Archive for the 'contests & freebies' Category
July 12th, 2010 -- Posted in contests & freebies, work/career |
When I was a young single mom-to-be, I planned ahead for the days of caring for my little one. I was lucky to find an apartment in a good neighbourhood that was not too terribly expensive and still clean and safe. From there, it was a matter of sticking to the basics as well as making use of lots and lots of hand-me-downs, food cupboard supplies, and second-hand-store purchases. I created regular budgets to keep track of my spending.
I’m surprised it’s taken until now to realize how useful sharing these budgets on the Young Mommies site would be, but better late than never! One thing I hear often from young women who are just finding out they are pregnant is “How much will this baby cost exactly?“.
I realize the cost of living has changed since 1998! but a lot of the general estimates are still roughly the same. Especially with baby gear – you can always spend as much as you want on that stuff and there are options ranging from “free” to “$500″ for almost each thing, whether it’s a crib or dresser or travel system, etc.
So what I did was update and transfer over 2 of my old budgets…
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June 25th, 2010 -- Posted in blinkies & other cuteness, contests & freebies |
I created these in a much less busy week than this one (although every week seems overwhelming these days it seems), but had saved posting them for “later”. Unlike other posts I had saved for “later” which are still kicking around as drafts, I do intend to complete this one and get it up…
I’d like to share these little family sig tags with you. They could be used on a blog or website as well (or even a Facebook profile page since they are static).
The Royal Family set have an image for the king, queen, prince, and princess of the family. They also have additional graphic for princes, princesses, and counters of how many of each you have. The Bear Family is a simple set with Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and a couple choices for your Baby Bear graphic.
The Family Words set has even more possibilities for it’s use, as the graphics are stand-a-lone words. So in addition to siggies, you could use the images on pictures or as clip-art in your documents, family calendars, whatever you can think of! 
And finally, there’s a Bugs and Flowers grouping that I hope to expand on if there’s any interest. Just a few very tiny graphics for tagging your kids’ names and for decorations in siggies and in other places:
These little family tags were mostly inspired by the mommies at the YM Boards that I happen to run (if you’re a young mommy check them out because we have an awesome group!!!). It’s been the style lately to just have really short and simple – but colourful! – family ID tags in the siggies. And mostly everyone has done a great job using colours, keyboard symbols, and all the cute “smilies” that are available.
But of course I’m always looking to create new cute graphics, so I thought I’d combine some of the design possibilities into individual tags. They’re colourful and decorated and some have the same animals and smilies as are on the boards anyways. I hope they catch on just beyond our group!
The complete set of tags can be found in this section of my KStar site.
April 19th, 2010 -- Posted in contests & freebies |
Yes I realize that it’s only “officially” been spring for a few weeks now, but this means that summer is just around the corner! If you’re a busy mom like me, you know about all the different little things that need to be organized and planned for!
Here are some of the things on our “to plan” list; maybe they’re on yours too:
- end-of-the-year graduation (and trip) for our grade-six-er
- gardening purchases and work
- booking summer vacation!!!
- planning childcare and camps (day-camps or away-camps)
- gifts for teachers and childcare providers
- summer-related home improvements (bring on the A/C!!!)
Last year I made a Summer Planning Calendar to make all the organizing easier… this year I’ve done the same (with new dates) and am again offering it up as a Freebie! You can visit this page to open and print (or save and print) your own copy of the .pdf file.
Free Summer Planning Calendar
Our summer plans are starting to come together… My oldest will actually be giving away-camp a try for the first time! She probably expects that she won’t miss us at all during her two weeks there, but I suspect she might just a little. We were hoping that we might finally be able to take a real family vacation (it’s now been almost 2 years!) but we’ll see if that’s possible.
We are really happy that we have a space for our youngest for daycare this summer! There is a spot freeing up at his current childcare centre for just the summer (the parents need a “place-holder” for their full-time spot, so to speak). He absolutely adores it there so I’m sure he’ll have a fun time being there every day for most of the 2 months off.
What about you – are you ready for summer?
Stay tuned and you may get some ideas for things like end-of-the-year teacher cards/gifts or activities to do with kids home from school!
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