Money can be tempting to spend for everyone. Kids especially want to immediately spend it on toys, candy, or other cool items that are a “must have”. This is why it is so important that we teach kids to save money. If we as parents effectively teach them the importance of saving money and buying only necessities, then we hopefully will raise responsible, self-funding adults.

Here are a few ideas you can use to help teach your kids the importance of money. Some ideas involve crafty ideas that fully involve the kids in counting, saving, and goal setting.

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I admit I’m guilty of TOTALLY missing Teacher Appreciation Week. Yet in my defense, I home school one kid, and this year it fell week of my son’s birthday. Add that in with Mother’s Day planning and promotions, and well, I completely missed it.

That’s alright, I’ve never been one to follow the calendar when it comes to appreciating those who deserve it. When I was a kid, my mom and I would always make a bouquet of Iris flowers to give to my teachers near the end of the year. We couldn’t give the gift any sooner, because the Iris wasn’t blooming until late May or early June.

In addition to the flowers, we often gave my teachers little gifts, as is the spirit of Teacher Appreciation Week. If you missed it too, then this page filled with ideas for teacher gift baskets may be just the thing to make up for it.

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The first year I lived in a “real house” I was excited to get a garden started. I just couldn’t wait until spring when I could plant all kinds of vegetables, and reap the benefits all summer long. I dreamed of home cooked meals and snacking on raw veggies, canning for the winter and having the most beautiful garden on the block.

While this seems like a good idea and a nice dream, it really wasn’t. Being a new gardener  I let my excitement get the best of me. Luckily, my family made sure I still had a very nice garden that year, and helped me learn how to make a vegetable garden the right way.

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If you love homemade salsa as much as I do, setting up a salsa garden might just be perfect for you this year. A salsa garden is very easy to get started by using plants for a purchased from garden supply stores.

A salsa garden requires little maintenance, aside from pulling weeds and occasional watering during dry spells. Try to keep your plants to a minimum and your garden area only big enough for the plants. It will save you lots of hassle and time if you plan carefully, based on the amount of time you have to dedicate to the garden on a daily or weekly basis.

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A fun way to say “Congrats!” to a new graduate can be with a gift basket. No mater if your graduate is just finishing high school, college, or something else, here are a few Graduation gift basket ideas:

- Congratulations Mug or Class Mug
- Snack food (crackers, cookies, candy, etc)
- Books on Graduation
- Memory Books/Scrapbooks
- Picture frames & books
- Congrats or Graduation Doll/Stuffed Animal
- Food Mixes (brownies, cookies, soups, etc)
- Gift Certificates from their favorite stores (example: Amazon, Target, GAP, etc.)

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I absolutely love the smell of a pot roast in the oven. It give your home that comfortable, home cooking smell. Not to mention with an easy pot roast recipe you can make a meal for your family and have left overs for a week in just a few simple steps. Personally, I prefer to use the oven when cooking pot roasts, but you can use a crockpot for any of the ideas you see below. I won’t hold it against you if you decide to use a crockpot! I just do not care for them (yes I’m weird, I know!).

There’s probably hundreds of different ways to cook a pot roast in the oven. Just like pasta, it’s one of the most versatile foods outs there. While the directions of my version of a pot roast recipe are always the same, the ingredients sometimes change. Below you’ll find two different ingredients I use for an easy pot roast recipe that is cooked in the oven. Again, you could use a crockpot, but my instructions are for the oven. There are a few additional recipes on this page that DO use a crockpot, if that is what YOU prefer.

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The term “free” probably sings to you the same way it does me. You can’t go wrong with free!

These free printable recipe cards were made a few years ago, but are still just as popular now as they were then. Each of these cards are 3×5. Simply click on the image of the card you like the best, or simply right click and choose “save as” to save the image. Print from your own computer on any kind of paper you’d like, although I would recommend printing the recipe cards on card stock. You may also want to use a lamination of some sort to protect the cards.

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Hamburger meat, in any form, is one of the most popular and inexpensive meats out there. There are literally millions of hamburger recipe ideas on the web, many that don’t even require a specific kind of hamburger meat. Although, when it comes time to make dinner, we’re often left scrambling for a recipe idea.

The following hamburger recipe ideas are simple, many containing only a few ingredients. I have purposely left these recipe ideas as basic, so that you may use the list to come up with a specific dinner idea with hamburger meat based on the ideas given. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a strange feeling when a close online friend passes away. No body around you quite “gets it”. I mean, those around you might understand it’s sad to lose a friend. But they can’t understand how an online friend is hard to lose, because they never knew them. Also, the world around you revolves like it always did without change, while deep down something is missing.

It’s especially difficult when losing an online friend as special as Anita DeFrank.

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First let me say the original idea for these ribbons was NOT mine. After a tragic accident in town took the life of a 4 year old girl, a friend of mine came into our store with the idea of raising money for the family by selling ribbons. While neither of us are genius crafters, we were lucky that several kids and adults from around town helped get the design set and created a few hundred in less than a week. The end result was nearly $400 raised and a strongly supported family in their time of need. Mission accomplished!

I decided this idea was so cute that I would share the tutorial on how we made them, in case others would like to use this idea for their own fundraisers or to make  support ribbons for whatever cause they deem fit.

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