A Quick Party Decoration Idea For Any Occasion

Here's an idea for a meaningful party decoration I came up with recently, while planning and hosting a going-away party for some friends. You can custom fit this simple decorative idea to any event you might host and you'll only need your computer, a printer and a few pieces of cardstock to create it! Here's what I made:

For my event, our friends were moving away, so I thought it would be a nice touch to include quotes about friendship on cardstock. I found the quotes on the internet. For this particular topic of friendship, I searched for quotes on long distance friendships, and friendship in general. One particular website helpful in finding quotes is Quoteland.com. It has a huge number of quotes all arranged by topic. You can find quotes for virtually any occasion if you do a good internet search!

On your word processor, choose a nice font to match the mood of your gathering, and print the card at the bottom of the page, which will allow you to fold the paper in half to sit upright on the table. Trim the sides to the appropriate size. You can also add images, a fancy border, glue on embellishments...be as fancy and creative as you want!

My event was a pot-luck, so I placed my cards on the dining tables. You can place your cards anywhere you think is appropriate...even on the bathroom counter beside a nice candle!

It's always a plus to add little details, like quote cards, to help set the mood of your occasion. Do you have any suggestions on how to do this? Please leave us a comment and let us about your great ideas!


Copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

Making Dinner From Thin Air- Menu Ideas For Nearly Empty Pantries

Have you ever come to the end of the week or month, just before a trip to the grocery store, and stood before the almost empty refrigerator and pantry wondering what on earth you can conjure up for dinner from the limited selection of ingredients before you? I've got a great resource to do the thinking for you!

Allrecipes.com is a handy source for finding recipes, but it also has a special search function that allows you to type in the ingredients you have on hand to use in a recipe, and it will search for recipes that use those ingredients! No more staring blankly into your cupboards at a loss for what's for dinner! The search also allows you to input the ingredients you DON'T want to include in a recipe. This has been a great way to creatively use the ingredients I have on hand with tried and tested recipe, rather than my coming up with a spur-of-the-moment concoction that may or may not be tasty, as Allrecipes has reviews and ratings of the recipes that are posted on their site. You can read reviewers suggestions as to what they liked or disliked about the recipe, and they often give suggestions on how to improve or alter the recipe.

So, the next time you are at a loss for what to make from a limited selection of ingredients, try Allrecipes for a yummy new dish to grace your table!

Copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

Living on Less and Having Fun Doing So!

My family recently had the opportunity to do without heat for a few days. Where we live we, have a swamp cooler, rather than "refrigerated air", which requires us to choose each season when to call the maintenance man to switch us over from cold to heat. We cannot freely switch back and forth between the two. Now, where we live, we've not yet had freezing temperatures, but we have had a few nights where it's been in the upper 30s at night, but warmer during the day. Those cold nights have taught us a thing or two!

Granted, those nights were cold, but we saw that, with a little effort, we could live comfortably with our thermostat turned down lower in winter! A few extra blankets on the bed, and some sweaters made us quite comfortable. And we actually found that we slept better in the cooler air!

For fun a few months ago, the children and I decided to pretend we live in the days before electricity was discovered. As the sun went down, and it became darker and darker, we sat by the light of one candle, telling stories and enjoying each other's company! No tv or radio, just us! It was fun brushing our teeth and getting ready for bed by candlelight, and we could see how people back then went to bed at sundown and rose with the sun in the morning...it is much more practical. Nevertheless, I was glad when the children went to bed and I could flip on the computer to check my e-mail!

Food is one more area where it can be a challenge to do without. In trying to see how much money I could save, I decided I would not buy it if I could halfway easily make it myself for cheaper! Our grocery bill that week was a lot less, and I had fun finding creative homemade things to substitute for the usual pre-packaged items we usually ate. In this area, there are a whole lot of things we could do without if we had to, and we'd still live quite well with just the basics!

Voluntarily doing without is not so bad, even fun, especially when you know it's temporary! But, it does teach a valuable lesson: we can survive, even thrive, on less if we have to, and we could actually save money by choosing to do so!

Copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies