This Stop Willoughby

There are only a few days left until Christmas, but there is still time to create a personalized gift. Here are a few suggestions: Personalized Candle If you're giving a jar candle as a gift, you can make it extra special by personalizing it. All you need is any jar candle and an adhesive label or sticker paper (you can also use glossy photo paper and glue). Remove the label that is already on the candle. If it doesn't peel off easily, you can use a blow dryer to soften the adhesive or, if it's really stubborn, use some goo gone. Clean off any remaining traces of adhesive with some alcohol or a little warm soapy water (rinse afterward). After that, you can use any software you have to create a personalized label. Print a special message, a favorite quote or even a photo, cut to size and affix to the jar. Even an inexpensive candle will be a cherished gift. Personalized Pillow If you have an electronic cutting machine (Cricut, Silhouette, etc.) or know someone who does, you ...

If you're looking for a personalized gift that's fast, easy and inexpensive (as well as fun to create), I've gotcha covered. Magazine covered, ya know?  Instructions for this project aren't really necessary, but here are some tips. You can do this with any  software that will allow you to add text to photo (I used Photoshop). You can Google "free online photo editor:" if you need to find one, there are lots of them out there. If you're a Canva user, they have a magazine cover template you can use. Really, though, you don't need a template, just a photo you want to use and fonts you like. One quick note, real magazines measure 8 1/2 inches x 11 inches, which is not a standard picture frame size. So if you plan to frame your final product, you might want to make your cover 8 x 10. To start creating Choose a photo from your picture files or save and download from recipient's social media (only do this with a close friend or family member) Open or drag...

This is a fun, simple project you can create using supplies you likely already have (and if you don't have them, you can get everything you need inexpensively). The advent period begins on December first, so I'm a little late posting this since we're already several days into December. But unless you're an absolute purist, you can skip ahead to whatever day you get your calendar created. We'll be creating our "calendar" by making 25 tiny gift bags and labeling them with numbers, counting down from 25 to 1. You can make them with any paper you like. Christmas wrapping paper is perfect (save your scraps if you've already started wrapping gifts because you'll be using small pieces), but you can also do this with plain printer paper if it's what you have on hand. I've also used brown paper bags cut into pieces. You'll also need tape or glue and scissors. Anything else you need to complete the bags is going to be based on how you want to clo...

We're skipping breakfast again.  I know you were expecting Mr. Willoughby to dazzle you with his cooking skills, but he doesn't feel like cooking today.  He wants to go skydiving. Yesterday, a friend sent us a link to an article about a new place to skydive in Michigan.  When I clicked on the link, I was surprised to see a familiar face. We'll get to that in a minute. You may recall that Mr. W started skydiving by taking a tandem jump a few years ago.  With a tandem jump, having a great instructor makes the difference between a fun experience and an amazing experience and Mr. W had Josh Sheppard; one of the best.  Josh is experienced, enthusiastic and passionate about skydiving.  Mr. W had such an amazing experience that he decided to take the AFF course (to learn to jump solo) before they were back on the ground.   So back to that article, the familiar face I saw was Josh.  He and his brother Abe have started a new skydiving business in Owo...

My regularly scheduled post has been postponed.  Mr. Willoughby was going to demonstrate how to make a breakfast favorite, but he was busy doing something else. A friend nominated him to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and he accepted! Wanna see? I'll be back soon with the breakfast post. Willoughby You can now follow me through Bloglovin .

This spring we made a commitment to work with supplies we had before buying anything new for our house and yard.  I also wanted to keep the budget for plants and flowers in check (I tend to get carried away at the local nursery), which meant I was going to have to get pretty creative. I still went to the nursery and got a few flats of annuals, but I found some great free and inexpensive ways to fill in the empty spaces in the yard.  In no particular order, here are some of my favorites. 1. Transplant wild plants/flowers (with permission, of course).  This was easy for me because my mom's house is on a wooded lot and she told me to take anything I wanted. I had no idea wild snapdragons existed until my sister in law and I found huge clumps of them growing in a flower bed in my mom's front yard.  I dug up a half dozen plants and they transplanted beautifully. Years ago I had tried to transplant wild black raspberries without success, but t...