Super cheap activities to keep teens occupied

So, you are about to have a houseful of family - young and old. The men want to watch TV, the women want to talk and the kids are bored out of their minds unless they are plugged into their electronic devices.

Wouldn't it be nice to have something different to do using just the items you already have in your house?

Here are five fun and time consuming activities to occupy your tweens and teens (and maybe their parents) without costing a bundle:

1. Make this crazy paper toy. Watch the video. Good luck making this ingenious paper toy. Materials: sheet of paper, scissors a bit of tape.
2. Cool paper pop up. This requires an exacto knife for cutting and a surface that one can cut on - like a thick piece of cardboard.
3. Paper treat cups. These are cute cups that can be decorated for your holiday table.
4. Learn to draw a perfect freehand circle. This one won't take up too much time to learn, but could bring about some great pictures of round objects.
5. Origami transformer ball. This is a GREAT project. Requires a hot glue gun and patience.

Let me know if you make any of these great paper projects. Have a Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving calculator for shopping

Here's a sweet calculator to help you figure out what you need to buy to cook up your Thanksgiving feast.

You can plug in how many people are eating. You can separate into meat eaters and non-meat eaters.

It's pretty helpful. It is set up in an excel spreadsheet. Pretty cool.

Handmade present ideas that I love

I love handmade presents. I love to give them and I love to get them. My most prized possessions are handmade gifts that I have received. They are irreplacable. You can always buy a new ipod, dvd, or car. But replacing a handmade, one-of-a-kind cross stitch, sweater, picture or poem is impossible.

For those people that think that they just aren't creative or imaginative and can't think of what they could possibly make for someone, here are five wonderful ideas from one of my favorite Do-It-Yourself sites, Instructables.com.

1. Turn a picture into a picture tiles. (see picture above) This is a truly unique, inexpensive and surprisingly easy gift. This would be a great idea for someone who just purchased a house, got married or had a baby.
2. Beautiful pencil holders from recycled tin cans and styrofoam. I love it when I find a craft project that looks so much better than it should. This is one of those projects. This is an excellent project to do with your kids.
3. Make chocolate balls. This confection making recipe looks super easy and super yummy. I think I will make it without the liquor. Make up a big batch of these goodies. Package them nicely and give them as gifts to your co-workers. They will be asking for more all year long.
4. Turn a book into a clock. This is SUCH a great idea for a little one with a favorite book. Buy another copy of the book at a thrift store or get it from Swap.com.
5. Sew a Santa Hoodie. This looks so cool that I am going to go out today and get a red hoodie and white fake fur. I want to see my skateboarding son decked out in this one.

I hope these homemade gift ideas get you in the gift making spirit. Do you have any of your own favorite gift making ideas?

My very best pregnancy tip - natural heartburn relief

If you happen to be pregnant, and you known who you are, then you may be experiencing now or in the future, HEARTBURN!

You can run out and buy yourself a bulk supply of TUMS or grab one bag of this magic, all natural heartburn remedy. I really like natural health remedies like my article on How to avoid heat exhaustion.

I know lots of pregnant women who have spent their entire pregnancies buying and eating Tums. Unfortunately, if you look at the list of all the ingredients in Tums, you will see that some of them might not be exactly what you want to feed a pregnant mom. Plus, the cost of Tums keeps going up.

So, here is my tip. It's my best tip. Don't waste it.

Blanched, slivered almonds.

Yep. That's it.

My midwife told me about this when I was pregnant with my first child. What a life saver.

I had little bags (divided up a big bag into smaller bags) of these almonds in my purse, bedside table and my desk drawer. If I started to get heartburn, I'd just grab a small amount, chew them well and, voila, no more heartburn.

I've been told by several women that this was the very best pregnancy advice that they ever got. I hope it helps you. Of course, you can use this tip even if you aren't pregnant.

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This article is copyrighted by Bobbi Burger Brunoehler.

You're Invited to a Food Swap

Have you heard of Food Swapping? It's a great way to trade your homemade and homegrown goodies for other people's homemade and homegrown goodies.

Just a few weeks ago, I went to my first food swap and became a food swap junkie! Yep. I'm hooked. I think food swapping is the most fun... well, since clothes swapping.

So, I've decided to host a food swap this Saturday, June 25th at 11:00 am as part of the Frugal Festival Food! at the Canoga Park High School.

Food swaps are easy. You make some food item or pick some from your and your neighbor's trees. Package them and bring them to the swap.

The above picture is of the items that I brought home from the last swap. I took a basket of my famous chocolate covered chocolate chip cookie dough balls and swapped them for:

• jam
• mixed greens
• 2 potted irises (not pictured)
• oatmeal and lemon face scrub
• brownies
• lemons
• squash
• banana bread
• shortcake

How yummy is that?!

For more information and/or to register for free go to http://frugalfestivalfoodswap.eventbrite.com/

Don't be shy. It is super fun to food swap.

Frugal beauty tip

I received this wonderful beauty tip and movie trivia from Tanii, the daughter of movie and TV actress, Anne Dore.

"When I was growing up, Turkish towels were very much in vogue. (The Turkish towel has a long and rich history. Its weave is distinct in that it has “piles” similar to woven carpets, unlike regular towels with a flat weave so prevalent for so long.)

At the time, I didn’t know why these towels were special. All I knew was that Mother used them to bring circulation to the surface of the skin by rubbing them all over her body usually in circular motions. She never rubbed hard, but vigorously enough to where her skin glowed with vitality. This was as ritual performed after a bath or shower when the skin was warmed up.

Mother also owned and used body brushes, usually ones with long handles. She did a dry brushing of her skin before a bath or shower when she wasn’t using a Turkish towel. Both methods helped loosen and eliminate any dead cells and resulted in very soft skin requiring a lot less creams and moisturizers.

Story: Most of her work in the entertainment industry was as a showgirl - not much dialog, but lots of eye-candy. Among her credits was “The Colgate Comedy Hour” for NBC working with such stars of the time as Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Abbot and Costello, Bing Crosby and others.

But her “claim to anonymity” was doubling for Tony Perkins in the Alfred Hitchcock classic, “Psycho.” Contrary to what audiences thought they were seeing, it was not Tony Perkins (dressed up as his movie mom) who stabbed Janet Leigh in the now-infamous shower scene. It was Mom! She got the part because she was tall. Hitchcock wanted a body double because he knew, quite rightly, that people would recognize Perkin’s body language and figure it all out before the end of the movie. Mother never got screen credit, and very few people in the world know this “secret,” but now you do!"

You can pick up a Turkish Towel at any good linen store or follow my yard sale tip and find the good towels in the linen closet at estate sales.

Save money by cooking fresh

I was lucky enough to grow up in a household that often included my mother, both grandmothers, and my great aunt. All of these incredible ladies felt most comfortable in the kitchen. I spent at least half of my early years sitting at the kitchen table watching them whip up stews, sauces, jams, cookies and pies. All from scratch.

It's not like they ever really showed me how to do anything. I just watched. When it came to the time in my life where I was standing in my own kitchen with no one there to cook for me, I didn't reach for a can opener. I reached for the raw ingredients that were needed to cook.

I knew from observation how to chop, grate, steam, broil, saute, simmer and bake just about anything that I wanted. I knew how to use a strainer, a grater, a rolling pin and a mixer. To my surprise, I even knew exactly how to make homemade pie pastry that was perfect the first time I made it.

Unfortunately, today's children are not growing up in households where they sit for endless hours watching food prepared. A huge number come home from a long day at school to an empty house. They take something out of the freezer and pop it into the microwave where short burst of radiation kills any nutrients that may have mistakenly survived the processes necessary to make food last well past nature's intended expiration date.

Fortunately, there is hope! The internet provides access to incredible videos and recipes that can teach you and your children how to prepare your own food. It's fun and its cheaper than buying prepared packaged food.

Here are five of my favorite sites to help you on your journey to real food:

1. How to cook from scratch. This is a great article on About.com that lists out some very basic recipes. This is a good place to start.
2. Recipes from ingredients you have on hand. Supercook.com is an awesome site that allows you to put together something to eat from what you already have. It will also show you recipes that will require one or two items that you don't have but you might be able to borrow from your neighbor or pick up at the corner store.
3. Videos that teach you the basics of cooking. This site has lots of short videos that show you all sorts of basics like how to cut an onion or how to fry an egg. Fun, fun learning.
   
4. Learn to cook from a kid. I say that the best way to learn a new subject is to approach it like you are a fifth grader. Here's a kid with her own cooking show. I learned a lot.
5. A list of the top 100 culinary blogs. If the above four aren't enough for you, check out this list. Whatever you need and want will be in that list.

I love food and I love cooking. It is so much better to give your family food that is fresh cooked. I hope that these links help you overcome any back-off you might have on using your kitchen for its intended purpose.