A New Look And Some Great Links

My little blog got a facelift today, thanks to my awesome husband.  It was time for a change, and I love the clean new look.  Both the boys are in bed and my husband is down in his basement office working late tonight, so I’ve had some time to just browse around online.  Well, and mop the kitchen and dining room floors.  For the first time since January.  Ahem.

So anyway, I found all sorts of great articles to share with you – I hope you enjoy my internet wanderings as much as I did!

I’m a week late to the party on this one, but Mr. Money Mustache has issued the Maximum Mustache March challenge.  If you’re looking for motivation and a group of other people all focused on making positive financial changes this month, head over and check it out.

I love this great homemade toy from Penny at Penniless Parenting!  It reminds me of similar toys that we made when I was a kid, although we just used yarn and string – I love the idea of using elastic hair ties to wrap around the nails.  Our son loves writing and spelling and he’s starting to really get interested in reading.  I think he would love this, and I’m thinking it will be a perfect project to do with him tomorrow.

This post at Simple Bites has a ton of recipes for making your own food from scratch.  Not just regular meal recipes, but recipes that tell you how to make staples like condiments that most people – even people who tend to cook all their meals from scratch – buy in a jar.

Another excellent homemade toy idea, this one comes from Budgeting With The Bushman’s.  Two tin cans and some string are all you need to make a pair of tin can stilts.  I can see our little guy having so much fun with this.  We don’t really buy any food in cans though, so I might need to raid the neighbors’ recycling bins first.  My dad made lots of stilts for us when we were little, and he would amuse us endlessly by making giant stilts for himself and walking all around the yard on them.  He just used long pieces of wood with little pieces of wood attached to the inside as a place to put your feet.

I love this DIY post about making blackout shades for your bedroom.  Monica and her husband spent just a few dollars to make their own blackout shades to go behind their bedroom curtains.  Looks like a relatively simple DIY project, and definitely less expensive than buying them already made.

Spring is coming… don’t throw your plastic containers in the recycling bin – plant something in them instead!  Here’s a great post about making your own mini greenhouse for seedlings out of clear plastic containers.  I’ve got a collection of small plastic containers right now that I’ll be using to start seedlings in the next week or so.  My parents start seedlings in clear plastic containers every year and they always end up with the most amazing garden.

Brave New Life is about a family’s journey towards early retirement.  It’s written by Mr. Brave New Life, but this post is written by his wife, giving her perspective on the whole adventure.  Although she was always the “spender” in the relationship and he was the “saver”, her post details how much she appreciates their downsized life and how much she’s looking forward to her husband’s early retirement.

Have a wonderful Friday and a great weekend!