Discovered Martin Lewis today...

On a visit to the library I came across Thrifty Ways for Modern Days by Martin Lewis, a Money Saving Expert. The book looks interesting, especially for those new to the idea of saving money. Here's the contents:

What is Old-Style Money Saving?
Cutting Your Bills without Cutting Back
Do you Spend More than you Earn?
Chapter 1: Cleaning
Chapter 2: Shopping - What to Buy and How to Reuse it
Chapter 3: Clothes and Shoes
Chapter 4: Home Maintenance and DIY
Chapter 5: The Good Life - Grow Your Own
Chapter 6: Presents and Home-made Gifts
Chapter 7: Christmas, Weddings and Other Occasions
Chapter 8: The Old-Style Recipe Book

The book is a complilation of hints from http://moneysavingexpert.com. The website looks jolly interesting too. It's British based and the forums have thousands of posts. I'll add this link to the blog links on the right. This particular book (Lewis has written a couple of others as well) came from the hints shared in the 'Money Saving Old-Style' section of the forums. This particular board was started when older members of the forums wanted to share their wisdom with the younger generation. Although the discussion that sparked this topic off was could we live like during WWII, it isn't all old-fashion stuff, it includes thinks like breadmakers and slowcookers for example. So plenty of ideas to be got from here. Enjoy!

NZ Dares

I've had a very busy and creative day today. 6 layouts completed, including one that was done for the new NZ Dares blog.

I picked out an old photo of Grace for this challenge, she was only about three and she had the biggest grin on her face when I found her, I couldn't help but laugh and grab the camera. I don't do that nowdays when the kids eat my chocolate!

************************

I've been quiet with the blog lately due to sick kids. It's been a long winter and I'll be relieved when it's over. Still, it means I've been home a lot and had a chance to catch up with my reading. I finished Jodi Picoult's latest, The Tenth Circle, in two and a half days. I haven't read that fast for ages. Not one of her best books story wise but still a very good read. I'm reading Beverly Lewis's The Preachers Daughter now and enjoying it heaps. I love reading Amish stories!

*****************************************

The other thing I have been reading are people's blogs. I want to share two here with you today. One is BooMama who is doing tours of people's homes on her blog. I love looking at homes and how they are decorated, not because I'm nosy, lol, but I look for ideas that I can use. At the moment there's links for over 150 homes!

The other blog is A Gracious Home. Sallie has just announced the winners of the Blogs of Beauty Awards. Lot's of blogs to check out from here too.

Oh, there's another one, a really good scrapbook one. Scrapability. It's written by a Kiwi chick living in the UK. Beside's her blog which you click on opinions to read, she also has a huge list of scrapbook blogs for you to check out.

Hmm, maybe I haven't blogged so much because I too busy checking out everyone elses! lol.

Banner Lessons

My first banner creation! What do you think? I don't like the text but haven't figured out Paintshop pro enough to learn how to change the font and colour so I'll muck around with that later. Finding the instructions to do all this was the hardest part!

Lindsay Teague has some very clear instructions on her blog for photoshop users but I didn't find it difficult at all to use paintshop instead.
http://lindsayteague.blogspot.com/2005/06/how-to-1.html Is the how to make a banner and then visit http://lindsayteague.blogspot.com/2005/07/how-to-2.html for the instructions for putting a banner on your blog. Thanks a heap Lindsay!!!