This week's thrifty tips!

By ThriftyFun.com

Marking Seed Rows

Use paper seed packages as markers for rows of seeds. Just cover the seed package with clear contact paper to prevent it from the elements and slip over a small stake.



Herbs to Prevent Insects

Some herbs can help prevent insects from damaging other plants. For example, anise and coriander discourage aphids. Contact your local nursery or agricultural college extension to find out which herbs will work best in your area.



Do Your Weeding After Watering

Pull weeds after you have watered your lawn or garden. That will loosen up the earth and you will get more of the weed's roots.




Wire Hanger Trellis

You can make a small trellis out of a wire hanger. Straighten the hanger's hook and then bend the remaining hanger into whatever shape you want your trellis to be. Then stick the straighten hook into the dirt and you have a wire trellis for potted plants.


Better Drainage in Your Plant Pots

There are lot of items you can put in the bottom of your plant pot to help improve drainage. If you have a broken coffee cup, just break it into smaller pieces and put those at the bottom of the planter. Other items that will are: walnut shells, broken clay pot shards, marbles or stones. To make your planter lighter, use foam packing peanuts.



Borax and Cornmeal for Drying Flowers

You can dry flowers in about 10 days using Borax and Cornmeal. This requires 2 parts borax to 1 part white cornmeal. First, cover the bottom a tub with a thin layer of this powder. Then place your flowers on top of this layer. Slow add more of the powder until the flowers are covered. It's best to not pour the mixture directly on the flowers (it may squish them), but off to the side, letting it cover the flowers as the tub fills up. Once the flowers are covered, let them sit for 10 days. Sand can be substituted for the borax but it takes 16 days for the flowers to dry if you use sand.


Keep Thin Vases From Tipping Over

Fill the bottom of bud vases with sand or gravel to keep them from tipping over easily.

About the author:
Tips provided by http://www.ThriftyFun.com

9 Traits of Organized Kitchens

by Barbara Myers

1. The number one rule of an organized kitchen is to store items where
you use them. Put your plates near the table, glasses near the fridge
and cutting knives and board near island or counter where you cut up
produce.

2. If you do any baking, set up a baking section. Store together all
items you use when baking.

3. Clean and organize your fridge and freezer. Do a quick upkeep once
a week on trash day. If you don't use it, get rid of it.

4. Move the excess clutter. For example, seasonally used items such
as platters and holiday dishes are better stored in a basement or attic.
Unless you have a very large kitchen, it is best to remove items that
are not used on a regular basis.

5. How many glasses do you really use between dish washing? Store
only as many as you regularly use (glasses, dishes, wine glasses), and
place the extras in storage.

6. Go through your cookbooks and keep in the kitchen only the ones you
use regularly. Seasonal cookbooks can be stored with your holiday
dinnerware. Others can be kept elsewhere or given away.

7. Here's a tough one. If you don't use it every day, remove it from
your counters. So many of us complain about not having enough counter
space, yet we crowd the counters with things we don't use.

8. Check out all the racks and drawer units on the market to more
efficiently store all your kitchen items. You will find a large selection
at home stores around the country.

9. Set up a small pantry somewhere in your home for extra cans of
soup, coffee and other essentials. You'll save money by buying in bulk or
during sales and you'll save space in the kitchen. A small closet can
easily be converted to a pantry. Once you have one, you'll never want
to be "pantry-less" again.


Free "50 Ways to Manage Your Time" tips booklet. Visit
www.ineedmoretime.com.

Dress Well With A Tight Budget

Do you want to dress well like a celebrity but don't have deep
pockets? Great, then here are some tips for you to take a quick
look at:

- First of all, know your own figure and your own style. Don't
follow trends that don't suit you. Most clothes look great on
models like Kate Moss, but don't look as good on us normal
women! Remember how many items you bought on impulse last
season? And you did not even wear them!

- Look at your closet and make a list of things you already
have and you really want to keep. Then make a list of the
things that you really want and do you have. Buying from a list
will keep you focused and minimise costly impulse buying.

- Buy the best quality of clothes and accessories that you can
afford. They'll simply look better, last longer, wear less,
wash better and as a result, you will save more money than
buying lots of inferior-quality pieces that will only last a
few wears.

- For big items like suits, dresses, coats: buy classic styles.
These will stand the test of time and not date as much as
clothes bought from the latest trends. Whereas for small items
like bags and accessories, buy the most trendy, fashionable
ones so you look up to date and go for the brightest colours
(they will not make you look fat!).

- Buy on sale whenever possible. You can grab the same piece
for half or even less money just a few months after the celebs.
Nobody will tell you that ‘it’s out of fashion’, just for a few
months. You can grab yourself some really good bargains on the
last few days’ of the sales in famous shops like Harrods and
Harvey Nichols. And buy online, on Ebay if you are Internet
Savvy.

- Swap small items like hats and bags with your best friends
(of course, those with good taste only). There is no point in
spending a lot of money on something you are only going to use
once (Well, it will be embarrassing if you wear the same
clothes to your important parties). So share them with your
friends.

Ladies, dressing well doesn't have to cost a fortune. If you
take a little time and a bit of thought to plan for your need,
and treat buying your clothes like an investment.


About The Author: Amie Porter shows women how to update their
closets, without abusing their credit cards, Closet Clear Out,
Spring Cleaning. www.londonrate.com for London Cleaning
Services, London Cleaner, London Builder
http://www.londonrate.com

How To Use Color And Creativity To Store Kid Stuff

by Sherrie Le Masurier

Are you overwhelmed by clothes, books and toys everywhere? If
you answered yes, just imagine how your child feels. With so
much kid stuff everywhere room cleaning is anything but fun.

That's where a little color and creativity comes in. Conquering
clutter doesn't have to be a chore. With a solid plan and a
little patience you can turn a messy child's room into an
organized environment in a matter of hours.

By using color as an essential part of your child's organizing
system you make the clean up process fun. And by knowing that
each toy has a home your child can then learn how to return
items after play. Even very young children can benefit from
color coordination.

Preschoolers in particular learn their colors faster when they
routinely put colored items in matching bins.

A colored storage system starts by purchasing large cubes, bins
or baskets. You don't have to stick with primary colors either.
The toys and storage containers of today come in all colors and
shapes.

And if you're having trouble coming up with enough containers in
the color(s) of your choice consider spray painting baskets or
covering boxes with matching wallpaper.

For more creative storage tips for children's room visit
http://www.decorating-kids-rooms.net/kid-room-storage.html

Unfinished wood furniture is ideal for rooms you'll be
implementing a colorful organizing system in. This kind of
furniture is the ideal canvas for all kinds of decorative
touches. You may even wish to give each drawer a different color.

Even when space is tight you can incorporate a little extra
color and storage space by fitting the insides of wardrobe
drawers with either hooks or plastic coated grids with shelves.

Organizing kid stuff by size is also a good idea. Storing small
and large things together can result in lost or broken items.
Where possible small items should be contained in smaller bins.
That said, there is wisdom in storing items together that will
be used together. In that case it's a matter of packaging small
items up separately within a bigger bin or container.

Colorful storage doesn't end with visual storage around the
room. Consider adding a little color to your child's closet by
using colorful hangers and hooks. More closet design and closet
organization tips can be found by visiting
http://www.decorating-kids-rooms.net/closet-design.html

There is no end to how you can use color and creativity to store
kid stuff. As long as you can imagine it, you can make it
happen.

How To Get Organized In 30 Minutes A Day

by Sherrie Le Masurier

Are you unhappy with the disorganized state of your home?

Do you find yourself too busy to conquer your clutter and clean
your home too?

Does the thought of getting your home under control overwhelm
you?

If you answered yes to all the above then you're in good
company. Many working parents find keeping a handle on their
work and home lives a daily challenge.

Things are further complicated by the fact that not all of us
can justify the cost of hiring out our household chores.

So if your budget doesn't allow for a professional organizer or
cleaning help what's a busy parent to do?

First starters, you can learn how to organize your home by
learning how to deal with your feeling of being overwhelmed.
Stop, step back and look for a solution. Don't give a cluttered
basement or messy child's room the power to become an obstacle.
Instead look at it as an individual challenge you WILL overcome.

The next step in how to organize your home is to schedule in a
little organizing time each day. A daily 30 minutes should do
it. The trick here is not to try to fit in some organizing time
around everything else but to schedule it first.

So block out 30 minutes of organizing time during the week and
then fill in your other activities and appointments around those
times. If you're serious about your commitment to get organized
forget the pencil and write your daily 30 minute sessions in pen
or permanent marker.

Remember things won't change unless you're serious about
learning how to organize your home. Make organizing a priority.
Make your 30 minutes of weekday organizing just as important as
anything else on your calendar.

Seek and/or accept help when needed. Sometimes we can't see the
forest for the trees. This is when someone else's perspective
may shed some necessary light on the situation.

I am certainly no stranger to accepting help. While I can
effectively organize someone else's home, it's a totally
different story when it comes to my home and the emotional
attachment I have with my own stuff. I recently did a basement
purge and reorganization thanks in great part to the assistance
of my mother who was quick to remind me that it wasn't necessary
to save all three Jell-o jiggler egg molds since I didn't even
use any last Easter. I then had to remind myself that three
molds made 12 individual eggs and my children now 10 and 12
respectively don't even like Jell-o.

Focus on one organizing project at a time. Write specific
projects on your calendar. On Monday you could attack the piles
of bills or papers that clutter your desk, Tuesday could be the
day to de-clutter your front closet, Wednesday could have you
re-organizing a pantry shelf and making note of anything you're
running low on, Thursday could find all those unworn shoes in
your clothes closet donated to charity etc.

Create mini goals. If you can't realistically tackle your
project in 30 minutes or less you need to break it down into a
series of mini-goals. The 30 minute approach is only going to
work if it's realistic. In other words, if organizing the
contents of your clothes closet can't be done in 30 minutes then
break the project down into smaller more focused sessions.

A mini-goal for day one could be purging articles of clothing
you no longer wear, putting them into a donation bag and placing
the bag in your car for drop-off to a local charity or recycling
depot. Day two could be spent focusing on your shoes and
accessories and deciding what to keep and what to get rid off.
Your day three project could be organizing your closet by color
or clothing type etc.

Another advantage of focusing on one thing at a time or
concentrating on individual parts of a bigger project is that
you'll accomplish larger tasks faster than if you were to spend
similar amounts of time on random acts of 'surface' organizing.
While surface organizing gives off the appearance you're
organized it does little to make your home function better.

Another how to organize your home idea includes implementing a
one hour organizing project every weekend. Involve the whole
family (everyone over 5 that is). Make it fun by creating a
theme e.g. clothes or toys for charity, re-organizing the garage
or basement, taking 'stock' of your kitchen etc. With bigger
room projects like a kitchen you may wish to assign everyone
individual tasks - cleaning the fridge, de-junking the junk
drawer or re-organizing the spice rack.

Keep an ongoing to do list. By making note of things you want or
need to get done you will be able to stay focused on what tasks
take high priority over others. Keep a notebook handy to jot
down tasks when they first come to mind. At the beginning of
each week prioritize the tasks that need doing.

Don't expect miracles. Learning how to organize your home takes
time and effort. A mere 30 minutes a day won't give you a
perfectly organized home but it will give you greater control
over you home life and your family's belongings. And if it frees
up some time you would otherwise spend hunting for your car keys
or searching the house for a pencil and eraser so you child can
finish his homework then it's time well organized. (Note the
same 30 minute approach also works well for cleaning.)

About the author:
Sherrie Le Masurier is a freelance writer, an organization
consultant, and member of Professional Organizers in Canada
(POC). She is also co-owner of
http://www.decorating-kids-rooms.net a site geared to organizing
and decorating children's rooms and
http://www.familysanitysavers.com a site featuring smart
solutions for busy parents.