Big Buks

Did you know that playing with homemade toys can help toddlers build the muscles in their fingers? Here's how! - Design a simple puzzle for your toddler by gluing an interesting picture to a cardboard and cutting it into five or six pieces. It's easy and cost-efficient! - Engage your toddler in playing with dress-up clothes with buttons and zippers. - Allow him or her to enjoy tearing those scrap papers of yours. Over an empty basin or box, probably. It will make for easier clean-up! - Make play dough that your toddler can roll, pound, and squeeze. Here's how: mix together 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1 cup water, and 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Put food coloring in the water if desired. Add more...

I met Jana Alayra, back in 1999, during one of her church concerts. The energy she brought was electrifying. The children went crazy over her performance, so crazy that you would have thought Barney or the cast of Sesame Street had entered the building. When her performance was over, she came back to sing some “adult” songs for our women’s ministry and talk about her life as a Christian. She left us in tears, but more importantly she left us inspired. I hope that this interview has captured the essence that is Jana and it will cause you to want to learn more about her… Alyice: How long have you been a Christian musician and singer? Jana: I'm not sure where it "officially" started. I began...

I love origami. Many people say they love origami because it makes them happy to create something by hand, and the how amazing it is that it can stay together without adhesives or fasteners to secure it. While origami is fun and enjoyable to make, it also stirs up different emotions and expands the world in different ways, believe it or not. Origami is an ancient paper folding technique from Japan. It's widely used around the world today as an art form, decoration, model for technological and architectural creations, tool for learning mathematics and simply as a fun gift for any occasion. Growing up as a very shy child, it was difficult to make friends or stand out in class among the other more...

Having seven children - five of them boys - they love spending time outside getting muddy. However as the nights draw in and the weather becomes wetter and colder outside play has to be cut to a minimum most days. The problem with staying inside to play though means that the first choice is either watching television or playing on the play station. Not wanting to encourage too much 'couchpotatoism' in my children I have to keep lots of fun and entertaining ideas up my sleeve to entice them away from the box and also to stimulate their minds and curiosity. Of course I do allow them to watch television and we even have a subscription to Sky television. There are some wonderful programmes these days...

I came across this idea from a coach I had a few years ago. He got it from a mentor of his. Who knows where she got it. I was in his office after coming back from lunch when he pulled me over to his desk. There was a picture frame on his desk that I've seen a thousand times. The problem was that I assumed that it was his wife and two sons. No it wasn't. He asked me if I ever saw this before, and I shrugged, thinking that I've seen his wife a million times. To my surprise, he laid the frame on the desk and I began to laugh. He had a discolored cocktail napkin with looked like faded cola stains and light blue ink that must have been black in the good old days. "First business plan" my friend and coach...

We all know that artwork can really make or break a room. We also know that it can be very expensive which unfortunately puts it out of the reach of many do it yourself decorators. If this is the case with you then this article is a must read. Keep reading and learn some easy things you can do to create your own artwork inexpensively. One way to create a unique piece of art is to paint it yourself. This might sound impossible hard but if you look at a lot of modern art today it is pretty basic consisting of a few geometric shapes and lines. Much of it is not very hard to recreate and all you need to do it is a canvas, some brushes and paint. You can pick up all of this at a local art or hobby store...

If you are a shy person then you know how difficult it can be for a shy person to find a dating partner, especially if you are picky. Shy people may encounter potential dating partners on a regular basis. However, the fear of being rejected will usually discourage a shy person from making the first move when they encounter a potential dating partner. Online dating can be a great alternative for a shy person who does not enjoy going to social events. Online dating can also be great for a shy person who does not have enough courage to make the first move. However, if the shy person gets the courage to make the first move in an effort to get a date. And the person says no, while showing absolutely no...

Have you ever been going through a stack of receipts and scrap paper only to stumble on a phone number with no name? You know the number belongs to someone, and you know that you wrote it down for a reason, but you just cannot remember why. Your conscious will not let you throw the number away, and your pride will not let you call it to ask why you have the number. What options do you have? There is actually a very simple way to deal with this problem. You can use a reverse directory. If you have not heard of such a thing, then you will be pleasantly surprised at its ease of use and usefulness. Designed specifically for dealing with situations as described above, the directory works just the way it...

What fun to get 8-10 women together for a scrap, to make mini albums. The 6x6 albums work great. The albums can be pre-bought or pre-ordered. If you plan the scrap a few weeks in advance, everyone will have a chance to look through their own photos and decide what they'd like to put into their mini album. Some great suggestions for these mini albums are: 1. A day at the races 2. The picnic in the park 3. The championship ball game 4. The parade floats 5. Cars from the car show Of course there are tons of other themes you can choose. Maybe you want to just send grandma some updated photos of the kids. Mini albums help use up your scrap paper and loose supplies. Ask everyone coming to bring their...

You can make your own fire starters quite easily for your fireplace and camping needs. A good fire starter ensures that you can get the fire going quickly in any type of weather condition. Fire starters come in handy if the wood is wet. Some of the essential items in the contents to make fire starters include cotton balls, petroleum jelly, wax, paper cups, paraffin, sawdust, dry lint, candle wax, pine cones, and wicks. You may also have fabric scraps, wood pieces, scrap paper and cardboard. It is always advisable to use only black-and-white newspaper to start a fire. Colored ink releases chemicals when burned. Here are some of the ways you can make the fire starters at your home. 1. Roll a few...

Drawing is a relaxing and fun hobby for anyone willing to take the time to learn it, step by step. Just let yourself go and sketch, concentrating on what you're drawing. It is important to think positively, and not be too hard on yourself. So many of my students have told me at first, "I can't draw anything," or "my drawings are horrible!" but in time, they learned that with practice, their drawings improve. Don't discourage yourself with negative self-talk. Just do what comes from your heart. One of the great things about art is that there is no right and wrong to it. You have the creative license to do things your way, with no explanation. Take what you learn and make it your own by seeing what...

When playing cards first appeared on the scene more than five hundred years ago, they were made of paper and some of the more primitive varieties were made out of scrap paper that people had lying around. Today, we find that there are plenty of poker card decks to be had, and they are often not made out of paper any more! Playing cards these days may be made of thick cardstock that has a protective film applied, they might be coated in plastic or they might simply be made of plastic themselves! When you are considering plastic poker cards, there are a number of things that you need to keep in mind, so consider what your options are going to be. The first thing that you need to think about when you...

Creating interest in your watercolor paintings is easy with textures. Be it an old worn out brush, table salt or your fingertip sometimes a paintings effectiveness largely depends on the textures you have created. In a recent watercolor class I demonstrated creating various textures in watercolor. For images of each demonstration please visit my blog that is listed in my resource box. A brick wall is easily achieved by varying the color of each brick as you apply paint and then using a light grey wash for the mortar between the bricks. An important step is putting a shadow under each brick. I used a shadow on the left and bottom of each brick for the light coming from the upper right of the picture...

If you have a fabric jacket, the ideal way to personalise it would be with embroidery. With a little care, a stitched title could also be used for a paper jacket. Start by ironing on a fusible interfacing onto the wrong side of the piece of fabric you wish to embroider on to stiffen it and give it some extra strength. Write out the word you want to use on a piece of tracing paper. Lay the paper facedown on scrap paper and scribble over the back of the letters with a pencil. Next lay the tracing paper scribbled side down on the right side of the fabric. Firmly redraw the letters with a pencil and then lift the tracing paper to reveal the transferred word. If you do not want to use your own hand...

The birthplace of origami is still a mystery. Paper was developed in China in the first century A.D., and Buddhist monks brought it to Japan by the sixth century A.D. However there are not many written records from that time, so it is not known whether origami first began in China or Japan. However, no one will argue that Japan developed origami to a high art form. The word origami is Japanese: oru means "to fold", and kami means "paper". Many grownups remember making origami items as a child. It was often a case of watching as another youngster showed how to make a paper airplane or something similar. After a while, we develop a set of origami instructions in our head, for making several...

Looking for new craft ideas? Without even leaving the comfort of your own home, you can find printable paper crafts right online! All you need is a computer and a printer and you will be on your way in no time making great crafts all day long. There are so many exciting and different ideas when it comes to printable paper crafts. The first step in finding printable paper crafts, is typing in certain keywords online in your search engine. Just type in "Printable Paper Crafts" and you will be given several different sites showing you a large display of printable paper crafts. Crafts made out of paper are so much fun, children of all ages will be engaged in the activities for hours. The next step, is...

Scrapbook Techniques - Paper Tearing Ripping and peeling paper is a fun way to add warm, hand crafted accents to you pages. Almost any paper scrap can be turned into a cute accent. Mastering a few tearing techniques will turn your "regular" pages into "wow" pages. You can create beautiful boarders, backgrounds and shapes by tearing paper. Here a few versatile and whimsy ways to decorate your layouts. Practice with scrap paper to get the feel of how different papers well tear. Once you get the feel for it, you will become a pro and enjoy doing this technique over and over again. To make a basic tear, hold the paper in your non-dominant hand. Tear with your index finger and thumb, going gently and...

Contrary to popular belief not all crepe paper is created equally. In this article we will look at how to add color to paper flowers. When making paper flowers there are two types of crepe paper you will want to consider using. You can choose between simplex and duplex paper. Depending on the use of the flowers you are going to make will depend on the type of paper. Ideally a crepe paper centerpiece for your home is where you could easily use the simplex paper. If you are making the flowers for your wedding or for someone else you would be better to use the duplex crepe paper. The next decision you need to make is the brand of paper you will use. Some brands make it more difficult to add color to...

The quality of life inside your home is directly related to the quality of the air you breathe. Pollutants can affect your health and enjoyment of your home; some can even be dangerous or deadly. The EPA recommends that homeowners test their residences for various pollutants, including radon, formaldehyde, asbestos, lead, and biological and chemical contaminants. Everyday items like cooking stoves, heating stoves, fireplaces and other heaters can add to the dust and pollutants already present in the air; these can create significant health problems in susceptible individuals. Fortunately, there are a few simple steps recommended by the EPA that can dramatically improve the quality of the air inside...

Not many people know but recycling scrap aluminum and plastic bottles is actually a great way to earn some extra money. There are always recycling stations and junk yards which buy your trash for a certain amount of money. They usually recycle your trash and use them to build certain tools and contraptions in the future. This way, you will be able to get extra cash. Just take note that plastic bottles and scrap aluminum prices vary. Basically, there are two ways which determines the prices of these pieces of trash. First, the price of the cans and bottles you give in depends on how many you give the junk yards. If you are planning to give a number of these, think again. There are many people who...

Water is a great nutrient and an extremely necessary component for the body. The health benefits of water cannot be replaced. However, it is becoming harder to find clean, pure drinking water. Though the tap water that we receive undergoes several purification procedures, some contaminants do exist which may cause illnesses. There are several water filter producers like Brita, Culligan, Omnipure, etc who have designed and developed a variety of water filters. The most important is the technique used for developing the water filter cartridges. These cartridges are what are responsible for the cleaning and purification. Brita water filters are known for their quality and their water filter cartridges...

Shifting is generally a troublesome task at every stage. From packing, to moving the stuff to the new location, to unpacking again; it is a process that is fraught with hassle. For those preparing to make a move, finding boxes to pack your things in, can be a challenge. Most people do not want to waste money on new boxes that are only going to be used once, so, an appropriate solution would be to look for used moving boxes. These are comparatively cheaper and easier to find. A good place to start the search would be at your local supermarket. These stores tend to receive their products packed in boxes, so there is bound to be a vast supply waiting to be reused. You can ask the store manager or make...

It is thought that using recycled paper and card is beneficial for the environment, some greetings cards are produced using partially or all recycled materials, however, during this process many chemicals are used to bleach the card to a commercially attractive white, and also there is the journey this recycled card makes around the globe before ending up on the shelf of a high street store. Billions of tonnes of recycled card, and finished greetings cards, are produced in Eastern countries, and is shipped in containers across the seas to the UK, belching out C02 into the atmosphere as the boats that are used burn fossil fuel. The majority of these vessels are decades old, and were not built in a...

After all, what other room can serve as workshop, potting shed, storage locker, recycling plant, and carport all at once? A garage is also the best place to store many items that are not used on a daily basis such as holiday decorations, gardening supplies, tools and anything else that clutters the home. Creating effective storage in the garage can be done with a bit of ingenuity and planning. The three DirectBuy franchises of greater Pittsburgh —DirectBuy Pittsburgh North, DirectBuy Pittsburgh East and DirectBuy Pittsburgh South—the leading members-only showroom and home design centers, offer these helpful hints on creating usable working space in your garage. ? When in doubt, throw it out...

Is your student bringing home grades that do not reflect his level of intelligence? Is your child complaining about not liking school? Talking about school being boring? Having difficulty finding motivation to complete homework and school projects? Those may be signs that your child is finding his schoolwork too challenging. Get to the bottom of the problem by having a candid talk with your child and his teacher(s). If you find that your child is indeed having difficulty, here are some tips that can help: 1. Have your child's vision tested. Your child may simply need glasses. 2. Have your child's hearing tested. Hearing can be affected by things such as impacted wax, or injury from prior ear...

t of us live under the incorrect assumption that we can flush just about anything down our toilet bowl. This includes tissue paper, expired shampoos and even goldfish. We are blissfully unaware of where they eventually go and forget them the moment they are flushed down the toilet or go down the drain. Sewage, however, has a very interesting life cycle. Every city has its own unique water waste system, and Newark, New Jersey is no exception to this. The sewage system in Newark was the result of continuous improvements of its mayors, some having been developed within the last century of alone. You might think that learning about sewage is something better left for the geeks. After all, who wants to...

Why are businesses allowed to dump their pollutants into waterways? Yes, it gets cleaned up at the water recycling plant, but what happens when something goes wrong. Have you ever been told not to drink the water because of power outage or some other reason? Well those chemicals are in our pipes and even after you say we can drink the water some goes through. You say well, the pollution in the water is within safe limits. That may be true, but why allow any at all? Why can't your safe limits be 0.00% mercury, 0.00% for all other pollutants? This may sound like a dream, but it is possible if you made it impossible for businesses to dump their pollutants. Clean up our water! Indoor Air More Polluted...

Earth Day comes around every year in April. It's a day when all attention turns to the environment and what we can do to make this a better and healthier planet to live in. But, why should we do this only on one day of the year? Let's face it, with the damage we've done over the centuries to this beautiful planet of ours, it needs all the help it can get to not only get back to the clean, healthy place we originally inhabited but to even survive. So, here are a few things we can do each and every day to help make the Earth a greener, healthier and safer place, and, hopefully, we're not too late to make it a place that will be around for future generations to enjoy and wonder at. You Can Start Small...

ght of global warming and rising energy costs, people are searching for ways to save the planet and a little bit of money. Whether you are looking to reduce your carbon footprint, or reduce your monthly light bill, compact fluorescent light bulbs are a good option for your needs. These have several advantages over the incandescent bulbs they often replace. Their long life and low operating costs make compact fluorescent lights some of the most talked about lighting choices for any home or business. Compact fluorescent light bulbs operate by a small amount of mercury inside the bulb having an electrical current passed through it. The mercury then causes fluorescent gas inside the bulb to light up...

This article is concise, but will walk you step-by-step into the the profitable business of wood pallet recycling. After your finished reading this article you'll be ready and able to start your own wood pallet recycling business. Anyone can run a wood pallet recycling business and it's easy to get started. You can easily make $125 a day and there is virtually no expensive equipment to buy and you can get started with little to no money. SUPPLIES NEEDED: There is only a few things you'll need to get started in your own wood pallet recycling business. A pick-up truck, a pair of work gloves, an electric drill, a hammer and some nails. You might want to build up the sides of your pick-up truck, so you...

the EU announcing plans to introduce a Europe–wide ban on GLS Lamps from 2009, Gary Walker, Product Manager for Lighting at Newey & Eyre, asks how the lighting industry and British consumers will face up to life without the incandescent lamp? As bright ideas go, it doesn’t get much more obvious than banning the GLS lamp. The humble tungsten filament lamp has done a brilliant job lighting up the world for the past 120 years, but with more energy efficient alternatives now widely available, its days are surely numbered. Incandescent lamps waste 95% of the energy they consume as heat. An energy saving fluorescent lamp requires five times less electricity to do much the same job and...

Plastic has offered the world a material that can be experimented with without much effort and time. Plastic is a material that has high viscosity and when hardened shows metallic properties. Plastic can be molded in to any form in order to achieve a durable and lightweight product. Plastic cups are a common sight for mostly all individuals. This invention brought about a mammoth change in the designing and implementation procedures involved in manufacturing fast moving consumer goods. Goods can be conveniently stored in plastic cups for days at a stretch without the spoilage. They are a convenient alternative to the fragile and sometimes expensive glass crockery that we use in homes and offices...

Recycling and eco-friendliness are two  words gaining popularity across the world. Due to global warming and other environmental issues, it is essential for everyone to start contributing towards the welfare of the environment. If you are serious towards making some environment conservation efforts, you can start by using eco-friendly products. Well, even companies can promote their brand along with creating environmental awareness by using eco-friendly promotional items. Here are some popular popular eco-friendly corporate items for you to choose: Grocery Totes This is the best environmental friendly promotional option to choose for brand marketing. Instead of paper or plastic, these grocery totes...