Idea Queen Tips & News

This is always a fun project to dive into, although it’s best to plan ahead to make multiple stickers while you’ve got the glue ready.

The only recipe we have is for the lick and stick type, but that’s always been fine for my kids. If you have peppermint oil in the house, adding a few drops of this will make the stickers taste pretty good when you lick them (peppermint oil is just about a staple in our house because we use it for many different things).

The first time we did this craft was probably two years ago, and we are finally ready to do it again. The kids have no school today, so we need to do something to prevent them from fighting all day.

You can see the recipe, instructions, and ideas for what to use for stickers here: http://www.idea-queen.com/stickers.html 

We’re looking forward to seeing the lunar eclipse on Wednesday, Feb 20th. I’ve never seen one before, so this really is a treat for me and the kids as well. This will be one of those rare events I’ll be letting them stay up late to see something really neat. I just hope the weather is good.

You’ll be able to start seeing a change around 9pm EST, and it will be the most beautiful an hour later. Apparently pictures shouldn’t be too hard either even with a regular digital camera, so we’ll be giving it a shot (no pun intended!).

More information can be found at:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/15357796.html

This winter has been absolutely horrible, and there’s still no end in site. If it’s not near zero or below, it’s snowing. Well, I’ve had enough. Any mention of cold weather or snow is starting to set me off, so I had to do something.

The first thing I did was changed the template here at the blog. The last one was for Valentine’s day, so we needed something a little more like spring. It wasn’t my first pick, but it was the first one not to give me major problems with the design. If you dropped in during the revamp yesterday, I apologize.

While working on the template I pulled out some specific candles. One was in the scent floral bouquet which is burning in the front room, and the other was lily of the valley. Nothing like the scent of fresh flowers to trick your mind into thinking it was warm.

Everything worked fine until I had to go outside. Is winter ever going to be over?*Sigh*

For the last few weeks, I’ve been stuck on the groups at Cafe Mom. Looking through all the groups, it’s amazing to see how many different diverse groups there really are. It’s also nice to see people with the same priorities as us moms with similar interests. Personally I feel like I’m now “allowed” to have my own personal interests aside from my normal mommy duties.

There’s two groups in particular that I’d like to share. One of them is actually mine, and the other I just like to poke around in. Before checking out these specific groups, be sure to first join CafeMom.com.

Help with Dreams & Dream Meanings

Since dreams are a personal interest of mine, I started this group. I have a pretty strong belief in the fact we are the only one who can fully understand and find the meaning in our dreams. However, just getting it out in the open sometimes can help us figuring it out a little more. This group is open to anyone just as long as all members and their dreams are respected. No religious affiliation is attached to this group.

Details on the group at:
http://www.cafemom.com/group/dreamjournals

Sewing Moms!

A fun group where moms can get advice and projects on sewing, plus show off their latest creations. I love this group, and have seen a LOT of great ideas and tips. (And you know how much we love ideas and tips!). For the sewing mamas, this is a must-see group!

Details on the group at:
http://www.cafemom.com/group/Sewingmamas

These are just two small groups at Cafe Mom, and there are MANY more to check out. I absolutely love this place, so really it’s worth signing up even if you aren’t interested in the two above. Do be sure to go join CafeMom.com right now!

I woke up to a phone call this morning to check my kid’s bags of candy to make sure they didn’t have any Pokemon lollipops. Luckily they didn’t. As of right now it looks like they just found it in Florida, but if you have them it’s best to throw them away. Better safe than sorry.

Read the full story here 

Yup, you guessed it - they were from CHINA. When are retailers going to get a clue?

Usually kids are pretty good about being able to entertain themselves at a birthday party, but it’s also not a bad idea to have a few things planned ahead of time. Things to do in between presents and cake of course!

Play Games
What kid doesn’t want to play games at a birthday party? Since there’s usually quite a few kids at the party, you can play games that require large numbers of kids. Here’s one example that comes from our Party Games ebook:

Pass the Parcel
Wrap a bar of chocolate (or some other gift), in a layer of paper. Now wrap it in another layer and repeat until you have about 10 layers. Finally wrap it in gift paper (so it looks nice). Sit everyone in a circle and play a short snippet of music. When the music stops, the person holding the parcel removes ONE layer of wrapping. Repeat until the last layer of wrapping has been removed. The winner keeps the present.

Fun Activities
Even simple activities can keep lots of kids entertained. If the weather is nice, you can buy bottles of bubbles in bulk (say that three times fast!) or large containers of chalk for all the kids to play with. This works especially well with younger children.

If it’s a winter party, individual coloring books or activity books work nice as a semi-quiet activity. You can also spice this up by having coloring contests, or other types of contests. Usually you can find bulk packages of small boxes of crayons at the dollar store.

Another fun group activity with paper could include everyone making a piece of a hopscotch line, then putting them all together. Everyone would then take turns trying it out with all the different pieces.

Be sure to check other moms to see what they’ve done in the past for games and activities at their kids birthday parties! Sometimes the best resources are those who have seen/done different things to do.

I’ll admit, I hate grills. To me they are messy, a lot of work, and the food really doesn’t taste that good to me. Let me cook indoors ANY day. I realize I’m in the minority here, since most people love to grill. Sorry, that’s not me.

Thing is even though I don’t like to grill or eat grilled food, I absolutely LOVE steak. Cooked on a restaurant grill (which of course is different from an outdoor home grill) steak tastes absolutely FANTASTIC. Luckily it’s pretty easy to fry up a steak on the stove top just as good as you can get it in the restaurant.

The first thing I do is grab my griddle to cook on. I find it easier to get your steak to come out the right way if you use a flat pan instead of anything else. Why I don’t know, I’m not a master chef, but I just know it works better.

I like my steak medium rare, so I cook my steak at medium to low heat. If you like it rare, turn up the heat a bit so it cooks more on the outside than the inside. If you like it well done, leave it on medium low  and cook it for longer.

Depending on your pan and your oven, it may take a little practice to get your steak just right. Although the most important thing is keeping an eye on your steak. Adjust heat as need be while cooking to make sure your steak is just the way you want it.

We’re planning on having steak tonight, with homemade mashed potatoes of course!

Yes, I’m a day late, but I still wanted to play. The ideas behind the “Tuesday Toot” is to brag about an accomplishement of you or your kids. I had a good one to share, so there’s another reason I couldn’t pass it up this week!

My brag - I got my taxes done on Sunday! Hurray! I’ve been putting this off for well, more than a month. Since I don’t have to wait for W-2s, I can pretty much do my taxes on the first of January. My lazy rear sat on them though, because the thought of having to do them just was not appealing.

However, over the weekend I finally cleaned off my desk so I could find all those receipts that pile up over the year. Yes I’m admitting my desk only really gets cleaned off once a year to find information taxes. BUT, I’m happy to say that horrible task is done, and so are my taxes! Again I have to say, HURRAY!

What’s your brag for the day? Please feel free to share here in the comments, or post yours on your own blog!

Making your own bath salts really isn’t as hard as you think it would be. The main ingredient is “Epson Salt” in most homemade bath salt recipes, and really isn’t that hard to find.

Epson Salt can be found in bulk at Mountain Rose Herbs, and really isn’t as expensive as you think it would be. Last we checked, a pound was only $3.50! Plus you’ll find other items for natural bath products on this website as well, including different types of salts, essential oils, and other important ingredients.

The recipe listed below for how to make bath salts uses 2 tbsp of Epson Salt, which means you should get about 16 different batches out of one pound of salt. Sea salt is less hard to find, and can be seen at just about any store with the regular salt. However, if you are concerned about the quality, do be sure to check out Mountain Rose Herbs (link above) for their selection of sea salt as well.

Balancing Epson Salt Bath
Epson Salt–2 tbsp
Sea Salt–1 tbsp
Baking Soda–3 tbsp
Essential Oils–16 drops
Jar–4 oz

Choose 3 or 4 oils from these essential oils: Bergamot, Frankincense, Geranium, Lavender, Palmarosa, Rose, and Rosewood.
Add sea salt, baking soda, epson salts and oils to jar. Gently shake to mix, mix well.

*Note: Since you are using several different types of essential oils, it’s not necessary to purchase larger sizes of any of the oils listed. 1/2oz bottles go a very long way, especially when you are only using a few drops of each. Although do keep in mind if you make other types of bath and body products, having at least an ounce or more on hand of several different essential oils is not a bad idea.

Need more recipes? Check out our ebook which lists over 250 easy bath and body recipes!

Need a few last minute Valentine’s day cards for friends and family? You can find ecards or print out some unique cards for free at AmericanGreetings.com. Now is a perfect time to try out their 30 day free trial, since sending out all your Valentine’s day cards won’t cost a thing!

What’s so great about this particular site? Well for one, you don’t have to worry about getting spyware on your computer from a free site. Plus this site gives you a lot of options for personalizing cards, and even printing them too! (You know, for those friends and family who don’t have computers, and probably don’t care about ecards).

The full membership isn’t expensive at all, and probably a LOT less than what you’d spend on buying cards all year round. There’s a few different options too based on what you’d be using the service for.

Be sure to at least check them out and see what kind of cards they have available. Valentine’s day is this week, so you don’t have a whole lot of time!