Cornocopia Of Blog Hops

We are kicking off a celebration of the Fall Season by hosting Cornucopia of Blog Hop!

Hosted by

Mama to 4 Blessings ~ a homeschool, thrifty, child re-lated crafts, reviews & giveaways blog,

Survey Junkie ~ great reviews & giveaways plus some really great link ups throughout the week!

Musings of a Stay at Home Mom ~ homeschooling blog

Fun Saving Money ~ Monday menu's - awesome receipes & coupons to print to go with the receipe, reviews & giveaways plus other great saving tips!

Our 1st Featured Blogger is Delicious Ambiguity!

An awesome blog filled with child related crafts and learning ideas for children!

1.Follow all 4 of your hostesses. Make sure to leave us comments (we do follow back). Link up to this hop by adding your blog to the linky list below. Please remember this is not a "giveaway link up" also keep this clean and family friendly.

2. Please feel free to grab our Cornucopia of Blog Hop!

3. Make sure to follow our "Spotlighted Blog" of the week Delicious Ambiguity! Each week a new featured blogger who will be chosen at random, but you must be participate in the weekly link up - that's how we will choose a new featured blogger every week!

Thanks!

Nicole

http://mamato3blessings.blogspot.com/

Blog Swapping with Nap-Time Creations

Hello! My name is Emily and I'm sharing with you today from my blog Nap-Time Creations. Thanks Jenn for the opportunity! I'm so excited to be guest posting today. 

I'll take a minute to introduce myself before I get onto the crafts! I'm a married (7yrs), mother of one (2 yr old boy) with another due in just a month (we don't know the gender), and I LOVE to express myself creatively. My craft home is a small apartment in Hong Kong, where we also live. I taught here at an International School before "retiring" to have kids. I am willing to try (and do) almost any kind of craft or sewing. I learned a lot of what a know from my mom (sewing) and my grandma (knitting); such a wonderful and useful gift to give a child. More recently I've learned a lot from the Internet, (don't we all!) from do-it- yourself instructions and ideas on other blogs, I am hooked. I started my blog because I was so excited about reading others. Please stop over and look around, leave me comments if you see things you like or have questions!

Here are some of my favorite projects:

Baby earflap hats... my son loved his, but now it's way too small.

The first project I posted on my blog: a homemade braided rug. My husbands grandma showed me how to make this, I'm the only one in the family carrying on her rug-making tradition. It was super fun, and easy to make, if only I had more room in our apartment to make more.

Here is my first tutorial project: PJ's for my son from an adult shirt redone.

The largest project I have tackled so far was making five quiet books this spring. A few of my son's friends were turning two and I thought the books would make the perfect gift. Here are a few pages...

I also do a lot of paper crafting. Signs, cards, and other decoration... I like to give packs of cards away as gifts.

Well, I had better stop, it would be easy to go on and on, but I don't want to overwhelm this post. Please drop by Nap-Time Creations and get some ideas and share yours!!  

7 Simple Budget Cuts That Make A Big Difference from Clean Mama

Hi! I'm Becky - also known as Clean Mama. I'm a clean-freak trapped in an artist's body, a stay/work-at-home mom to two little ones and former art teacher. In my "spare" time I look for new ways to simplify, organize, create, and clean.  The Clean Mama blog is where I talk about safe, green cleaning, spiffing up my home, and other fun to me (and hopefully fun to my readers) projects.  I also have a little Etsy shop called Clean Mama Printables and I am a Shaklee Distributor.  I'd love for you to stop by my little cyber spot, have a look around and stay awhile.

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Trimming the fat.  Cutting corners.  Budgets.  Clipping coupons.  Frugal living.

Any of these phrases ring true in your house?  Want to save some money around the house and use it for something else or to pay something else?  I'm going to share seven cuts and changes - beyond the typical changing your cell phone plan and clipping coupon cuts - that I've made in our home in the past couple of years that have made a BIG difference in our budget.  Hopefully there's something new to you that you can try in your home and save too.

1.  Meal Plan - limit take-out and eating out - we go out for a special ice cream treat every few weeks instead.  Take time one day a week to sit down and PLAN dinners for the week.  Try to make each meal stretch for the next night - you'll cook less and enjoy eating more.  (Spoiler alert - I'm going into detail about meal planning soon.)

Approximate money saved - $30/week for a family of 4 = $120/month or $1440/year

2.  Use a concentrated All-Purpose/Multi-Purpose Cleaner - not a big surprise, I use Basic H2, and think it's the best, but I love that it eliminated trips down "that" aisle at the big box store.  No impulse cleaning supply purchases, no half-empty spray bottles.  I am still on the same bottle of H2 concentrate that I bought over two years ago and I'd venture a guess that I used to spend at least $10/month on cleaning supplies (window cleaner, various bathroom cleaners, kitchen cleaners, oven cleaners, spot cleaners, carpet cleaners.....)


Approximate money saved - at least $10/month or $120/year.

3.  Drink Water Instead of Soda and Juice - Soda isn't good for you, so we limit it to special occasions and drink water instead.  I find that if I have good tasting ice water with sliced lemons in it, I don't miss the sweet soda taste.  I gave up Diet Coke in college, so it's more of the pizza and pop thing that I struggle with and root beer floats.  

Approximate money saved - Let's just say you bought two cases of soda every month for $5.99 that would be $11.98/month or $143.76/year.

4.  Eliminate Paper in the Kitchen - read the post here - this is a very popular topic and I love that there is so much interest in how I did this.  Truly, even my family can't believe that I don't have paper towels in the house - if I can do it, ANYONE can!

Approximate money saved - at least $20/month or $240/year.

5.  Trade/Share/Borrow Kids' Clothes - Find someone that you know (friend, family, neighbor) that you can do this with.  Swap bins back and forth and it's all FREE!  We buy a couple special occasion outfits and some good basics.  If I have to buy separates, I buy on sale at my favorite big box store.  

Approximate money saved - $100 every season or $400/year per kid or $800/year for two kids.

6.  DIY Haircuts - Buy a clipper and scissors and do your own hair cutting.  My hair dresser gave me a few tips on cutting kids' hair - luckily my daughter has curls so mistakes don't show.  My son gets the #3 or #4 clipper cut all over his hair and it's almost-perfect every time. I trim my own bangs (using tips from my hairdresser) and stopped coloring my hair.  I have long hair so I can easily go four months before getting a haircut.


Approximate money saved - $40 every three months (2 kids hair cuts/ 4 times a year) = $160/year

7.  Utilize craigslist.com, The Freecycle Network and local garage sales.  Sell what you don't need, buy what you do.  If we're looking for a "new" bike for someone, I check craigslist and freecycle first and if I don't find anything, I'll drive by local garage sales and look for a bike.  If I see one, then I stop.  I find that if I actually get out of the car and go to all the garage sales I end up with a lot of things and stuff that I didn't really need and will probably end up selling at my next garage sale. 


Approximate money saved - varies.

Doing these seven simple budget cuts has saved us right around $3000 during this past year!  Do you have a favorite budget cut to share?  I'd love to hear about it!

Blog Swapping with Autumnfawn Lane

Greetings Delicious Ambiguity Readers! Thank you, Jenn, for swapping blogs with me today ~ your creativity is such an inspiration.

I am Brandi from Autumnfawn Lane, yet there is nothing autumn-y about my real home! My husband and I have been married for 13 years and have spent the last 4 living in the hot, dry Arizona desert. We are blessed with 3 children - 11, 8, & 5 - and I spend my days home schooling these super-smart kids. I love blogging about mom life in general and connecting with other like-minded moms.

Some of my regular posts feature topics on:

HEALTH

(Eat a Rainbow Every Day)

RECIPES

(Frosty Fairy Mints)

WORKS FOR ME WEDNESDAY TIPS
(Old Applesauce Cups)




EXPERIMENTS & HOME SCHOOL
(Amazing Ant Experiment)






OTHER FUN ACTIVITIES

(Sistine Table)


Please feel free to take a stroll down Autumnfawn Lane for more!

Blog Swapping With Home And Hearts Blog

Hello Delicious Ambiguity readers! I am so happy to swap blogs with Jenn today. I love her blog and Tot Tuesdays keeps me crafting with my toddler each week.

A little about me:

My name is Mama E from 

Home and Hearts 

I am an artist turned Stay at Home Mama of two little ones - the youngest is seven weeks old! My family and I live in rainy Portland, Oregon, so we have a lot of indoor time to get creative. I started blogging as a way to swap inspiration with other Mamas - posting about my discoveries as a parent and ideas for maintaining a happy, healthy, creative home on a budget.

Here are some things you will find at my blog:

Kid Crafts 

(toilet paper roll binoculars) 

Mama Crafts

 (apron rod)

Misc. Tutorials

(strawberry jam)

Sewing 

(baby bib)

Recipes

 (blueberry cobbler)

And

Parental achievements

Three Day Potty Training Success! 

 Please stop by 

Home and Hearts 

for more.

Thank you for blog swapping Jenn!

Great Activities To Teach Colours

Today I am excited to feature Broot from Lost In A Sea Of Blogs to share with you some great ideas on how to teach your children about colours:

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What great activities can you do with colour? Today I am going to share with you some great activities that can be done at home with little to no cost. Simple activities are usually the most effective!

The main way to teach littlies the association between colour names and the colours themselves is language. You have to use the colour names whenever you can. Use colours to describe their favourite toys, their favourite characters, their favourite clothes, their favourite foods, their favourite pets. Why their favourites? Because they care about those things and they’ll be interested to hear the different ways to describe their favourite things.

But I know that’s not why you’re reading this post. So here’s other things you can do...

“I Spy” is a favourite in our house. “I spy with my little eye something that is BLUE!” and then we name as many blue things as we can. You can extend this to finding as many items in that colour as you can. Bonus game – when you’re cleaning up, you clean up using colour... “Can you find me something that is RED? Fantastic! Now where does the RED thing go?”

Blocks of any kind in many different colours (like MegaBloks, Duplo, and especially coloured wooden blocks) are wonderful for colour games. “Let’s stack up all the YELLOW blocks.” “Can you find me a GREEN block?” “Where did the BLUE block go?” If you don’t have blocks, you can make some using cardboard boxes and paint.

You can use finger paint to teach them about mixing colours to make a new one – make a batch of uncoloured finger paint, and then let your littlies squish the colour through it. And let them mix the colours together. Make sure you talk about what’s happening as you go – “You’ve mixed the colour BLUE! And now that you’ve added YELLOW, you’ve made the colour GREEN!”

This works for Playdough too – make uncoloured playdough, and then let your littlies knead tempura powder or non-toxic dye or colouring into the dough. You could also knead in some coloured glitter, sand, or sawdust for a complimentary effect. “Hey look, our playdough is Purple and Yellow!”

Want to discover colours with water? Have a tea party!! Have several containers of coloured water, and a lot of empty ones for mixing them together. Again, make sure you talk about the colours they’re using and what’s happening to them as they mix together!

Or you can half-freeze a container of water, and then eyedropper or syringe different food colouring into the (almost) ice, and refreeze. Now hang it somewhere with a container beneath to watch the colour drip from the block of ice. Talk about what colours are dripping and what happens when the drips mix together!

Regardless of which activities you try, remember that littlies learn best when they are allowed to experiment and make mistakes. Make sure you let them do the mixing, the building and the playing.

Thanks, Jenn, for allowing me the opportunity to guest blog for you today.

 

Broot learned to be "parent as first teacher" when she joined Playcentre (http://playcentre.org.nz) in late 2004. Playcentre is a non-profit parent co-operative that teaches parents how to educate their infants, toddlers and young children. She has two children: one 6 year old at school and a 4 year old who is excited to be starting school in February next year. Her family lives near Tauranga, New Zealand. Broot writes a non-mommy blog at http://lostinaseaofblogs.wordpress.com and maintains some internet anonymity to protect her children's privacy. 

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Thanks Broot for stopping by today and sharing your great ideas to teach your kids about colours. You've got lots of great ideas for us to try out this week!

Feature Friday: Elizabeth @ Twelve Crafts Till Christmas

I'm super excited to be swapping blog space with Jenn today!  My first inclination was to do a post highlighting all of my favorite posts that Jenn has done, but I'm pretty sure that's not the point of a blog swap.  So let me introduce myself, and then I'll show you a few of my favorite projects over at Twelve Crafts Till Christmas. 

I'm Elizabeth and these are my tots. 

Alright, one of them isn't much of a tot anymore, but please don't remind me.  I plan on thinking of her as my baby for the rest of my life, and even though she's 5 (and thinks of herself at 15), I still see that chubby faced newborn every time I look at her.   

Almost seven months ago I began sewing and started a little blog called twelve crafts till Christmas on a whim.  

You should know that twelve crafts till Christmas has very little . . . well, nothing actually . . . to do with Christmas.  You won't find Christmas-themed recipes, decorating ideas, crafts, traditions . . . I think you get the idea.  I know.  I know.  The name of my blog is a little misleading, but did I mention that I started it on a whim?  That's the kind of name I could come up with on a whim.

Twelve crafts till Christmas is really all about my journey in making all my kids' Christmas gifts for December 2010.  And before you ask . . . yes, I do need an entire year to do that!  Along the way towards my goal, I've also been on a mission to inspire people to make at least one - just one (unless you're inspired to do more) - homemade gift this year.  There is nothing better than a gift that has been labored over and loved on, so I provide a bunch of tutorials and gift ideas mixed in with my own novice sewing and crafting antics and some super fun (and very messy) kids' crafts/activities along the way.          

I truly believe that anyone can make something for someone because in seven months of sewing and crafting, I've gone from saying, "Oh, I could never make that," to "Hey, I think I can make that!" 

And here are some of my favs:

Gift Ideas for Kids/Tutorials

Pretend and Play Mail Carrier Set

The Pillow Buddy

Painted Wooden Dolls

Crafts/Activities for Kids

Make Your Own Foam Lacing Cards

Make Your Own Chewing Gum

Fresh Fruit Freats

Don't Forget to Make Yourself Something Too!

Soda Can Jewelry

Easy Peasy ZigZag Remake

I also have a stocking stuffer share-along page on my blog so that you can join in by inspiring others too.  Come by and link up any homemade gift idea or tutorial that you think would make a fabulous stocking stuffer for boys, girls, women, men, pets, etc.

And come say "HI!" to Jenn over at twelve crafts till Christmas!  And as I say at the end of every post . . . CRAFT ON!

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Thanks for blog swapping today Elizabeth! It's been super fun!

Feature Friday: Stacey from PB & Joy

I am so excited for my first Feature Friday where I will be sharing some great bloggers and their inspiring ideas. Today is Stacey from PB and Joy. She's fairly new to the blogging scene so I hope you'll all stop by and say hello!

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Hi Delicious Ambiguity readers,  I am so excited to be a part of Feature Friday.  My name is Stacey from PB and Joy. I am a mom of 4 beautiful and active children. I started my blog because I was in a rut (and admittedly still am sometimes)...I couldn't wait for bedtime, I was making the same old things for dinner, and my kids were singing along to way too many commercial jingles. I wanted to find more fulfillment and joy in motherhood so I came up with PB and Joy (my quest to take a bite out of my Parental Blunders and spread on lots of JOY). I have used this blog to post about fun and simple activities,  yummy recipes, stories, solutions to my blunders, and favorite quotes. It has helped me to refocus on being a better Mom. Check it out and you may find something that you enJOY as well...I love followers and new ideas!


Each day of the week has a different theme at PB and Joy.  Here are some of my favorite posts:

• Monday's Madness - my solution to those nasty yellow baby poop stains
• Tuesday's Triumph - helping my son deal with anger in a better way
• Wednesday's Words - moments in motherhood when you just say "whatever" 

• Thursday's Thriller - shaving cream finger painting

• Friday's Fabulous Food - a great summer recipe with fresh fruit

• Saturday's Story -  an inspirational story and blog about a mom who was severely burned
• Sunday's Scripture - encircle your little ones

Here is another fun activity that my husband made to cool off on those hot summer days:

Kid Wash:

This is the perfect activity now that the sun is hot and the kids are a sticky mess from drippy popsicles. It is a sprinkler made out of PVC pipes and water misters. Eric came across this idea a few years ago and made some. We have LOVED it. We set it up over our sidewalk so that the kids can ride their bikes and scooters through it. We have also set it up over the slip-n-slide or even just a tarp to add more water and fun! It is really easy to set up and store. Here are some great tutorials on how to make one: instructables.com or click here for a printable PDF version.


We set it up a few days ago and the entire neighborhood showed up. It was a lot of fun. The kids even had contests to see who could stand under it the longest...Aaron stood under the cold water for 10 minutes...Brrrrrr!

We also took it to our family reunion and it made a big "Splash".

Have fun and I hope that you enJOY doing this with your kids!

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Thanks for sharing some of your great inspiring ideas Stacey!

If you'd like to be the featured Friday blogger please contact me HERE.