Free book downloads

http://www.kids.audible.com/ is giving away 9 free story downloads to help promote children's literacy. These include
Rapunzel
Gift of the Magi
The Tell-tale heart
Rikki-Tikk-Tavi
The Emperors new clothes
Rip Van Winkle
Peter Pan in scarlet-the 1st chapter
Rotten School-the song
Interview with Lemony Snicket
Just scroll to the bottom of the page and click the picture on the left side where it says Free Downloads for children's literacy.
They have many many books you can purchase and download also. Happy Listening!
~Lindy

Family Home Evening

If you have never heard of www.sugardoodle.net then you need to check it out. Not only is it an amazing resouce for any church calling you may have, but it's also wonderful for Family Home Evening. Check it out! You can find TONS of stuff on there! I get a lot of my stuff from there and then I laminate it! Big shocker! :-)
~Lindy

Gear up for Christmas and do a craft with your kids!

This is a small assortment of the ones we did this year and last year. There are more:-)

You can buy a ton of different ornament kits to make from Oriental Trading. At our house...we all love to do crafts. This makes it REALLY super easy for me! I dont have to cut and buy all the seperate pieces we need...it all comes...though occasionally you are missing a piece in your bag...but they give you a little bag of spare parts! So, check it out. These are just some that we have made this year. After we make them we pass them out

to teachers, neighbors with cookies, and give all our family members one.

And, my frugal comment about the ornaments: if you check after Christmas time...a lot are on sale. Some are on sale before also...but especially after:-) You can do these for as little as .33 cents each! Happy crafting!

~Lindy

My Favorite Things

From now on each Wednesday I'm going to post one of my favorite things. I realize today is Thursday...I was slammed yesterday. So, here you go!

This week my favorite thing is my.............LAMINATOR. I used to use contact paper and "laminate" all the things I made for my kids. It would start peeling and it was such a pain to lay it without it getting bubbles or wrinkles etc. A friend of mine told me about her laminator about a year ago and I HAD to get one! I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! I laminate LOTS of stuff! I've been able to help friends laminate their stuff. Now, when I spend my time on FHE lessons, I laminate them so I can use them again later! Instead of the pieces getting destroyed. I bought it at Sams and I also buy the laminating sheets at Sams. They come in a 200 pack for about $20. :-) Happy Laminating!

~Lindy

Sand (salt) Art!

One of my daughters and I did this as a parent/child activity when she was in Pre-K. It was so much fun that we have done it at home just for the fun of it and even done it at a birthday party she had for a party favor!-Their very own art! All you need is a bowl, salt, colored chalk, and a container to pour it into.

1st pour your desired amount of salt into a bowl and pick your desired color of chalk. Take the chalk and stir the salt until it's the color you want. The longer you stir the salt the darker the color will be. It goes a bit faster if you kind of rub the salt against the bowl with the chalk.

Make as many colors as you want and create a masterpiece your child will be proud of. My kids sand art are in the living room displayed on a shelf. :-) Enjoy!

~Lindy

Dried flower art

I needed some kind of art for my bathroom, so I went and picked some little purple flowers that were growing in my yard (yes they were basicaly weeds...but they were free). I dried them and then arranged them in my frame. This cost me absolutely nothing because I already had that frame. But, if you need a frame they are always on sale at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. I tied a bow to make it look like a bouquet with some rafia ribbon.

~Lindy

Decorate your own cakes-save some money!

I am so far from being a good cake decorator it isn't even funny. BUT, I managed to decorate this cake (and several others) and make it look decent. I used a container of icing that looks like a cheez wiz can but comes with some decorator attachments. There are two brands at Wal-mart-Betty Crocker and Wilton.. and they come in several different colors. So, for $5 I made and decorated this cake instead of spending nearly $20 on one purchased from the store! Think about it and give it a try! AND you don't even have to clean the decorating pieces! You just throw them away!

~LINDY

Pot holder 1st aid kit

This is an awsome idea. My sister-in-law showed me this that she made at enrichment in her ward. And you probably already have the stuff to make it! You need a potholder, snack size sandwhich bags, a piece of ribbon, and a sewing machine ( or a needle and thread).

You can use it for a 1st aid kit ( I would) , a travel make up bag....I'm sure there are a million ways you could use this! And, attach a button on the opposite side and loop the potholder hanger onto it to keep it closed!
~LINDY

Birthday Banner

A friend gave me a link that had a picture of one of these that someone made...so me and my sister made them! It's something we will have forever and will become a family tradition! I used my cricut machine to cut the letters. Then we traced them onto cute fabric and did a lot of cutting! :-) We also used the iron on stuff to attach the letters to the squares we cut and sewed. Then we sewed each square onto a piece of ribbon.

~LINDY

My place for my stuff

I decided I wanted to do this blog as an outlet and possibly as also input to my crafting world. I love love crafts and I love finding new ideas! So....here we go!