Helpful Hints

Just call me Heloise...or don't, on second thought. But you can call me Babs, how's that?

As I was putting Christmas decorations away this past weekend and storing odds and ends leftover from the season, I thought of some things I do that might help you. We all do things differently and I'm always sort of nosy to see how other folks do them, whether they are helpful or not. So, if you don't like the way I do things, what can I say? Just enjoy the ride. And if this is old news? Well, sorry about that.

These albums have been one of the best things I've found for organizing -- you know all those DVD boxes and CD boxes you have consuming space on your bookshelves? This one album, which you can find here, holds 48 discs. Do you have any idea how much space 48 DVD boxes consume? A buttload, I tell you. It was an enormous pleasure throwing them all away. Now I have two albums that take up very little space on my shelves (room for more books -- yay!). These two albums hold almost 100 DVDs (and unfortunately are almost full which means we have waaay too many DVDs) -- I'm sure you can imagine how much room 100 DVD boxes consume.

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As I was putting away Christmas wrap I had a clever idea (at least I think it's clever). I am forever running out of wrapping paper. I always think I have some, but then I go to my wrapping paper box, and there is never enough of one type left (I think gremlins, or little girls, steal it). I end up with 15 pieces of not-big-enough wrapping paper and have to make a run to the store.

My solution: at the beginning of each year I will buy two large rolls of solid colored wrapping paper and one large roll of white ribbon. For the entire year, every gift gets wrapped in one of the two colors (one for girls and one for boys) and tied with white ribbon. The following year I will pick two new colors. The packages can be dressed up with stickers or a big lollipop for children and a pretty bauble (or left in the "tailored" look) for adults.

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I have sort of the same problem with birthday cards. Birthday cards are just so darned expensive. Why should I have to shell out $3.50 just to send birthday wishes? You can call me cheap if you want, but I prefer to think that I'm not buying into commercialism. A few years ago I started making my own cards. Now you can go gonzo on making cards and spend way more than $3.50 in supplies, but I usually buy one theme stamp for the year and all my birthday cards get that stamp. I change themes each year so (hopefully) no one gets the same card twice. These types of boxes of multi-colored cards are very cost-efficient, but they are nice. You can stamp a design on a solid sheet and cut it to fit on the front of the colored card. Handmade and cute.

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I recently found a new use for my cell phone. Like most cell phones these days, my phone can take pictures. They are, however, horrible quality (at least mine are) and I can't even upload them to my computer because I use a Mac and most cell phones use Windows technology. The thing about my cell phone, however, is I always take it with me wherever I go. So when we ran out of dog food recently, instead of trying to remember (and not being successful) what brand and type of dog food we buy for Maggie, I took a pic. Now all I have to do is match up my pic with the package in the store. You would not believe how helpful this is. Do you do it, too?

 

 That's all for my tips today. I hope it was a worthwhile ride!

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