Easy Gumball Fishbowl

So I saw this cute idea of where this lady took a real gumball machine and turned it into a fish bowl. I have been looking at the DI for one. Instead of finding a real gumball machine, I found this! It was painted totally cute and LOOKED like a gumball machine, but SOOOO not for a boys rooms, which is where I wanted to put it.So I decided I could paint this and use it for my son's room. I painted it black and re-painted the knobs silver. I found a cool aquarium plant, added blue round marbles(they look like gumballs and I got them at the $store. Much cheaper than at Walmart), added a beta fish and here is the finished project.We put a push button light underneath for some cool lighting.

It was so cute we decided to make one for my niece. They are super easy. The first step is to buy a round fish bowl. We found ours at the DI for $3. Walmart usually has them, but they didn't have them in in the size we wanted.

Buy a tera cotta planter with the base. The planter becomes the Gumball machine bottom and the planter base become the top. It is important to take your bowl with you to make sure they fit. Ours cost $2 for the planter and the base.

Paint your terra cotta base and planter the color of you choice. Get a round knob and an oval knob. Paint them if necessary. We used a round knob(2 for $3 at Walmart) for the top and painted it black. The first one we had used a round ball knob which I like better. For the coin slot look we found some oval knobs. (2 for $6 at Walmart) These looked really cute and we didn't have to paint them. After the paint has dried glue the glass bowl to the bottom of the planter. We used Gorilla glue-it makes a huge mess, so be careful not to use too much so it drips-but it is a strong glue. Glue the round painted knob on the planter base bottom, and glue the oval knob on the middle of the painted planter. Add marbles or stones and the fish. (We chose to use the round marbles because they look like gumballs. We chose a beta rather than a goldfish because they are so pretty.) Here is the finished product, without the coin slot- (Sorry I took the picture BEFORE we added it, and my niece took it home before I could take another)

FUN RE-DO'S FROM THE DI

So we made a trip to the DI. I found lots of good deals. Here are two of my re-do's.

I found this AWESOME lamp and it was nice to begin with, but the color isn't what we are going for for our bedroom. It was $10, but it is so heavy and in such good condition that I thought it was worth that price. I love how tall it is. Here is the before Pic

I painted it black with tole paint. After it had dried I sanded the edges for a distressed look. It is gonna look SO COOL in our bedroom. I am using the original lamp shade. We just cleaned it up.

You can't tell, but this lamp is quite tall.
My other fab find was this little trunk. It is a sewing basket and made of hard plastic. I saw this little trunk and it called out to me - "BUY ME" I paid $4 for this.
I painted it with black tole and sanded the edges. This little trunk looks fabulous in our bedroom. BONUS: Hidden storage too!!!

Totally Awesome and EASY Crockpot Creamy Potato Soup

I make this about four hours before. It is so easy and good. I leave out the leeks(what's a leek?), the chives, and I use 2 cans of cream of chicken soup instead of cream of mushroom and cream of celery. I do this because I always have cream of chicken soup in the house. Next time I am going to use 1 can of cheddar soup, to make it a cheesy soup. There are lots of possibilities - you can add ham, clams, corn - whatever you like, because is is so creamy, so easy, so good. If you make it let me know what you think!!!

6 potatoes
2 leeks
2 onions
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
4 c. water
1 1/2 tsp. salt
4 chicken bouillon cubes
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 tbsp. parsley flakes
2 tbsp. butter
13 oz. can evaporated milk
Chopped chives
Cut all to bite-size. Put all ingredients except milk and chives, in the crock pot. Cover and cook on low for 10 to 12 hours or high for 3-4 hours. Stir in evaporated milk during the last hour. Serve with chopped chives.

My Favs - Ways to save money(oh yeah)

There are so many things that I like and the first is A GOOD DEAL. I like to search for and find the best deal out there. Whenever I need something, I usually can find a good deal. For instance when my son needed new church shoes. I went to Walmart.com-there were the black shoes I wanted for $2!!!!!I was so thrilled I bought his size now, and his next size too. My total came to a little over $6 with tax, since I paid $.97 each to have them shipped. But what a good deal. I always looks for the best rates when planning a party, or a trip to Disneyland, or for making color copies. Here are some of my favorite sites.

www.zennioptical.com
This it the best website ever for saving on prescription glasses. You must have a current prescription from you eye doctor, but glasses here start at $8 each. I always buy our glasses here. We get the $8 pair and then add $5 for the anti-glare(if you wear them outside) I only wear mine at night so I only spent $8 for mine, I ordered 3 pair!!! Shipping is only like $5 for the whole order. LOVE IT!!!!

www.ebay.com
Some things are good deals, others are not. I usually compare with amazon,com or walmart.com to make sure, but I have found some fabulous deals. Another ting that I love about this site it is is so safe to buy because of the protection of PayPal. In the rare instance that I don't receive an item, Paypal issues me a refund. I always make sure the price I want to pay includes the shipping costs. I always look for themed toy lots when I do a party. Last year when I did the star wars party I found little 1.5" star wars characters to go on the cupcakes. I spent about the same ($4) as I would have if I had bought the cupcake rings-and each child got to have a toy to take home with them. (They looked new, but I ran them threw the dishwasher just to be safe. Ebay is place where you find unusual item that you won't find elsewhere.

www.craigslist.com
I check it nightly for deals. Here is one of my good deals. I was wanting to buy the new book "The Undaunted." It retails about $25 new. I found it on Craigslist for $10 brand new- and just in time to give it to myself for Christmas!!!! I also have sold things as well and IT'S FREE!!

Freecycle
This is available in most areas. It is a yahoo group that you join in your area. Then you offer things that you no longer need, and then once you have made an offer, you can get things for free that others are giving away. I usually post really nice things that I don't need, but would rather not send to the DI, because then I no someone who truly needs it can have it. The downside to this would be that making arrangements and waiting for people to come and get it can be more time consuming then just taking it to the DI. But, when I received a nice email thanking me,from someone I have just given a bag of nice winter jackets-it makes it worth it.

Deseret Industries
This is the goodwill thrift store in our area. Sometimes they have AWESOME DEALS!!! The one here in my hometown is the most overpriced one I know. They try to sell cheap pictures in large frames(the cheesy kind you see in cheap motels)for $75. I am sure it didn't cost that much brand new. BUT sometimes (and most the time in larger cities) they have fabulous deals. I like go here to buy things to re-use. Like when I a making a personalized games(see other posting for these) I look for games that have a box that I can use. I look for ceramics that can be re-painted, clothes and hats for costumes, furniture that can be repainted, etc. My best deal was a snowsuit for my son for $4. It was brand new with the tags on it for $30. Although it was a size to big-it fit perfect the next year.

bountifulbaskets.org
I love this site so much I dedicated and entire post for it. The best place for getting a good deal on fresh fruits and vegetables. Check it out.

lakeside.com
I love this site because you can get fun gift or things to decorate your home with a relatively great price.

birthdaypartyideas.com
This is the first place I head when looking to plan a themed party. People from all over share their ideas of what they did and what the kids liked. They have hundreds of themes and most individual themes have several ideas posted. I usually take the ones I like most and "borrow" several ideas to make it my own.

stores.ebay.com/circuitoffice
I used to buy my printer ink from inkjetsuperstore.com - they have a great selection, great prices, & low shipping. BUT for my printer, I found a better deal here AND it is the same as I got before only much cheaper. I pay $23.95 for a 10 pack of ink (4 black, 2 magenta, 2 blue, and 2 yellow) I have never had a problem and I PRINT ALOT!!!


mothergoosetime.com
This is curriculum for pre-school. It is so AWESOME!!! Me and 4 other mothers do a rotating pre-school for our children. This program provides EVERYTHING you need to teach the kids and comes with all supplies too. The only things we need to have on hand are scissors, crayons, etc-All the things you normally have at home. It is a good price too. We each pay about $14 a month!! We each teach once a week, and our kids get pre-school 4 times a week. It comes with LOTS of teacher supplies-To name a few:posters, a CD of songs, newsletters for the parents, a weather puppet, a calendar, and tons more. We just put everything in the box and pass it on to the moms who teach. The crafts are all high-quality materials-things you normally couldn't get very cheap-and most of the things are pre-cut so there is little preparation for the teacher. SOOOOOO COOL!

mycolorcopies.com
When I make history books or family photo books I do a lot of double-sided printing. The printing places in my hometown charge $ .49 a copy for single sided! So I did lots of online research and found this place. It is in my same state of Utah. It costs me $ .34 a copy for DOUBLE-SIDED copies and includes free-shipping to my home. It saves me MORE THAN HALF of what I used to spend!!! And there are so nice to work with!

Scrapbook for Dummies

Many people spend hours and lots of money on scrapbooking supplies. I am just not that creative. I wish, but, *sigh* I am not. But as a mom, I have TONS of pictures that I needed to find out what to do with. I started by gluing them on a piece of cardstock, labeling them, and adding stickers. This was my extent of scrapbooking. I did make a binder covered with material and lace, and threw my pages into plastic sheets. I now have about 25 THICK, scrapbooks. They take up so much space--- AND then I got a digital camera. I HATED printing them at Walmart, cutting them out, gluing them, and labeling them. SO I looked at my options and came across scrapbook max. Now I think I am pretty computer illiterate, but this was sooooo EASY. They have a trial period and I fell in love with it that first night, and purchased it the next day. I LOOOVVVVEEE IT. It comes with predone templates, and lots of cute embellishments. I do everything with it, not just my scrapbook pages, but invitations, primary handouts, bulletin boards, gift certificates, games, ---anything I can think of.

They offer free upgrades, and they give tons of freebies for new templates, embellishments, etc. Here are some things I have done with it.


Birthday Invites




Baby Shower Advice Card:


Light Switch Cover:

Oganization Ideas

I live in a tiny house, so I have to have EVERYTHING, in it's own place at all times, otherwise it would literally overflow my space. Here are a few things I have done to make life easier.

The coat closet (AAAAGGGGHHHH) I hate it when I open the door and little mittens. hats, and scarfs come down on your head. So I put an end to it. I took a shoe organizer, a cheap cardboard one and put it on the top shelf.



I now have a place for everything! I labeled each cubby-kids gloves, mom;s gloves, scarves, baseball hats, umbrellas, etc- It is so easy to put them away now.




Another big mess are my medicine/toiletries/whatever closet. I wanted to keep my adult meds up high, but other things that my kids need continually,(like band aids) down low. I bought a shoe organizer that hangs on the door, and now I am able to put TONS of stuff in the little pockets for quick and easy organiztion. I loved it so much I bought one for my coat closet too. It makes an easy place for extra toothbrushes, travel soaps & other supplies, band aids, razors, etc. I printed labels too so my hubby and kids can find things easily.

Cheap Fruits & Veggies

So a lady at my hubby's work told him about this AWESOME local place to get fruits and veggies at a great price. http://www.bountifulbaskets.org
They have sites in Arizona, Utah, Idaho & Washington. You pay online and then you pick up your food at a local place, usually a business, in your area. It cost $18 for the first time, and then is $15 each time thereafter. I cannot believe how much food you get!!! This is what we got one time.


As you can see there is a LOT of food.
*8 Apples
*6 Oranges
*3 mango
*a squash
*3 avocados
*11 Kiwi
*2 broccoli
*1 cauliflower
*20 red potatoes
*6 corn on the cob
*6 Bananas
*1 romaine lettuce
*1 cantaloupe

Each time the fruits & veggies that you get are different, but everytime I am amazed how much there is. It had gotten so popular that since I have been getting it they have added 2 more sites to my area. There are also options of other food you can add to your basket, such as breads. I think it is totally awesome!