Creative Tips for Giving Gift Cards

What type of gift cards do you like to receive? What’s your favorite gift card to give a friend? Have you ever had any perks come with a gift card purchase? What’s the best gift you ever bought yourself with a gift card?

These are some questions about gift cards that may help with some creative tips so while Twittermoms has and Gift Cards Rock another blog, I got to thinking of all my passion for gift cards and creative ways for gifting gift cards.

Passion for giving gift card ideas
• Penny auctions are a great savings for a range of gift cards. Home depo, Chill’s Barns and Noble are just a few that I have won at QuickBids.com For just a penny and $2.50 for shipping and handling my cards have been for $20 to $50 that’s a great savings.
• Non taxable gifts are great vs cash. Cash can sometimes bring problems for those who are on assistance programs. This way you can help your loved ones out a little with a food, clothing, or entertainment gift card.
• Motivators give gift cards to those who need to go out and do something nice. Enjoy a good meal out on the town, take in a movie at the matinee, or just go out and enjoy some of the sights. Many businesses such as; history, art, sports, clubs all carry gift cards to check for availability try www.giftcardsrock.com
• Contests give away gift cards and the requirements are very simple the odds on the other hand maybe a little high. Free money is always worth a little effort and time. The rewards that I have seen lately have been $10 for Subway to a contest for photo’s for $1,000. WOW now that’s gift giving!!

My most memorable time using a gift cards was shortly after Christmas while going through Wal-Mart and getting huge savings on all my sons’ gifts. I have received a large gift card from a family member and decided to let my son pick out everything he wanted. Our shopping cart was chuck full of goodies we went home very satisfied and grateful.

I really enjoy those gift cards for fast foods too as with a young child these come in very handy while traveling we can stop for a quick drink and keep going until we make our destination. On hot summer days we would use our cards to get ice creams so for our $25 gift card we were able to go all summer long.

With many people having problems with credit and the banks it is a good idea to get a Visa gift card that can be just loaded with more money as time goes on and not have to carry cash. Most business do take Visa so, this is a very versatile gift card that can help pay the bills at home as well as shop.



Here are a few great ways gift cards can help you:
■Save at the pump – Consumers can earn significant fuel discounts when buying gift cards in grocery stores nationwide through fuel savings programs.
■Earn rewards - Many grocery stores offer rewards on your next shopping trip when purchasing gift cards.
■Save time - one of the most precious savings of all is your time. Gift cards are available at your grocery store offering a one-stop shopping experience with hundreds of top brands all in one place.

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Gift Cards Rock blogging program, for 6,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points. For more information on how you can participate, click here.”

Downsizing; relief for kids

Downsizing kids room, toys, cloths, junk. We have the task of keeping a healthy, clean, functional environment for our children to grow up in. Downsizing gives freedom to be healthy. Downsizing a child's room makes cleaning a breeze. Downsizing makes rooms functional for organized effort as well as easy to live in.

While moving I realized I needed to downsize toys, cloths, and other miscellaneous things that brought clutter and an awful mess. When do you pull out old toys and cloths from your families rooms? For many years I would downsize just before Christmas just to make room for new toys and cloths.

Ecc. 2:26 For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spriit.

Trying to promote a healthy environment for my son and his play in his room, I find that many times having too many small toys are distracting, as well as bringing dysfunction in his play. Children need conditioning at an early age and in part making wise choices in toys. I've always looked at toys as a form of some type of lesson to be learned.
With broken, lost parts, or simply old toys there's no need to hang on to these. He feels entirely differently about this so, to remove toys is a whole new task.

Kids who get distracted easily might benefit from having fewer toys to work in conditioning as well as in keeping focused for a extended amount of time. Working with kids to improve length of focus time. Building up on following one direction at a time and adding to the list is one way to assure their ability to following directions.




Small toys for younger children are great for little hands and memorization skill building while there's still a freshness in the toys. Keeping a rotation on the toys keeps them new to the child. I still find myself rotating toys for my ten year old. He appreciates them and finds joy in them.

Organized effort in a child's mind is still being molded and to complete this process toys need to assist in this effort. If there's too many toys I find my self getting rid of many to cut down on the distractions so, he may complete tasks more easily. AD HA has been mentioned to many parents with today's higher education levels for our kids and the two parent working most of the time our kids are paying for it. As a parent I feel that I can assist him with proper diet as well as Alkaline water intake. I also continue research to look for ways to help with continued challenges of life.


Making a room as simple as possible, taking toys down to a minim. Also have a heavy burned lifted off of them as well and find that tasks and organized effort can be a part of your kids daily play.

It's less stressful while downsizing toys while children are out of the house, or occupied by playing games on Internet. How the simple things make our lives easier.

Piggy Bank

How many of our kids want or have a piggy bank. The philosophy behind this little bank is almost long forgotten by many. With credit cards and EOC's economic outpatient care many children do not get the lessons instilled while saving for something they want. Debt proof your child and teach them about money to lessen stress. Click here
The other day I was approached and asked for $100 to give to my future step daughters 17th birthday. While instinctively I would gladly give, I thought why hasn't she learned to save for occasions such as these instead of asking daddy last minute. I did not expect the disappointment I received later by saying NO. Need ideas for teens getting a job and keeping a job. Click here

What brings comfort, joy or a soft touch to your life

Durning this time of year while my family and friends are getting ready for the holidays. I like to capture what brings me comfort, joy or a soft touch to my life. With Twittermoms and Kleenex blogging program I have a chance to collect my thoughts on this topic. As I may have to give it some thought to tell you.

I find that having friends to talk to gives me great comfort that I'm able to just talk opened and honesty. Where con finding in one another with trust that I will get to bounce things off of them. Some of this does end up in joy as many times enlightenment is the key to resolving hurdles in life.


Having found that facebook has so many of my school mates online brought me a soft touch to my life. The realization that I'm not all alone in this world. The friends I have made along the way are gifts from above. Catching up with these people gives me the opportunity of developing a current look at my friends.


As a female I find that having Kleenex on hand for those times when I'm moody, or bad day, or just a runny nose. These make for great care packages as well as stocking suffers. Three boxes are in my home usually for those unexpected times that arise.

As years past there is death and lost of loved ones. Whether it was our beloved cats, or grandma, and friends all in one year. My son,he had a very hard year for someone so young. He handled it very well I give credit to our church and family and friends for their support. As time passes there are still moments where the tears are just flowing. Like when my little brother came back after a three month black out in Iraq. Christmas day I called again and he answered I was over joyed. After the phone call I balled like a baby over the toilet. I was so relived he was home safe and sound.

Crying for many reasons, this helps washout the overloading emotions that are held inside. So when those times come; to cry or just blow using a soft touch so my nose doesn't look like Rudolf the red nosed reindeer. That wouldn't make a pretty picture for the scrap book.

I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Kleenex blogging program, making me eligible to get a $40 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.”

5 tips for editing & creating beautiful digital photo

As moms we all enjoy sharing the Kodak moments while every ones' busy or away. I love taking my camera everywhere I go just in case I come across one of those moments. With Twittermoms and Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 I can share with you some of my tips for making beautiful digital photos.

1. Always carry your camera and remember to charge up your battery. There's really no time wasted while over night charging your battery. There has been a time or two that this happened to me when I didn't have enough charge to take that great shot.
2. Empty all your photos at the end to the day. I like keep my card clean so, if I want to take 200+ photos in one day I can. This also leaves room for video's too.
3. Uploading videos to a site like flickr.com to save or share your photos is great. Sharing on facebook is also very easy where they have a large uploading system. Croping and adding music is a great addition to making a video. Great for background setting at parties for family and friends to watch too.
4. Digital camera's come with their own instruction on how to's and tips to make some extraordinary photo's. Read up on this and find out more about how to work this program. Some photo's are great with a little color added. Protrait photo's sometimes look best with just black and white. As seen above.
5. Buying a program to make extraordinary photo's and or videos is great there's a large selection to choose from. The prices range from $50 - $400 depending on how much you choose to do with this feature. I hope to some day buy a system so, that I can make great video's and put them on YouTube.com


All in all the more you read up on how to use your camera and the tools that come with it will increase the looks of your photos. I love experimenting with my camera while looking at one object and trying all the options out. This gives me more experience and knowledge of how to work with my camera.

About Adobe Photoshop Elements:
Get a complete solution for photos. With Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, you can make your photos look extraordinary with easy-to-use editing options. Share your stories in beautiful, personalized print creations and Online Albums. And easily organize all your photos and video clips from one convenient place.


I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Adobe blogging program, making me eligible to receive a $50 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.”

Speed Cleaning

So, how much time do you spend cleaning your house? Too much is what I'm thinking...I have been researching how to clean my house very well and in a short time. This way I'll have more time to do the things I want.

1. Get all cleaning products in a carry case
2. 10 white cloths
3. Scraper
4. tooth brush
5. green scrubber
6. white scrubber
7. Duster they make the job easier and faster.


OK let's clean start with the sink put your basket of cleaners at the right hand side and clean from top to bottom. Scrub with tooth brush faucet and scrap all the gunk out from the bowl. Use bleach around chalking and toilet and wipe with clean white cloth. Duster using long draping movements keeping the dust in the duster not in the air; the corners, ceiling, cabinets and items. (watch out for breakables hold with other hand) and go around the room (no back tracking) Continue working around and go all the way to the bottom. Put rug and trash outside of door way and have it cleaned up last.

Identify want needs to be cleaned and what doesn't (RULE if it's not dirty don't clean it)Clean the next room the same way.

Next living rooms, dinning room dusting.


Bed rooms dust, mover bed out to be sweep under

Lastly sweep the house, throw out the trash and place back throw rugs

Your done!

For more tips I recommend reading Speed Cleaning by Jeff Campbell's book get tips and details on how to's. For team work get the kids involved in a teaching experience.

Wire-wrapped bubble wands

You’ll Need
Surface & Embellishments
• Wooden dowels, 5/18, three.
• Wood stain or paint color of choice.
• Copper wire; 16, 20 and 22 gauge.
• Assorted beads of choice.
• Bubble liquid and bucket.
o Long lasting bubbles
 Dawn Dishwashing liquid. 1oz
 Glycerin, 1 oz
 Water, 1 c
Tools & Supplies
• Paintbrush,
• Wire cutters.
• Round-nose pliers,
• Wood saw


What to do
1. Cut dowels to two-foot lengths. Paint or stain dowels; set aside to dry. Draw bubble wand designs on paper. Cut 16 gauge wire to appropriate length, allowing additional length for decorative curls and spiral that attaches to dowel. Quick Tip: Use 16 gauge wire for basic shape and thinner, more flexible 20 and 22 gauge wire for decorative details,
2. Attach wire to a piece of scrap dowel, then create basic shape following sketched design. Keep the shape flat so it can be easily dipped into a pan or bucket of bubble liquid.
3. Once the basic shape is formed, continue to embellish with m ore wire and beads.
4. Remove wire from the scrap dowel and attach it to the painted or stained dowel. Attach more wire and beads along the dowel as desired.
Courtesy of Jo-Ann Stores, Inc.

How to Press Flowers and Leaves

As botanical dry, the height of the press will shrink and the straps will loosen; check them and re tighten as necessary. They drying time will vary depending on the thickness of the item. Delicate wildflowers dry in about three days; rose and other large specimens may take up to three weeks. If you are not going to use your dried botanical right away, remove them from the press and store them between layers of tissue or newsprint in a flat box or between the pages of a heavy book.

1. Place laves or flowers in a plant press between layers of letting paper and newsprint. Arrange toe items so they do not touch one another, then use Velcro straps to close the press. If your press does not have straps, weigh it down with heavy books.
2. If you do not have a flower press, place the leaves or flowers botanical between layers of paper towels-these will help absorb moisture. (You may need to replace the paper towels after a few days.) Weigh down the book with other heavy books.

For more crafts ideas look in Crafts 'n Things

How to make Pretty Eggs

Of all the decorated eggs celebrating Easter, surly none surpasses the bejeweled and enameled god, platinum and silver creations from the workshop of Peter Carl Faberge Russian jeweler to the Czars, each of Faberge's fifty imperial eggs, commissioned between 1885 and 1915 is a marvel of what the imagination can conceive and the human hand can fashion.

Blowing & Taping
If you don't order already blown eggs from suppliers, you'll need to blow out your own; Make a pinhole in each end, puncturing the eggyoulk in the process. Gently an firmly express the eggs contents by blowing with your mouth or an egg blower against the top hole. Rinse well ith water and let dry before cutting. To mark the eggshells, you will need adhesive tape and sharp scissors. Colored tape is easier to see, use it to mark and stabilize the area to be cut. For narrower strips, cut pieces of tape in half lengthwise. Eggs here are marked for the basket design (opposite, far right) and vertical and horizontal cuts.

Cutting
To halve an egg, you can use sharp cuticle scissors. More complicated cuts require using a Dermal drill, which takes a little know-how. Practice on a few blown eggs just to get a feel for the amount of pressure to apply and what angle works best for you. You will have to hold the egg in one hand while drilling with the other. Use the Dermal drill fitted with a diamond wheel, and wear goggles and a mask to protect against eggshell dust. After the cuts are made, gently remove the tape and file rough edges with an emery board. Shell prices can be used as bases, so don't' be too quick to throw away your mistakes.

Painting & Hinging
If you plan to paint the egg, do so before adding a hinge or any other decoration, and let the paint dry completely. To hing the egg halves you will have to tape the egg back together to hold it in place while the adhesive cement used to attach the hinge dries. A hinge might be made of ribbon or of minute decorative hardware such as that used on dollhouse furniture.

Decorating
Let your fancy tell you what materials you might employ to decorate your eggs; we used gold leaf, gold-embossed paper (available from art supply or crafts stores). sewing braid, rickrack, ribbons, trim, beads, paper and velvet flower. The gold trim is from made from paper as well as cord and ribbon; an eggshell filled with embossed paper flowers honors the arrival of spring.

How to Make Our Paint Umbrella

1. Let your child use drawing paper and crayons or markers to sketch out a design for the umbrella. He can include flowers, animals, clouds, or anything he wishes in his design.
2. Using his drawing as a guide, help your child use safety scissors to cut out the design elements from sponges. For examples, a truck can be created from a rectangle, a square, and two cut out circles.
3. Spread heavy body acrylic paint on small paper plates. Use a separate plate for each paint color. Dip the sponge in the paint, and wipe off excess with a craft stick.
4. Let your child use the sponges as stamps to print the pictures on a transparent or solid color kid size umbrella.
5. Although the umbrella will feel dry in a few hours, keep it open and set it aside for two days to allow the paint to dry completely.
6. On the next rainy day, have some fun outdoors and watch as your child stays dry under his new umbrella!

Creative Child Books

Creative ways for kids to use imagination. Parents choose to have kids put down their ideas and make a story. Having do so in a book makes for a great keep sake and gift to share with loved ones.

The illustory makes two different books packages and ordering more copies is available. Creativity for Kids makes a POP up book that's good for the imagination. These simple but, usefull tools make great gifts as well as learning tools for children.

Recently my son has experienced this book making at home as well as at school. Apparently his school circulars has involved making books for his second grade level. I'm excited to see what story he has to tell. As I have readied his journals from previous years and was intrigued.

Valentine Playlist

Set the perfect mood with these sweet songs of love-

1. A,You're Adorable by Jo Stafford & Gordon MacRae
2. Candy Kisses by Dean Martin
3. The Candy Man by Anthony Newley
4. Directly From My Heart by Little Richard
5. Everyone Says I Love You by The Marx Brothers
6. Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Fats Domino
7. Love is in the Air by John Paul Young
8. She Loves You by The Beatles
9. Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch by The Temptations.
10. You're the Top by Ella Fitzgerald

Dramatic Play

We all know how important it is to read books to our children. While they listen and develop memory skills as well as figure out what will happen next for cognitive thinking. The best is yet to come how about having them retell the story.

Story telling by children is also referred to as dramatic play. This give kids a chance to develop the whole story as well as prepair how to give a presentation. Like when they have a school story telling or report to give for their class.

My son has always enjoyed telling stories to the family on the holidays. While he captures most of their attention for a short time. He is building character, self-esteem and creativity while he is very expressive in his voice and facial features.

Using puppets, shadow figures, or marionettes adds to the experience. Making the experience a useful tool in expressing real emotions, memories and leaning. Some professionals have used sand box's for dramatic play to express emotions that have been recessed by anxiety, fear, or comprehension.

Take time to listen to what their stories are about and see if you can figure out what their stories entail. Understanding your child and how they intake information and retell their version of the story.

Scavenger Hunts

Do you want the best party ever? To have comments coming from your guests that will last a month of Sundays? Scavenger Hunts are great any time of year as well as any where for all ages. This organized step-by-step e-book will help you every step of the way. There are also bonus if you act quickly. Printable Scavenger Hunt lists with great ideas for gifts.

Scavenger Hunts have been around for centuries even back when castles and King and Queens used Hunts for entertaining guests. Today, it has evolved into many areas such as a teaching tool for the Internet as well as for entertaining.

The purpose for using the Internet is to get children to use a Scavenger Hunt is to have a list of questions that need answers to topic such as History, Science, to become more familiar with the world around. This also establishes team work and getting to know others, responsibility, time management.



Corporations have also used Scavenger Hunts for employee's to get familiar with a new work atmosphere such as a restaurant. Having a employee party and using a theme that would be just for the holiday season, retirement, or recognition.

Experience the benefits of a great party so that people will be talking about this for months on end is the absolute complement for any hosts.

If the benefits are so great why is it then that so, few times have we heard of Scavenger Hunts. From my findings there were more hunts in New York alone across the States than anywhere else. Especially at Halloween.

These tips are great for trips in a car, vacations, art museum, history museum, beach, backyard, park, etc.

So, why have so many schools forgotten the fun in learning where there's something in our history that still teaches a great lesson with the aid of independent thinking for the sake of creativity.

Halloween trails with ghosts, trolls, witches and goblins. With some ghosts down a path in the woods or just across a few Use a bridge or a door way in a basement for a troll standing in the way. Witch's for witch way to turn for little one's use a good witch. Have the kids look for a witch's hat, her wand and a frog before dark. Just a few quick idea's.


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8-misbehaviors: Correcting kids & making it fun: Goodbye to Anger

Many times I've found myself yelling at my seven year old for doing something wrong. Being leaving the freezer door open and having to thaw it. It happened so many times, he's in such a hurry that he doesn't want to miss a thing yet, the door isn't one of them. When he was little it was easy to just get him to do the opposite by getting him involved in say: if he chose to throw a toy I would show him some other way to have fun like a ramp for his toy. But now that he's older I'm not doing this as much as I use too. I don't like getting angry with him it's not a good example of how to solve the problem. I have spanked him on a few occasions because I was at the end, I was frustrated and didn't know what else to do. I've also taken him to counseling to correct him this has left him still misbehaving if not more. I just mentioned that I was going to make his punishment a game with a wheel. He just smiled and bounced a little on the couch. His comment: "do I get to spin a real spinner?" A change...yeaaaaaaaa

I recommend this product because correcting our kids isn't just about punishment but, a valueble lesson in life that makes them better. Parents aren't just teaching, but condition their children to form useful tasks from misbehaving.

8-themes or misbehavior
Excessive Arguing
Leaving the lights on
Not putting things away
A job poorly done
S-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g the truth
Taking without asking
Talking back
Wheel of Just Desserts

There are programs, books, and set-up stickers and posters that are just too time consuming. With the wheel you pick out stickers, with your kids. Snap the spinner, your kids have a chance for high consequences or low. For misbehaving they spin the wheel. Click Here To Order

18 years to get it right: Educating the heart makes a Big difference

I went to my son's school this past spring and taught on the subject Freedom. What it is and how we should view this word. Freedom is a set of rules we all follow so, that we can enjoy life in a safe environment.

One of the kids said this "Ms M said we're like a family here" I agreed with her and added that's what we call conformity. We all follow the rules so, we have togetherness and respect for one another.

The class room had allot of interaction with my lesson we discussed:
Rules are like fences
Invisible fences
The rules of life autonomic, antomatic, conscious thought: as an example for following the laws of nature I used a tree growing upside down was they thought it was funny.

I explained about building a wall of habits. If they would build a wall that had bad conscious habits they might not like who they we're later in life. "Choose wisely your habits because one day taking one brick out of the bottom will be difficult."

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Years of Photographs in 10 Days without losing your sanity

Have you a pile of endless photos that keep staking up? Do you store all your photo's on computer or in a box in your closet? Well finally there's hope, easy to use and great ideas for the photos you love. Also great ideas for photo's you really don't want to keep. Nothing goes to waste and you have your memories to share.

Benefits

It will be much easier to learn how to organize your photos by watching live examples.
Allows you to reread, pause, fast-forward, etc., so you can digest the information at your own pace, and it is always available for you to review.
This learning format will make it that much easier and quicker to make a scrapbook, which will get you what you really wants (an improved photo/scrapbook memorabilia) much faster.
You can order right away and download immediately.
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This is the lowest price you'll find anywhere for this level of quality information, and you'll save hundreds over hiring a scrap book professional or taking classes.
The sooner you takes action the better---because organizational problems only worsen with time and become harder to break.


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