Linky Parties week of 2-20-12

These are the linky parties I visited and linked up with this week.  Come join the fun.

Linky Parties

These are the parties I visited and linked up to this weekend!

 

Cleaning up with Magid Blue Nitrile Gloves-Review

Recently, I received a box of Magid EconoWear T9557 Blue Powdered Disposable Nitrile Gloves (100 pack) from Magid Gloves and Safety Manufacturing Company LLC for review and I knew I could put them to good use!

I like to use disposable gloves to protect my hands when working around the house.  My husband always has a box of disposable gloves handy out in his garage to use when needed.  And I always use disposable gloves when cleaning my dogs room.  Cleaning the kitchen and bathroom are other areas when I use them.  Because even when organic cleaners are being used they can be very hard on your hands.  My skin becomes so dry when I don't protect them.  

The fit of the glove was okay (they sent me a large).  I can easily move my fingers without difficulty.  However, it does pull down slightly around the wrist when I bend them forward (which might not have been the case if the glove fit a little tighter), and as you can see from the pictures they don't cover much past the wrist.  So be careful if you are dipping your hands in liquid that is deep, it could leak in over the top of the glove.  The Magid Blue Nitrile Gloves are ambidextrous and completely liquid proof so you don’t have to worry about anything coming into contact with your skin through the glove.

Not only are these gloves great for cleaning and general maintenance purposes, they offer better protection than vinyl or latex disposable gloves against chemicals, punctures and abrasions—they are a great value too—$8.25 /DP.  They are ideal gloves for single-use purposes like handling raw food in the kitchen, to have on hand in the garage, or just general home projects and maintenance.  Your next paint project—the Magid Blue Nitrile Gloves would be awesome!  

I would like to thank Magid Gloves for sending me these gloves to review.

Decorative Wooden Clothespins

Happy Wednesday everyone!  I hope your week is going great so far.  Today I've got another fun, little D-I-Y craft project--Decorative Wooden Clothespins.  You can use these fun pins on magnets boards, to adorn gifts, as place card holders and more.  I hope you enjoy making your own variations of these charming little clips as much as I did. 

Ribbon Flower Clothespins

Supplies needed:

• Standard wooden clothespins 
• Fabric scraps of your choice.
• Ribbon (variety)
• Embellishments - for flower center (optional)
• Colored pencils (optional)
• Thin strip magnets (optional)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Scissors

1. Color the entire surface of your clothespin with your colored pencil until well-coated and then smudge with your fingertip to soften.  This gives your clothespin an overall worn/vintage effect.
2. The ribbon flower is identical to the ribbon flower I made for my jewelry and headbands (tutorial here) except instead of beginning with a felt circle, I just glued the end of the ribbon directly onto the clothespin.  Apply a small dab of glue with your hot glue gun onto the clothespin where you want your flower center and carefully press the end of your ribbon onto the hot glue.  Begin twisting your flower, using the hot glue as needed .  (If you want a fuller flower than is possible with the width of the clothespin, use a small felt circle as directed in the tutorial and then glue the felt directly onto the clothespin.
3. Turn the clip over and glue thin strip magnets (found at your local craft store) onto the back to use on a magnet board, or leave them blank to use as gift tag holders on presents, place card holders at your next party, etc.

Fabric-covered clips:

Gift giving idea: Using a strip of decorative cardstock or a fancy ribbon, clip a row of pretty pins to give as a gift to someone special.

Need a cute place card holder for a birthday party?  One that's easy and not time-consuming?  Then these are the clips for you.  These clips are easier to make than the first version.  You can even get your kids involved.  

Supplies needed:

• Standard wooden clothespins - 
• Fabric scraps in your choice of color
• Ribbon or other embellishments (optional)
• Double-sided tape - permanent
• Thin strip magnets (optional)
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors

1. Color the entire surface of your clothespin (except the side you are going to glue with fabric) with your colored pencil until well-coated and then smudge with your fingertip to soften.  This gives your clothespin an overall worn/vintage effect.
2. Pull out a strip of double-sided tape that is as long or slightly longer than your clothespin.  Attach it to the surface of the clothespin making sure to keep it smooth.  Line the tape up evenly along one edge so that the excess hangs off the other side.  With your scissors, trim the excess.
3. Place your fabric (right-side down) and then press your prepared clothespin tape-side down onto the back side of your fabric.  Turn over and with your fingers, smooth and flatten the fabric onto the tape.  Cut excess fabric off all sides.
4. Decorate if you wish or leave with fabric only.  You're done!

Fabric Pom Pom Flower Clothespins:

These pom-pom flowers are fun to make and really cute.  The picture of this clip (the first one on the left) doesn't really do it justice.  I've included a link to the great tutorial that I found on how to make these flowers (since it's near impossible to take photos of yourself making these).  So take a look at the tutorial before judging these cute little flowers.


Supplies needed:

• Standard wooden clothespins
• Fabric scraps in your choice of colors
• Needle and thread - color should match the fabric you will be using.
• Colored pencils (optional)
• Thin strip magnets (optional)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Scissors

To begin with you will need to follow this pom-pom tutorial to create your fabric pom pom flowers.  It should take you only about 3-5 minutes per flower.  For a small circular shape you can use an object in your home as a template to trace around, such as a spool of thread. 

1. Color the entire surface of your clothespin with your colored pencil until well-coated and then smudge with your fingertip to soften.  This gives your clothespin an overall worn/vintage effect.
2. Apply a small dab of glue with your hot glue gun onto the clothespin and carefully attach your pom pom flower onto your pin by pressing it onto the hot glue. That's it!

Fabric Poof Flower Clothespins:
 

These poof flowers are quick to make and super cute.  They would be great for a cute birthday place card holder or a birthday gift as they remind me of balloons.  


Supplies needed:

• Standard wooden clothespins
• Fabric scraps in your choice of colors
• Needle and thread - color should match the fabric you will be using.
• Colored pencils (optional)
• Thin strip magnets (optional)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Scissors

To begin with you will need to create your fabric poof flowers.  It should take you only about 3-5 minutes per flower.  For a small circular shape you can use an object in your home as a template to trace around, such as a spool of thread. Stitch around the entire outside edge of the circle with a running stitch and pull tight to gather into a poof.  Knot and tie off.  Make three poofs for each pin.

  

1. Color the entire surface of your clothespin with your colored pencil until well-coated and then smudge with your fingertip to soften.  This gives your clothespin an overall worn/vintage effect.
2. Apply a small dab of glue with your hot glue gun onto the clothespin and carefully attach your poof flower onto your pin by pressing it onto the hot glue. That's it!

I hope you will enjoy making your own fancy clothespins.  

Get organized with Avery Binder--Review

I received some office supplies from Shoplet.com for review and honestly they couldn't have come at a better time.  I recently started organizing all of my recipes (stacks and stacks of recipes) and this binder, note tabs and binder spine inserts came in handy for my recipe organization! 

The first product I pulled from the box is the Avery EZD Heavy-Duty Reference View Binder. 

This binder has one handed easy open rings.  With little effort, just one push of a thumb on the rubber button pops the rings right open.

They also close easily without feeling as if they are going to capture my fingers when they snap shut--a big plus for me.  The design of the rings really permits this binder to hold a lot of pages.  I stuffed a 375 page document inside this binder (I'm sure I could have fit more if I had them).  All the pages fit easily and they turned smoothly in the rings.  

The binder has four stacked pockets (two on each side) so you can organize and secure special notes, smaller pieces of paper or even photos.  The plastic is non-stick and archival.  It won’t lift the toner from your pages, so your photos are safe--Yay!  The plastic is PVC free and the chipboard is 100% recycled content. I definitely like this!  The binder front and back are wide enough to cover index tab dividers and sheet protectors from view when closed.  Overall this is a good quality binder that is worth the money.  There isn't anything I have found that I don't like about this binder.  The rings don't pinch fingers and it has nice organizational pockets, plus it's well made.  What more can you ask for?

The next item was the Avery Custom Spine Inserts.  

The binder spine inserts are made to work with the Avery EZD Heavy-Duty Reference View Binder.  The binder spine inserts come in packages of 25 (5 per sheet).  They can be customized with your printer and favorite word processing program or at Avery.com.  The perforations make them easy to separate them.  They are made from firm cardstock and are a perfect fit for the binder spine pocket--slipping in easily.  However, if you decide to change them, they are a bit more challenging to get back out.  Your fingers are useless unless you want to destroy the binder spine pocket (made of plastic).  Double-sided tape on the end of a letter opener solved the problem, but it was quite a bit of trouble to remove.  Overall this is a good quality product.  The only downside is how difficult they are to remove from the binder pocket.  

The last item was the Avery Note Tabs

The Avery Note Tabs come in a package of 10 and a variety of colors and sizes.  They are made from an thick, durable material that you can write on or use with a highlighter.  The material is transparent so you can see content beneath.  

The tabs are also repositionable, but stick well to pages clipped together in a stack or while inside a binder--even when shuffled around they won‘t lift off.  Although the glue is not sticky enough to damage your paper when the tab is lifted. These tabs would work great to divide a wire bound notebook into multiple sections--one notebook for several subjects, school, writing project, work project, etc.  However, because of the type of material the tab is made from, some writing instruments work better than others.  I found the ink from several pens tended to smear.  Sharpies work the best.  Overall a great product--they won't damage your paper when moved and still stick well, but the downside: not all writing instruments works on this material.

I'm sure you will find each of these products as useful as I did. They can be used for so many different projects and each compliments the others so well.

I
SHOP GREEN

 

Mom's Talk Network Interview

I've been interviewed by Mom's Talk Network.  You can read it here: Sandy of Cherished Handmade Treasures

Follow My Pins Hop

Here is a fun blog hop--Pinterest! You can follow individual pins, individual boards or the member's entire collection. It's up to you. Click the link and start pinning.

Get Wired Wednesday Blog Hop

All you have to do to join is Follow the Hostesses Victoria's Voice and Three Boys and an old Lady through GFC

Link yourself to the list below

Follow some of the other great blogs (Remember to leave a comment so they know to follow you back)

Copy and paste the blog hop button on your blog so that others can join (optional )

Not mandatory, but I would love for you to leave a comment that you have joined up to the blog hop.




ENTER YOUR FACEBOOK, TWITTER, OR WHATEVER HERE. This is a Blog Hop!

Cheesy Ranch Crescent Rolls

I made these for dinner the other night and they were a hit.  Something a little different that was simple, easy and yummy. Who wouldn't love that?

Free Onion Ring Weekend at Burger King!

Free Onion Rings At Burger King This Weekend February 4th and 5th. Click link for details.

February 2012 Coupons.com

The following is a list of new coupons from Coupons.com for the month of February. Scroll down to see all coupons currently available--there are some really great ones listed! Click on the image to print and happy, happy savings!

Also

Happy Birthday Reminder Board

Today, I have a fun craft project for you.  A Happy Birthday Reminder Board! Since I have a couple of very important birthdays clustered right at the beginning of the year, birthdays are on my mind right now.  I saw a similar board on Pinterest!  Don't you just love that web site?  This nifty board can also be used as a gift idea--or just keep it for yourself!  The lucky recipient will be reminded year round of upcoming birthdays, because who likes to send out “Belated Birthday” cards or just be forgotten altogether on their special day?  With this super cute board, it's an easy way to remind yourself of the birthdays for friends and family members.

Tell Me About Yourself Award

I love receiving these cute bloggy awards! Pinkoddy's Blog: My Thoughts and Knowledge passed along the Tell Me About Yourself Award to me and several other bloggers a while back (I'm ashamed to admit how long ago). The reason it has taken me so long to post is because I have a difficult time revealing things about myself. However, I want to say "Thank you SO MUCH!", and encourage everyone to please stop by and visit her blog. It was very sweet of her to recognize me. 

Here are the rules for receiving this award:

Whimsical Wednesday Hop

Looking to discover some new blogs, meet some new blog friends, have a giveaway you want to share and/or maybe even gain some new followers?  Pop on over to Random Dealz and participate in the Whimsical Wednesday Hop.  After adding your blog to the hop, feel free to follow my blog.  Be sure to leave a comment and I will return the favor.