Tuesday's Tip Jar

At holiday time there are often ham and turkey carcasses left over after the yummy meals. I bring these home & use them to make homemade stock.

Cover your meat bone with water, add a small quartered onion, a couple of broken carrots & a couple of broken sticks of celery. You want to clean your veggies, but you don't need to peel them at all. Simmer for about 2 hourse uncovered.

Skim out all veggies & bones then pour stock thru a cheesecloth lined strainer. If you don't have cheesecloth you can use a nice clean kitchen towel, just make sure it's not a fuzzy one! I freeze my stock in 1 & 2 cup amounts to use in my soups.

It's really not a lot of work & the taste of homemade stock is totaly worth it!

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**I'd like to invite all of my Tuesday Tip Jar friends to stop by my Devotional Daze blog to enter my Inspiration Giveaway. Today is the last day to enter!

Get out your check book right now & write 2009 on all of the checks left. If there are only a few left write them on the next set, too. If you give someone a check today or tomorrow that says 2009 they will still accept it.

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*Note: Blog Mommas isn't doing Tip Jar Tuesday, but I'll leave mine up anyway!

I used to love to spend hours wrapping my presents beautifully. Special bows, gift tags cut out by hand, etc. Then I got my cats. Bows & gift tags would be scattered around the house every morning leaving me to shake & try to figure out what was in each wrapped package so I could replace the tags. Of course this would start all over the next day.

Finally I decided to get 4 different papers every year for my 2 sons. One wrapping paper was for all of JD's presents from mom. One wrapping paper was for all of JD's presents from Santa. Same thing for Jack. This made Christmas morning easier so I could seperate the packages quickly & easily without having to worry about finding the right tags for the right kid.

**Bonus Tip! 25 free Christmas downloads from Amazon.com. I learned about these from another Michigan blogger A Nut in a Nutshell

For more Tuesday's Tip Jar check out Blog Mommas.

Tuesday's Tip Jar

Every year at Christmas I open all of the boys electronics & put the batteries in the toys that need them. Any of the toys that have 5,000 of those stronger-than-steel twist ties get those removed & plastic things holding them to the package get cut off. Then I put the toys back in the packaging and wrap.

This made Christmas morning much easier in Mimi-land because the boys could access their toys immediately without me having to find something like the jaws of life to get the toy out. It also saves on the box getting torn to shreds in case someone wants to return something.

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I have found many great discounts for my online shopping at sites like http://www.couponcabin.com/, http://www.currentcodes.com/, & http://www.couponheaven.com/.

Sites like these give you current coupon codes available for your online purchases. For instance today I ordered something for my son for Christmas from the store Hot Topic. I Googled "Hot Topic promo code" and I found a coupon code for 25% off of my order. Sweet, huh?

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Tuesday's Tip Jar

My tip this week is to find great ways to make homemade gifts for the holidays. I have a book that has all kinds of great recipes that you make up in advance, like bean soup, or dip mix, and then give with the recipe for completing the dish. Years like this when the economy is so bad being able to give a nice homemade gift is really worth the time to check it out.

Food Gifts From Your Kitchen is a great site to check out. It has tons of great ideas for nice homemade gifts.

You can also find the books at your local library. The Perfect Mix is one that I bought years ago & absolutely love.

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Well I just did this last night & dang it all if it didn't work again! When someone is coughing put Vicks Vap-o-rub on the bottom of their feet! Put socks on top of the Vicks & listen for the coughing to stop. I have no idea why this works, but it does.

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Tuesday's Tip Jar

My tip is a little gross, but it works! I was inspired by Mimi over at He and Me + 3 to put up a stain removing tip.

If you get a blood stain on fabric, I always end up with marks on the legs of my pants when I shave, spit on it! Yep, you heard me, spit! Something about each persons unique enzymes, blah, blah (insert actual science stuff here.)

The only way it works is if the bleeder is also the spitter. My sons thought I was crazy the first time I told them to spit on their clothes, but now they just write if off as one of the ways I'm "different from other moms." I choose to take that as a compliment, by the way.

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I have a couple of different uses for coffee filters.

Wrap a filter around a hard taco for your little one. It keeps things from hitting the floor & holds everything together if the shell breaks.

Also put a coffee filter in the bottom of a pot your are putting a plant in. The pots that have the holes in the bottom for drainage can let the soil out if the hole is too big. A filter keeps the soil in while still allowing the excess water to drain.

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This is my first time posting Tuesday's Tip Jar, a meme from http://www.blogmommas.com/

Here a some cool freebies that I found.

Free sample of John Frieda Luxurious Volume hair products.

http://instoresnow.walmart.com/enhancedrendercontent_ektid50150.aspx

Free shopping list notepad from Pur.

http://instoresnow.walmart.com/enhancedrendercontent_ektid54540.aspx

Free sample of Seattle's Best Coffee.

http://www.startsampling.com/sm/100198/captureAddress.iphtml?item=100198&source=&p=#

After washing your hair in your great John Frieda shampoo, you can sip your Seattle's Best Coffee & write out your shopping list!