FREE bowling on July 4!

My friend Lori passed this along to me. Click HERE to find a location near you!

Replay Thursday! Savings tip replay: Continue your education affordably

Welcome back to Replay Thursday, where we "replay" an oldie - but goodie - savings tip so you don't miss out on any of the good stuff!

Today's re-post is about continuing your education. It doesn't have to be expensive, and the benefits of continuing to learn new skills and talents is priceless!

Click HERE for the original post

I firmly believe it is important for everyone to continue learning; to always pick up new skills or brush up on old ones, and to share your knowledge and talents with the ones you love. There is a great way to do this...through continuing education courses!

Continuing education courses are offered at colleges/universities, or through your county. Most classes are at night and only once a week, making it easier for us with kids or full-time jobs.

Online college classes are in high demand these days, since many people want the flexibility that online classes offer. In our technological society it is possible to complete most of your education online; all you need is a computer with an internet connection. No costly commute or tight scheduling. Sounds like a good plan to me!

I just registered for a cake decorating class with my friend. I am so excited! It's only $45 + materials. I can't wait to learn how to work with fondant. Think of all the money I'll save by making and decorating my own fancy cakes in the future!

Go online and look up "local continuing education courses" to find ones in your area. Better hurry, though, most districts are taking registrations this week!

Here are only a few examples of the types of classes you'll find:

• cake decorating/bread making/cooking classes 
• sewing/knitting/crafting classes
• sports classes
• guitar/music classes
• swimming/exercise classes
• language classes
• dance classes
• financial classes
• writing
• camping
• marriage and relationship classes
• barter and trade classes (eh??)
• card making
• music studio classes
• "how to make it in voice-overs" class
• dog obedience classes
• photography
• Energy healing and fork bending with Emotional Freedom Tapping (this is not a joke)
• and even ice fishing! (You just never know, right?) 

There are many, many more...the possibilities are literally endless!

If you live in the Salt Lake area and want to see what classes are available:
Go to THIS link for the Salt Lake Community Education catalogue
Go the THIS link for the Granite Peaks catalogue

Give it a try! Happy saving - and learning - to you :)

**Update:
I will be teaching a continuing education course here in Salt Lake in the fall! If any of you would like to attend my Creative Savings Course then let me know and I'll get you the info when registration begins. I'm super excited!

"You're Welcome" Wednesday tip: Move heavy furniture using lids to jars

Welcome back to "You're Welcome" Wednesday, where we share a creative savings tip with you that is bound to make you say THANKS!

My husband recently needed to move a BIG, HEAVY armoire by himself. We couldn't get anything to work, until I came up with a simple idea!

I'm sure we've all heard of these moving pads:

They work great, but are expensive!! This little 4 pack is over $20!!

I came up with a creative way to make your own, for FREE.

Ready for the trick?

Simply use lids to jars! Works like a charm!

Watch the video below to see how, or click HERE to watch it on Youtube. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed :)

Happy savings to you!

Don't forget about our giveaways! You could win $100 and a Charlotte Russe purse!

You still have a few days to enter! Enter to win $100 HERE, enter to win a Charlotte Russe purse HERE. Good luck!

Foodie Tuesday food idea: Super cute dipped pretzels and multi-colored layered cake!

Welcome back to Foodie Tuesday! I know this has taken forever, but I am STILL giving you the "how-to's" from the big baby shower I threw recently! Today I'll show you a few fun food tips:

1. How to make these so cute and so easy chocolate pretzels:

At first people thought these pretzels were just decoration; they were so cute, no one wanted to eat them! Once someone tasted one and spread the word, though, they went pretty fast :)

They are so easy, but look SO FANCY. Here's how you do them:

You buy colored melting chocolate like I did,

You can find them at pretty much any craft or cooking store.

OR...you can buy white melting chocolate and color it with food coloring. Either way.

Next, you buy your mold. There are a bazillion different kinds!! I got the flower mold on clearance at Michaels so that's what I went with.

See lots of options HERE.

Pick up some sturdy pretzel rods,

then simply melt the chocolate as directed, pour some into the mold with a spoon, roll the pretzel rod in the chocolate, then top it off with a little more chocolate to make sure it's completely covered.

Stick the mold into the fridge for a few minutes (you'll be surprised at how fast the chocolate hardens!), carefully pop them out of the mold, and voila! 

Super fast, cute, cheap, and easy party favors, snacks, and decor.

Told you it was easy!

Next trick...

2. How to make a multi-colored layered cake

Here's the before picture. I'll teach you how to make fondant soon. I'm bummed I didn't pull out the slice of cake to give you a better picture of the inside! Sorry guys!

Unfortunately I forgot to take a good picture of it the day of the shower, so this is the next day from my cell phone. LAME I know, sorry guys! Trust me, it's cool looking :)

To make a multi-layered cake is so easy! All you need is a cake mix, and food coloring. I use the cake decorating coloring like this:

Prepare a white or vanilla cake mix as directed. 

Split the mix into three 8-in or 9-in round pans. If you want a 6 layer cake just use 2 cake mixes and 6 pans (if you don't have that many pans you can do them one at a time, it just may be harder to split them evenly).

Add food coloring to the individual pan of cake mix until it's the color you want.

Bake as directed, but take note that it bakes much faster so keep an eye on it.

Let the cakes cool completely, and use thick frosting around each layer to stack them.

This is how you make cakes like this:

Found HERE

Decorate the cake all cutesy-like, and there you go! How fun is that?! 

Give these fun tricks a try, and enjoy!

My Favorite Things: My favorite vacuums...Dyson and Bissell 3-in-1

I was just vacuuming and thought "man, I love this thing..." so I thought I'd share a quick Favorite Things for you!

There are two vacuums I love, love, love. I have both of them and use them for different purposes. One is a steal, one is definitely worth the investment! We'll start with the steal:

The Steal: Bissell 3-in-1 Vac

I got this baby on Black Friday from Wal Mart for just $8. I had been on the hunt for a small vacuum to keep in my kitchen to pick up the Cheerios and crumbs that my toddler seems to spread EVERYWHERE.

I was wary of an $8 vacuum, but let me tell you...

THIS THING IS AWESOME!

Here's why I love it:

• It is NOT cordless (which I was hesitant about at first...) which makes it super powerful. This baby will suck the hair off your arms if you want it to. (Ok that's an exaggeration, but I was surprised at what this baby sucks up.)
• It's itty-bitty. I keep it tucked away in my pantry, it takes up no more space than a broom.
• It's cheap! I got it for $8 but I think it's only about $20.
• It has three different options:

While I don't recommend vacuuming all your carpet with this vacuum like it shows in the pictures, it's perfect for wood floors, your kitchen, vacuuming your couches, even sucking crumbs, sugar, and other annoying stuff off of your counters!

I love this little thing and recommend it for hard surfaces.
Even my little guy loves it:

Click HERE for more info.

Worth the investment: Dyson

When I told my husband I wanted a $400 vacuum he nearly choked. But after doing his research (he's a thorough researcher) he came to the bright side and realized there is nothing out there that even comes close to the power and durability of a Dyson.

We bought a $220 vacuum with wedding gift cards and had to return it less than 1 year later because it pooped out on us! By spending a little more you can get one that will potentially last you your entire life. 

You should be vacuuming every other day or every 2 days to preserve the life of your carpets; even if they look clean. Invest in quality vacuums is my opinion!

Here's why I love it:

• The power. This baby is amazing. You think your carpet looks clean, then you vacuum and the canister is COMPLETELY full of nasy, gray, dusty gunk that you didn't know existed on your floors!
• It's great for pets. We have a big dog that sheds A LOT and this is the only thing we could find that gets all the pet hair.
• The warranty. Dyson vacs some with a 5 year manufacture's warranty. BUT...I bought mine from Bed Bath and Beyond using a 20% off coupon that comes in the mail (sign up for them HERE) and they have a lifetime warranty at their store! You can return it at any time and they'll replace it for you. Bam, baby!! (I imagine it's the same thing at Costco, but I'm not certain.)
• I love the no-bag canister. It's satisfying to see all the gunk it sucks up when you're done vacuuming :)
• It's just plain cool looking.

I prefer my small vacuum for hard surfaces (it's just faster) but this is the only thing I'll use on my carpets. It's truly amazing, and I recommend it! 

The Dyson we went with is this one. My hubby did the research and found that it has the most suction and most volume in the canister (or, it did at the time of purchase, anyway...). Do your research to find what works best for you!

So those are my favorite vacs. Hopefully you've found what works best for you. If not, give these a try!

Lots of things to do in Utah!

Summer is officially here! There are so many fun, cheap, or free things going on in Utah this summer. I have found tons of lists of things to do, and wasn't sure how to share them with you...until now!

Rather than re-writing lists that already exist, I've decided to simply share them with you! Go to our Things To Do page for a complete compilation. Check back often, I'll add things as I find them.

Enjoy!

Custom invites & announcements - make them yourself for FREE

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I threw a big baby shower recently for my friend. It was so fun planning and customizing things for the shower!

While many of you I'm sure are already super handy with Photo Shop and making custom cards and announcements, I only recently learned enough to start making things myself...

SO this Super Savvy Saturday project is for all of you out there who are like me, and are still learning!

How I make my own FREE cards, notes, and invites (...keeping in mind that I am NOT creative, NOT artistic, and am really super new to all of this. If you know better ways of doing this, please leave a comment and share with us all! Otherwise, here's how it works for me!). This is also how I made all of my buttons on the side of my site!:

I love making my own invites and thank you notes, and getting them printed for free at Costco using the coupons that come in their frames that you buy:

(Remember these logos and invites from my son's birthday?)

Step 1: Get GIMP

I have mentioned this tip multiple times before, but GIMP is basically a FREE version of Photo Shop! It's nearly identical, can do all the same stuff, and is safe. Oh yeah, and FREE. If you have Photo Shop you could obviously use that. You can also use programs like Picnik, but I'm not familiar with it, personally. I like how customizable GIMP is.

Can't beat that! Click HERE to get GIMP.

Step 2: Learn how to use it

This is the hardest, most frustrating, and most time consuming part...but is also the most important. I recommend using Youtube! Search "Gimp Tutorial" for example and you'll get tons of videos to choose from. This is a great way to learn how to do things the quick and easy way.

Step 3: Get free digital scrapbooking supplies

I am not talented nor creative enough to make my own backgrounds, fonts, etc. Props to all of you who are! I like to download mine for FREE. 

• The site I use the most is Shabby Princess. They have lots of free digital scrapbooking kits that you can download. They haven't added new free kits for a year or so, so they don't have a lot of new inventory...however, their kits are the cutest and most complete that I've seen. Like this one:

• A few other sites you can use are freedigitalscrapbooking.com and scrapgirls.com

Note***The downloads take up a lot of space on your computer so I recommend downloading them on an external hard drive if you have one.

Step 4: Start piecing together!

Once you have the papers and embellishments you want (embellishments are buttons, flowers, swirlies, and all the cute little extras that you can add) you simply put them together however you'd like...just like a real scrapbooking page!

To make the invitations for Shannon's shower here is what I did:

I chose a few papers and a ribbon that I liked from the Shabby Princess collection:

I used GIMP to cut and piece them all together!

• I opened each paper individually

• I chose the one that I wanted for my background.
• The other papers I wanted to cut shapes from, so I pulled up the page I wanted:

• And I chose the shape select tool. I used both the rectangle and circle buttons for different parts of my invite. The rectangle button is highlighted below, the circle select is right next to it:

• Choose the shape you want, and click and drag it on your paper until you get the shape and size you want:

• Once you have the shape, go to EDIT and CUT

• The shape will disappear from the purple paper.
• Go to your "background" paper and simply PASTE the circle. So easy!

• Do the same thing with any shapes you want.
• Add text,

and you've got yourself a super cute invitation! Save it as a jpg file, email it or print it out, and there you go! A FREE, easy, and completely custom invite or card.

Have fun playing around with the possibilities! This is sure to not only impress your friends, but to save you lots of money in the long run. Enjoy!