Bookmark and Share

Monday, April 30, 2012

E-Smiles - Send a Smile and Raise a Dollar

HP currently has an Esmiles promotion where you upload a photo, poem, a joke, a sketch or just a few encouraging words for a sick child or their family and select one of five Ronald McDonald's to send to and it will eprint to the house selected. 

If you are not familiar with Ronald McDonald Houses, it is a charity ran by McDonald's Corporation that allows families to be near their a seriously ill or injured child if they have to travel far away from home so they can be near their hospitalized child and can stay for little to no cost.   For additional information, visit there website here.


For every approved "Esmile", HP will donate $1 to the house selected up to $10,000 for each house ($50,000 total).   I sent an Esmile of my son (above) on 4/24/12 and received an email today indicating it had been approved.

Click here to send your Esmiles

Friday, April 20, 2012

"Life Is A Highway" Nails

These were inspired by the nail art below by Frippery Digits.  The "LIFE" lettering is based on the popular board game of the same name.

I changed mine up a bit from the original project and spelled out "LIFE" on the index through pinky nails then put a black highway with white dots in the center and silver for the shoulder of the road. 


I used 7 different nail polish colors and a thin brush dipped in white polish for the lettering to achieve this look, but you could be creative and change it up any way you would like.

On the right hand side I painted the lettering upside down and on the right I painted it right side up. 

Getting the lettering to look decent on you own nails is tricky and I had to do some nails more than once - if I do this again I am going to try printing the lettering out on a label, cut out the lettering with an X-Acto knife and then stick it to the nail after applying the different colors to give it a more professional appearance.

If anyone out there tries this, I would love to see how yours turns out.

Happy crafting:)

Thursday, April 19, 2012

GiveLitter - Vote for Free Donation of Cat Litter to a Shelter

In today's tough economy, many animal shelters have had cutbacks in funding and some have been forced to close.

Now through the April 30th, World's Best Cat Liter is sponsoring  GiveLitter™  and will be giving away up to 100,000 pounds of litter to 17 animal shelters.

How you can help is to go to GiveLitter™ and click on the shelter that you would like to receive a pound of litter and you can vote once a day.   By having the litter donated, hopefully it will free up funds to help save the lives of animals in the shelter to allow time for them to be adopted instead of euthanized.


To vote/donate click here.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

A Day Without Shoes - April 10th



One Day Without Shoes is an initiative to raise awareness of what it is like for children in the world that do no own a single pair or shoes in hopes of bringing awareness of what it is like.  

They even have a toolkit to make rally signs, street stencils, t-shirt stencils, profile and banner pictures and other items to promote this event.

I plan on participating, but obviously, not everyone can do it all day, but you can still take a 15 minute walk around your neighborhood or a park with no shoes on to get and idea.

There are also numerous ways to donate or help.

Through your church
In the past, the church we attended had a drive to collect new shoes for missionaries from the church to take with them to pass out in the village.  Personally, I think this is the most rewarding as you know exactly where the shoes go and hear stories about how excited the recipients are to to receive them.

Tom's Shoes
Tom's shoes, one of the sponsor of the event, will donate a pair of shoes to a child for each pair purchased.


Soles4Shoes
Soles4Shoes that collects new and gently used shoes for distribution to crisis areas and also runs a micro-business of shoes that are donated but cannot be used to give out, such as high heel shoes, to sell to collect money to support local economies (more info click here).




For locations to donate new and gently used shoes click here to see if there is a location in your area.   If not and you would still like to contribute, they do have where you can donate $1 = 1 Pair (but there is a $5 minimum) and you can check out with Paypal.

Samaritan's Purse - Operation Christmas Child  


This is not specifically a "shoe" donation, but it a shoebox filled with items for a child for Christmas, but you could include a pair of shoes.   You get to pick if you want a boy or a girl and the age ranges of  2-4, 5-9, or 10-14.  For more information click here.

I participated last year but did not think to include a pair of shoes, but plan to this year.  It is surprising how much you can pack into a shoe box if you arrange it strategically.   I used this guide on Ebay
to select a pair of  a boy's size 2 shoes for a boy 5-9 and will probably put that information on the outside of the box to assist in distributing to a boy that can use them.  

Collection of boxes will be November 12-19 and to see if there is a donation location near you, click here.

No Nonsense
Although not directly involved in the project, No Nonsense currently has a Facebook promotion and will donate a pair of socks to someone in need (up to 500,000 pair) just for checking "Like" on Facebook.  To go to their page on Facebook click here.

If you know of any other places that accept donations and distribute shoes to the needy or if you are participating in A Day Without Shoes feel free to post them in the comments below:)

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Easter Roundup of Past Crafts/Recipes

I had hoped to get some Easter crafts completed and posted, but as I am running out of time, here is a round up of Easter items I have made in the past that I hope can inspire your own creativity:

Dragon Eggs made out of plastic Easter Eggs

Radioactive Peep Nests


Pop Art Easter Basket made out of soda pop case




Dragon Breath Slayers


Easter Wrap


Bunny Tails


Easter Egg Seeds


Easter Bunny "Carrots" (filled with crackers)