Make a unique hot plate for your kitchen that friends will ooh and ahh over by using flat marbles and leftover wood. The blog Oh!! I like that!! came up with this great idea that just takes a few supplies and can be done on a lazy Saturday afternoon!

Visit the Oh!! I like that!! {HERE} for the full tutorial

Cute Kid of the Year Contest 2009

Do you think your little one has what is takes to be the little Miss or Mister of Hollywood? Upload a picture of your child and take a chance on WINNING great prizes in an online baby photo contest! The Grand prize is a $25,000 College Tuition Fund as well as $1,000 monthly prizes and exposure to the modeling industry! For a limited time bonus they will send you a FREE 8×10 canvas photo portrait!

Enter your kid into the contest {HERE}

Sadly, bees are disappearing at an alarming rate due to Colony Collapse Disorder (when worker bees from a beehive or honey bee disappears). This is something that has been happening for a number of years which science aren’t too sure why.

Some things WE can do to help are…
1. Be Pesticide FREE in your garden
2. Plate Wildflowers to attract bees
3. Eat Haggen Dazs Ice Cream from their Buy a carton save a Bee Program!
4. Support your local Bee Keeper
5. Learn about Bees and tell others
6. Create a natural habitat
7. Drink Dundee Honey Brown Beer all proceeds are donated for CCD research!

Summer is full of swim days, sleeping in and a freezer full of Otter Pops. Well at least back when Mom had to wake you up to go to school and pack your lunch the night before. Now its early to bed early to rise for a hot day of work and lunchtime breaks.

Growing up I loved to watch movies over the summer, the past few nights I have been hiding away in our bedroom watching old summer time favorites trying to keep cool (it’s been in the 100′s here in Portland).

Some of the best (and my favorite) summer themed movies are…

- Dirty Dancing

- The Parent Trap

- Caddy Shack

-National Lampoon’s Vacation

- Stand By Me (which was filmed in Oregon BTW)

- Jaws

- The Sandlot

- My Girl

VOTE  FOR  YOUR  FAVORITE  BELOW!!

Sorry if you’re fav isnt on there, I didn’t want to put too many answers so COMMENT if you dont see your favorite! Lets see how many votes we can get…

Here is a fun summer craft to keep your kids cool by using household sponges as an alternative to water balloons! This was an old project a few years ago on Family Fun but is still fun than ever and a cheap way to keep cool this summer. Thanks to Betz White for the great tutorial and photo!

Supplies:

• 4 regular sponges (they look great in as many colors as possible)
• Scissors
• Dental floss
• Bucket of water!

Directions:
Step 1: Cut sponge lengthwise into four equal strips. Repeat for second sponge.
Step 2: Stack sponge strips as shown, alternating colors. Place length of dental floss under stack.
Step 3: Tie floss around stack, drawing strips together into a pom-pom shape. Wrap tightly and knot.
Step 4: Fill a bucket with water and have fun!

Life is sweet! And I mean sweet by Walla Wall Sweet Onion Rings! Today Jeff and I  just fried up a batch of homemade onion rings using northwest grown Walla Walla onions. The Walla Walla sweet onion is unlike any other onion, they are SWEET and mild when other onions such as the white or green have a strong distinctive flavor and aroma. As the Walla Walla cooks it only gets sweeter and more delicious!

I got this recipie and sweet idea to fry up some rings from my best friend Ashley B! Ashley’s Grandma (Nana) is from Walla Walla Washington where theses delicious onions grow by the plenty! Nana makes a trip up to her hometown of Walla Walla each year to get dozens of these onions we all crave.

Until now I have been getting my fix of sweet Walla Walla onion rings at Burgerville. Burgerville is a fast food burger restaurant only in the Northwest (Washington,Oregon,California) that serves not only fast diner drive-thru style food, but uses the freshest ingredients found locally including the Walla Walla onions!

Nana’s Onion Ring Batter

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Ingredients:

• 1 Egg
• 3/4 Cup Flour
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1/2 Cup Milk (can be substituted for beer)
• 1 Quart Canola Oil
• 1 Tbsp. seasoning of choice (optional)
• 1-2 Walla Walla Sweet Onions

Directions:

(To Prepare Batter)

1. Beat egg in a medium sized bowl

2. Add milk/beer

3. Add other dry ingredients

4. Mix all ingredients well to the consistency of pancake batter

(To Prepare Onions)

1. Slice and peel off outer layer of onions

2. Slice width 1 inch apart, you want the onion slices to be thick

(Frying Instructions)

1. Heat Canola oil in a large stove top pot. If you have an at home fryer those work best.

2. Dip onion slice in the batter, swish around a few times to coat generously

3. Place battered ring into pot/fryer

4. Cook each ring 1-3 minutes depending on size

5. Continually turn the onions in the pot so they will not burn

Summer cooking can sometimes be a dread when it’s hot out and you don’t want to heat your house with ovens or stoves! Controlling my Chaos feels the same way which is why she shared her yummy grilled recipe of Teriyaki Pita Pockets with Pineapple!

The recipe card below shows the ingredients and directions but if you need the full tutorial with pictures and further tips and direction visit Controlling my Chaos {HERE}

With the economy as it is, cutting back on food and other every day items can be hard and nearly impossible. I have come to find a few great coupon blogs and stores savings alerts online, but wanted to find more! Set let me know what you have found and I will add it to the list! A lot of these sites post sales and Buy One Get One deals they have found at local stores such as Target, Alberson’s, Safeway,Walgreens and some sites even post printable coupons!

PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS POST WITH YOUR FAVORITE MONEY SAVING BLOG!!

Around the Sun Blog (Portland,OR)

Printable Coupons Blogspot

The Krazy Coupon Lady

Clipper Girl’s Saving Spot

Surviving the Stores

918 Coupon Queen

Save at Home Mommy

Frugal Coupon Living

The Coupon Clippers

Be CentsAble

Nicole’s Nickels

Chicks with Cents

Hip2Save

Freebies 4 Mom

Want it All for Free

Katherine over at NannyGoat is the mother of all organization! I love her stair baskets she snagged up at Michael’s which were on sale! I have never seen anything like these cute little stair baskets, I wish I had stairs just so I could buy them! What a great way to keep kids (and us adults too) by having a great drop of site when coming in the door from a long day.

Q: Do you have any organizational ideas or tips that you use in your house? Please share!

It is my favorite time of the year again! No not Christmas even though that kinda is my favorite time of the year too, but I’m talking about the July Craftwarehouse Summer Sidewalk Sale! This sale is a huge outdoor tent event that is a huge tent filled with clearance and sale items from all over the store! Many items are discontinued that the store carried throughout the year, so if you have your eye on something through he year and don’t want to splurge then just wait for the sidewalk sale and see if your special item is there. If its not, then oh well sorry you should have bought it. C: JUST KIDDING! But I’m serious, they do have a lot of stuff it’s hard not to find something you like.

Below are pictures of the items that I picked up at this year’s sidewalk sale! Lucky me I found a vase that I have been eying through out the year which was originally 13.99 on sale for 2.50 (WOW!) and I couldn’t part with myself to spend the original price on a vase which I was only planning to use it as a dish liquid dispenser. So I am glad that I held out and found it at the sale for only 2.50, I’m tempted to go back and buy a few more because they did have other sizes and shapes.
Another item that I picked up was a decorate your own wooden serving try! I have been in and out of stores trying to find the “right” tray that suits my flavor and that would go with anytime of the year, my journey stopped at the warehouse with a wooden tray that is perfect for decorating! The price of the tray on sale was 4.95, I don’t know what the original was but I don’t care because all I had to pay was less than $5!

This sidewalk sale is running through the month of JULY (possibly through August) I hope you have a craftwarehouse by you because this is the time of the year to stock up on stamps, inks, frames, florals, EVERYTHING that you can use through the year at a steal of a price.

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