THE WORKS

Our water is really hard and so our toilets were really gross. I went to Walmart looking for something and found this stuff, the cheapest product on the shelf. I bought it with absolutely no hope that it would actually work, but it totally did and I didn’t even really have to scrub that hard. I’m telling you, if you have stains in your toilet bowl, this stuff works. It is probably highly toxic and dangerous to my health, but my toilets are clean!

ZENNI OPTICAL

My second favorite thing are those glasses I’m wearing. I have red ones just like them and another red pair and a wire pair. Why do I have so many? Because they are super cheap. This pair was $13. Total.  That includes the lenses and everything. One of my pair was only $8. And they are real glasses that correct my vision perfectly.

ZenniOptical.com is where you can buy super cheap glasses. They have my business forever. They also have the business of my optometrist. He told me so himself, which told me shopping there was safe.

VANITY JEANS

My last favorite thing are Vanity jeans. Praise the day that my friend told me about these jeans because I am set for life.

See, I have a 37″ inseam and not even GAP’s longs are long enough for these legs. They used to be, but no more. I used to be able to find Silver jeans, but they’re so expensive and I can never find a pair that fit just right.

Vanity jeans are perfect. They sell them in all combinations of sizes, so I can actually by a 29 x 37 to fit PERFECTLY. And they’re very inexpensive. I purchased some on sale for around $30 and another two pair that were only $15. The Samantha fit is my favorite and I can’t find them on the website. I knew I should have bought 5 pair!

What are some of your favorite things?

• Another Shopping Tip
• RANDOM GIVEAWAY: Keen WHISPER Waterfront Sandals
• Removing Blood Stains
• Paper Is My Friend
• Decorating Help

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B. I came across a husband’s shirt with an unfortunate sweat stain around the neck. Gross. But the rest of the shirt is perfect, so how to reuse it???

=

C. Plastic grocery bag holder made from husband’s old shirt.

I love myself.

Supplies

• a woven shirt (long or short sleeved)
• standard sewing supplies

Step 1 With the shirt buttoned, lay it out flat on the table.

Step 2 Cut off the sleeves so you have a rectangle. You can cut off some of the bottom if you want it to be shorter.

Step 3 Cut off the collar, right above a seam so you don’t have to finish the edge.

Step 4 Sew the front of the shirt closed. A zipper foot is handy on this step.

Step 5 With right sides together, sew around the shirt to enclose all the sides leaving the only opening at the neck.

Step 6 Stuff with plastic grocery bags and hang from that little loop on the back of most men’s shirts.

My laundry room is more organized and I have found a practical use for that old shirt. It’s been a good day.

• Kids Towel Swim Cover Up
• Hobo Bag Tutorial
• Reuse Old Clothing
• What’s Your Ecological Footprint?
• Milk Jug Containers

THE PRIZE

One reader will win a Yoplait Greek yogurt “Nourish Your Inner Goddess” gift pack containing four VIP coupons from Yoplait and My Blog Spark!

MY REVIEW

I received this same gift pack from Yoplait through My Blog Spark and got to try out the new Greek yogurt in strawberry and blueberry flavors. Yoplait Greek also comes in honey vanilla and plain, but all flavors have 12 grams of protein in a 6oz. cup – most yogurt has only about 6 grams.

The texture was super creamy and not too sweet, just the way I like my yogurt. Elliot was a fan as well – I only got to eat a few bites of each cup if he was around…he loves yogurt, and I was glad to get some extra protein in him as well.

The spa package is lots of fun also. My favorite is the towel wrap – I don’t know how I’ve bathed this long without one because I’m never going back to the tucking towel method that never holds for very long. It’ll be great at the pool this summer too!

When Yoplait Greek hits the shelves at your grocery store, try the blueberry. It’s my favorite!

GIVEAWAY RULES

• Visit YoplaitGreek.com
• Come back here and tell me what flavor OR recipe you want to try most before midnight Thursday, March 11.
• A winner will be selected and announced at the top of this post on Friday.
• Only one comment per person.
• Giveaway open only to residents of the continental United States…sorry.
• Winners must email me to claim their prize within 5 days.

{This product was provided to Vanilla Joy for review purposes.}

• GIVEAWAY! Yo-Plus Gift Bag from Yoplait
• My Blog Spark Giveaway: Yoplait Whips Gift Basket
• Monday Giveaway: Blurb Bookmaking Gift Certificates
• Blurb Winners!
• Blog Giveaway – Yoplait Kids

1. Marne – “I would LOVE a blurb book! I blog so much that it was going to be pretty expensive. So winning a book is right up my ally! I would make a blog book. It is my version of our family scrapbook and would love to have it in print!”
2. Dawna – “I would make the blog book. I have been wanting to do this for my family to give as Christmas presents! Now you really have me motivated!!!”

The runners up are

1. Maren – “I am working (slowly) on turning our blog from last year into a book with blurb. I like the 8×10 size because it allows you to see the pictures more clearly, but of course that makes it more expensive, as well. I would love the gift certificate!”
2. Lisa Magaoay – “I have been wanting to get one of these mabey winning one would bet my behind going!”

Send an email to kelsey[at]vanillajoy[dot]com BEFORE THURSDAY to claim your prize. The gift certificates do have an expiration date, so contact me quickly. Thanks Blurb!

• Another Christmas Idea…
• Monday Giveaway: Blurb Bookmaking Gift Certificates
• Monday Giveaway – Yoplait Greek Yogurt
• Cheerios 100,000 Book Giveaway
• Win $100 to spend on eBay!

Knitting is a relatively inexpensive hobby, or at least it can be. If you’re into reusing things, however, oxygen tubing makes great point protectors. The lady who taught me to knit also gave me some of these, and they work great in a pinch. And if you have an asthmatic child laying around like I do, you’ll have yards of this stuff…

I thought it was a clever idea…

• Placemat Knitting Needle Case Tutorial
• Easy Valentine’s Crafts for Toddlers
• Garage Sale Advice and Ideas
• Organization of Time
• Handmade Vinyl Menu Board

I redid Elliot’s rocket ship wall decor to something that fit the existing color scheme a little better and with more designs to fill up the space. I used the Everyday Paper Dolls Cricut cartridge to cut the patterns out and then appliqued them with fabric and put them in embroidery hoops – my favorite bedroom wall decor!

I also redid Gus’s wall too – I didn’t like the colors so I came up with a new color scheme inspired by some crib sheets I got at Target with elephants.

I picked up an old overhead projector from a college surplus sale, traced the elephant from the sheet, and blew it up on the wall to be much bigger. I used that as my pattern for the applique.

Then I cut the alphabet out with my Cricut and arranged the letters randomly to make a cute design and appliqued all that to some white terry cloth. It was a lot of work and my sewing machine pedal was burning hot when I was finished, but I love how it turned out!

Besides Heat’N'Bond and my Cricut, a mini iron really makes the applique job go smoother. I use the Clover mini iron and it works great.

This is the finished thing. I love it! Now what to do on his other walls…Any ideas?

• Cricut Nursery Wall Decor
• Boys Rocket Applique Wall Decor
• More Handmade Gift Ideas – Appliqued Bath Towel
• Appliqued Onesies
• Kids Towel Swim Cover Up

I have just gone CRAZY in love with making my own baby food. It’s so inexpensive and so easy and probably healthier too. Gus has quite an appetite, and I just keep popping these little cubes into the microwave until he’s satisfied.

Just steam/cook the vegetables and fruits, puree them with water, and freeze in ice cube trays. Transfer to plastic bags and label with the date. So easy! (I use the Beaba Babycook machine, which makes it that much easier, but your stove and a blender will do the job just as well.)

We’ve done yams, sweet potatoes (they are different, you know…), apples, pears, green beans, peaches, and butternut squash. This weekend I’m going to do some peas and carrots also. I use peaches that I bottled and canned green beans. I steam and freeze them all separately and them combine them for his meals, so pear and apple, peas and carrots, pear and peach, apple and peach, butternut squash and yams,… you get the idea.

If you have never tried making your own baby food, give it a shot. I think you’ll like it!

• Homemade Baby Food
• Black Friday Giveaway #12 – Beaba Babycook (CLOSED)
• St. Patrick’s Day Celebration Ideas
• Pregnant Recipe #1
• Favorite Thing #4: Deceptively Delicious Cookbook

THE PRIZE

Two lucky readers will each win a Blurb bookmaking gift certificate for $36.95, enough to get you a whole lot of pages in any of their selection of sizes. Yippee!

MY REVIEW

I am thrilled to announce this giveaway because I just finished my own Blurb book and I can’t wait to click “PUBLISH” and get it in the mail! I decided at the end of last year to focus on blogging instead of scrapbooking all of my pictures and our daily lives because I was falling further and further behind. At this stage in my life, blogging is much more practical than scrapbooking and preserving our stories and memories is more important than using pretty paper and fun embellishments. Blurb is my printing solution!

So what is Blurb?

Blurb (www.blurb.com) is a creative publishing platform that enables anyone to design, publish, share, and sell affordable, bookstore-quality books. Download Blurb’s free book design software, BookSmart, to design your masterpiece. The minimum order is 1 book, and you can expect to receive your book within 7-10 days of ordering it. {from Blurb.com}

What this doesn’t tell you is that books are available in 5 sizes and begin at $4.95, that there are video tutorials to help you get started, or that you can “Slurp” your blog to the free software for the easiest transformation from blog to book possible.

When you first start in the software, you choose which blog(s) you want to slurp (Typepad, Blogger, Wordpress, and more) and then which posts from that blog, and it automatically uploads all your titles, photos, text, comments, and date stamp into the software. From there you can mix and match and swap and play until you’re totally satisfied.

Besides slurping, my other favorite thing is how customizable each template is. They have dozens of preset text and photo templates for you to use with all different numbers of photos and placements, but you can also edit their templates or create your own to make things look just exactly how you want them to. I edited quite a bit to make the photos as big as possible on the page and to fit as much in as possible.

The whole process was easy to learn and so fun to do! And of course, Blurb is not just for blog books, but that’s the most enticing application for me…

Here are 3 of my favorite layouts. Click on the image to view larger and see what the software looks like.

The program is intuitive and you’ll have it down in no time. (FYI,when you make your Blurb book, make sure you check the “Display Trim Guidelines” box so nothing important gets chopped off!)

This is the scrapbooking of my future. I have been able to record so much more of my family’s life blogging than I ever did scrapbooking, and I have this easy and affordable way to print it nicely.

A standard portrait size book will fit so much nicer on my bookshelf than those enormous scrapbooks do also…

The benefits in favor of printing a blog book are obvious right now – with all the money I spend printing pictures and on supplies, this is a less expensive option also.

I can’t wait to get mine in the mail and share it with my family. Thanks Blurb!

GIVEAWAY RULES

• Visit Blurb.com
• Come back here and tell me what kind of book you would make before midnight Friday, March 5.
• A winner will be selected and announced at the top of this post on Monday.
• Only one comment per person unless you earn extra entries.
• Giveaway open only to residents of the continental United States…sorry.
• Winners must email me to claim their prize within 5 days.

EARN EXTRA ENTRIES

You may earn up to 25 entries by blogging about this contest and including certain links – click here to read more about earning these entries.

You may earn 1 extra entry each for doing the following (make a separate comment for each thing you do):

• Download Blurb Booksmart and give it a go
• Subscribe to the Blurb blog
• Follow Blurb on Twitter
• Join the Blurb Facebook fan page
• Visit the Blurb tutorials page and check out their videos
• Follow me on Twitter
• Tweet about this contest with link back here (copy and paste http://www.vanillajoy.com right into the text box)
• Facebook about the contest
• Subscribe to my feed
• Sign up for my newsletter
• Add my button to your sidebar
• Comment on any non-contest post (must contribute to the conversation)

GOOD LUCK and THANKS!

{This product was provided to Vanilla Joy for review purposes.}

• Monday Giveaway – Yoplait Greek Yogurt
• Another Christmas Idea…
• Blurb Winners!
• Weekend Giveaway: Set of Jerilyn Holiday Cards
• Scrapbooking with Smaller Pictures

The Signing Time winner is Emily Ellsworth! She said, “I love Signing Time! I hope I win this!!”

And the runner up is Kristen Orr who said, “I love Signing Time videos. I have been wanting to purchase these for my children, but so many other necessities come first. I would love to win these!“

Email your address to kelsey[at]vanillajoy[dot]com BEFORE TUESDAY to claim your prize. Thanks!

THE PRIZE

On reader will win the Baby Signing Time Baby Shower Bundle, including volumes 1, 2, and a CD of songs from Signing Time! (value $39.99)

MY REVIEW

{Signing water}

After Elliot was born I saw some a little girl at our church signing “more” and I thought, hmmm. Sign language for babies? That is a great idea! We checked out volume 1 of Baby Signing Time from our library when Elliot was about a year old, and he learned all the signs on the DVD after only a week or two of watching it every day.

I am a huge fan of baby sign language, and the Baby Signing Time DVDs work. That’s how we taught Elliot and we avoided lots of tantrums because he knew how to tell us what he needed/wanted. Sign language also helped his verbal communication when he was ready. He spoke better and sooner than other kids his age, and I’m sure it was because of sign language.  we’re working on teaching Gus right now. He’s a little young, but knows milk (the most important one, right?!?)

Each DVD is about 45 minutes long and even now Elliot watches Baby Signing Time at least once a day even though he knows how to talk and doesn’t really use the signs to communicate anymore. We all love the music and find ourselves singing it all day long, and Rachel is so wonderful to watch!

The giveaway prize includes Baby Signing Time Volumes 1 & 2. Volume 1 teaches the following words:

Eat – Drink – Cracker – Water – Cereal – Milk – Banana – Juice – Finished – Mom – Grandma – Dad – Grandpa – Diaper – Potty – More – Bird – Fish – Cat – Dog – Horse – Frog – Hurt – Where.

And Volume 2 teaches these ones:

Shoes – Socks – Hat – Coat – Please – Thank You – Sorry – Car – Train – Bus – Bike – Airplane – Boat – Ball – Doll – Bear – Wash Hands – Soap – Water – Sleep – Bath – Sleep Clothes/ Pajamas – Brush Teeth – Books – Blanket

Here’s a little video clip from Volume 2:

The repetition and music are what help kids learn it, I think. So fun!

Having used Baby Signing Time with my own children, I give it 5 gold stars and recommend it to every parent. There are so many educational benefits besides just being fun! Thanks, Signing Time!

GIVEAWAY RULES

• Visit SigningTime.com
• Come back here and make a comment before midnight Thursday, March 4.
• A winner will be selected and announced at the top of this post on Friday.
• Only one comment per person unless you earn extra entries.
• Giveaway open only to residents of the continental United States…sorry.
• Winners must email me to claim their prize within 5 days.

EARN EXTRA ENTRIES

You may earn up to 25 entries by blogging about this contest and including certain links – click here to read more about earning these entries.

You may earn 1 extra entry each for doing the following (make a separate comment for each thing you do):

• Subscribe to Signing Time email newsletter (Right sidebar in a red box)
• Follow me on Twitter
• Tweet about this contest with link back here (copy and paste http://www.vanillajoy.com right into the text box)
• Facebook about the contest
• Subscribe to my feed
• Sign up for my newsletter
• Add my button to your sidebar
• Comment on any non-contest post (must contribute to the conversation)

GOOD LUCK and THANKS!

• Black Friday Giveaway #13 – Seagate FreeAgent Theatre+ (CLOSED)
• SUMMER GIVEAWAY #3 – Tuffo Picnic Blanket
• Monday Giveaway – 3 Cricut Cartridges!
• Black Friday Giveaway #14 – Tummy Tub (CLOSED)
• Kids’ Gear Giveaway #6 — Lil Rinser (CLOSED)

• Flirty Apron Coupon
• Online Coupons
• Saving Money with Coupons
• Coupons on Clearance Items
• Oreck Vacuum Giveaway Extended