Making wrapping paper with kids is an enjoyable activity to do with your kids. Here are a few to consider.

Using tin foil as wrapping paper is a great idea. Take a gift and wrap it in aluminum foil, which you can purchase at any supermarket. You can decorate the wrapped gift in several ways. Attach a Christmas card or cut out pictures. Or gather together some Christmas stickers and place the stickers you have on the box.

Another idea is to take fabric, and use it as wrapping paper. This is ideal for a small gift. Simply wrap the fabric around the gift and close the top with a ribbon.

Make wrapping paper from your Sunday newspaper. The newspaper is filled with full color inserts and Christmas ads, which are usually two to four page store specials. The Sunday paper also usually contains comics, as well. Select some pages and pull out the pages that you choose. Take some scotch tape and tape the pages together so that you have enough paper to wrap the gift. Attach a bright ribbon to match the colors in the paper. This is a unique and fun way to wrap a gift, and I am sure the recipient of this present will be delighted at your ingenuity and imaginative style.

Kids love to show off their artwork. Why not wrap the gift in plain newsprint or a paper bag and encourage your child to decorate it? Your child may be more excited about their artwork than presenting the gift itself. Simply present your child with the standard tools – crayons, markers, rubber stamps, stickers — and let them go crazy with it.

If you don’t have paper bags or newsprint, you can take the artwork that your children bring home from school to create gift wrap. Simply take several pieces of their existing art and help them use it to wrap the gift. Just make sure it isn’t their “most special favorite” artwork before you begin.

While most people are deciding on what wrapping paper to buy, making wrapping paper with kids can be so much more enjoyable, and easy to do. Whether you use tin foil, ribbons, ornaments, drawings, or goodies – these original ideas will make gift wrapping a pleasure for you and your kids.

For those who cannot afford to buy all of the fancy Christmas tree ornaments available today, decorating your tree on a budget can be practical and cost effective. You, too, can have a lovely decorative tree without having to sacrifice style and beauty. Here are some suggestions.

Cookie Tree
Make a delectable cookie tree. Be creative by baking cookies in all shapes and sizes. Dress up the cookies with non-pariel rainbow seeds or sprinkles to give the cookies that extra splash of color. To hang the cookies on the tree, roll a small piece of cardboard – the size of a dime – and insert it in the top of the cookie before baking. This will ensure the holes remain open during the baking process. Afterward, insert ribbons into the holes in the cookies and hang them on the tree.

Atop the tree, add a large gingerbread cookie with a Christmas tree light in its center. Before baking this gingerbread cookie, follow the same procedure by inserting a rolled piece of cardboard in the center of the cookie. You can dress up the gingerbread cookie using white icing with red food color.

Create an adorable tree skit by using an apron that has decorative images such as fruit, or yes, even cookies.

Snowy Tree
Here is another inexpensive way to decorate and produce a spectacular tree. Make a snowy Christmas tree. Take cotton balls and place them on the tips of the branches. If you have any white glitter on hand, sprinkle it on the cotton balls to give a glistening snow effect. Or you can cut silver garland into little tiny specks to achieve the same results.

Need an ornament for the top of the tree? Make a cookie snowman. Simply using your favorite cookie dough, shape the dough into the form of a snowman. Cover the entire snowman with white icing. Use chocolate chips for his eyes, and shape a nose using a small carrot. Add a smile on his face using chocolate from a piping bag.

To add a tree skirt, simply use a large piece of cardboard. Cut the cardboard into an arc. Take two or more cups of flour and add water. Paste the flour onto the cardboard to give the illusion of fresh fallen snow. Add white glitter to enhance the effect.

Do you know the names of Santa’s reindeer? Maybe or maybe not, but everyone knows “the most famous reindeer of all.” Kids will love to create their own Rudolph.

Cardboard Rudolph Art
This one is simple. Using a 5×7 writing pad, take off the brown cardboard at the back. Use two large black buttons and place them on the cardboard to make the reindeer’s eyes. If you don’t have buttons, you could use almonds or dried beans.

Color a cotton ball using a red marker, and glue the cotton ball onto the cardboard to make his nose.

Take two popsicle sticks, color them brown, and glue each stick to each end of the cardboard for his ears; and with a magic marker, draw a curved line for his smile.

Put Rudolph on a plate stand to display him in your home.

Paper Plate Rudolph Mask
Another idea is to take a paper plate and turn it into Rudolph mask. Lightly color the plate with a brown crayon to begin.

Then, you can make the antlers. At the top of the plate, glue two brown pipe cleaners for antlers. Then cut two or more smaller pieces of brown pipe cleaner and twist them around the longer pipe cleaner, turning them outward to create the antler effect. You may need to reinforce the antlers with a hot glue gun after your child is done creating this mask.

Cut holes for the eyes and color around the holes with a black marker to make his eyes look darker. For his nose, cut out a circle from any red fabric (even patterned fabric would be cute). Glue it onto the plate.

Then, draw a big smile with a black crayon. You’ve got an adorable Rudolph mask. Simply glue a Popsicle stick to the bottom as a handle and your child has a mask to wear. Now all you need are a few more and you’ll have all of Santa’s reindeer.

Now that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been created, have you been thinking about the names of the other eight reindeer? The answer is: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.

Not everyone has room for a large tree, real or fake. Is the small space in your home or apartment preventing you from buying a Christmas tree? Here are a few tips on how to decorate for Christmas when you don’t have much room.

There are many table top trees available which can be placed in your home or apartment. Smaller trees, usually one to two feet high, can be put on your kitchen counter top, on your television, or on top of the entertainment center. A tall stand, used for books or other items, would be a perfect place to put the tree. If you have space in front of a window, set the stand and tree there. You can buy snowflakes and attach them to the window, surrounding the tree, to achieve a wonderful effect.

Some smaller Christmas trees come fully decorated, or you can decorate the tree yourself. For example, a white tree would look great in a kitchen decorated with ornaments reflecting the décor of the room. A tree skirt created from left-over fabric could highlight the colors in your living room or den.

Small trees are used in an office environment as well. They are usually placed on counter tops, file cabinets, or desks. Novelty trees are oftentimes chosen for the workplace, such as singing or talking trees

Ceramic trees, which are absolutely lovely, can be put anywhere in your home or apartment. Some of them light up, which gives the effect of having a real tree in your home. A ceramic tree can be placed on the night table of your child’s bedroom, or the lamp table in your den, or on your home/office desk.

While smaller Christmas trees are still popular today, there are some unconventional trees designed for small spaces. An upside down tree, although not a new idea, has emerged as a favorite space saver. The reasons for the tree’s popularity are many. The ornaments would not be shaken off the tree by a pet; it allows for more floor or table top space; and enables one to amass more presents under the tree.

Whether you are single and living in a small apartment, or have a home and no longer wish to have a six foot tree, there is no reason to deny yourself the pleasure of decorating a tree that will fit anywhere in your home.

These days it is quite expensive to buy ornaments or other decorations for the holidays. As a more frugal and fun option, here are 3 cute ornaments you can make with items you have around your house.

1. Cookie Ornaments: Use whatever cookie cutter designs you have on hand and bake cookies to hang on the tree. If you do not have cookie cutter designs, no problem. Make your own designs. For example make pretzel cookies, which can easily be hung on a branch and decorated with ribbons. Here is how to do it. Roll out a small piece of your favorite dough to about 3 inches. Take the two ends and overlap them at the top to form an upside down letter “Q” – or make any loop shape. After the pretzel is baked, you can tie a ribbon through the hole in the shape of a bow, and hang it on the tree.

2. Paper Tree Ornaments: Take white construction paper and cut out Christmas trees. Your child can personalize each one with his name, stickers, glitter, a drawing, or color each tip of the tree to resemble ornaments. Use these trees to make a border in your child’s room or string them together to wrap around your Christmas tree.

3. Christmas Stocking Ornaments: Make your own Christmas stocking ornaments using whatever material you have on hand. Use several fabrics and colors to really make them bright and colorful. Glue on bows, beads or large ribbons. You can also personalize them with your child’s name. When the stockings are done, cut a piece of fabric into a loop and sew it onto the top of the stocking. Hang them on the tree proudly.

Making homemade ornaments is not only fun for the entire family, but lets your child expand his creativity and imagination. It is much more meaningful to make something than to just go out and buy it. It is a wonderful and satisfying way to spend time with your children. These home-made ornaments make wonderful gifts as well.

Before you decide to go shopping for Christmas ornaments, first take a look around your house. You’ll be surprised at what you may find!

A Christmas cookie swap is as simple as it sounds. Friends gather together at another friend’s home, bringing their favorite baked cookies on a platter or tray. All the platters and trays are put on a table. The friends gather around the table; taking take two or three cookies from each dish or platter, to take home. This is the cookie swap. What makes this particular event so wonderful is each person may have a story about the cookies, i.e., where the recipe came from; anecdotes about preparing the cookies, etc.

Are you ready to plan your Christmas cookie swap? Let’s begin with the invitations.
Purchase or make your own invitations and send them to your friends. Set a date and time convenient for all, perhaps a late morning on a Sunday afternoon. Be sure to add an RSVP so you know how many are attending. This will determine how many cookies you need to bake.

The night before the event, begin baking your favorite cookies using either recipes handed down from your mother or grandmother, or new recipes you have made experimenting on your own. Place your cookies on your Christmas plate or tray, cover the cookies with wrap, and set aside in a cool area.

Decorate your main table with a Christmas tablecloth and matching napkins. Use your Christmas cups and saucers; dessert plates; creamer; sugar bowl; and flatware. Arrange a beautiful poinsettia centerpiece for the table. Next, prepare and decorate a second table on which the plates or trays of baked cookies will be placed.

On the day of your event, prepare your coffee pot and tea kettle about half hour before your friends arrive. Finally, your friends come bearing delicious baked cookies, filling your home with a wonderful aroma. Show your friends to the cookie table, and have each friend set down their plate or tray of cookies on the table.

After much conversation, call your friends together for the cookie swap. Gather everyone around the cookie table, and begin the process of each person walking around the table, taking two or three cookies from each tray. When finished, have everyone sit at your main table and the storytelling can begin. Every participant leaves with a selection of cookies that they can share at their homes with visitors and guests.

Planning a Christmas cookie swap is fairly easy. Having your friends come to your home with their own recipes and sharing stories is the icing on the “cookie.”

More than ever before, the traditional Christmas tree has evolved from the standard that we grew up with into an array of Christmas tree themes. Here are some of the most popular Christmas tree themes.

An angel tree is quite popular. A white tree adorned with golden-winged angels on its branches, gold garland, and an angel atop the tree. A tree skirt made of gold gives the tree a beautiful finishing touch.

If you have been purchasing Hummel ornaments throughout years, this is a great tree theme, as they are quite delicate and beautiful. Place each ornament on a branch and just add white lights. Place a larger Hummel ornament atop the tree. The skirt could be elegant and simple; perhaps a brown skirt with a lace border.

Musical trees are popular as well. Place different instrumental ornaments on the branches and use a piano key skirt.

Traditional candle trees have been around for ages. Put candles in holders and tie the holders to each branch. Use white lights around the tree, and a simple tree skirt of gold.
A doll with a beautiful flowing gown would be a stunning on the top of the tree.

Toyland trees are very popular for the young and old alike. Remember the movie Sound of Music? Why not decorate the tree with your “favorite things.” For example, use dolls in white dresses with blue satin sashes; ornaments of cream colored ponies; sleigh bells, and crisp apple strudels. Use turtledoves to represent “the wild geese that fly,” and use white construction paper to cut out and paste “the moon on their wings.”

Decorate your tree with candy. Your kids will have a great time deciding which candies to use. Put candy canes on the branches, and string a garland of different colored lifesavers around the tree. If you are decorating a white tree, hang long red vines on each of the branches, or tie silver-wrapped kisses on the branches to resemble bells.

Cookie trees are another favorite. Bake your favorite cookies or, in addition, hang your favorite cookie cutters on the tree as well. Ensure that when baking the cookies, you reserve a hole to insert the ribbon. Make Christmas cookie balls and string them around the tree, by inserting a thread through each ball.

We all love dinner with the family, but sometimes getting dinner to the table can be a bit stressful. Whether it’s planning the meals or ensuring we have the right ingredients, it can cause a bit of headache in our hectic days. Watch this video tour of Dine Without Whine to find out how you can get help with your dinner planning.

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Try Dine Without Whine for just 1 penny to start.

Long gone are the days when we’d invite the family over for a slide show of our latest vacation…although, I did notice that my Father still has his projection table in the garage. Anyway, today it’s all about email and digital photography and organizing an online album has never been easier.

One site that you can use to share your photos is Flickr. Here’s a step-by-step walk through.

1. Get a Flickr account

If you already have a Yahoo! account, then all you need to do is sign in using your Yahoo! ID and password.

2. From your flickr homepage, click on the “Upload Photos & Video” button.

3. Click on “Choose photos and videos”

4. Select the file you want to upload. You upload more than one picture, by clicking “Add More”

5. Choose the privacy settings you want (private or public). Then click the “Upload Photos and Videos” button.

6. A progress bar will let you know how the upload is going. When it’s done, you will see, “Finished! Next: add a description, perhaps? Click on the link if you’d like to add a description.

7. From this window, you can do several things: add a description, add tags, save the photo to a set (or create a new set, if you like). You can also change the privacy settings of the picture.

8. If you’re satisfied with everything, click on “Save”. You can go back and change any of the settings, and even delete and reorganize photos later.

Wasn’t that easy? Now you can show off your best photos to the world. You could even have your photos used in websites and other materials – that is, if you want them to.

If you’d like to take digital photographs worthy of being displayed, shared and spread all over the Internet, check out Shoot Digital Pics Like the Pros. It’s a free report with plenty of tips for taking digital picture you’ll be proud of.

Another summer has quickly passed us by. The kids have reluctantly gone back to school. It stands to reason that life should be a little less hectic, right? Unfortunately, that’s usually not the case. Between all of your daily ‘Mom obligations’, helping with homework and providing transportation to every extra-curricular activity under the sun, you probably have little time to devote to dinner planning.

Many times busy parents resort to hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, frozen pizza or frequent trips to a fast-food restaurant. That’s not healthy for you or the kids – not to mention its pretty rough on the family grocery budget.

Kitchen time savers

There are things you can do to cut down on time spent in the kitchen. Pick one day a week and prepare several freezer friendly meals. You can even go the extra mile and package them in individual serving size containers. Doing so will provide your family with a larger variety of entrée choices, on any given day.

Do you have friends that are intrigued with the idea of a one-day a week cooking spree or a meal planning service? Get together with 2 or 3 of them. Each of you decides on 2 main dishes you want to prepare. Buy enough ingredients to make the entrees for each family.

You need to plan ahead

One simple thing that you can do is keep an ample supply of fresh fruits, salad ingredients, soups and fresh sandwich fixings, on hand. Quick meals such as this are nutritious and don’t require a great deal of preparation time.

If you take on the task of meal planning and want to get in the habit of consistently putting together weekly menus yourself, you may be surprised at how much time it involves. Did you know that the typical family meal planner spends roughly 3 hours per week combing through cookbooks, choosing recipes and compiling a grocery list? That translates into 156 hours, per year. Yikes!

A menu service can help

You can say goodbye to last minute thrown together meals and eliminate the stress of dinner planning for your family by subscribing to a meal planning service. This type of service is very affordable, usually costing only a few cents per day. Menus are often designed to be family friendly and easily adaptable.

When you purchase a subscription to a service such as this, your membership will typically feature a weekly menu emailed right to your inbox. This includes seven main dish recipes, side dish suggestions and dessert ideas. As an added benefit, you receive a detailed shopping list, categorized by aisle, which makes your trip to the grocery store that much easier. Simply cross off items already in your pantry, add any other products you may be in need of and you’re off!

If you enjoy planning your own menu, you may want to consider a dinner planning service, in addition to your own choices. Why? It will still save you time, in the long run. Use the membership menu as a base. Then, search for recipes that will deliciously compliment that weekly plan.

Remember, nothing is more important than family time. Don’t let dinner planning get you down. Consider the suggestions we’ve made and you’ll spend less time
slaving over hot stove and more time with the people you love.

For a free weekly trial of a family friendly menu planning service, visit http://www.dinewithoutwhine.com/info .

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