Aren't these stunning?? I came across them in a book from 1890 about Etiquette.

So much fun and fancy! Just perfect for Christmas crafts I think.

Here is a close up of my favorites...

Enjoy! (feel free to 'pin' them if you love them!)

xoxo~

Abbie

I love this image.. it just resonates with my maternal instincts and would be so fabulous integrated into newborn scrapbooks, birth announcements, nursery/OBGYN office decor, or even transferred on to a T-shirt for a pregnant friend!!

Do you have any other ideas for using this image in yoru creative endeavours?

Enjoy!

xoxo~

Abbie

My personal recommendation is a coupon binder. You can assemble your own a lot cheaper, and we are here to save money aren't we? Having spent months tweeking mine, (I started by making my own pockets.. not the greatest idea when I have dozens and dozens of pages!) I have finally developed a system that is working. For me. Yours will grow and change as you figure out what works and what doesn't for you. What categories you need and which don't apply. No pets? Leave that section out.

A few recommendations:

1. Get a three ring binder and have it zip! Having dropped mine on numerous occasions trying to juggle it, a purse and two wee ones, a zipper is a lifesaver!
2. Make sure it has extra outside pockets! I use these to store my calculator and small scissors. I also tuck my coupons in them as I travel through the store, then when I am done shopping, all my coupons are in one place, waiting for me to hand them to the cashier.
3. Use baseball card protector sleeves to sort your coupons. They are perfectly sized for most coupons and are easy to find. I tried making my own and I needed too many. Just buy them, they will pay you back. Promise. You can find them at Walmart or online.

Coupon Binder Categories

Do you have any coupon organizing ideas that really work of you? We'd love to hear!

Feel free to 'PIN' this post. I am trying to figure out the code to add a PIN button to my posts but it's not working very well. lol! there is always something!

(Note: this is my post with my images, if you have seen them before but can't recall where, I started a coupon blog a while back and this is as far as I got!)

Enjoy!

xoxo~

Abbie

Palmistry is one of those things (like Tarot Cards) that just fascinates me! For centuries medicinal treatments have been orchestrated around the physiology of Palmistry.

I hope you enjoy these images as much as I do! Personally, I think the black and white image would make a great, tall pillow using an image transfer technique onto drop cloth or muslin fabric.

Let me know what you create with them!

For more Free Antique Science Printable Clipart Images Click Here.

xoxo~ Abbie

 Black and White version

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Easter!

Click here for over 150 more Free Flower Images and Printables from Percy & Bloom!

Enjoy!

xoxo~ Abbie

 Free Vintage Easter Images!

One of my new most favorite resources for fantastic printables, clipart, labels, and crafty bits of greatness is WorldLabel.com's Pinterest account. Wow!! They know how to find it and SHARE it!!

The above Easter image is from the marvelous Sweetly Scrapped, whom I found on WorldLabel's Pinterest wall. They are truly a 'must follow' if you use Pinterest!

You can follow their Pinterest Posts by clicking here. I would highly recommend just following all of them as I have yet to see a post that isn't 'repin' worthy.

The variety of links that WorldLabel has is fantastic and can apply to all types of crafts and arts, especially now that so much is going digital. Has anyone tried Project Life yet? Yet another fantastic, creative way to get your creative juices flowing with our ever increasing lack of time available to us.

I just love new ways to streamline my creative endeavours!

Enjoy!

xoxo~

Abbie

Have you grown tired of buying, buying, buying? It seems like all I do is run out of this, run out of that, and am constantly in a state of using and throwing away. Using and throwing away. It's the little things that are adding up, costly and wasteful. (and that takes money and time away from my crafting and creating!!) This post is in direct response to the mound of dryer sheets I used to toss in the trash (I would use them twice, also to dust with, etc.. but at the end of their life they ended up in the garbage and I had to buy more.) At two loads of laundry a day (approx.) that is a lot of dryer sheets!

I tried using the idea on Pinterest of soaking a washclothe in fabric softner, ringing it out, letting it dry. Supposedly it would be good for 30+ loads. Nahhh... it worked for about 2, and I found myself constantly refreshing it, and it was hard to find sometimes in my laundry as the static was horrid and the washclothe would disappear into the nether world of a pantleg or sleeve.

I also tried adding vinegar to the wash.. that didn't work either! I hate static! :)

Here is my solution. It works. I've used it.

 You'll need:

A bottle of liquid softner.. I really like the fragrance of the Purex brand above. (no, I have not received anything for this post!) :)

A spray bottle

An old towel or some washclothes, preferably in a color that is bold and bright and is easy to remember as a 'fabric softner' sheet.

First, cut up your towel if need be. I used a bright old coral colored one so that I could easily find it in my load and would remember to set it aside and not stick it in the closet with the washclothes.

Next, I used a recycled Shout spray bottle. But any spray bottle would do. Mines not pretty but it's functional, and to me that is most important. (If it is small in size, cut down the amount of liquid fabric softner you put in it.)

Put one cup of the fabric softner in the spray bottle and fill the rest of it up with water. Shake gently to mix it.

My stack of 'dryer sheets' is in a small hanging basket shelf right above my dryer. When I toss in a load of laundry, I grab a sheet, spritz it 3-4 times with the watered down fabric softner and toss it in the dryer with the laundry.

That's it! I get hundreds of sprays per bottle (or per 1 cup of softner) instead of using a 1/4 cup per load in the wash. If I use it the wash, it washes out (duh..) and I find that it doesn't work well enough for the amount of product I use.  You may need to add a few more spritzes or a few less depending on your preferences.

Do you have any tips that REALLY work? I'd love to hear and I'm sure others would too!

Hope you find it helpful! Please feel free to Pin this post.. just be sure to link back to it!

Thank you!

xoxo~

Abbie

My mom and I made our own body wash this week! I had seen an easy tutorial on Pinterest (yes.. I know. I have a problem. I am hooked. Can't help myself!) to make hand soap so we thought we'd try it on body wash. (something that I was desperately in need of as I had been using my husbands bar soap for days now..) 'Manly' is not quite the fragrance I go for most days.

Anyways... we used Yardley's Lavender Wisteria bar soap although any, all natural soap would work great. (I'm not sure how the deodorants would melt in soaps such as Irish Spring)

 You will need:

• About 8 oz of an all natural bar soap (we used two 4 oz. bars at $4.99 each)
• Grater (I used our kitchen grater.. it is just soap after all!)
• 2 Tbsp of Glycerin (I found mine at CVS near the skin lotions and Vitamin E) $5.79 for the bottle but we barely used any of it. A one time cost for gallons and gallons of liquid soap.
• Large stock pot (again, just out of my kitchen)
• A gallon of water
• Funnels of different sizes (see below.. we made our own!)
• Large metal spoon (we used a wooden one that I'll keep just for soap now)
• Electric beater
• Containers to put your finished body wash in (we upcycled some from our recycle bin.)

 How to:

Step One, grate your soap! This is the hardest part of the whole process! It's a 'grate' arm workout! *groan*

We grated ours onto parchment paper.

Next, put your soap shavings, the gallon of water and the 2 Tbsps gylercin into the stock pot. Put it on the stove and set the heat to medium. We didn't boil ours, just let it heat up. It smells so wonderful when it's warming up!

Stir your soap mixture gently until all the soap shavings dissolve/melt. You will have a nice cloudy soft mess in about 5 minutes.

Take your pot off the heat and let your soap sit. It'll start to thicken in a few hours but needs 8-12 hours to completely set and cool. Once set, it'll be the strange consistency of goop. Part solid, part snot. Sorry, there is no other way to describe it. You'll understand.

Next, stir it up as best as you can to loosen it, then use your mixer with beaters to mix it. this breaks apart most of the globs and smoothes it out.

Lastly, use some creative funnel mojo to pour your newly made bodywash into your recycled containers. I used an old J&J baby shampoo bottle for what I'll use in my shower and the rest I poured into a cranberry juice container to refill from later. My mom took half a gallon in a half gallon milk carton.

That's it! You're all set to use your body wash! An entire gallon of it! The only thing a bit strange, (not bad, just strange) is it's a bit slimey? I guess is the word. I smoosh it into my washcloth and it works perfectly and smells wonderful! That's the only thing 'wierd' about it.

When my husband got home the other night and asked "Why? why make it when you can buy it?" Well, Because.. because it keeps ten? plastic bottles out of landfills or from needing to be recycled. Because, now I know EXACTLY what is in my soap. Because it saves money! A lot of money! you can buy 20 oz of all natural, organic body wash for about $10. My mom and I made 128 oz for $15 which includes the full price of the glycerin. Next time it'll be only $10! Six times the product, for the same price and no waste. You can't beat that! It makes sense for EVERYONE, even if you can afford to buy it.

Oh, wait. there was a bit of waste. The two soap boxes. Here is an idea for upcycling them, too.

Open your box carefully along the seam. Flatten it out. Flip it inside out and close the seam with a bit of glue or clear tape. Fold the tabs in and voila! A pretty little box just the perfect size for giftcards, jewelry, etc.. (and it smells lovely!)

THERE. Now there is NO waste.

Feel free to Pin any of the images from this post, just please make sure they link back here!

Thank you! Enjoy!
xoxo~

Abbie

Have you ever gotten hooked by something that so intrigues you, you just can't seem to get out it's grip? Yes.. that is where I have been. Trapped in the fascinating clutches of Pinterest. What a FANTASTIC way to quickly bookmark all things fabulus on the net. It is sooo easy to use, so easy to keep organized, it just fills all of the needs my soul has. It is almost more fantastic than facebook. Almost. ;)

If you are on Pinterest already I'd love to see what you're interests are or if you would like an invite to see what all of the fuss is about, just leave your email for me and I'll send you one.

As I find nifty printables, freebies and crafty goodness I am popping it up on my pinterest boards.

Love.

xoxo~

Abbie

I have been spending my time behind my camera lately. The above silhouette is for you to use any way that you would like!

We have tons of feathered friends around.. altho really, this winter has been very easy on us and them. We have barely any snow (about 4" give or take) and typically we are up to our noses in it by now. I am wondering if this winter is so calm, what in the world will next winter bring? I'm sure Mother Nature has something planned to make up for the gentleness of this year!

xoxo~

Abbie