Egg decorating is a must! For kids, dunking plain white eggs into a bowl and watching them turn a different color is almost magical. Even my grown children LOVE IT! The downside is the MESS. So, here are a few ideas to help minimize the mess this year.

1. Try stickers. If you are not attached to the traditional method of egg decorating, this is a way to minimize the muss and fuss during Easter. Stickers make easy decorations. They leave nothing to clean up afterwards. And, there’s nothing tricky about it. Just purchase ordinary Easter stickers and stick them onto the eggs. Presto!

2. Dye eggs at the stove. Avoid the mess that comes with sitting your children at the table with their own dipping cups. Mix the dye ingredients in a five quart Dutch oven. Wrap an apron around the child. Let the child take the dried boiled eggs and place them in the dye solution. When the eggs are ready, use a slotted spoon to lift the dyed eggs out of the pan. The slots leave less liquid on the spoon which means less liquid on the stove, the floor, you, and the kids. Spoon the eggs back into the carton. Place the cartons in the refrigerator until time to use them.

3. Work on the kitchen floor. The lower you are to the ground, the shorter the distance a boiled egg has to fall. Spread an old vinyl tablecloth on the floor. Give each child an apron and a pair of exam gloves. The gloves can be purchased from any medical supply store. Gloves allow the children to dip the eggs with their hands instead of a spoon. When they have finished, have them take their gloves off and throw them away.

4. Purchase a ready to use Easter egg kit. PAAS® has been making egg decorating materials for years. Each year they seem to come up with something that will make the egg decorating process easier and faster. They feature egg wrapping kits which create virtually no mess at all. The pre-formed pattern is ready for the decorator to transfer to the dried eggs. They also offer egg cups with their own dipper so you don’t need spoons at all. You can purchase PAAS® products wherever decorating items are sold, including most grocery stores and craft stores.

Egg decorating is great for everyone, but no one likes to clean up at the end. Make it easier on yourself this year, Mom and Dad. Try these tips for some good clean fun. Make this week fun and filled with precious memories!

Decorative centerpieces can be crafted from items that you already possess.  Things that you use to decorate the house each holiday can be converted to an arrangement for the family dinner table.  Gather a few things and see what you and the kids can come up with.

It’s possible that a string or two of lights can be spared.  What about a few sprigs of greenery?  Put some of those on the table.  No one ever uses every single ornament on the tree.  Get the kids to pick the ones they like and add them to the stockpile.  Wire bows, wrapping paper, small boxes, and candles are good items for centerpieces.  If you don’t have any, invest in some decorative flat marbles that are frequently used in flower arrangements.  That should be plenty to get started with.

When most people think of holiday centerpieces they see candles and greenery.  Try them together and separately.  You will need a platter or a charger plate for the base of your centerpiece.  Charger plates come in holiday colors and compliment whatever you decide to put on them.

Candles can create a centerpiece all by themselves.  Let the kids choose candles of various sizes and colors.  Let them mix the heights and colors of the candles however they choose.   As an accent have them place colored marbles between and around the candles.  The light will sparkle off the marbles when the candles are lit, creating a pretty glow.

Greenery looks rather plain all by itself.  To spruce it up, add a string of colored or white lights.  A touch of sprayed on snow can be added to the tips as well to give it more of a winter feel.

How about adding some glittery ornaments?  Red ornaments resemble large shiny holly berries sitting atop the greenery.  Ornaments can be arranged in a glass bowl with miniature pine cones to create a different kind of centerpiece.  Floating candles can also be placed in a bowl of water and lit during dinnertime.

The ideas are plentiful when it comes to centerpieces for the holiday dinner table or coffee table.  Let the kids create as many as they can think of.  If you have more than you can use, give them away to friends and family to adorn their holiday tables as well.

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Edible crafts are a hit with family members, teachers and friends too, so you can never make too many.  Here are some ideas for edible crafts that your kids can help you to make.

Chocolate is a good choice for treats all year ’round.  For the chocolate lovers in your life, create chocolate stirrer spoons.  These spoons can be used in hot cocoa or coffee for extra sweetness.  To create your sweet stirrers, you’ll only need a few ingredients and cleanup is a snap.

First, pile a bunch of plastic spoons with melted semi-sweet chocolate and let them cool.  Then wrap the tops of the spoons in colorful bags or festive cellophane and tie with a twist tie.  The chocolate spoons can be added to gifts of coffee, mugs, kitchen baskets, or placed in Christmas stockings.

Candy canes can decorate your tree or you can decorate them and give them away.  Turn that candy cane into a reindeer by adding pipe cleaners, a nose, and felt ears.  Lay them down and glue a box of candy on top to create a sleigh.  Take several different flavored candy canes and tie them with a wire bow to create a candy cane bouquet.

Enlist your child’s help when baking holiday cookies too.  Red hot candies or M&M’s can be added to make faces on Santa or reindeer cookies.  Christmas tree cookies can be frosted with green icing and candy sprinkles for lights.

Christmas is the time that many bakers make gingerbread houses.  Gingerbread kits contain everything needed to bake and assemble the house.  Kids will need your help to put the pieces together, but they can add the icing, gumdrops, and other candies to the house.  Covering the gingerbread house with a protective coating will help preserve it over the Christmas holiday.  If the kids decide to eat it, forget about the coating and dig in.

An alternative to gift tags would be to create cookie gift tags.  The cookies are baked and then a hole is made in the top center while they are still warm.  The recipients name is written in frosting on the cookie and attached to the gift with curly ribbon.  To keep the cookies fresh, seal the cookie tags in plastic bags after they are attached to the top of the gifts.  Wait until the night before Christmas to attach them so the ants don’t enjoy them first.

Food crafts are tasty and oh so much fun to make.  Creating them gives kids a chance to get in the kitchen and learn all about the art of baking and allows you to relieve yourself from some of the stress that all that cooking can cause when you are doing it alone.

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* Spicy Cinnamon Sticks…Gather a bunch of extra long cinnamon sticks and tie with a holiday ribbon and a sprig of holly or baby’s breath.  Cute to hang on the tree, sit around, and place on gifts instead of a bow!

* Painted Wooden Ornaments… Purchase pre-cut wooden Christmas cutouts that are pre-painted.  Tie with gold, green, or red thread and use on the tree or as necklaces.  Hot glue a pin on the back to wear as a holiday pin!

* Cookie Cutter Ornaments…Purchase metal cookie cutters and tie bright holiday ribbon through the top!  Easy, Inexpensive, and Precious Gift!

* Recipe Book…It could be just holiday ideas like this one or it could be a collections of all the treasured family recipes.  It could be a collection from all relatives’ submissions.  Be imaginative!  Be sure to keep a copy for your daughters!

* Pictures…Frame a special drawing from the children!  This is sure to be a hit!

* Books…Try your hand at creating books complete with your own original story and illustrations…This is an EXCELLENT school activity!

* Handprint Wallhanging or Sweatshirt…Place bright paint in pie pans (acrylic for burlap wallhanging or fabric paints for sweatshirt).  Have each child put his handprint on material.  The following verse can be painted or attached:

Although we are sorta small
And leave our fingerprints on the wall,
This will help you remember the way
Our fingerprints looked on Christmas Day!

For wallhanging, put a thin dowel rod across the top.  Tie yarn as a hanger.  Fringe the bottom, and you have a fun, sweet gift!

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Between high gas prices and consumers’ fears of a financial squeeze, it seems as if a nice Christmas is out of the picture this year. Not so says Tawra Kellam, editor of Living-on-a-Dime.com. To prove it, here are a few of her ideas from to help make Christmas memorable without breaking the bank!
Go Potluck! You buy the turkey — Have everyone else bring the side dishes and drinks. Turkeys in our area are .39/lb this time of year. If you buy just the turkey, it will only cost you about $5-$10 to feed everyone for a large family gathering.

Celebrate Christmas the week after Christmas. Take advantage of the after Christmas sales and plan your large extended family gathering for the week after Christmas. Besides being less expensive, it is unlikely to interfere with anyone else’s Christmas plans.

Don’t give gifts or give inexpensive gifts to hairstylists, babysitters, teachers and others. I found several wonderful small scented jar candles on clearance for .25 each. I will put three of them in a small basket (purchased at the thrift store for .25) with some tissue paper, ribbon and nice note. A great gift for $1.25!

Break up gift sets. If you find an item that comes in a gift set at Christmas, give parts of it to different recipients. This is great for bath or perfume sets.

Yard sales and thrift stores equal great savings. You can find a lot of new or nearly new items for pennies on the dollar.  For our son, we found a working telescope in the box. It cost $1.00, so we saved $24!  He got what he wanted and we didn’t have to take out a home equity loan!

Make memories, not more junk. Most kids get more than plenty for Christmas from grandparents, aunts and uncles. If you can only afford one gift for your child, make it a memory! Wrap a note in a box with instructions for a treasure hunt. Send your child all over the house with clues and then have the real gift sitting under the tree when they return. Simple, but a great memory for them!

My favorite book!

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-
Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam are frugal living experts and the editors of Living-on-a-dime.com/. As a single mother of two, Jill Cooper started her own business without any capital and paid off $35,000 debt in 5 years on $1,000 a month income. Tawra and her husband paid off $20,000 debt in 5 years on $22,000 a year income. Tawra and Jill teach thousands of readers each month how to save money on their grocery bill and get out of debt.

Yummy Treats: Food makes a great holiday gift. Everyone eats, so everyone can use it! If you like to bake, make some cookies or candies and put them in a decorative box or tin. Another option is to buy the food already made. Some items, like a cake, will only need a bow.

Say Cheese: If you have a photo of the person you are giving the gift to (or a picture of their child, spouse, dog, etc) you can create a personalized gift in seconds. All you need to do is print out the picture and stick it into a frame. If you don’t have a photo, a picture frame still makes a great gift.

Gift Baskets: Creating your own gift basket is easier than you think – and it will look like you spent much more time on it than you actually did!

If there is a movie fan on your list, throw together a gift certificate to a video rental store, a box of microwave popcorn and some candy.

If you know someone who is always on the go, encourage them to relax with a box of tea, a mug, some bath salts, and gossip magazine.

A few small items packaged together nicely can turn into a great present!

There is one problem — What happens when everyone rolls away from the table? You stand there in the shadows of mounds of leftovers and the guilt sets in. You really can’t wedge in another bite, but you can’t bring yourself to throw away all that good food. You know that there are people starving in Bangladesh, but you can’t afford the shipping cost to send it to them… What do you do with it?

Here are some ideas from Living-on-a-Dime.com to help you put those leftovers to good use and keep your clean conscience!

1. Mix gravy, cubed turkey and leftover vegetables into a casserole dish. Top with refrigerator biscuits, leftover pie crust or crescent rolls (unbaked). Bake at 350 degrees until the dough is cooked and golden brown.

2. When making pies on Thanksgiving Day, save the extra dough or make extra to use to make pasties.  Roll out discs of dough in whatever size you want and fill with meat, vegetables and leftover potatoes.

3. Don’t forget to use your leftover relish dish. Chop and use in salads, soups or casseroles. If you’re really sick of the vegetables, chop and freeze to use later.

4. Use leftover mashed potatoes to thicken soups and stews.

5. Make potato pancakes: Add 1 egg and 2 Tbsp. flour to 2 cups mashed potatoes. Make into patties and fry in a pan with margarine.

Pasties

Filling
1 1/2 cups carrots, chopped
1 Tbsp. water
4 Tbsp. butter or margarine
2 chicken bouillon cubes
4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2-1 lb. ground beef, turkey or chicken, cooked
salt and pepper (to taste)

Dough
Use leftover pie crust or use the following recipe:

1 cup shortening
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups flour
6 Tbsp. water

In a saucepan, simmer the carrots in the water, butter, and chicken bouillon cubes. Add potatoes, onion, meat and salt and pepper. Divide into fourths.  Mix dough ingredients and roll into four 10-inch circles. Put the meat mixture on one side of the dough. Fold the other half of the dough over and seal with fingers or a fork.  Bake 1 hour at 375 degrees.  Serves 4-6.

You can also add other vegetables. This is a good way to use those leftovers, so be creative!

My favorite book!

NOW AN EBOOK!

Dining On A Dime Cookbook: Eat Better, Spend Less! (e-Book version) $19.95  (Click here!)

Without cutting coupons! Unbelievable? It really is possible!

The award winning Dining on a Dime is packed with over 1,200 money saving recipes and tips, kids tips and snack ideas, gift baskets, menus, food storage directions, Cleaning Cents and Pretty for Pennies.

-
Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam are frugal living experts and the editors of Living-on-a-Dime.com/. As a single mother of two, Jill Cooper started her own business without any capital and paid off $35,000 debt in 5 years on $1,000 a month income. Tawra and her husband paid off $20,000 debt in 5 years on $22,000 a year income. Tawra and Jill teach thousands of readers each month how to save money on their grocery bill and get out of debt.

Sandwiches
This is our family favorite. Simply slather mayonnaise on your favorite bread and add turkey. Enjoy! Of course, you can make this sandwich fancier by using toasted garlic bread, or adding some seasonings to the mayonnaise. You can quickly whip up some gourmet style mayo by adding some of the packet ranch dressing mix to it.

Instead of regular old sliced bread, make turkey sandwiches with fresh or chiabata bread for a different taste.

Open Faced Turkey Sandwich
Start with some really good toast. Rub a little garlic or butter on it if you’d like. Then, lay slices of turkey on it and cover with gravy. Heat up some left over stuffing and stick it in the toaster oven or your regular oven to give it a nice little crust and dinner is ready.

Turkey and Rice Soup
Use the leftover bones from the turkey and throw them in a large stock pot. Cover them with plenty of water and add some onion, celery, carrot and salt and pepper. Bring it to a boil and boil for about 45 min. Strain out the liquid, return it to the pot, add some rice and leftover pieces of turkey. Add any vegetables you like as well and cook until the rice and veggies are tender.

Turkey Enchiladas
You can fix turkey enchiladas just like you would chicken enchiladas with your favorite sauce, tortillas and cheese. Just shred the turkey, and heat it with some cheese and enchilada sauce. Spoon the mixture on flour or corn tortillas and roll them up. Place the tortilla rolls in a greased baking dish and top with more enchilada sauce and plenty of cheese. Then bake them up until the cheese is nice and bubbly. They are a great way to use turkey in something that has a completely different flavor.

Turkey Wraps
Tired of turkey sandwiches? Use a tortilla instead. Pile on lettuce, raw veggies and plenty of turkey. Top with some ranch dressing and roll it up for a portable lunch or snack. Another fun idea is to mix shredded turkey with a little mayonnaise, some chopped apple, grapes and a few walnuts for a turkey salad wrap.

Turkey Salad
Make a gorgeous, colorful salad, using all the vegetables you can find in the store. Add sliced turkey to the top and add your favorite salad dressing. Or make a turkey Caesar salad with romaine lettuce, turkey, parmesan cheese, croutons and Caesar dressing.

Turkey Chili
Shred your leftover turkey and cook it along with beans, tomatoes and your favorite chili seasonings. Of course you can also toss in any leftover veggies like corn or green beans and cook them right along with the rest of the chili ingredients. Serve with cornbread.

Giving Thanks Placemats
The goal of this craft is to create a collage filled with drawings and pictures of all the things your children are thankful for. Cut photos from magazines, or print some photos from your computer. Older children can write captions under the photos or draw their own. Be sure to put the child’s name and the year on it.

If you make this collage from two standard letter size pieces of construction paper taped side-by-side, you can take the completed collage to a copy shop when you’re done and have it laminated. It then becomes a placemat that you can use every Thanksgiving for years to come.

Thankful Paper Chain
Another way to remind your children of their blessings is to create a paper chain. This is similar to a regular paper chain – where you cut strips of paper and connect them together as loops, but there’s one difference. You write on the strips of paper before you connect them. Write the things you are thankful for with your children. For instance, “Grandma plays games with me” or “My teacher is nice.” The fun part of this activity is to make the chain as long as possible – showing all your blessings. If you’d like to keep this up during Christmas, just use green and white paper.

Thanksgiving Tree
This is another take on the idea above and works really well if you have several kids in the family. Get each child to trace their hand on yellow, red, or brown construction paper. Cut out the hand shapes and write (or have the child write) what they are thankful for on the hand shape. Cut a tree trunk shape out of brown construction paper. Glue it on a large piece of poster board. Let the kids add their hand shapes as leaves above the tree trunk, turning it into a beautiful fall colored tree.

Thankful Book
This idea is similar to the others, except it’s more of a keepsake. Purchase a photo album or scrapbook kit and make a “blessings” theme. Add photos of loved ones, including stories about why they are special to you. Also, include pages of your favorite foods, favorite stories, favorite movies and all the other things that make you happy. Any time your kids feel down, you can open your blessing book to see all the reasons you have to be happy – and thankful for the blessings in your life.

It works both ways. If you invest some time and effort into decorating your Thanksgiving table –your overcooked turkey and undercooked beans will be less noticeable as well.

Tablecloth
Bring out the good linens for your guests. If you don’t have a Thanksgiving tablecloth, you can use some Thanksgiving or fall themed fabric. There are even some very nice looking fall and Thanksgiving themed disposable table cloths available.

The Dishes
The type of dishes you use is up to you. If you are mostly entertaining adults and this is a fairly small get together, it may be a good idea to use your fine china.

On the other hand, if you are entertaining a large crowd and have lots of kids in the mix, opt for disposable dishes, cups and cutlery. Clean up will be much easier and you don’t have to worry about dishes breaking.

Buy some orange or green cloth napkins. You can find these reasonably-priced at most discount stores. They will add a nice “holiday” touch to any table.

Thanksgiving Themed Centerpiece
If you don’t plan on putting all the food on the table, and you have the room, create a Thanksgiving themed centerpiece. This can be something as simple as a bowl of miniature pumpkins, gourds and native corn, or a fall flower arrangement. If you have a cornucopia, fill it and lay it on the table, allowing some of the corn and pumpkins to roll out of it.

Little touches make a big difference. You could scoop out a pumpkin and serve dip in it. Use mini pumpkins with names written on them as place cards.

Turn an apple, some toothpicks and a few miniature marshmallows into a turkey

Start by setting the apple on a flat surface. Insert a toothpick with a large marshmallow on one side. Add some raisins as eyes. For the turkey’s tail, add four toothpicks with a miniature marshmallow on each end to the other side of the apple. Voila – a turkey for each guest that also makes for a fun and healthy snack.

Set the table the night before to free up time during the big day.
If you set a nice table, arrange for most of the food to be set out on a separate table, buffet-style. Consider getting hotplates, crock pots etc to keep food warm while it is sitting out.