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Recycle Your Christmas Cards into Valentine's Day Cards

I admit I am a very sentimental kind of girl who likes to keep every single card she receives, whether it be for birthdays, Christmas or even thank you cards. But as the years have progressed, I’ve ended up with a gigantic stack of cards that may or may not make me look like a beginner hoarder.  Lately, I’ve been obsessed with finding ways to upcycle items in the house rather than just chuck them in the recycling bin.  I managed to cut up last year’s calendar so my son could use the pictures to make crafts and stickers.  And this got me thinking, what if I tried to upcycle a couple of my old Christmas cards and turn them into Valentine’s Day Cards? Well, turns out this actually can work.  Here’s how you do it:

What you Need:

Recycled Christmas Cards

glue stick

coloured markers

construction paper (preferably pink and red)

scissors

Look through the recycled Christmas cards and pick one that doesn’t scream holiday card or have lots of Christmas words on it.

Next cover up any holidays messages or wording inside the card with pink or red construction paper. Then write your romantic message on top.

Look for objects or wording you can cut out of other cards to glue onto the front of your Valentine’s Day card.  Or instead, look for colours and patterns that will work and cut out heart shapes from them. If you can’t find the right words, simply write romantic words like “Love” or “Be my Valentine” on paper and glue them to the card.  You could also cut out letters from the recycled cards to spell out the words you want.

Get creative and glue the various items onto your card and there you have it…a beautiful, original, thoughtful Valentine’s Day card that anyone would love. I can’t say who’s going to get this one as it has to be a surprise…. but he probably can guess!  Tee-hee!

Healthy Valentine Potluck Snacks

Healthy Valentine-themed potlucks are easy with 2 kitchen accessories: bamboo kabob sticks and uniquely shaped stainless steel cookie cutters. If you have these tools leading up to school celebrations during the holidays, you have empowered yourself to easily create uniquely themed snacks for parties that kids will love. More importantly, you’ve ensured that the more convenient last minute scramble to whip up something kids will love can be healthy! As parents we know food presentation is important and with these easy tips, children won’t miss or notice the traditional chocolate, cupcake, and candy options are missing.

Bamboo Kabob Sticks:

Kids will eat almost anything on a stick and kabob sticks are great in the classroom to avoid kids dipping their hands into snack bowls. With flu and colds going through schools, having kids just pick up a stick to eat already portioned fruit or veggies is an added bonus! You can either stick with Valentine complimentary coloured fruit on the Kabob – purple grapes, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, etc. or veggie kabobs of tomatoes, peppers, and radish. Kids love to eat from a stick so why not load it up with healthy options? You also eliminate allergy concerns by bringing fresh produce and the teacher will thank you for not supplying energetic children with the not-so-lovely after affects of artificial colorants and sugar. These fruit kabobs shown by Parents.com show how cute fruit on a Popsicle stick can be! Photo credit: Parents.com

Shaped Cookie Cutters:

Looking at the above heart shaped melon leads us to the next fun and budget friendly Valentines kitchen accessory – heart shaped cookie cutters. If you’re desperate, just dig through your play dough shape cutters…. you’ll probably find a heart! If you have time, source a stainless steel cutter in a few different sizes, but go pretty small for fruit and veggies; a larger heart shaped cutter could be used for packing sandwiches on the 14th.  Other awesome heart-shaped healthy snacks are cucumbers (pictured below), melon, and apples. Stamp out your heart using the cookie cutter and the presentation will have kids flocking to your plate of heart shaped snacks. Photo Credit: Workman Family Blog

Free hand more your style? Use your creative skills to cut up cherry tomatoes with toothpicks to create cupid’s bow. Photo credit: Eye Candy

With many of the fruit options not being currently in season, bringing fresh produce might not be the most budget-friendly option but you are buying yourself quick convenience (think of the time and mess to create cupcakes) and you can’t put a price on healthy snacks and food. So on Feb 13th, when your child casually mentions they need to bring a dish for the classroom party the next day, don’t even bat an eye – sticks, stainless steel cutters and fruit to the rescue!

Valentine's Idea: A Year of Dates

As far as Valentine’s Day goes, my husband and I have never really celebrated it. I suppose there was that one year when Mark bought me a couple of baby guinea pigs because I said I wanted a real, human baby. But in general, we’ve always let V-Day pass on by, perhaps because Mark and I have always made a habit of doing regular date nights. Though now that we are new parents and have not had a date night in six months, Valentine’s Day seems like a good excuse to force a date! Even more importantly than that, it is an opportunity to think about our relationship (read: appreciate our relationship) and make spending time together a priority.

Just recently, I read a great idea about pre-planning one date per month. The idea behind the article was that quality is better over quality, and that if you take the time to plan a no-babies night, you can actually make it happen! So here’s our year of dates at a glance. I did my best to make sure they weren’t too expensive either and that a few were home based so we won’t always have to get a babysitter:

February- A Romantic Dinner

Mark and I have been dying to get back to a lovely little downtown French bistro, so we’re going to spend our first date night going for dinner. We are planning our date for Valentine’s weekend, but not actual Valentine’s day so it will be less busy, crammed with other young lovers, and (hopefully) less expensive!

March- A Hockey Game

We’ve been wanting to check out a Halifax Moosehead’s game all season, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet. Last year, we went to a few university games and had a great time, but they’re not quite the same as an arena packed full of thousands of fans.

April- Try a New Recipe

Our New Year’s resolution was to expand our cooking repertoire. I thought it would be fun to make a date of choosing and preparing dinner together from start to finish – after the baby goes to bed, of course.

May- Visit the Art Gallery

Another thing I’ve wanted to try out for the past year. Our art gallery has free admission on Thursday nights, so I would love to spend an enriching evening strolling through the art gallery, holding hands and maybe stealing a kiss or two.

June- Make Ice Cream

It’s summer! And we have an ice cream maker we bought over a year ago that’s just sitting there, collecting dust in our cupboard. It would be a great summer treat to make ice cream together. Maybe we could even compile all our favourite foods. Peanut butter, chocolate, coffee, cinnamon ice cream, anyone?

July- A Late Night Picnic & Star Gazing

Every time I visit the country, I just look up in wonder at the stars. I thought a romantic and cheap date night would be to head out for a late night picnic and some star gazing. We can have a friend come by once the baby is already sleeping!

August- Play Catch

When we lived in North Vancouver, we used to make a point of getting out once a week to throw a ball around. Actually, we started with badminton, but I was so terrible that we moved onto baseball. It was a lot of fun and would be a great to make it a date for this summer!

September- Test Drive Nice Cars

Mark loves cars and we had a great time test driving cars when we were looking, earlier last year. However, the Kias and Hyundais we were considering were far from exciting to take out for a spin.  So I thought, why not head out one evening to test drive cars priced out of our range? Sounds like fun, right?

October- Visit the Bookstore & Have a Hot Drink

This is another one of our favorite activities that has fallen by the wayside since we’ve become parents. A great fall date is heading to the book store for the evening and strolling around with a nice hot bevie. The smell of new books and coffee mixing together and the quiet that tends to surround books, makes for a nice, relaxing environment.

November- Games Night

Mark loves video games but he rarely has a chance to play them. I thought it would be fun to have a games night with him. Even though I’m terrible, it should be good for a few laughs. If we’re feeling really adventurous we can play online and have eight year olds smack talk us all night long.

December- Drive and Look at Christmas Lights

This is a date we could even bring a sleeping baby along for. One of our favorite Christmas activities is to go looking for Christmas lights. There’s something about listening to a Christmas tune in a nice warm car, surrounded by sparkling lights that’s super romantic.

Now all I have to do is line up a semi regular babysitter and my year of dates is complete! Do you have a regular date night with your significant other? What are some of your ideas?  Please feel free to share as it’ll help get started on an entirely new list for 2014!

National Sweater Day Is Actually A Thing

This coming Thursday February 7th is National Sweater Day – the one day in winter you turn down the heat and put a sweater on to go easy on the environment and our country’s natural resources. Er, what?

It snows here more than half the year. We have the world’s largest skating rink. We pop out hockey players by the baker’s dozen. We invented the snowmobile. If you’re wearing t-shirts during the winter, you should have to hand in your Canadian passport.

We live in a wintery climate – Canada the Cold is a worldwide cliché. Every Canadian knows by now that setting your thermostat back when you’re away at work and while you’re sleeping saves money, not to mention uses up fewer of our country’s natural resources and creates less air pollution. Duh. Who wants to pay to heat their house when they’re not even there anyway? True Canadians turn down their thermostats every day, not just on February 7th (exceptions granted for those with underpowered furnaces compared to their house size).

If you want to join the ranks of the winter-hardy, check out this slideshow of tips on how to trim the fat on your heating bill. If you want to wear shorts and t-shirts in the winter, have you heard of National Sweater Day?

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The laws of thermodynamics say that the warmer a house is compared to the outdoors, the faster it loses heat. So the warmer you keep your house when it's cold outside, the more you're paying for each degree. Turn your thermostat down permanently by one degree - you probably won't even feel it.

Every degree you turn down your thermostat in an 8-hour period, you save one percent or more off your energy bill. The eight hours you're away at work is free money so rack up big savings by cranking down the thermostat five degrees when nobody's home. Do the same for the eight hours a day you're sleeping and aren't conscious of what temperature it is, and you'll save at least 10% without anyone feeling a difference.

Nobody likes waking up to a cold house, or having to remember to turn down the thermostat before going to work, so invest in a programmable thermostat and stop thinking about it at all. You'll come home to a warm house even after saving money all day. Just remember to program the damn thing: 50% of programmable thermostat owners don't use the automatic features, making you wonder why they ever upgraded from the dial on the wall.

The biggest way to save on heating (and cooling) energy use doesn't actually involve turning down your thermostat at all. You can keep your thermostat where it is but still save on your energy bill by sealing the leaks in your house where cold air is getting in and warm air is getting out, such as around windows and doors. Older homes can save up to 40% off their energy bill without ever touching their thermostats, and even newer homes can have air leaks.

Only heat the parts of your house that you actually use. Close the heating vents in unused rooms and keep those doors shut all winter. You'll be putting an entire extra room between you and the cold outside if you do this.

Get the creepiest thermostat ever. Nest, the Learning Thermostat, programs itself. It figures out your schedule on its own and even knows when you leave the house unexpectedly for an errand and when you return (and turns the furnace off and on accordingly). It can even be controlled from your smartphone. It's also one super sexy thermostat, designed by the same genius behind the iPod.

Forget cuddling, get an electric blanket. An electric blanket on your bed turns a cold bed into a tropical oasis in five minutes, which beats your partner's cold feet on your warm legs any day. By heating your bed for five minutes instead of heating your entire house for an hour just to warm your bedroom, the energy savings are obvious.

Did you know that ceiling fans have both a summer mode and a winter mode? In summer, the ceiling fan should rotate counter-clockwise on high, pushing air down to create a cooling breeze for the occupants of the house. In winter, the ceiling fan should rotate clockwise on low to pull the cold air at the floor up to the ceiling and get the warm air that's trapped there circulating to the living area.

Slippers or extra socks are a big help in feeling warm since they put a barrier between your body and the cold floor. By the same logic, laying a carpet on a hard floor increases warmth - and absorbs noise!

Put on a big fluffy bathrobe over your clothes as soon as you get home and you'll instantly feel warm at lower temperatures. If you think a Snuggie is somehow different than a bathrobe, get a Snuggie. I love wearing my bathrobe all day and saying it's for environmentalism.

Hats really keep you warm, but who wants hat hair?

Wear a freaking sweater. Happy National Sweater Day!

Create Your Own Unique Lighting On a Tight Budget

One of the most important ways to up the WOW factor of your space is with proper lighting. Too many people use overheads, which don’t address lighting needs around the room, and fail to highlight areas that can really pop with just a little extra effort.

In my house, we have a great bay window, that provides tonnes of natural light to our living room, but is a challenging space to work with. The shape is such that you can’t really put anything against it, and since our living room (and whole house) is relatively small, it means you have less space to work with. So we turned this room into a reading nook. All it took was building a simple bench, and a novel approach to lighting it.

By day, there is loads of light, but at night, not so much. The overhead doesn’t reach it, there is no place to put a floor lamp, and because it’s all windows there is nowhere to stick a wall sconce.

We got around this by coming up with a lighting option unique to the space. What you are looking at here is a collaboration between my wife and I that cost us all of $15. It consists of a string of incandescent Christmas lights, origami boxes my wife made, and a really big stick I found in the woods. It doesn’t generate much light, but it’s enough to read by, and makes the space super cozy at night. What’s great about this is that it helps carve a very small room into different spaces, and makes our whole house feel bigger.

Is it safe, you ask? Well, barring any shorts in the wire, the lights are designed not to ignite dry Christmas trees, so we are prepared to take the risk that they will not get hot enough to ignite the paper origami boxes. That said, we would never leave these lights on when we go out, or go to bed, just to be on the safe side.

Valentines on a Shoe String

My victoriamom.ca team recently wrote a piece around low cost ideas for Valentine’s Day. There are just so many ways you can show your loved one how much you love them without blowing the bank on diamonds and chocolates (though if that’s not a bank blow for you – go for it!)

Many people poo poo Valentine’s Day as a day created by Hallmark. Not true. Hallmark can’t create saints, and Valentine’s Day is in fact a liturgical celebration of Valentinus, the saint. Many people also poo poo the church, so it’s your call as to whether you need a day a year to be extra romantic… maybe you are romantic everyday. If so, good for you. And are you single?

Personally, I think a day reserved to celebrate your love is no bad thing. That said, here are a few ideas for you that will show your partner you love them, but not leave you penniless.

1. Dinner: Either do something special at home with candles and a nice bottle of wine or dine out the day or weekend AFTER Valentine’s Day. It’s no secret that Valentine’s menus are usually much higher than regular menus. I haven’t had many Valentine’s Day meals out, but from what I remember of them,  they are rushed, claustrophobic and hard on the wallet.

2. The Walk: This is my favourite! The night before Valentine’s Day, take a quick trip out to your favourite walking route armed with sidewalk chalk. Leave a message for your loved one on the sidewalk and then walk them that route whilst it is still light out on Vday! Be armed with a back up gesture in case of rain!

 3.  Homemade: Everything is cheaper if it`s homemade and it also adds an extra dose of love and care. Go simple with a card or heart-shaped cookies or if you are a regular crafter go for something more elaborate. Get the kids involved to really pull at mum or dads heart strings. There are a lot of Valentine`s Day craft ideas online if you need inspiration, my go to site for good craft ideas is Better Homes and Gardens.

4.  Coupons: The gift that keeps on giving and all it takes is a little imagination. Either make your own coupons or print from the web – allfreeprintables.com has some cute outlines. Think of treats your partner really enjoys; maybe a foot massage or making his/her favourite food? Or giving him/her free reign of the TV on a Friday night? None of the treats need to cost any money and if you want to get a little more spicey, I am sure it will be appreciated!

5. UsedEverywhere: Goes without saying really. Some might balk at the thought of used gifts but remember, a lot of what goes on the Used sites are new and never used. There are also some great antiques and retro items, so if you have a collector for a partner, the Used sites are a great place to find unique gifts they may have been coveting. Even a search on the word Valentines can bring us some great bargains. A quick search on UsedVictoria, which is my local site, brought up gorgeous sculptures, jewelry, cards, photoshoots, pony treks and more – all cheaper than if you were looking elsewhere!

Enjoy your Valentines Day and if you are a couple that don’t celebrate, why not be the naughty one who surprises their beau this year, I’m sure they will be thrilled!

The Art of the Contest

For the past couple of years I’ve been hearing this sound a lot, “arrrrrrrrrrg.”  It’s the sound of my friends groaning as I tell them I’ve won yet another contest.  It’s usually followed by “seriously, you win everything!”  This, of course, is not totally true but I’ve been fortunate enough to win some great prizes lately. I’ve won things like movie passes, restaurant gift certificates and even a grand prize pack worth over $2000.

Okay, so maybe I do have a lucky horseshoe stashed away somewhere but I don’t believe that’s the reason I win stuff. It’s really simple and everyone can do it if they choose. I love it when anybody wins something so here is my pay-it-forward for all the good luck I’ve had lately.

ENTER EVERY CONTEST  

I have a mantra for winning things: ”You can’t win if you don’t enter.”  It’s really that simple.  How many times have you seen a contest on Facebook or spotted a ballot box at a store and chose to ignore it?  In essence, you have actually said, “I don’t want to win anything.”  Some would argue that it takes too much time to fill out the ballot or enter your info online but isn’t it worth it if you win hundreds of dollars in prizes for one minute of your time?

It’s understandable to not want to release your private information, but if you’re okay with it, then spend that extra minute.  I believe I have won things before simply because I was one of the only people who actually entered the contest.

SEEK OUT CONTESTS

As I mentioned, you can find hundreds of contests on places like Facebook and Twitter. Most of them are from manufacturers wanting you to “like” their pages. So if there are products that you really support, make sure to “like” or follow them so you’ll be notified of their contests.

Another great way to find out about contests is to look up contest sites like smartsource.ca and womenfreebies.ca (which is not all about women prizes by the way).  They will let you know about the great current contests to enter.

My best advice is to keep your eye peeled for contests as they are literally everywhere.  You’ll find ballot boxes in grocery stores, at malls, in liquor stores and even on napkins – yes, napkins. I won a grand prize worth over $2000 by simply scanning a barcode off a napkin at a restaurant with my smart phone.  The barcode linked me to a contest entry form and I filled it out.  Sure enough, a few weeks later I got a call informing me I was the grand prize winner!  This was totally crazy as it was also the first time I’ve ever used my phone to scan a barcode.

PAY IT FORWARD

If you know about a great contest, share it with your friends and family so they also have a chance to win. This goes against the idea that the fewer people who enter, the greater chance you have to win. I firmly believe in karma and feel that if you help others, you increase your luck in life… and in this case, contests!

As I said earlier, I totally understand that some people don’t feel comfortable giving out their personal info in order to win. But I can honestly say that I’ve entered hundreds of contests and have never been spammed, harassed or bombarded with emails from any of them. That said, I strongly recommend taking a good look at each contest carefully to make sure that it is legit and legal. One tip to avoid spam is to create a separate email account only for contests.

I hope this inspires some of you out there to start entering contests and I’d love to hear of some of the cool things you’ve won in the past and how you did it.

A New Spin On School Valentine Exchanges

Kids learn through play, which is the best time to absorb information about their environment and the people around them. That is why greener birthday parties and fun up-cycled activities are such a great idea.  Up-cycling is something that kids notice and a concept you can include in crafting or gifts for school Valentine exchanges. The secret is to use up fabric scraps or felt that showcases your child’s personality when making handmade Valentines.This isn’t a craft that should be tackled the night before card exchanges, but with some planning, it is a great introduction to sewing and a project younger kids can work on during the week before Valentines Day.

How do you make a DIY reusable Valentine?

Materials:

• Felt
• Fabric Scraps
• Needle
• Embroidery Thread
• Scissors
• Lollie Pop (optional)

Instructions:

With a sharp pair of scissors, cut out two hearts – the larger heart from felt and the smaller heart from either felt or fabric. Cut out hearts like you are making a paper heart (think back to elementary school) – fold the fabric and cut out 1/2 a heart on the opposite side of the folded line. This ensures hearts are even on either side. Thread your needle with embroidery thread and hand stitch. To get kids excited, pick an inner fabric that shows your child’s imagination. We loved using camouflage fabric with brown exterior felt – nobody says that Valentines always need to be pink and red! Children will love making Valentines for their friends and you can slide an organic lollie pop through the stitching of the heart if you want to include a treat. Easy for kids to handout, no writing required. Easy for teachers since they aren’t searching for kids to match up with names.

If you start running short on time, and the thought of making 30 DIY Valentines is overwhelming, make just a couple for family members and get creative with more sentimental materials. Use an old infant sleeper or baby blanket that contains lots of beautiful memories. This gift would be the ultimate for a Grandparent or your spouse.

Making felt stitched hearts isn’t just for kids! I made up a few recently to add to a tin of granola bars I gave as a gift. The felt heart minimizes having to write out a gift tag or card and truly adds that perfect touch of handmade.

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Three hot drinks for very cold days

We’ve been experiencing a bit of a cold snap here in Ottawa lately. No surprise really. It IS winter after all.

I’ve always believed that in order to survive winter you have to get out and enjoy winter. That means zipping up, getting out, and doing something… anything really! There’s so much to do in Ottawa; skating, sledding, skiing, snowshoeing. My family has taken up cross-country skiing on most weekends, and it feels pretty good to get out there.

Part of getting outside eventually means coming inside (er, obviously) and more often than not we find ourselves needing a hot beverage to warm us up from the inside.

My favourite is hot vanilla.  Start with super-heated milk. Nuke it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and then add 1/2 teaspoon of a really good-quality vanilla extract. It’s a very satisfying without being too sweet. I started drinking this when I was pregnant and I’ve never stopped.

My children’s favourite is, of course, hot chocolate. Sometimes we use this recipe, but most of the time we make it a quicker way. Combine 1 1/2 teaspoons of cocoa with an equal amount of sugar and milk to make a paste. Warm 1 cup of milk and then slowly add to the chocolate paste, stirring as you go. Add a splash of vanilla at the end, or marshmallows, or if you’re feeling celebratory, whipped cream and chocolate shavings. It’s fantastic. What I like best about homemade hot chocolate is that I have total control over what goes into it. (I use Fair Trade cocoa too!)

Another family favourite of ours is hot apple cider. There’s something really satisfying about a good hot cider. You can find it at the grocery store in the produce section. Just pour it into a mug, microwave until hot, and toss in a cinnamon stick. It’s heavenly.

What is your family drinking during the cold season?

Mid-Century Modern Monday: Alfred Meakin 'Random' Coffee Pot

Beautiful mid-century “random” coffee pot by Alfred Meakin currently listed on UsedVictoria for $45. Part of Meakin’s Glo-white Ironstone line, this type of pot was common in styling dining rooms of the late 50′s early 60′s. It’s interesting to note how much coffee culture / technology has changed. I guess they brewed the coffee in another pot and transferred it to this for serving? Fancy! It’s like we’re all coffee savages now.