UsedEverywhere.com

Money Saving Ideas: Selling Your Home Without a Listing Agent

Last year, my dad decided to sell his house on his own. It was a daunting idea at first (mostly because I knew it would mean I would be doing all the work). We aren’t experts in real estate, and it seemed like it would be so much work but in the end it really wasn’t so bad. His house sold and he was able to pocket the money he would have paid out in commission. As with any industry, there are great real estate agents, and there are less than great ones. If you have found a good real estate agent who is worth the $10,000 – $20,000 of commission, excellent. But if you haven’t found a fit, maybe it’s worth considering selling without an agent?

Flickr: GoodNCrazy

 

The nice thing is there are a few companies who have sprung up to fill the gap between completely for sale by owner and a listing agent. They still charge a fee but it is significantly less (i.e. $2,000 vs. $20,000).

·      PropertyGuys.com – they just launched a new Pro series where they essentially pair you with the people you need to do the job (marketing pro, lawyer, appraiser, call center) at a fraction of what you’d likely pay an agent. They have franchises across Canada and are a Canadian company

·      Comfree.com – they have a similar offering but it is more of a do-it-yourself type service. They provide you with a sign, some photos of your home and guidance material, as well as phone support. However, they do appear to be popular in some cities (like Edmonton)

·      For Sale By Owner – the biggest challenge of going 100% for sale by owner is that your home probably won’t be listed on realtor.ca. This could really limit your exposure and success, but if you are in a hot market, there’s no harm in slapping up a “for sale” sign, listing your property on your local UsedEverywhere.com site and seeing what happens!

If you’re not looking to sell your house urgently and feel like you want to try something new, give it a go. After all, you could use all that money you saved in commission to decorate your new home!

This is my first blog of a real estate series that will go into more detail on your options when buying or selling a home!

 

What the Heck are GMOs?

If you haven’t heard the term GMO or Genetically Modified Food – chances are you might this week with social and conventional media covering marches scheduled on May 25th all over North America to protest GMO creator Monsanto. But many people are still confused as to what GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are. GMOs are plants and animals whos DNA has been altered with bacteria, viruses or other DNA from plants and animals in an attempt to obtain a desired trait or characteristic. They have existed fairly quietly in our environment over the last 20 years but have received lots of attention in North America over the last few years with pockets of U.S. trying to get their governments to include labeling on food that contain GMOs. Currently it is up to consumers in Canada and the U.S. to navigate grocery isles and read ingredients on fresh and packaged food to determine if it contains genetically modified ingredients or grown from genetically altered seeds.

With all of the controversy surrounding GMOs, you might wonder why they originally infiltrated our food system at all. Back in the 70s, a major biotechnology company manufactured a herbicide called Roundup but when it was used on farmer’s crops, both the weeds and the crops suffered. To solve this problem, the biotech company created genetically modified seeds that allowed the crop to survive when the herbicide was sprayed, marketed as a time saver for farmers to reduce or eliminate weeds. Fast forward into the 90s and genetically modified soybeans, corn, cotton, and canola were introduced. When Roundup was used, only the resistant (genetically modified) survived. This has resulted in a huge increase of chemical herbicide being used over the last ten years.

Foods that are labelled ‘organic’ or ‘made from organic ingredients’ cannot contain any GMO ingredients. According to the website Non GMO Project, high risk crops from the U.S. that are grown with GMO seed are:

• Alfalfa (first planting 2011)
• Canola (approx. 90% of U.S. crop)
• Corn (approx. 88% of U.S. crop in 2011)
• Cotton (approx. 90% of U.S. crop in 2011)
• Papaya (most of Hawaiian crop; approximately 988 acres)
• Soy (approx. 94% of U.S. crop in 2011)
• Sugar Beets (approx. 95% of U.S. crop in 2010)
• Zucchini and Yellow Summer Squash (approx. 25,000 acres)
• ALSO high-risk: animal products (milk, meat, eggs, honey, etc.) because of contamination in feed

Common Ingredients Derived from GMO Risk Crops:

Amino Acids, Aspartame, Ascorbic Acid, Sodium Ascorbate, Vitamin C, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Ethanol, Flavorings (“natural” and “artificial”), High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, Lactic Acid, Maltodextrins, Molasses, Monosodium Glutamate, Sucrose, Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), Xanthan Gum, Vitamins, Yeast Products.

Buying only organic food can get expensive but there are other ways to ensure food quality for your family. Get to know your local farmers! Ask questions and find trusted food sources by visiting small farms or Farmer’s Markets. You might also consider planting a garden this summer. I’ve always considered growing a food garden outside of my comfort zone thinking it’s too hard but we have planted over seven items this spring and the kids have loved every step of growing food. Visit local seed specialists that sell heirloom seed packets and enjoy the feeling of pride that comes with growing your own food.

This weekend on May 25th, millions of people will be marching to protest Monsanto’s dominance over the food industry. Hopefully after reading this article, you’ll know why GMO food is such an important topic and why GMO food labeling has so much energy as a grassroots movement in Canada and the U.S.

Messy Projects Your Kids Will Love

What is it about a mess that is so irresistible to kids? We all have seen kids up to their elbows in paint, mud, bubbles, water, playdough and occasionally, dinner. We don’t seem to have the same urges they do, so what is it that drives them to splash, spill, slop and swirl when given the chance?

Freedom to play, use their creativity, and explore are all good reasons to let kids get messy from time to time. Allowing them the chance to get messy in a controlled setting might also control the number of times they decide to get creative with their pasta sauce or soup!

We went looking for some great ways to let your kids get messy – with your blessing, of course. These are great rainy day projects, or alternatively, consider letting them play outside so you can limit the mess indoors. Young children can make messes in their highchairs, or in the tub, with your close supervision.

Most of the following can be made in your kitchen with a few simple ingredients:

Bubble dough: mold it, cut it, let it drip – great sensory material

Summer snow: fluffy and icy cold, almost like the real thing

Soap clouds: who knew you could create THIS in your kitchen?

Frozen fun: especially great outside on a hot day

Sparkly snow playdough: this simple, sparkly dough will charm your little ones

Homemade flarp or gak: this slippery, sloppy putty is everything kids love

DIY playdough: this recipe has a secret ingredient – can you guess?

Homemade finger paints: easy peasy recipe for brightly coloured homemade paints

What else might your kids enjoy? Try paints, chalk, sidewalk chalk, or letting them play in the kitchen sink with water and bubbles. Anything that offers them a chance to get their hands dirty, to feel the paint or dough or other substance and to manipulate it in whatever way they choose.

Do your kids love to make a mess? What on this list would you try?

Community Angel Car Seat Recycling Project

Working as a community angel with UsedVancouver.com is very rewarding because environmental and human stewardship is the focus. My favourite project is the car seat recycling initiative that includes our amazing community partners Bellies to Babies Celebration and Gibsons Recycling Depot. On May 5th, UsedVancouver.com collected a total of 83 car seats and boosters and then transported them over to the recycling depot to be deconstructed and recycled. The plastic base and metal clips are the main pieces of the seats that are recycled.

The buzz for this car seat recycling project was amazing and parents within the Lower Mainland kept repeating the same comment: “Thank you for giving us a convenient way to dispose of this piece of baby gear that we’ve been saving to keep out of the landfill.” Even parents who learned about the initiative through social media loved the idea from afar.

For anyone interested in hosting a car seat recycling campaign or finding a place to dispose of a car seat, I recommend calling nearby recycling depots to start. Once you find a location that will recycle the plastic and metal from the seats, if a recycling depot receives enough interest from parents, it might see the value in testing several seats to find a common thread of plastic to continue the campaign. Our hope is for future campaigns to include more baby items once they’ve expired or been passed down many times, so they have a place to go and will be recycled. If you think of large baby items, they are usually comprised of several different materials, which makes things difficult for a recycling depot. Once common materials and types of plastics are defined, a broader scope of strollers, highchairs and saucers can be included.

Hosting this initiatives show the importance of grassroots UsedEverywhere.com movements and it’s wonderful to work with a company that so environmentally focused to reduce landfill waste.

Highlights of the collection this year include: most unique drop-off transportation. Check out our favourite two drop-off people that we’ve been calling Scooter Guy and Bicycle Mama. Both were super cool to chat with and we had to take a picture of the unique ways these car seats ended up for collection at Bellies to Babies Celebration:

Scooter Guy

Bicycle Mama

The collection was very successful and we doubled our efforts from last September. The van that was used to transport the seats was packed from floor to roof once we made our way to Gibsons Recycling Depot the following day.

It was an amazing day to tour the Gibsons Recycling Depot (GRD). I highly recommend anyone with children to find a local recycling depot and arrange a tour or field trip. Every time I go to GRD I learn something new. The most amazing part of the depot is learning if personal waste actually reaches a depot, there isn’t much they can’t recycle. Items that prove tough for the depot always go back to mixed plastics, dirty or contaminated plastics and Styrofoam. An example of this is Styrofoam meat trays. Normally Styrofoam can be depleted of it’s air and packed down into small flats that is actually sold to be reused. But this can only be done with clean Styrofoam (from packing boxes of appliances, etc.). When GRD receives contaminated meat trays they can’t recycle them. So do you know what they do? Make planters (pictured below) for people to take/buy from the Depot. Amazing things can happen with waste if it just gets to the right place.

Other sources that are tough to dispose of are mixed plastics where a recycling code isn’t shared. Plastic pots from plants, mixed plastic shopping bags, baby items discussed at the beginning of this article, and many toys cause problems with waste management. The key message I always leave GRD with is to strengthen my resolve to manage my family’s personal waste. Biggest problem being plastic – buy it second hand! Plastic is such a durable material which is why it’s so difficult to recycle. Put that durability to use by listing and buying plastic online. Try hard to not bring new plastics into your life. When we do need to purchase plastic it would be great to have a clear vision of where these plastics will end up at the end of their life. If they are mixed, try to curb the original purchase unless buying used and encourage manufacturers to use a recyclable material. Hopefully car seat manufacturers will understand this problem and change policies to accept car seats back after they’ve expired to reuse the plastic and metal at their own manufacturing plants. But until this happens, UsedVancouver.com is proud to be offering this service to local parents. Grassroots efforts do make a difference and we thank all the people that brought us seats and our community partners for another great campaign!

Share your thoughts with us in the comments area below or visit our UsedVancouver.com Facebook page to chat with us and find out what we’re up to next in the Lower Mainland.

Easy Isn't Always Easy

Sometimes life presents us with challenges. Sometimes they are obvious, and sometimes they reveal themselves slowly and painfully. I’ve recently been lucky enough to experience the latter while working on some chairs that I’m refinishing. I am sure that anyone who has attempted “an easy job” has had one of these experiences too.

I try to remember that every challenge is a learning opportunity. I learn new techniques, new problem solving tools, new curses to bestow upon wood and metal and fabric that does not want to do what I want it to do.

Here are the problems I encountered, and the solutions. May you also learn from these and carry that information forward with you in your memory.

THE SITUATION: I found three teak chairs in varying states of disrepair at a local thrift store. They had yellowy brown Naugahyde straight out of the early 80s. My brain says “OMG this is a great deal and refinishing them is going to be EASY”

Ha. Ha. Ha. Riiiiight.

stacking unstackable chairs is an art form, people.

 

PROBLEM: the chairs had been refinished in the 80s, they are much older than that. Whoever did it used a massive amount of staples, which did not want to come out of the wood. I tried prying them with a precision screwdriver, which tends to be a useful staple removal tool in my house. Not so much this time around.

SOLUTION: I didn’t bother taking the staples out of the seat bottoms, it would have taken me a year and I would have damaged the wood. So I cut the vinyl off, staying as close to the staples as possible. For the back piece, I had to get a special side-cutter that was small enough to help me pry out the staples. The precision screwdriver did end up helping me in the end. I am now a certified Staple Dentist.

look at all those staples. they were so snug to the wood I couldn’t pry them off to save my life.

PROBLEM: the grooves in the back pieces were too deep to use a staple gun.

SOLUTION: I found some dainty and mostly flat headed escutcheon nails in brass and used my little tack hammer and a nail punch to nail the fabric into the grooves. The next person to upholster these chairs may curse my name but I can’t go out and buy a professional staple gun with a narrow bottom!

these nails are nice and shiny and have enough of a head on them to hold down the fabric nicely

PROBLEM: I used a few longer nails on the sides of the back pieces. I thought I had checked to make sure they all went in straight. I didn’t. Two nails were poking out, and I didn’t see (or rather, feel) them until I had the whole thing done. I tried to stick the nails in, through the fabric, very carefully. I made two small holes. SUB-PROBLEM: I bought material at a liquidation store. They were all out.

SOLUTION: do-over on one back piece. Much more carefully!!! Luckily I had enough extra material to cover another piece. I was almost S.O.L.

you can’t see in this picture, and barely in real life, that there are holes in that black fabric. I know they are there and they must be fixed!

PROBLEM: the place I chose to put teak oil on the chairs was well ventilated but turns out, infested with cat hair. I didn’t notice until it was time to rub the excess oil off and all of a sudden hair was everywhere, sticking to my chairs. To be honest at this point I’d had a few gin and tonics (it was a nice day!) so I went to bed and figured I’d deal with it in the morning

SOLUTION: I am a lucky lucky girl. All the hair rubbed right off after the chairs had sat over night. It could have been disastrous. It wasn’t. Thank you good karma (next time, a drop cloth is being used no matter what).

not oiled, oiled. this room was ripped down the next day. I thought it would be a good place to do some teak oiling, which smells a lot. Should have used a drop cloth…

PROBLEM: one of the chairs is different than the other two. It has two screws that hold the seat on, that come up through the bottom. One was missing, the other was too long. I went to the hardware store already and had bought a second matching screw so now there are two lumps coming up through the seat instead of one… or none.

SOLUTION: there are no screws made at the length I needed for this chair. The next smallest is too short. So they went with my husband to work, where he used a hack saw or something to cut a bit off the end of the screws to make them the right length.

some of the tools I use on a project. Movies are a good soundtrack.

SUMMARY: easy is never easy. Ever. If you think otherwise, you have yet to challenge yourself. Sometimes the smallest issues can cause you the longest headaches. And while it is impossible to completely assess a situation before you jump into it, I have learned a few more things to keep an eye on when surveying potential projects. I’ve also acquired some new tools at the hardware store.

So, dear readers, learn from this story. It can apply to anything, not just working on a furniture project. Even when we are most careful, something can (and probably will) go wrong somewhere along the way. We must learn from these things so we are better able to deal with them if it happens again.

What projects have you learned a good (or hard) lesson from? Please share in the comments!

 

 

 

Garden Pathways on the Cheap

We renovated our home last summer and our backyard suffered some serious neglect and abuse. Not only did we stop weeding in the couple months before we moved out, but our yard was untouched all summer (that is, the parts that weren’t trampled by construction workers and their equipment). We didn’t do any outdoor work in the autumn either because we moved in pretty much as the leaves were dropping and were so overwhelmed with everything going on in INSIDE that we couldn’t even consider doing anything OUTSIDE.

Now it’s all coming back to bite us in the butt and we are dealing with the aftermath. I’ve been combing Pinterest and UsedOttawa for cheap landscaping materials and ideas that we can implement ourselves. (Read: because the reno was expensive and we don’t want to spend any more money!)

First on our list is to find a way to create a very inexpensive garden path. I’ve already found a couple of listings for very inexpensive brick pavers on UsedOttawa (yay!) and I am willing to put in the sweat equity to build something cool. Now to find a design!

I really like this DIY path and it seems like something we can do ourselves:

 

The old weathered brick could add a lot of visual interest to a wild space in our garden. Here’s another example that caught my eye, laid out a little differently.

 

Or we could choose to go with wood instead of brick pavers. Pallets come cheap on UsedOttawa too, and can be used to create something informal and interesting.

This one was made out of old pallet boards. It’s the kind of look I would really like for our outdoor space:

 

And I’m just smitten with this path made out of tree rings:

Attracting Birds to Your Yard

The return of migratory birds to our yards and gardens can be a welcome sign that winter has passed us by and spring has finally returned. Some of us wait for robins, while others wait for geese and ducks to return to ponds and waterways. We hear them in the trees through our open windows, and we see them as we start to spend more time outside. It doesn’t take us long to realize how welcome they are once they are back, and to wonder how we can attract more birds to our yard – or perhaps coax the ones we have to stay, and nest.

What birds need:

• natural habitat and shelter (birdhouses or boxes, plus an abundance of trees, shrubs and plants for shelter)
• water (for drinking and bathing)
• nesting material (twigs, sticks, grass, dried leaves, feathers, pet hair, etc.)
• food (natural sources and supplements you might want to provide)

What to feed birds in your yard: 

Birdseed, sunflower seeds, suet (which you can purchase mixed with seeds and/or berries), millet, cracked corn, nectar for hummingbirds (sugar water, without red food colouring, please). Larger birds might like peanuts, popped popcorn, fruit, soaked raisins, or other larger items. Be creative, do a little research, and if you have kids, don’t hesitate to try preparing your own bird food at home. It can be a great project to share with little ones.

Be sure to do a little research to find out what the birds in your area are eating, and ensure if you decide to offer food that you are keeping the feeders clean and dry, that the suet isn’t left out to go rancid and other health considerations. It doesn’t help to offer food that won’t be healthy or safe.

Most birds get what they need from nature, but the more we clear trees and develop our cities, the less there is for birds to eat. If you want to attract them into your yard to stay, it would be a good idea to think about food sources. Well-fed birds will often stick around, and if they do, many will likely nest.

Benefits of welcoming birds to your yard:

Extending a welcome to birds in your yard is good for everyone. Our communities are bettered when we find ways to coexist with the species we are displacing as our urban areas spread. It’s also good for kids to stay in touch with nature, and to foster their interest and respect from a young age. Birds help us and our yards by eating insects that are considered pests in most yards – think of how many mosquitoes some species eat! And finally, our love for our outdoor spaces increases when we engage, connect, and find ways to increase our enjoyment. Kids also tend to love projects that get them into nature, so keep them busy preparing bird food, cleaning bird feeders, building nesting houses and feeders, and gathering nesting material to leave out for the birds.

Birds common in Canada :

Birds native to Canada can vary from province to province. It can be a great family project to track what bird species you have seen with your kids – does it change year to year? Does it vary from home to perhaps your favourite greenspace or camping spot?

Here is a list of all the birds commonly found in Canada, but you could do your own research to find ones common in your specific area. This could be good research for kids who show an interest

Ask your kids to look over your list as the year progresses – which birds are migrating?  Which are staying?

Do you get a lot of birds in your yard? How do you attract them? Do they stay and nest? We’d love to know if you have tips or tricks to share!

 

My Journey to “Hope House”: A Community Helping Create a Home Away from Home

I’m extremely fortunate to be the Community Angel for UsedVictoria.com because part of my job is being able to help others in our community. Recently I was presented with an opportunity that really proved to me what I always knew to be true:  that people, when given the chance, really just want to help give back to their community and pay it forward.

The Start Line

A few months ago, I was contacted by the Beacon of Hope House Project which was founded through the Salvation Army in Victoria. This organization provides a safe haven for at-risk male youth (ages 13-18) seeking individualized and comprehensive drug and alcohol treatment. They had recently moved into a new house and were wondering if UsedVictoria.com would be able to help with donations from our site.

I immediately jumped on the opportunity to help a project that would be able to benefit so many youth in our community.  I asked the organizer Keltie to put together a wish list of everything they needed. It ended up being a little bit longer than I anticipated and I suddenly became nervous that I wouldn’t be able to fulfill it with my limited budget. But my gut told me that once our community found out about this project and who it was benefiting, that they would help me make this goal attainable. And boy was I right!!

My Journey

I began scouring UsedVictoria.com looking for items on this wish list. Within a couple hours, I managed to find several items either for sale or free and started contacting the sellers. I decided I would mention who I was and where the items were going to and thankfully I did. Almost every person who I contacted responded that they would gladly sell or hold the item for me as they were happy to help out such a great cause. Some people discounted their prices while others actually went above and beyond to make this project a success. Here are a few stand out examples:

• Lori posted some soccer equipment for free on the site and so I arranged to pick this up from her. When I got to her home, she told me she was spring cleaning and had managed to find some brand new beach items she’d be happy to donate as well. She has teenage boys of her own so this project really resonated with her.

• Sara posted a free television and stand on UsedVictoria.com. Not only did her and her boyfriend help me load it into my truck (it weighed a ton!) but they also offered their time if we needed their help for any future community angel projects.

• The Rotary Club advertised they were having a garage sale on our site so I decided to pop down to see what they had on the wish list. I met this wonderful volunteer named Larry and showed him my list explaining what I was involved in. He quickly started running around the gymnasium grabbing items and starting a pile for me. Within minutes, he had found a large portion of my list and even gave me an amazing deal for all of it. I left with a huge smile on my face, not only because I found such amazing items but also because the money I paid for the items would be used towards another great charity. Love it when you can pay it forward twice!

• But my favorite part of the journey was meeting Tyler, a local 14-year-old boy who was selling a skim board on our site. I emailed him some questions about it as I’m a total novice when it comes to this sport and explained who the skim board was going to. Tyler emailed back quickly asking if there were any other sports items we were looking for. I rattled off the different sports items assuming he may have other items for sale. Instead, he replied that he would go through his garage and try to find other items to donate to Hope House. When I arrived at his house, he had a pile of items in the middle of the garage floor including two baseball gloves, three baseballs, one soccer ball, one basketball, a brand new snorkeling kit and, of course, the skim board. It floored me how generous this young man was and that this generosity was helping other kids his age.

The Final Leg

After combing UsedVictoria.com for items and reaching out to the community for two months, I’m happy to report that I managed to find almost every single item on the wish list for Hope House (still looking for a bongo drum and a ukulele so if you happen to have one sitting around in your house, let me know!).

We arranged a moving van and dropped everything off to the Salvation Army downtown, shocking the organizers with the amount of donations we had. They were overwhelmed with what we managed to find for them and before you knew it, we were all shedding tears of joy over how much these things would mean to the boys at Hope House. As Keltie eloquently put it, “these items will help turn a house into a home for the young men living there.”

Finish Line

I’ve been lucky to be able to help many people in our community but this project will always hold a special place in my heart as it affirmed my faith in human kindness and how people will jump at the opportunity to help others when simply given the chance. Thank you to everyone in Victoria who helped make this donation and project a huge success! It was a journey I will never forget.

For more information on the Beacon of Hope House and details about the items UsedVictoria.com donated, please click here.

 

Eat, Drink, Walk, Fly: Feeling Good During Air Travel

Bad idea alert! (Photo on Flickr by: avlxyz)

 

If you’ve ever flown on an airplane, you’ve probably had the same experience that I’ve had: an extended period of airport fast food, in-flight junk food and cramped economy section seating can leave you feeling less than ideal upon reaching your destination. There’s no need to get graphic, but what I’m talking about is how, after a day’s worth of flying, you wind up feeling like a human version of puffed wheat. Your stomach is taught and distended and somehow your feet and ankles have managed to swell to twice their normal size.

It’s this one aspect of flying that made me want to avoid it at all costs, that is until I realized it was my own doing. For every trip that I went on, I used the excitement as an excuse to indulge in the array of junk food, fast food and alcoholic beverages every airport has to offer. As I learned, this is a big mistake but one that is easily corrected. With some proper food choices, adequate hydration and low-level exercise, a person can actually feel pretty good, both during-and-after a grueling day of flying. Here’s how:

1.  Food Choices: skip the burgers, fries, apple fritters and caramel mochas in the airport lounge. Instead, agree to the following: your “food vacation” will only begin once you arrive at your destination. Agreeing to this, choose from the various offerings of nuts, fruit (dried or fresh), salads, and sandwiches (healthy ones! not salami on a bagel) available around the airport. Pairing a few of these items will provide more than enough nutrition for all the sitting to be done, plus they offer enough fibre to keep the digestion process moving along. When making these choices, check the labels and grab the items that are low(er) in sodium. This will help prevent the puffiness associated with water retention and decreased circulation.

2.  Avoid Alcohol: booze is tasty, refreshing and takes the edge off of travelling, however, alcohol irritates the digestive tract along with the liver. It’s also dehydrating, which only promotes puffy feet and ankles.

3.  Drink Water: this might seem obvious, but because airplanes are excruciatingly dry environments, it’s easy to become dehydrated. Dehydration messes up the digestive process and promotes the dreaded swollen ankles and feet. I’ve tested this out myself and over the course of a day’s worth of flying, drinking three litres of water had no noticeable effect on how often I needed to use the washroom.

4.  Exercise: physical movement goes a long way in promoting digestion, helping regulate fluid build-up and circulating the blood that tends to pool in extremities. Instead of just sitting at the gate, use the waiting period before a flight to walk around the airport. To make this more enjoyable and less of chore, pre-plan to use this time period for productive purposes. For example, don’t buy your books and magazines before your trip. Buy them while you’re waiting for your flight. If you know that your vacation will involve alcohol consumption, make a point of walking around the entire airport liquor store, hunting for new types of spirits and the concoctions you could make. If you’d like to avoid spending unnecessary money, try exploring the airport for the purpose of learning the layout and services. Becoming an “airport expert” may just help you if you’re running late in the future. Lastly, because you’re moving around the airport for the sake of health, take the stairs and the long hallways instead of the escalators and conveyor belts.

While these suggestions might seem to take the fun out of flying, they can make a big difference in how you’ll feel when you arrive at your destination. For me, feeling fresh and ready-to-go when I finally get to, say, Puerto Vallarta, is far more important than supping and sipping on junk food and beer.

Do you have any tips or tricks that improve your air travel experience?

Bubble Blowing: Spring Activity for Kids

Most of us remember blowing bubbles as kids. Our memories are full of images of brightly-coloured wands dripping soapy water all over our front steps or back porches and bubbles sailing off in the wind. We competed to see who could blow the largest bubbles, and whose bubbles would last longest before popping. Any of us who grew up to have kids are sure to pass this activity along to them…it’s too much fun to miss out on. It’s also a great early spring activity, when the kids want to play outside and would love some water play but it’s too cold for hoses and water guns.

Tips and tricks:

Ask anyone who takes their bubble blowing seriously and they will tell you that making your own solution at home is the trick that will make all the difference. You’ll get bigger, longer lasting bubbles – and isn’t that the point?

Here is a homemade bubble solution recipe that I’m dying to try.

As simple as bubble blowing can be, there are a few other tips and tricks that can make the whole process more fun for you and the kids. Give kids small amounts of liquid if they want to play independently, and keep a larger container out of reach so adults can assist with refills. If it’s cool out, put your kids in rubber boots as they likely will drip. In warm weather, let them go barefoot. Shop for different types of bubble blowers – small to start, large wands, different shapes or try making your own. Remember bubbles can also be blown in the bathtub in inclement weather or to help very young children enjoy bathtime.

Unique ideas to shake up your bubble time:

A make-your-own bubble blowing station 

Water bottle bubble fun for small kids who struggle to blow bubbles

Can you freeze a bubble?

Beaded bubble wand craft perfect for older kids or a party activity

Reminders:

Bubble or soapy solutions can make surfaces slippery so use caution with young kids standing on wooden decks, steps or other smooth surfaces. I like to let my kids blow bubbles on the grass so there is no risk of falling.

Warn your kids that getting bubbles or soap in their eyes can sting and encourage them to keep their hands away from their eyes and faces. A bucket of clean water nearby or even a towel or clean cloth can be handy if someone crosses paths with a wayward bubble.

Don’t forget to take pictures! Blowing bubbles can make for some great candid shots as kids concentrate on blowing, then break into laughter or chase and reach for bubbles.

Bubbles can be a great, easy party theme for a young child. Their simple but appealing shape can be repeated throughout the decorations, the blowing itself can be an activity for any young children present, and guests can take home bubble blowing supplies as their take away treat or loot bag.

Do your kids love to blow bubbles?  Any tips or fun ideas to share with us?