* This is a sponsored post with http://brandfluential.com, I am a Sears blogger, though all opinions are my own.*
Over the last few weeks as we have been working on our kitchen remodel, Alex and I have been shopping online for some new appliances. We recently swapped refrigerators with my parents old basement refrigerator since it offers more room for our family of 6. While it offers more room, we definitely do not plan on having it in our kitchen on a very long term basis. We both have visions of a beautiful french door refrigerator with a freezer on the bottom, an over the range microwave and somewhere down the road, a new gas range with a griddle burner. Somewhere in my dream, a portable dishwasher magically appears too along with visions of a new washer and dryer!
Ah….the dreams, they are so big but we will have them someday!
It is possible our dreams may come true sooner than later thanks to Sears and their awesome sale!
You can Save 30% off our favorite appliance brands. Plus, you’ll get an extra 5% off when you use your Sears Card. Now what are you waiting for, go give your Kitchen some much-needed love. Online & In Stores through January 5th. http://bit.ly/ZPtqlN
I’m off to start doing some shopping now! Who knows, maybe I will cave and get our appliances now rather than later!
As the holidays get closer I have been busy shopping, wrapping, cleaning and organizing. I am on a mission to remove the unnecessary clutter from our house. A lot of this clutter is made up of old toys, old clothing and even old home movies (not to mention my awesome collection of 80’s movies on VHS).
While cleaning out my desk I stumbled across at least 10 camcorder tapes of the kids from Christmas’ past. I would love to convert my 8mm film to dvd so that the kids have all of these memories in a useful format when they get older.
I have been looking online for different companies that offer video conversion and for a reasonable cost and I was actually surprised by what I found and that I could do this and I wouldn’t go broke doing it!
Once I stumbled on this service, I learned that they offered other formats of video conversion as well and got really excited! I also have a lot of home videos on VHS that I would love to convert as well!
Knowing that I can convert these memories and bring them back to life makes me giddy!
To think I can embarrass Zack down the road showing footage of his first birthday, the Libby putting on a show, and then there are the memories of our first Christmas with the Alex. I even found a tape labeled Zack’s first Christmas!
I am going to continue to round up all of our home movies and get ready to ship them out so they can all be converted at once. I hope the kids will enjoy this gift when they receive it somewhere down the road! Either way I know just having them will mean A LOT to me!
Do you have old home movies that you would like to convert?
Everyone has that one hard to buy for person on their shopping list. This hard to shop for person seems to own everything, or they just never voice a want they may have. When it comes to unique, and visually stunning gifts there are no others which can surpasses the gift of coins. With so many wonderful manufacturing options available in today’s world a talented craftsman has the ability to bend, mold, and create gifts from coins in some new and spectacular ways.
Neck ties were once the gift for any occasion, and those who opened this gift often smiled, but never truly appreciated it. Now boring old ties can be a gift of the past with the many coin gift options. A handsome boxed set of carefully placed, and chosen coins are the perfect gift for coin lovers of any age. New York Times boxed sets are not only a must have for collectors, but they would make a cherished gift for anyone. These sets can take the viewer back in time to read the event that made it to the front page of the New York times, and allow them to see coins that were created during that era, or were created later because of that moment in time. The wooden boxes, which house these special captured memories, would make the perfect addition to any coin collection, and they do look charming when placed on a shelf or desk for everyone to enjoy.
A truly unique gift for the hard to shop for individual, which is visually stunning, would be a gold coin pendant. There are many different types of gold coins available for these pendants, which makes this unique gift quite personal as well. A 14 kt gold pendant can be round or tear drop in shape, and the chain can also be in different lengths to tie perfectly together the whole design.
Executives, office workers, coin collectors, grandparents or anyone else that is on the gift list this year would admire and cherish an unique gift created from coins. Boxed sets, pendants, treasure chests and even wall plaques are just a few of the options that many people favor for gift giving.
It’s no secret that Christmas shopping can become quite expensive, especially as the list grows and grows over the years. In addition to the price tag though, figuring out that perfect gift is often quite difficult. Have you considered buying wax treatment gift certificates for someone on your Christmas list? Now is the time to do so!
For whom would such a gift certificate be appropriate? Well, you do not want to insinuate that any of your family members or friends are overly hairy, so it would be best to purchase it for someone who has expressed a desire to get waxed. Of course, purchasing it for a very close family member or friend who will absolutely not be offended is another possibility. Do not limit these types of gift certificates to women; plenty of men on your list might love never having to worry about excessive back or chest hair ever again.
This gift does not necessarily have to come in the form of a gift certificate either and it could actually be part of a day out. Plan a date to take your mother, aunt, sister-in-law, brother or another person out to lunch, and then you can both visit the waxing salon. Check to see if any other services are available, and maybe the two of you can receive a massage once the waxing process is complete.
When purchasing such a gift for a person, consider the fact that waxing is an on-going process. It’s not as though the individual will receive a wax and then never have to have one again for the rest of his or her life. One way to remedy this situation is to purchase a couple of wax sessions or gift certificates for wax sessions for the individual. Ultimately though, you may be on a budget. In this case, tell the individual how happy you are with your own personal results, and he or she might be motivated to go back for future sessions.
How should this gift be presented to the recipient? Body hair is a sensitive issue, even for the most open person in your life. Therefore, it would be best to give this present in private. If you generally exchange gifts in front of other people, put it in a card with another gift card to cover it up, or simply give the rest of the gift at the public exchange and talk about the wax treatment later.
Gardening is an excellent activity for families to enjoy together. It teaches kids how living things grow, encourages them to like fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables, and is a great way to learn about responsibility and caretaking. Plus, it’s fun. Whether you plan an acre’s worth of veggies or maintain a small window box of flowers, here are five basic gardening tasks your kids will love, and you might just find they save you some work, too.
Preparing the Garden
Ask children to help plan the garden so they feel involved from the start. Let them help choose a plot of land or some containers and ask each child to select his own vegetables or flowers to plant. Children will also enjoy picking up sticks and raking leaves to prepare an area for gardening. Make this chore into a game to see who can collect the most sticks or remove the most rocks from the ground. Ask kids to gather gardening supplies and carry debris to the bin or compost pile to keep them moving and involved and save your grown-up legs some walking.
Digging in the Dirt
Most children dig in the dirt for fun anyway. Why not put their skills to work in the garden? Equip younger children with safe, plastic, kid-sized tools to avoid injuries from metal rakes and spades and let them dig right in. If their attention wanders and they start making mud pies before there’s a hole for every bulb or seed, try asking them to imagine you’re excavating for dinosaur bones or digging for buried treasure to keep them motivated.
Pulling Weeds
What seems like a chore to adults is an exciting game to children. Teach kids to recognize and pull weeds to help your garden flourish. Supervise younger children to be sure that only undesirables are uprooted. Have a contest to see whose weed pile is the biggest, or save some of the pulled weeds with the most interesting leaves or blossoms to study and identify like scientists or to use in arts and crafts projects.
Watering
What child doesn’t love to play with water? Let the kids get a little wet and help sustain the garden, too. Kid-sized watering cans cut down on spills (but not necessarily on-purpose soakings), and hoses and sprinklers can be lots of fun. When the plants have had their fill, let children pretend to be the flowers in the garden, standing in the sunlight with their arms up like petals, and give them a little sprinkle of their own.
Harvesting
The most important part of gardening with children is showing them how their hard work pays off by letting them help cut fresh flowers or harvest veggies when the time is right. They’ll feel a real sense of pride in their accomplishment and maybe, just maybe, even deign to eat some of the healthy produce that they’ve grown.
Written by Jamie Lovelock
Jamie runs a landscaping business. Jamie gets a lot of inspirations from his dad who is a gardening enthusiast. Jamie loves DIY at home and spends lots of time in his workshop when he’s not in the backyard.
