creative

Chatbooks: Make a Photo Book Straight From Your Phone!

Abby H.

How many photos do you have on your phone? I have over 5000. I just checked.

You know that I am a huge proponent of photo gifts for family members (especially grandparents). That’s why I love Chatbooks. You can make a Photo Book straight from your phone using the Chatbooks app.

Download the app here and get started. It’s super easy to add, edit, and rearrange your favorite photos to create a beautiful photo book.

It’s simple to personalize your photo book with custom colors, layouts, cover styles, collages, captions, and more.

Chatbooks photo books are printed with archival paper and premium quality inks, so they will last!

With over 100,000 5-star reviews, the Chatbooks app is hands-down the easiest way to make a photo book, straight from your phone.

And best of all, the prices are great. So if you are looking for a way to downsize the photos on your phone without deleting them forever, check out Chatbooks. I’ve already made a couple for the kids out of state grandparents.

 

How I’m Saving Time and Money in 2023 and Beyond!

Abby H.

I’m posting a lot less these days because I now have a full-time job outside the house, and y’all- I’m freaking exhausted at the end of the day. weekends are spent doing family stuff (mostly playing with legos and drawing), and doing kid activities like martial arts and girl scouts.

I wanted to share with you some ways you can save money, score freebies, and even earn some money each month without running all over town, spending hours of time doing little penny surveys, or scanning your entire grocery order to earn points for junk (looking at you Neilson panel).

This is how I’ve been doing it for years, and now that I have even less time, I’m leaning on these more.

Automate

  •  Use the calendar in your phone to remind you of appointments, neighborhood free food distributions, sales, and even coupon events: I seriously put the Bath and Body Works coupon dates in my calendar so I remembered to use them.
  • I bought a subscription to  Yasukochi Family Farms CSA boxes. This way my fresh fruit and veggies are delivered to my door each week.
  • Set up auto-shipments for most needed household items. Vitamins/supplements, specialized food, and even pet food. There are all sorts of companies that offer this service including Amazon, Chewy, and Vitacost are just a few.
  • I order from Dream Dinners once or twice a quarter. Now that they have lower minimum orders, I can grab a few favorites and try a new meal with greater ease. I order online, and pickup is so easy- I drive up and they deliver to my car!

Organize

  • I reorganized the kitchen over Winter Break. I have printables available for free. If you are interested, please drop me an email and I can send them to you. They print in color or black and white.
  • I meal plan weekly. I may not have time to post them on the blog each week, but I’ll still have pics up on Instagram each week- it helps keep me accountable. I spend about an hour on Monday evenings meal prepping fruit and veggies that come in our weekly CSA box.
  • For more organization tips that work in our home, check out my post about managing a household with neurodivergencies here.

Disconnect

  • This one is hard, but I am trying to consume only meaningful media. Don’t be afraid to disconnect from Social Media Platforms, people, or advertising that does not serve you or your life. Unfollow people and brands, delete or pause apps as you see fit. Engage with media in a manner that serves you and fulfills you. Do what feeds your soul and makes you a better person.
  • Unsubscribe from emails that don’t serve you. It will make your inbox smaller and you won’t miss information and freebies that you actually want. In my case, it’s freebies from Social Nature, PinchMe, and research study invitations.
  • In the same vein, I am trying to consume less physical media, specifically, mail and advertisements. If I don’t see sales, I won’t be tempted to shop. Junk mail and sale fliers go directly into the recycling can next to our group mailbox.

Saving Money

This is the big one, the reason you wanted to read this post. All of the above will help you save money, but here are a few specific ways that I use to save money on top of all of the above.

  • Use the notes section on my phone to keep a running list of our stockpiles: Toiletries, laundry soap, canned goods, and paper products.
  • Use the notes section of my phone to keep a running grocery list for the week. As we run low on items, I add them to my list. Right now I shop at three stores: Food4less, Grocery Outlet, and Dollar Tree (for specific items that are cheaper there). Unless I have coupons or freebie offers for other stores-usually from Social Nature, I stick to those three. At this point with inflation, we eat meat once or twice a week.
  • Use money saving/rebate apps. My list is here, and it’s pretty up-to-date. Fetch, Ibotta, and Shopkick are my go-to apps, and they yield me the biggest payouts.

 

Review: Cool Maker Girls Spa Night Party

Abby H.

Recently Tryazon sent me three products to host a Cool Maker Girls Spa Night Party. Covid and the County of San Diego regulations threw a wrench in that plan, so instead, I contacted some local mom friends and asked them if they wanted to host their own spa times with their girls. Bitty Bird and I did it yesterday, and we are sharing our kits with our buddies.
We received the following:
Cool Maker, Hollywood Hair Extension Maker. Bitty was most excited about this one. She had pink hair over the summer and has been longing for funky hair again.  It was easy to set up, and while it only held her attention for 20-30 minutes, it was fun.

Cool Maker, GO Glam Nail Stamper Deluxe Salon with Dryer for Manicures and Pedicures. This was frustrating. You must use the polish included, and she didn’t like either of the colors. The polish and the stamps come off when you wash your hands, so 20 minutes later, the few nails we got the stamps to stick to were gone. This is a post COVID activity.
Orbeez – Ultimate Soothing Spa This was the most fun, however, ORBEEZ take upwards of 4 hours to plump up, so prep this one well in advance. You have to use both sachets of Orbeez and the bottle of pre-plumped Orbeez that comes with the kit in order for it to be anywhere near enough. If we use this again, I’ll be getting a lot more to fill the tub up more. The battery-powered motor is a little loud.

It was hard to do all of these activities and take pictures, but I did manage to snag a few:

The nail decals/tape
Bitty loves puppies
What they really look like
Mama’s hair “extension”
Mama’s nail look
This is two sachets of orbeez and the bottle too.
close up of extension
Loaded and ready!
Go Glam!
Peace love and spa day with Mama!
The extension kit (and my scissors not included)

6 Days of Free Crafts at Michael’s 3/8-3/13/2020!

Abby H.1 Comment

Michael’s is hosting 6 days of Free Kids Crafts 3/8/2020-3/13/2020!

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  • Sunday 3/8/2020: Craft Stick Bee 2-4pm
  • Monday 3/9/2020: Pom Pom Caterpillar 4-6pm
  • Tuesday 3/10/2020: Stained Glass Kite 4-6pm
  • Wednesday 3/11/2020: Beaded Butterfly 4-6pm
  • Thursday 3/12/2020: Friendship Bracelets 4-6pm
  • Friday 3/13/2020: Clothespin Birds 4-6pm

Parents/guardians must remain on-site. Each craft is free, including supplies!

Kids Club! Saturday 10am - noon

If this doesn’t work for your schedule, check out Kids Club! Each Saturday 10am-noon, your kiddos (ages 3+) can choose from 2 30-minute projects. Most projects are free or have a low cost.

Family Binder: Important Info at Your Fingertips

Abby H.

The other day I was talking to a friend about how we store all of our information now that my computer is on the fritz/being repaired.

I mean, Most people have everything stored on their computer or on the cloud/external drive, which is great, but if your computer goes out… Are you really going to access everything via your smartphone? That was my plan originally, but after like.. oh, say 8 hours of that, I posted on Facebook, asking my friends if anyone had a spare computer or laptop I could borrow. Because don’t you know it, the computer died… 2 days before school started. When I was taking an ONLINE CLASS!!

My friends Michael and Amanda are generously loaning me their laptop, and it’s much easier to do homework and write.

IMG_3895So, how to store all the important stuff… I’m bringing back The Family Binder. It’s a 3 inch binder, with section dividers, heavy weight page protectors, and plastic folders. We’ve has one for a long time, and as we moved more to paperless bills, it got used a lot less, and became a good way of storing a copy of our monthly budget, important papers, passwords (so many passwords, you guys!).

As you can see I’ve decorated the front of the binder with photos, the Brandon Bird SVU Valentine’s Day card Mr. Husband got for me years back, sonograms of the kiddos. You can make it as plain or fancy as you’d like.

IMG_3901I use some of the pages from the household notebook section of Organized Home.  I love the holiday printables from Organized Home the best. I’ve been using them since 2010, and they really help us stay on budget and keep track of all of the shenanigans that the holidays bring!

Additionally, I have extra sections for vacation planning, important papers (marriage license, vaccination records, copies of prescriptions/ list of all of our medications, birth certificates, kids social security cards, insurance id cards/policy information, and a copy of the deed to our home), and vehicle maintenance. IMG_3896I have a folder tucked in the front pocket of the binder for the big kids educational/medical stuff like his most recent IEP, Regional Center correspondence, and copies of his medical diagnostic paperwork.

I know a lot of you are reading this thinking that most of this information can be accessed online or via your smartphone, but think about when you will most likely need to access this binder… In an emergency. Not the time you want to drain the battery on your phone trying to figure out what your homeowners insurance policy number is, or your insurance agents phone number.  I also keep notebook paper in the back, in case of an emergency. If nothing else, it’ll keep the kids entertained!

If you want to make your own Family Binder, you can put as much work into it as you’d like. I made ours while I was pregnant and nesting with the big kid. So I went to town with with laminating sheets, scrapbooking stickers, decals, paper, and all kinds of doo-dads. I even made a family binder for my Sister-in-Law and her husband when they got married.  Just make sure that you store extra empty page protectors in the back- you never know when you’ll need to add more information!

I keep ours in a safe, easily accessible location, in case we need to leave the house. Living in San Diego County, it will most likely be a wild fire that causes us to leave home. We live too far inland and up high enough where rising flood/excessive rain water won’t touch us.

Talk back: If you have a family binder, I’d love for you to share photos in the comments or post pics on Instagram and tag me: @hewesfamilyfun  using #familybinder.

 

Kid K’Nex- Creative Play for Smaller Hands!

Abby H.

Screen Shot 2018-08-08 at 5.33.36 PMWOW! We were lucky enough to be selected for a Tryazon Kids K’Nex Play Time Party, and today was the day!

The kids had a blast! It was hot already at 10 am at the park, but there were a few kids out, in addition to our guests who came over to check out these awesome toys and play.

38804508_10106054182526514_4093103128713363456_nAnd for those who couldn’t attend, but want to check out all the fun of Kid K’nex, here is a sweet coupon code TRYAZONKK. It will allow your friends to purchase the Budding Builders Tub for 70% off here.

 

About K’Nex: Founded in 1992, K’NEX, part of the Basic Fun! Family of brands, wanted to show kids that the only limit to building was the size of their imagination! 25 years later, K’NEX prides itself on connecting Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math with imagination. STEAMagination can be found in every K’NEX set and with it building dreams become a fun-powered, 3-D reality! Winner of over 390 awards and recognitions, the K’NEX product line has building toys specially designed for every age group and skill level.

In addition all this fun play, the kids and I gave away two of the KID K’NEX Zoo Friends Construction Toy Sets.  Recommended for Ages 3-5 , each set includes eyes, ears, paws, and more! It comes with 30 building ideas in a cool handout, and includes 55 colorful parts!

Here are a few of our creations:

If, you’ve never heard of Tryazon (pronounced Try-uh-zon ☺), Tryazon is a service dedicated to getting innovative products into people’s hands and mouths, in fun settings like the party we had today. They offer excellent product samples and savings for all who participate.

We had a great time and can’t wait to party again soon with Tryazon! We received free items to facilitate this event, however we were not financial compensated to hold this event. All opinions are mine solely. Please review our Disclosure Page for more information.

Flex your Creativity: 100 Days of Art!

Abby H.2 Comments

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I decided last week that I needed to get back to my Artsy roots.

Each day for an hour I will work on some kind of art. Textile, painting, drawing, cooking, whatever. I will try to post pictures of whatever I work on each day on Instagram and Facebook.

Before we had kids, every day when I came home from work I did art in some form or another for about an hour. It was a wonderful way to be creative and keep my mind sharp. And I feel like I need to get back to that.

So far, I’ve worked on some sewing projects, embroidered, cooked, and colored. I’ve started a Pinterest Board too to keep track of my ideas and projects.

So does anyone else want to join me?

Craft Mornings: Creativity and Fun!

Abby H.

Screen Shot 2017-10-31 at 8.29.00 PMFor the past few months, Bitty and I have been hosting Craft Morning at our house.  We set up a table (or two) get out craft supplies, invite mommies and their littles over, and we create.

Sometimes I have a specific craft in mind (ornaments in December), but sometimes we just look at what is available, and creativity takes over!

Tomorrow, we’re doing it again! I’ve got supplies for tissue paper stained glass and scrapbook paper wreaths, but my craft supply stash is pretty deep, so there will be other supplies out for whatever the mommies and kids want to make.

I’ve started a Pinterest Board with ideas here. If you are a San Diego area parent and you’d like to join us, check out the event page here.

February’s Craft Morning will be held at a park, and we’ll be painting and hiding rocks! All of our Craft Mornings are free to attend. Screen Shot 2018-01-28 at 9.25.31 AM.png I get craft supplies for free from local swaps, Buy Nothing groups, Craigslist, as well as family and friends who are cleaning out their supplies.

I hope to see lots of smiling faces at our upcoming craft events!!

Tie Dying: Family Fun!

Abby H.

57044378_10156933867666061_7331522905282445312_o.jpgI love to tie dye! It’s a great way to give clothes that may have been stained a new life. Since I get most of our clothes from clothing swaps, I often find really cute light colored kids clothes with minor stains.

Well, and when you’ve got kids, a lot of stuff ends up with stains, and not just their clothes, I have several shirts that I had to tie dye to cover little people stains from dirty hands and faces rubbing on my during hugs.

There are a lot of tie dye kits available at your local craft store, but what they don’t tell you is that the dye in those kits doesn’t last.  We used this kit last year and the remaining shirts we have have faded to very light pastels. So, if you want to do some awesome, vibrant tie dyes, I recommend using Procion Dyes like the ones Dharma Trading sells.

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Time to start mixing up dye!
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Safety First! Cover all tables and work areas. Don’t forget to wear gloves.

I also have cultivated an Amazon Store with all the stuff you will need, including a kit that contains Procion Dyes- All you need is a bag of Urea and the kit is ready to dye! Procion dyes are best for Cotton, ramie, hemp, rayon- Natural plant based fibers (not linen- that stuff is a bear to dye).  If you have blends with synthetic fibers (like polyester, acrylic, lycra), the color will not be as vibrant. Anything less than 50% natural fiber will end up being pastel.

Since Tie Dying can be a little intimidating, let’s break it down. In addition to your dyes and chemicals…

You will need:

  • A big open space (We use my parents backyard)
  • 2-3 6 foot tables covered in protective plastic (tarps or trash bags work well)
  • 1-2 Large Buckets (5 gallon buckets from Home Depot are great)
  • Access to warm water
  • Measuring cups and measuring spoons (I recommend plastic ones)
  • Plastic bags or plastic wrap (to cover up /wrap up garments after they have been dyed)

Here is my pinterest board with tons of great folding techniques and patterns. You are ready to fold and tie once you’ve selected your garments and laundered them without fabric softener. I love incorporating marbles, canning jar lids, clamps  to make tie dying more interesting.

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Folded, tied, and zip tied!

Once everything is folded/tied and secured (either with rubber bands, zip ties, or cotton string), it’s time to mix the washing soda and hot water. 1 cup of washing soda per gallon of water.  Mix together in the buckets, and soak the tied garments for 15 minutes-1 hour. The washing soda raises the pH of the garments allowing the dye to be more readily absorbed.

Washing Soda is NOT BAKING SODA.  Washing soda is caustic and will hurt you if you submerge your hands in it. Wear gloves when you handle it. Wring out the garments after soaking so they are damp, not dripping.  You can keep using the same water for your entire session.

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Our soaking bucket- it’s actually a plastic tote.

While your garments are soaking, mix up your dye.  The most dye will come directions, but remember to mix your water with Urea. 1/4C of urea to 1 quart warm water. Urea helps the dye dissolve and remain mixed. It also helps the colors stay vibrant.

TIME TO DYE! Once your soaked garments are wrung out, it’s time to apply the dye. If you aren’t sure which colors will look good together, Get a color wheel. It will help you with color placement too. When you tie dye, colors will run together, so using complementary colors will help your garments look better when they are finished.

Remember to apply dye all sides, and if your garment is bunched up a lot, you may need to squirt dye between the folds to make sure the dye penetrates all of the layers.

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Bags and bags of baby onsies!

After the garment is dyed, place it in a plastic bag, or wrap it up in plastic wrap. You want to lay the item flat.  Let the garments sit for 24 hours (or over night), rinse the garments one at a time under cool water until most of the water coming from our garment is clear or a very pale. Then remove the binding (rubber bands, zip ties, string).

Wash completed garments with Synthrapol. It’s laundry soap that binds the color molecules to the fabric and sheds the dye that is not bonded. Once you wash the finished garments with Synthrapol, the clothing won’t shed dye or rub off on you, you can use your regular detergent from then on out. I also throw a couple Color Catchers in the wash too for good measure.

Once your garments are dry, the are ready to wear! I use the word “garments”, but you can also dye fabric, bed sheets, even pillow cases.

 

Here is a King Sized Pillow Case!
This piece of fabric had several different patterns combined!

Here is some of the most recent stuff I dyed:

 


Tie dye shirts make great gifts! You can also tie dye socks- That’s what Bitty Bird is getting in her Advent Calendar this year!

I have utilized Amazon links within this post, prices can change at any time, and I may receive a commission when you click the links to Amazon and purchase items linked. Commissions help cover the costs associated with blogging.