Quick, Easy & Inexpensive Last Minute DIY Halloween Costumes

October 29, 2010 By

Halloween is just a mere two days away! Some people will be doing a last minute scramble tomorrow looking for a Halloween costume. There is no need to rush all over the county looking for a great costume. You can pick up all you need from your local grocery store!

Stop & Shop is a chain of grocery stores found in the Northeast. The came up with some really creative Halloween costume ideas that I thought some of my readers would find useful. Even if you already have a costume already these ideas are great to keep in mind for next year.

Even if you do not have a Stop & Shop near your home you can still use these great ideas with supplies from your favorite grocery store.

- Mummy: A creepy classic! Buy a family pack of toilet paper and start un-rolling. A 20-pack of Scott Bath Tissue is on sale now for only $11.99. Check Stop & Shop’s  weekly circular for other great deals and inspiration.

- Eye Candy: Indulge yourself in the checkout aisle for the sake of your Halloween costume, or just steal a few pieces from the candy stash you already have prepared for this weekend. Attach the candy to yourself in the shape of the letter i. Best part: you get to eat your costume when the night is over!

- Piñata: Tape pieces of colorful tissue paper or streamers all over you to create a piñata look. Have bags of candy available to throw at passersby. You’ll be the life of the party!

- Warhol Painting: Take the labels off cans of Campbell’s soup and paste in rows across your body.  For added effect, use different colored highlighters to add some unique flair to each. A masterpiece for only $10! Campbell’s Condensed Soup is on sale at Stop & Shop now for 10 for $10.

- Static Cling: Pin socks and dryer sheets to your outfit. You’ll look so electrifying; everyone will be drawn right to you. Plus, people will be shocked by how little time and money you spent on your cute costume!

- Grape:  Purchase a pack of purple or light green balloons to blow up and pin on a t-shirt or dress for a juicy, little get-up in minutes. No sour grapes about it.

- Sheep: Feeling sheepish? Attach cotton balls all over your clothing (a white sweatshirt works well). Give yourself a nose with black eyeliner.

- Vending Machine: Paint the front of a cardboard box to resemble a vending machine, complete with the cutout at the bottom to retrieve snacks and side slot to insert money. Load up on individually sized packages of chips, crackers and cookies at your local Stop & Shop to give away (or sell…these are all costume ideas “on a budget.”).

- Self-Absorbed: Adorn yourself with kitchen sponges and soak up the compliments for your clever Halloween pun.

- Smarty Pants: Pin or tape candy Smarties to your pants. Make sure to have extras to give away! Otherwise, you’ll just be pants.

For more great ideas visit the Small Victories blog at http://www.smallvictories.com/stopandshop/entry/save_a_ton_on_halloween. There you will find even more fun, easy and affordable DIY ideas including a cute Lego Blocks costume.

Some other cute ideas I have heard of over the years including attaching those fuzzy chenille chicks to your clothing and go as a “Chick Magnet“. Or you can wear a blue sweatsuit and attach a rubber chicken to your outfit then wrap yourself with an old telephone cord and go as “Chicken Cord on Blue” (get it…Chicken Cordon Bleu). LOL!

Kimberly

*I was not compensated in any way for this post. I posted this information for the benefit of my site readers.

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Allowance Manager – FREE Allowance Tool for Parents & Kids

October 28, 2010 By

Here is an interesting fact. My kids have more money then me or my husband at any given time. Our son still has most of his birthday money too. We have actually had to borrow money from our kids. Recently I needed $4.00, which my daughter lent to me. She said she wanted it back - with interest! Funny, don’t we clothe them and feed them? Ha Ha.

My daughter makes, on average, $80.00 a month walking a neighbor’s dog three times a week. Sometimes my son will cover for her if she’s at a friends house or not available. Call me crazy but $80.00 a month for a 13 year old sounds like a lot. My daughter’s friend makes over $100.00+ a month as a ref for the local soccer association. And she is only 13 too!

My 15 year old nephew has more money then anyone I know. He literally has THOUSANDS of dollars! Not only does he save up all his birthday and holiday money (he’s been doing that since he was very little) but he also has TWO businesses. He mows lawns and shovels snow and he also has a DJ business and has been hired to DJ local dances. I’m really proud of my nephew. He’s a real “Go Getter”.

We do give our children an allowance from time to time. Usually its based more upon good behavior then actually helping out around the home. We feel that they SHOULD help out. But we do reward them when they go out of their way and do something special or unexpected. Grandpa also gives the kids money several times a year too.

Do your children get an allowance or earn money? If so, how do you manage it? Do you have a system set up to keep track of what a child has earned and what they have spent? Personally our system is very primitive. We put their money in an envelope and when they want money we give it to them from their envelope. 

There is a new web site that is called Allowance Manager which allows parents and children to keep track of their funds quickly and easily. Best of all its FREE!

I played around with it a bit and I like the way it is set up.

The first thing you need to do is open a FREE account. It doesn’t ask for much information. Once you create an account you need to wait for an e-mail to be sent to you. In the e-mail is a confirmation link you need to click on. After that your account is set up and you can start adding your children.

The add a child to the account you will need to add their gender, name, and birth date. Since I am not keen on supplying personal information for my kids online I just used nicknames and made up a date of birth. After all, I know their birth dates so why would I need to input it on the computer? Since there was no personal information submitted I figured it was pretty safe to use.

Its easy to set up a regular allowance schedule. For example, if your child gets $10 every Friday the system will add $10 to the accoutn balance every Friday. If your child earns extra money throughout  the week (extra chores, good behavior, great report card) you can manually update that amount into their account.

Whenever your child needs to use money from their allowance you can easily update their account to reflect the amount.

I like that you are able to add a brief description of the transactions. That way your child can see where all their money comes from and where they spend their money.

You would still need to house the actual cash some where (like in an envelope or piggy bank). You could even set up an actual bank account and use the Allowance Manager the way you would use a check register to keep track of debits and credits.

Your child can also easily view their account online. Each child gets their own log in and password unique to their own accounts. The only thing a child can do is view the account in detail. They are unable to make any additions or subtractions. Only a parent can do that when logged in to the parent account.

If your child is interested in donating money or ideas on how to spend their money (not that kids need ideas LOL!) there are suggestions found on the site too. For example, if your child is interested in donating money there are links to places like Toys for Tots and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).

Overall I like the idea of having a ‘visual” to see how much money both of my children have. I also think its great for the kids to see what they are spending their money on in hopes it will teach them how to budget their money better. I also like that it is FREE and my kids can easily check their allowance balance online.

The “cons” to the Allowance Manager is that you have to deal with some ads on the site. Thankfully they are not “obnoxious” and in your face. I just mentioned that just to let readers know that they will see ads. I’m assuming that is how the can offer this service for FREE.

The only other thing I didn’t like is that fact that it needed to know my children’s gender, name and birth date. I feel that is personal information and I don’t see why it would be necessary. You can always do what I did and use nicknames and faux birth dates if you feel uncomfortable about it.

To learn more about the Allowance Manager please visit www.AllowanceManager.com.

Kimberly

*This is a compensated post. I am receiving a gift card in exchange for the website review.

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Shoveling in a Snow Storm…

October 28, 2010 By

Do you ever have THOSE days where you feel like no matter what you do you cannot get out from being buried under “stuff”? The feeling that no matter what you do “stuff” just keeps coming at you from all different angles? To me it feels just like trying to shovel during a snow storm – no matter how much you try and dig yourself out snow (stuff) just keeping piling in on you.

This is how I feel today!

I have two orders for my business that I need to do. One is a rush order for 100 buttons that needs to be mailed out tomorrow morning. So far I only have about 10 buttons cut out. Each one has to be cut and assembled by hand. I do not have any industrial equipment to make things easier on me. I don’t know what I loathe more, the cutting or the assembling.

I also have 700 more buttons to complete for another order, due by the end of November. So far I have 60 assembled (the actual order is for 760), 200 cut out and ready to be assembled, and 5oo more to be printed, cut and assembled. Of course NOW I had to go and run out of ink – again. So I’m at a stand still until I can hike all the way over to Staples to get more ink. Staples is not local to me. It will take about 30 minutes, give or take, depending on traffic.

The plumber ($$$) is coming over later on today. I was given the “window” between noon and 4 PM. Ugh! Why can’t they narrow it down to at least a 1-2 hour time frame?

I don’t like it when service people are at our home. First and foremost I feel awkward. It also disrupts my routine since I feel like I have to stop everything I’m doing to over see what they are doing.

Our dog is going to FREAK OUT! I have to spend the whole time the plumber is here just trying to get the dog to stop barking.

Depending on when he comes it might interrupt the time I take our dog out for his afternoon walk. It might also create issues with me having to get my kids from school. I have to leave here around 3:30 to go and get my kids and won’t be back until 4 PM. I DON’T like leaving a total stranger alone in my home – and with our dog. Its not like I can ask my kids to walk home from school either. That would just make me a nervous wreak!

I also have this overwhelming need to CLEAN before the plumber gets here. I don’t like anyone seeing our home in disarray. Right now there is “stuff” everywhere and I haven’t dusted in a few days (bad me!). Part of me feels like I must drop everything and clean NOW and the other part of me keeps saying “Why?”. The plumber will no doubt drag dirt in our home and dust which would mean I’d have to clean after he leaves too.

By the way, just the thought of how much the plumber’s bill will be is enough to make me queasy. Our heating unit doesn’t work. We turn on the heat and nothing happens. However we do smell a burning smell from the heating unit in the dining room.  That can’t be good (or cheap!). We’re suppose to be in the 50′s during the day on the weekend (colder at night) so we have to get the heat fixed ASAP.

I just feel like my whole day is “off” because I have to wait for the plumber to come. I’d feel more relaxed and less stressed if he didn’t have to come, or could come when my hubby was home.

On top of the buttons and the plumber I still do need to clean. I have been slacking the past few days because I haven’t been feeling well. Since I haven’t cleaned things have piled up even more so. I think the dust has dust!  The dust bunnies have turned into dust dinosaurs at this point.

Our home is also taken over but stuff. We live in a tiny condo (tiny is an understatement!). There are four people crowded in a one bedroom. We have a small hallway closet and a walk-in bedroom closet. We have no room for most things. That can be overwhelming at times too. For example, for the past two months three computer paper boxes (big boxes) have been piled on top of each other in the corner of our tiny dining room. Inside is all my husband’s stuff from his cubical where he used to work. Its good stuff (gifts the kids have given him, knick knacks…) but we have NO WHERE to put them. Literally – no where! So for the past two months these boxes have taken up residency in the dining room, which only makes the dining room look “trashy” and it takes up valuable space. My husband can not sit in his seat in the dining room if me or my son are sitting in our seats because there is no room to walk behind either chair!

I really hate living here in this condo. I love the school district, but I hate living in a shoe box. It’s so frustrating! I would do anything to have a bedroom that my husband and I can call our own, and for the kids to have their own rooms too. A teenage girl and pre-teen boy should not have to share a bedroom.

Oh… I would do anything for SPACE and STORAGE! An attic, a basement, a garage… anything!

All the more reason why I feel overwhelmed.

I’m sorry to ramble. I’m just feeling a bit STRESSED out in case you haven’t already picked up on that. This might be why my body is totally freaking out.  I won’t get into detail but I haven’t been feeling well for about a week and my body just seems really “off” too. Stress does NOT do a body good, that is for sure.

If only the plumber could come now, get it over with quickly, and then Merry Maids zip over here to clean for me, I’d feel a million times better. Sometimes just having a squeaky clean home makes a world of difference. Oh yeah, I could use a chef too, or a food delivery service. I have nothing for dinner tonight unless I make pasta again. We just had pasta last night. That would be pasta overkill!

OK… I’m done rambling now. Rambling is not going to get these buttons done, the home cleaned or other blog posts done.

I hope your day is a lot less stressing them mine.

Kimberly

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Christmas is in…

October 28, 2010 By

Need I say more?

In LESS then one month from now we’ll all be done with our Thanksgiving dinner.

In LESS then one month from now we’ll be scanning the TV channels looking for classics like Its a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

In LESS then a month from now you won’t be able to find parking at the mall.

Time flies way too quickly…

Kimberly

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Win a Month’s Supply of Voskos Greek Yogurt – 30 FREE Product Coupons Giveaway!

October 27, 2010 By

Have you ever tried Voskos Greek Yogurt before? I have always heard good things about Greek yogurts but never tried them personally until I tried Voskos Greek Yogurt a couple of months ago. Since the moment I indulged in my first spoonful I was hooked.

Voskos Greek yogurt is so rich, thick and creamy. The consistency is nothing like any other yogurt I’ve had  in the past. My daughter commented once that the Voskos Greek yogurt reminded her of  soft ice cream. I tend to agree with her.

One of my favorites is the Honey Vanilla Bean. I was very surprised to see Vanilla Bean specks in the yogurt. After I mixed it up you would have thought I had a cup of Non-Fat Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. Frankly the yogurt was so good that you could easily have this in place of ice cream. It’s THAT good.

Many of Voskos Greek Yogurt has no fat and 12 grams of protien, not to mention all the good-for-you live active yogurt cultures and 15% of your recommended daily Calcium.

I tend to be lactose intolerant. I can eat things like yogurt, cheese and some milk. I know my limits. The Voskos Greek yogurt didn’t bother my stomach at all, which is great. Some yogurts do and other do not.

Other favorite flavors of mine are the Non-Fat Blueberry, Non-Fat Strawberry and Greek Honey.

Voskos Greek Yogurt is not only a great snack it also can double as a healthy dessert option. Voskos yogurt would also be a welcome addition to your child’s lunch box. Your child will think of it as a dessert or snack more so then a healthy treat.

With the aid of an ice pack you could easily pack a Voskos Greek yogurt for your child to take to school. He/She can eat it with lunch or use it as a snack. Keeping several flavors on hand in your fridge is also a healthy option, especially if you have kids like mine who are famished by the time they get home from school. My kids will grab the first thing they see from the fridge. As long as I keep the fridge stocked with Voskos Greek Yogurt and other healthy options like fresh fruits and veggies, I know my kids will be eating something better for them then chips and cookies.

To learn more about Voskos Greek Yogurts you can visit their official website at http://Voskos.com. The Voskos Greet Yogurt is available across the country.

Some stores might only carry limited flavors or types of the yogurt. If your store does not carry them you should speak with a manager and request that they add Voskos Greek Yogurt to their shelves.

Voskos Greek Yogurt would love to award a lucky reader with 30 FREE Product coupons – enough to let you indulge in a new Voskos Greek Yogurt every day for an entire month. Thank you Voskos!

To enter please visit the official Voskos website, www.Voskos.com, and check our their different products (and yummy recipes!), then come back here and comment on either a specific product/flavor you would love to try or a tasty recipe that caught you attention.

For extra entries you can do any or all of the following. Please be sure to leave a separate comment for each that you have done. Extra entries are optional.

- Subscribe to She Scribes and/or Connect with Google Friend Connect. Both opions are found on the right side bar.

- “Like” Voskos Greek Yogurt on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/Voskos.Greek.Yogurt?v=info.

- “Like” She Scribes on Facebook, www.Facebook.com/SheScribes.

- Follow Voskos Greek Yogurt on Twitter, http://twitter.com/GoVoskos.

- Follow She Scribes on Twitter (@She_Scribes) and tweet about this wonderful giveaway. Be sure to include me in the tweet so I can see it too. This is limited to three tweets per day. Please space them apart (not one after the other). Thanks!

- Use any of the social networking buttons found at the bottom of this post to promote this giveaway. Be sure to tell me what you did and if possible please provide a name and/or URL so I can see it too.

This giveaway is open to US residents only and will end on November 7, 2010 at 11:59 PM (EST). The winner will be chosen at random using a random number generator from all eligible entries. The winner will be notified via e-mail and will have three days to reply with a name and mailing address (no PO Box) or a new winner will be chosen.

Don’t forget to subscribe or follow She Scribes so you don’t miss out on all the great holidays posts during the 2010 Holiday Guide which kicks off on November 1, 2010!

Kimberly

*I was not compensated for this post. I posted this for the benefit and enjoyment of my readers. Any opinion expressed is my own. Voskos will be supplying the winner’s coupons.

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Win $1,200 from Pediacare

October 27, 2010 By

Whenever I come across an interesting contest I think my readers might like I will share it here.

PediaCare wants to help your child stay snug and comfy this cold and flu season, so they are giving a very lucky winner a $1,000 gift card to 1-800-Mattress to buy a new children’s mattress set, along with another $200 toward some comfy pillows, sheets and a bedspread. The prize also includes the collection of PediaCare products for children, with various
formulas recommended by health professionals for cough, fever, flu, allergies and pain relief.

Sounds great! My kids could use new mattresses.  

To learn more or to enter please visit www.pediacare.com/win and click on the “Enter to Win” banner to be taken to our official entry form.

This contest end on December 8, 2010.

Kimberly

*I was not compensated for this post in any way. I posted this for the benefit of my site readers.

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