Super Cute Door Hanger

So I don't have much time to put up a post with my parents in town and Halloween in...... well not long. So here is a little door sign in case you are out when little people come by hoping to gobble up all your candy. It's pretty cute I think.

Cute right. Download the little booger here for free! I just love that word. Now if I can only get that little cricut machine I want to hang out with free. :0) Until then Happy Halloween! 

Cleaning My Face the Right Way

When my husband ends up calling me frugal mc-froog I imagine an award for frugal lady of the year. Enter applause. But clearly the frugal award would probably just be a piece of paper with woo hoo! written on it in true frugal fashion. So when I tell you about this don't think me crazy. I can actually say after trying this it works. I found it over here at simple mom.

The skinny version is you use mostly natural ingredients to clean your face. I have a friend that makes her own laundry detergent which I fully intend on trying which made me brave enough to try this but back to the face wash. The whole idea actually makes pretty good sense. When you strip the skin on your face of natural oils by using face wash you actually do more damage than good. Your 'kind' little pores then produce double time to make up for the lack. This can account for most of the oil many people find on their face.



So here's the REALLY simple formula I used. I put together 3 parts castor oil (I have pretty oily skin) which to try out I used 3 oz. and 1 part extra virgin olive oil (1oz.). I just used an old eye make-up remover bottle to put it in. Well friends, this skeptic was happily eating a little humble pie afterwards. You can pick up castor oil for about $2.50 at Wal-Mart in the pharmacy area and you know where EVOO is.


My review. It felt extremely weird to actually put oil on my face in stead of suck it all out (literally have tried that by the way). Years of hating on my face I suppose made it feel pretty ikeey. But after I rubbed it in and wiped it off with a warm wash cloth my skin felt a-mazing. It was so smooth and healthy looking. I have been using it for a few weeks now and I'm pretty much never going to use the other stuff again. It was a fantastic eye makeup remover too. Better than most of the high end stuff I have tried and tons less expensive.  Blemishes are caused by built up nasties in pores so when you wash with wonder oil (that's what I'm calling mine) you actually get all that yuck out. 

All this goes to show I can't judge something as ridiculous just because I have been fed the consumer pooh-pooh. And if Mr. Phillips wants to call me fruga mc-froo I guess we're none the poorer for it!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, And More Pumpins!

I must admit I have little confession. I really, really like pumpkins. I love the way they look sitting outside your front door. I love the way they look sitting (currently) on my kitchen island just waiting to be used for some yummy recipe. I love the way they look in books I read my little people. I especially love they look all in a sweet row at the pumpkin patch. There's something about pumpkins all in a row that makes my little organizing heart skip a beat. All right, all right, you get the idea. I found a happy little site with many, many recipes with your favorite little orange food, and mine, --the pumpkin.  I have not tried any of these recipes yet but some look pretty good. Feel free to take a gander. And let me know if you make anything and it's yummy.

Amy's Finer Things

Better Late Than....Umm......Never!

For the past few weeks I have been working from a fantastic holiday planning checklist. I really like it. Here it is. I wanted to share it with YOU.

Beautiful right. Love the colors and the font choice and the simplicity. Don't we all need more of that? While I have talored it to fit our family I really like the idea of having a stress free holiday and getting things done early. We will be going to Africa for 2 weeks in November. Soooooo, I really have to get on the ball with all these things that need to be done. I have started but need to catch up a little.

Best part of the whole opperation is......(drumroll please)..... IT'S FREE. You can download a pre-filled in checklist or a blank one.

Blank Holiday Checklist
Pre-Made Holiday Checklist

The checklist starts back in Spetember but no worries if you are a little behind. You can make up for the time with little to no problem. I just wanted to share so friends would be able to get what they needed and actually ENJOY the birth of our Lord. This is one of my favorite times of the year so in regular Phillips fashion I must go completely overboard. Just as a side note I think I will make a little b-day cake for Jesus for my four-year-old neice. Do you do that?

The little checklist treasure is from Giver's Log (a pretty sweet blog) if you want to run over and see the whole post she did on it. Here's a Merry Christmas to you, friends.

Halloween Wreath

Check out this REALLY cute and chic wreath. I just love the creativity of some people. I call them brilliant. I probably will not get to do this one this year as Halloween is only a few days away. Then again I have been known to do crazier things. I guess we will have to see. But a Christmas one would be just what the doctor ordered.

Just too darn cute and may I suggest, if you do not already have one, to get a circle cutter. I think I got mine by Martha Stewart (love her products) at Wal-Mart for around $8.00. I use it quite often and it has plenty of different options for circle size. Eventually I think I will get a happy little scalloped circle puncher when I come up with some extra funds. Until then it will have to be simply circles.

You can find the how to right HERE. And I found this happy little craft at Brixton Lane. Aren't her colors she uses just beautiful?! This is a new blog I found but you can be sure I will be subscribing to it.

So pray for me today because I don't think my wonderful co-teacher will be coming in today so I could have 14 little people by myself. But it's all good and I just hope she gets better and I hope it isn't swine flu. I love being with the little people and teaching them. They are only 4 and we are teaching them the -at family. You know bat, cat, mat, rat. They love it and they are so excited they are already 'reading.' I am a BIG fan of the Hoover County method of teaching phonics. My sweet co-teacher actually helped develop it so I would say I'm pretty blessed to learn it all from her.

We will be acting out the account of Mark 6 where Jesus sent out the disciples 2 by 2 with some specific instructions. They have so much fun living out the stories and I want them to be more than just stories, ya know! Then there's a folk story from the country of Haiti and we will be making some cute shoes to remember the story.

Can you tell I get just a little excited when talking about my little friends. I don't have kids yet so I get to pour God's word into these little people in the interim. Yay for God's Word!

5 Minute Treat Bag

So I LOVE finding things that are SUPER inexpensive. As a matter of fact I have grown quite fond of our local dollar tree store. P.S. dollar tree - thank you for actually selling all your items for a dollar.

So, here is a super great treat bag I found complete with tutorial from Obsessively Stitching found via HERE.

All this fun with only there supplies. Genius!



I will be making some cute pumpkin bags (I hope) for my sweet little people. Provided I can find the dish towels as we call them here in the south. I like the spider one too for boys. They're really cute and I am spinning thinking of all the holidays I can exploit with these little buggers. I mean don't you need one for EVERY holiday. I know I do! So have fun making them and post a pic if you make one. I would love to see them.

Too Many Good Things Beginning

Ok, ok, ok. So there are 'too many good things' that I find daily not to share with my sweet friends. So I'm starting this little blog to send great websites, products, crafts, free stuff, and tutorials your way so get ready for the fun to begin.

I tried to figure out the best way to circulate all these wonderful things I find out of the -too many to count- blogs I follow. So if I have ever told you about this great blog I found or this great craft I found now you will be able to find it...we'll you should be able to find it. I can't remember who I told these great discoveries to and who I haven't so violia - Too Many Good Things Blog!

So here's to all the fun things I find and all my WONDERFUL, TALENTED, AMAZING, CLEVER, AND OF COURSE GORGEOUS friends God has given me to share with. Here's the first thing I'm posting and there are much, much more to come!

Candy Bar Covers from Skip to My Lou (one of the best sites out there for oh so cute ideas and pretty inexpensive)

Don't those make you just want to eat whatever is inside. Ok, ok, it helps that it's chocolate but this would be a great little thing to do with kiddos or a class (like my 4 year olds). I think they're just too cute and not too spooky.

These Halloween candy bar covers are such a simple, inexpensive way to make candy bars festive.
For the mummy, stick 2 wiggly eyes at the top of the candy bar, wrap white crepe paper party streamers around the candy bar. Fasten with some tape. Done!

For the bat, print out a template and cut the bat out with black construction paper, add eyes, tape the ends of the candy bar wrapper to the back. Place candy bar inside bat and wrap the wings around the candy bar and fasten with a piece of double stick tape or a glue dot.

Candy Bar Wrapper Bat Template Download

Happy Halloween Tag Download


We're going to use these this week as we study noctornal animals I think and send them home after our super fun fall party in our class! I'll try to remember to post some pictures.
So happy halloweening (yes, that IS a word) and enjoy this as a gift for someone else or yourself. And Long Live Chocolate!