Old Navy Gift Card Deal

I was just loading coupons onto my Smiths Card and I found one of my favorites. $5 off $25 Old Navy gift card. If you like to give gift cards for Christmas or birthdays, this is a great deal for the obvious reason, but the reason I love this deal is because I buy them for future use. If you like to shop at Old Navy, you just got an instant 20% off, it's a gift card so there's no rush to use it, AND you can combine it with a coupon or discount because when you use it, obviously, it's just a regular gift card!! I bought some at Christmas when Vons had a similar deal, and I just used one the other day for Uniforms for my kids and I'll probably use the other one at Christmas. I'm not sure if you can buy more than 1 per transaction because it doesn't say on the coupon. I'll try and find out and let you know.

A couple of DIY Projects

 I am definitely a DIY person, I actually enjoy doing home improvement projects and you can save a lot of money while still sprucing up your house. Now having said that, I also know my limitations and I definitely will not take on a project that I know is out of my league because it usually turns into a DIY disaster and ends up costing more than hiring a professional in the first place. So I found 2 DIY projects on Pinterest that I wanted to try 1 was very successful and the other...not so much. So I thought I'd share my experience.

The first project was painting those shiny brass doorknobs and hinges. I've hated those things since we moved into this house 12 years ago. So, I found a couple of DIY bloggers who had spray painted the hinges and doorknobs, so I thought I'd give it a try. I bought the spray paint and got started. Well the spray paint is not cheap around $8/can if I remember correctly which sounds cheap, but then there's the nightmare of taking doorknobs and hinges off, painting waiting for them to dry etc. I only took one hinge off at a time which was good as far as not having to take the door all the way down but bad because doors don't shut properly with one door. That wouldn't have been a problem if we didn't have a 1 year old which requires us to keep doors shut. It started out okay and then it just turned into a headache. The 2nd nozzle on the 2nd can of spray paint broke after about 1/2 way through so now I'm 3 cans in which is $24 and I wasn't even done. After a week, I finally gave up and bought door knobs. I did finish the hinges, but in the end I bought doorknobs from Lowes for $8-$10 each (locks cost more) and it was worth every dime of the extra cash. The 1 door that Idid not replace is now chipping off after about 5 months. So, I personally did not find it to be cost effective. If you're going to do it, my advice is paint the hinges buy the knobs.

You can see the chipping on this door knob.

 

This is the store bought knob.

 So much better than that brass stuff even with the cheapie doors!

Now for the success story. I was so tired of those honey oak cabinets I could hardly stand it plus I got hair tint on the bathroom cabinet so I had to do something! I found this tutorial and followed it to the T and my cabinets look AWESOME! If I was staying in this house I would have done the kitchen, but I did the 2 bathrooms and it has held up great! It has been almost a year and lots of abuse from the kids and they still look great. Like any good DIY project it took time, but was really simple really the majority of time was just waiting for each coat of stain to dry. I highly recommend this project and be sure to follow the instructions.
  This is the before color of the cabinets

This is the after. Sorry for the horrible photography. Not my strong suit! 

 

Bread Pan

I posted a long time ago about the fact that I make my own bread and for those who haven't read that post, rest assured that I am not spending hours in the kitchen making bread that is just not the way I roll...I wish it was! Here's a link to my previous post and my favorite recipe. I just had this one serious dilemma, actually I have two serious dilemmas now, but I only have the answer to one, but I digress. The dilemma was that when I used traditional bread pans, and made sandwiches for my kids lunch the slices were too big. They were awkward for little kids and they didn't fit in the sandwich containers. So I found these bread pans at Amazon, and I love, love, love them okay I only have 1 because I can only make 1 loaf of bread in my bread machine which leads me to the 2nd dilemma and that is that I have to make bread every 2 days because that's how much bread we use during the school year. Anyway, I bought 1 to try it out and I would highly recommend it. The bread now fits perfectly inside the container and doesn't fall apart at the top(except when I forget that it's rising and it's 2 ft tall by the time I put it in the oven!)

I have the 10 inch which is the perfect size for the loaf that I get from my bread maker, but it also comes in 12 inch which would be great for a bigger loaf.

Peaches, Pears and Honey

For those of you in Las Vegas, if you are interested in ordering Peaches, Pears or Honey, please let me know. There is a lady who does bulk orders and she's awesome. She's very careful about ordering really good quality at the best price she can find. She orders directly from the farmers so everything is always very fresh. I've ordered peaches several times and honey and everything has been Great. So, if you're interested send me an email and I will forward the detailed information to you. (my email address is over there on the right or if we're friends on facebook you can send me a message there)

Bartlett pears are $24 for approx 22-24lbs
Honey (raw, light or dark) $34/gallon bucket

Delivery date for pears is August 31 and possibly honey on that date too

If you're interested let me know asap so you can get your order in. She's still waiting for a price on the peaches and they will deliver mid-Septemeber.

Thanks Creative LDS Quotes

Now that summer is winding down, let's talk watermelon...I know we should have done this months ago, but Winco still has watermelon for around $ .30/lb I can't remember exactly! Anyway, in my mission to keep my kids from pigging out on chips and pretzels all summer, I tried to keep lots of fresh fruit and veggies on hand. We love watermelon, but there is nothing more frustrating than lugging a 16 lb watermelon home and cutting into it only to find that it's yucky! So, I did my homework at the beginning of summer and here's what I found. These are my top 3 tips for choosing a good watermelon:

1. Find one that is uniform in shape that means there were not starts and stops in the growing season

2. Look for a nice yellow mark. This is where the watermelon rested on the ground. If the mark is nice and   creamy yellow or orangish that means it was nice and ripe when it was picked. If the mark is whitish or non-existent that means it was picked too soon. (For some reason this one turned a little greenish yellow while it was sitting on my counter for 2 days)

3. Pick up a couple of good looking melons that are approximately the same size and weigh them the heavier the better, that means it's nice a juicy, not dried out.

This is how I have picked my watermelons all summer and we haven't had a bad one yet!

Now how to cut that melon also a huge frustration until I found some help online. So here's how you cut a watermelon.

First cut the ends off

 Then stand the melon up on one end and start cutting the rind off from top to bottom

 Next start slicing and cubing

Watermelon is 95% water so it's a great snack especially on those hot summer days and an easy way to help stay hydrated!

Free Cheetos at Smiths

Download a coupon to your Smiths card for Free 8.75-9.25oz bag of Cheetos Today only!