Small Business Saturday - Get $25 Back

Have you heard about Small Business Saturday yet?  The day after Black Friday is now known as Small Business Saturday.  Enroll your eligible American Express® Card to GET $25 BACK ONE TIME WHEN YOU SPEND $25 OR MORE at a qualifying small business location on November 24th. Enrollment is limited so act early before enrollments run out. Corporate and prepaid cards are not eligible. 

To enroll your card and find qualifying small businesses, check out:  Shop Small

We did it last year (it only takes a few minutes to register your card), and, sure enough, we had a $25 credit on our statement after doing our Saturday shopping (at a qualifying small business, of course!)

Make Cheap & Easy Wall Art - Part III

And here's my last idea of the day for making cheap and easy wall art.  With this project, you can make a wall hanging for adults or children.  I purchased a cute white, horizontal collage frame at Jo-Ann Fabric (most of my stories begin there), but wasn't sure about what to put in it.  Not long after, I was in Trader Joe's (aka, heaven on earth), perusing their greeting cards.  They have beautiful, artsy cards for $1.00 each.  Several of them had a Hawaiian, beachy feel, so I picked out my five favorites and put them in the collage frame.

Here's the end result....

The "Tropical Retreat" sign underneath was an impulse purchase at a local Hallmark.  At first I loved it, but I've been looking at it lately with a very critical eye.  I think that our time together may be drawing to a close.  We'll see!!!

Anyway, you could do this project with any kind of collage frame and any kind of "art", i.e. postcards, greeting cards, advertisements, etc.  Let me know what you come up with!

Make Cheap & Easy Kid's Wall Art - Part II

Here's another way to make a quick and easy wall decoration.  For years, my little guy had a baby quilt hanging in his room.  When he got bigger, we wanted to update his room to a fun vehicle theme.  When we took down the quilt, it left a big, open space on the wall.  Being huge Richard Scarry fans, we decided to make a Busytown-themed decoration using things we already had.

We picked Richard Scarry, but any kind of vibrant book cover could work.  Here's what you need:
1)  4 or more of your child's favorite books
2)  3 pieces of posterboard.  1 should be white, or a neutral color, and the other two should be the same color of whatever you want.
3)  An old poster-sized frame.  We used an old one we had in the basement that I had hanging in my room in college.
4)  Paper borders that can be purchased from the craft store (shouldn't cost more than a few dollars).

Bring the books to your local Staples or copy store.  Make high-quality color copies of each book cover.  Enlarge them if the books are small.  And, make sure you bring all of the books home with you!  We accidentally left one of them in the copy machine and had to return immediately to get it!

Arrange the covers on the white piece of posterboard.  A poster-sized frame will be larger than the piece of posterboard, so take the other two pieces that you purchased and arrange them so that they're the size of the frame.  A little seam shows, but it's not obvious if you use a dark color.  Position the white piece on the two other pieces, add paper borders if desired, and frame it up.

Quick, easy and fun!

Make Cheap & Easy Kid's Wall Art, Part 1

My son received a Thomas & Friends calendar from his Mom-Mom one year and he LOVED it!  Even when the year had come and gone, he couldn't bear to part with it because of all of the pictures.  So, I decided to make a wall decoration out of it for our loft (which is also his playroom).  I ripped out nine of his favorite "months" from the calendar, trimmed them to be square-shaped, and then taped them in a nice pattern on the wall.  So that the tape wouldn't be obvious, I did tape rolls behind each corner.

The calendar went from this.....



To this.....

If you want to make it look more finished, you could go to the craft store and buy those paper borders that teachers use in their classrooms.

Either way, it was quick and easy, and my son loves it.  It should be simple to remove one day (fingers are crossed), and I was able to recycle the rest of the calendar. 

This Blog Started with a Pom-Pom

After a trip to Five Below (love that place), we came home with an adorable plain, blue winter hat for my son for only $2.00.  The problem was that it didn't have a pom-pom on the top, and my guy was a little disappointed.  I consulted by trusty friend, Google, and found an easy way to make pom-poms from leftover yarn. 

Thanks, Prudent Baby - How to Make a Yarn Pom-Pom

It was really fun and easy, and turned out great after I sewed it on the top of the hat.  My son told me it was "the best pom-pom" he's "ever seen!"

But, what does this have to do with starting a blog?  Well, I then got on a kick where I started Googling other projects to do.  I found this amazing website, Tracy's Treasury.  In addition to having a fabulous first name, she had some great ideas and I really felt like we had a lot in common.  Sharing creative ideas is one of the great joys in life, and, viola, "City of Motherly Love" was born!  Let the angels rejoice!  The world will never be the same again (or, maybe it will).