 Days to a More Organized Christmas: Mail Your Christmas Cards–or not!

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21 Days to a More Organized Christmas: Mail Your Christmas Cards–or not!

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

As a child, one of the highlights of Christmas was receiving all the Christmas cards and letters from friends near and far. We’d keep the letters in a basket, string the cards around our living room, and put the family pictures on the refrigerator.

Sometimes, the Christmas letter was our only real communication with friends from our past. But it kept us up on their lives and gave us a small sense of connection, even though our paths had drifted apart.

It was always exciting to hear of marriages, babies, grandchildren, trips, new jobs, and exciting adventures. It was fun to see how the family pictures changed over the years. And it was always somewhat of a thrill to see how many strings of cards we’d be able to hang up.

Many people opt not to send Christmas cards or letters any more. There are many valid reasons given: “We’re too busy living life to take the time to write about it.” “We can’t afford to mail cards since postage has gone up so much.” Or maybe, “We didn’t get a decent family picture.”

I definitely think that Christmas cards and letters are an optional aspect of Christmas and I totally respect people who have chosen not to send cards in order to keep Christmas simple. That said, I think that we’ve become so used to texting and Facebooking and emailing, that sometimes we forget the joy of sending and receiving real physical mail via the postal service.

Creative Christmas Letter Ideas

If the thought of writing a detailed letter is overwhelming to you, here are some creative Christmas letter ideas:

Put together a Top 10 list from the past year.

Make a graph of some interesting facts from the past year.

Create a newspaper-style letter with short stories and tidbits from the past year.

Other Simple and Inexpensive Ideas

If you’ve decided that sending a Christmas letter isn’t your thing or mailing out a lot of cards or letters is outside your budget, here are some other ideas:

::Send photo cards.

We’ve skipped sending a letter for the past few years, but we have sent out photo cards. It’s a very simple way to send a Christmas greeting and share pictures of our family with dear friends and those we don’t get to see often. Plus, with deals like the one available from SeeHere (20 photo cards for $1.49 shipped!), creating photo cards can be very inexpensive!

::Send out your letter as a PDF via email.

Can’t afford to mail your letter? It’s perfectly okay to send it out as a PDF attachment via email. Be sure to include some sort of teaser in the email you send out so that people will be sure to open the attachment and read the letter! 🙂

::Post your Christmas card on Facebook.

Jenae’s family decided to post their Christmas picture/card on Facebook this year in lieu of sending out a Christmas card. This might not work for everyone–especially if most of your recipients are not on Facebook–but it’s definitely an inexpensive option!

Do you send out a Christmas card or letter or do some sort of creative alternative? I’d love to hear what works for your family!

photo by yvestown

Practical Application

1. Decide whether or not you are sending out a Christmas card or letter this year.

2. If you decide to send out something, get it created or written sometime in the next 48 hours.

3. Create your address list (if you’re mailing cards) or the email list (if you’re emailing out your card/letter) and save it in a file to have next year. (I did not set up an address list on the computer until this past year and it’s been a lifesaver to have all the addresses in one place and a place to file new addresses as I collect them. Believe me, the whole scraps of paper thing wasn’t working too well!)

4. Mail or email your cards out by the end of this week so that they will arrive before Christmas.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Dec 13, 2011 comment

What my six-year-old is teaching me about giving

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What my six-year-old is teaching me about giving

Published: by on   |  This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

One of our greatest hopes as parents is that our three children will be givers. We want our children to really and truly understand that everything we have has been given to us by God and that our role is to be conduits of His blessings to others. Whether we have little or an abundance, the more we open our hands and hearts to others and give generously, the more we’re blessed in return.

We’ve talked about this a lot in our home and have sought to model a giving and serving lifestyle to our children. However, when children are young, it’s hard to know how much is really sinking in. But in the past two months, I discovered maybe they were picking up more than I realized…

We were riding in the van together one day in October and Kathrynne (6) said out-of-the-blue, “Mom, I’d really like to do Operation Christmas Child boxes.”

It was already something I was hoping we could do again this year, so I said, “Sure, honey, we can definitely do that. Did you have anything specific in mind?”

“Well,” she said, “I was thinking I could take my money that I’ve been saving all year to pay for them.”

I sat up in my seat and looked back into her eyes. She was completely serious about this.

And then she said, “I’d like to do 10 boxes. Five for girls and five for boys.”

At this point, my husband and I both had tears in our eyes.

You see, Kathrynne had been saving all year for a large-ticket item. She’d done a lot of chores to earn the money, and, after tithing, we’d let her set aside the rest for this item she’d been wanting to buy.

We knew she almost had enough money to pay for this item and she’d been eagerly talking about buying it and using it. And yet, here she was saying she wanted to use almost all of her hard-earned and carefully-saved money to pay to fill 10 Operation Christmas Child boxes.

Over the course of the next week, she planned out what she wanted to buy, she shopped for the items, and paid for everything with her own money. Then she wrote cards to all of the children, helped pack the boxes, and took them to the drop-off point.

As a parent, I couldn’t have been prouder of my child. And by the smile on her face and the excitement about the whole thing, I knew it was so much more fulfilling to her than buying something for herself ever would have been.

But I was more than just proud. I was deeply touched and challenged to examine my own heart and attitude toward giving. I realized that while I love to give to others, often, I’ll give from my abundance, instead of giving in a way that costs me something near and dear.

Kathrynne didn’t give from her abundance: she gave up buying something she had long waited for and long wanted so she could help children who have little or nothing. It meant she didn’t get to buy something she’d looked forward to owning for months, but she was okay with that, because she knew there were others who needed the money more than she needed a new toy.

Instead of me teaching my daughter about giving, she’s the one teaching me through her example. And I’m left inspired and motivated to give generously–without worrying about what it will mean I have to give up in return.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Dec 12, 2011 comment

21 Days to a More Organized Christmas: Gather the Christmas Books

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21 Days to a More Organized Christmas: Gather the Christmas Books

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Christmas wouldn’t be complete without good Christmas stories. We checked out a huge stack of Christmas books from the library this year and, so far, here are our favorites:

The Christmas Story

The Gingerbread Boy

Gingerbread Baby

Gingerbread Friends

The Mitten

B is for Bethlehem

The Baby Born in a Stable

White Snow, Bright Snow

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

Great Joy

What are some of your family’s favorite Christmas books read-alouds? I’d love to find new ones to add to our list of favorites!

photo by yvestown

Practical Application

::If you have younger children, gather a basket-full of Christmas read-alouds and plan a daily time to read for 10-15 minutes. Let your children choose from the basket to make it more engaging for them. For additional fun, wrap up the books and let them unwrap a few each day.

::If you don’t have young children, choose at least a few Christmas-related books to enjoy over the Christmas season–either reading through with friends or just yourself.

Shared Dec 12, 2011 comment

How to Make Your Own Cloth Napkins

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How to Make Your Own Cloth Napkins

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Tutorial by Heather from Life in God’s Country

Materials needed:

  • For 12-12″ napkins and 2-20″ bread basket napkins:
  • 2 1/3 yards fabric (44/45″ wide)
  • Thread to match fabric
  • Rotary cutter & mat (not required, but very helpful)

Instructions:

Wash your fabric then iron it.

For the breadbasket napkins, cut a strip 22″ wide by the width of the fabric (44/45″). Cut this in half. You should have 2-22″ squares. (Trim to make it square, if necessary.)

For the napkins, cut the remaining fabric into strips 14″ wide by the width of the fabric (44/45″). Then, cut each strip into 3 equal pieces. You should have 12-14″ squares. (Trim to make it square, if necessary.)

To create the hemmed edges:
On each piece of fabric, using a straight stitch, sew a 1/4″ seam on all 4 sides. Trim the corners so when you fold in the sides, you’ll reduce the bulk of fabric.

Fold the fabric (wrong sides together) on the stitching line then fold it in again. Iron the hem to hold it together before you stitch it.

Using a straight stitch (or decorative stitch, if you prefer), sew the folded edges down.

Fold each piece in quarters and you have a nice gift set of napkins.

Heather and her husband, Phillip, own Bogie’s Deli in downtown Abilene, TX. Heather is a stay-at-home mom to their two girls, ages 3 and 10 months, and is actively involved in MOPS. Visit her blog, Life in God’s Country.

Money Saving Mom
Shared Dec 12, 2011 comment

10 Weekly Goals

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10 Weekly Goals

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I had a really good week last week–even if I didn’t get a whole lot crossed off my list. It was relaxing, peaceful–and I got more than enough sleep every night–which felt so good! I’ve really been trying to go to bed earlier on a very consistent basis and I’m starting to really feel the difference. Now if I can just keep this up long-term! 🙂

Last week’s goals:

Family/Mothering Goals

1. Finish reading These Happy Golden Years.

2. Do some fun Christmas crafts/activities with the children.

3. Continue unwrapping and reading 2-3 Christmas books each day.

Personal Goals

4. Finish reading Kisses from Katie and Getting Things Done.

5. Finish and order Christmas photo cards.

6. Run 6.5 miles.

Home Management Goals

7. Do at least one load of laundry from start to finish every week day.

8. Make Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

Business Goals

9. Film some video segments for my publisher.

10. Write five posts for the 21 Days to a More Organized Christmas series.

This week’s goals:

Family/Mothering Goals

1. Finish reading These Happy Golden Years.

2. Do some fun Christmas crafts/activities with the children.

3. Continue unwrapping and reading 2-3 Christmas books each day.

4. Take the girls to see The Nutcracker ballet.

Personal Goals

5. Finish reading Kisses from Katie and Getting Things Done.

6. Run 8 miles.

Home Management Goals

7. Address and mail Christmas cards.

8. Make Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day (I’m really determined to accomplish this this week–since I’ve put it off all week!)

Business Goals

9. Film some video segments for my publisher.

10. Write five posts for the 21 Days to a More Organized Christmas series.

photo credit

How did you do on last week’s goals? What are your goals for this week? I’d love to have you share your progress on last week’s goals and your goals for this coming week in the comments. Of, if you’ve blogged about it, leave your direct link below. Let’s cheer each other on to live purposeful and productive lives!

You can download a free customizable weekly goal-planning sheet here.