Buy Now For Halloween

Now is the time to buy for Halloween. We have a whole page dedicated to decorations, costumes and your favorite candies. You won't want to miss the outstanding selection of collectibles from The Bradford Exchange. Start shopping now while the selection is at its peak!

Menu Planning Service New to CollectionsGiftsandMore.com

A Menu Planning Service Designed For Busy Families
▪ Ingredients you have actually heard of and can find at your local grocery store
▪ Meals that your kids will actually be willing to try
▪ Menu Plans that won't over-extend the grocery budget
▪ Recipes that can be prepared in around an hour or less
Take A Moment To Reflect...
▪ Do you struggle with what to feed your family each evening?
▪ Do you waste too much of your precious time making several trips to the grocery store each week?
▪ Do you spend $200 at the grocery store every week and still not seem to have anything in the house to prepare a healthy meal?
▪ How much money would you have if you put the money you normally spend eating out each month into a jar instead? What would you do with that extra money?
▪ How often does your entire family gather around the security of your dinner table to enjoy a home-cooked meal, relax, and share about your day?

Find out more!
Dine Without Whine - A Family Friendly Weekly Menu Planner

Make Your Own Jewelry

Making your own jewelry can be a very passionate hobby. All you need is the right tools and supplies to get started.

Your first and best investment for making jewelry will be a jewelry kit. This kit will help you to make some marvelous pieces and give you plenty of confidence. Kits will include the tools you need to get started, like a needle-nosed pliers and clasps. Find out more in this handy book.

You’ll also need chains for necklaces and bracelets, backings for earrings, posts to create anything that dangles, and supplies to link it all together. Watch for sales at your local craft stores for sales as these supplies can be very expensive.

Next you will need beads. Beads are made from a variety of things, such as metal, glass, clay, plastic, and even wood. You can make your own beads too, if you enjoy working with polymer clay. When shopping for beads, look for a variety of sizes, shapes and colors so that you can make a number of different designs with your jewelry.

Next you will need a magnifier to help you see. A magnifier headset is your best investment. Using a magnifying glass is doable but not practical as you will need both hands to work on your jewelry. Another option is a standing magnifier. Having the correct magnifying tools will help to keep you focused.

Last but not least, you will want to have a flat and level surface so that you can keep the beads from rolling around. Be prepared with this step by step guide.

Planning Your Wedding on a Shoestring Budget - The Reception Hall

Your wedding reception is where your guests will spend the most time.  As we’ve said before, you should count on spending at least 40 percent of your budget on the reception.  This includes the food, decorations, drinks, music, etc.  But a beautiful reception doesn’t have to break the bank.  Once again, count on your friends and family to help out.  People love to share in important moments and you may be surprised by how many people will be willing to help you decorate the hall the night before.

Let’s first talk about the flowers and table decorations.

If you’re having your reception in a hall like the American Legion or the Moose, be prepared to deal with the décor that is already there.  As an example, at the American Legion you may find a multitude of war memorabilia on the walls. You’ll want to deal with this with a great deal of respect and imagination. One of the best ways is to draw attention to another area of the hall or keep it focused on the tables and wedding party area.

This is a good time to think about the location of a gazebo or arch. Locate it in an area away from the permanent memorabilia and you’ll find it to be a great distraction. You can drape Christmas type lights on it and decorate with flowers, locate the wedding gift table there, the wedding cake, etc. Use your imagination.

So what about other decorative ideas at the reception?

Use the bridesmaid’s bouquets to decorate the tables, the head table, or the cake table.  You don’t have to have expensive floral arrangements everywhere to make a beautiful reception hall.  There are many, many alternatives and most can be put together with supplies from the dollar store.  The following suggestions utilize supplies that can be found at the dollar store or other discount stores and make for gorgeous table decorations.

Centerpiece suggestion #1:

       Buy some glass cereal bowls and place colored glass marbles in the bottom.  Add water half way up and put a floating candle in each.  Instead of floating candles, just add a regular votive in the middle of the marbles.  When the reception is over, the bride and groom will have a matching set of bowls!

Centerpiece suggestion #2:

       Get some small terracotta pots and some florists foam.  Pick out some silk flowers in your wedding colors along with some greenery.  Stick the flowers in the foam bunched tightly together and arrange to your heart’s delight!

Centerpiece suggestion #3:

       Take a silk rose and separate the bud from the stem. Disassemble the bud into individual petals.  With a clear votive holder and a glue gun, you will glue the petals onto the holder.  Start at the top with the smaller rose petals. Place one petal next to another, with the sides touching slightly.

Once your first row is completed, you can start on the next. Make sure to cover any bare areas at the bottom of the first row, and work your way down the holder until the rose petals cover the entire surface.  Take the leaf from the flower and attach to the bottom of the holder.  This will give the illusion of a lighted rose once a candle is placed inside and lit!

Centerpiece suggestion #4:

       Find picture frames of varying sizes.  Gather together your favorite pictures of the bride and groom.  Put the pictures in the frames and arrange on the tables surrounding them by clear glass marbles and some greenery.

Centerpiece suggestion #5:

       Get some small baskets and decorate with ribbon.  Print out some index cards that say “Advice For The Newlyweds” and lay them on the table with pens and/or pencils.  Encourage guests to write something on the cards and place them in the baskets.  Surround the baskets with flowers, greenery or pebbles.  This can be a great ice-breaker for people who don’t know each other.  Be prepared, too, for the jokesters in the crowd who may offer up some ridiculous and sometimes bawdy advice. 

Centerpiece suggestion #6:

       Take small grapevine wreaths and decorate with tulle and ribbon.  Place a bottle of champagne in the center or a bottle of wine from a local winery.  For extra fun, attach a balloon to the bottle.

Centerpiece suggestion #7:

       Take two plastic champagne glasses and hot glue them together so that they cross when lying down.  Hot glue four clear glass marbles inside each glass and tie a helium balloon to each.  It will look like there are bubbles flowing out of your glasses as they lay on the table!

Balloons are not only festive and fun, they can help keep bored children entertained.  Most dollar stores have helium balloons they will fill with purchase.  However, you may want to look into a portable helium tank and do it yourself.  Most party stores have tanks you can rent or buy and sell helium balloons in a multitude of colors to go with your other décor.

Want some wacky and unique centerpiece ideas?  We found a couple online for the inventive and fun couples!

Buy glass fish bowls at the dollar store and fill them with – fish!  You can find goldfish pretty inexpensively either at Wal-Mart or a local pet store.  If you have the money, try to find beta fish in your wedding colors!  One word of caution if using live fish:  be sure to give their water lots of surface area to provide enough oxygen.  The last thing you want is a bunch of dead fish decorating your tables.  Let the children in attendance take the fish home – with the permission of their parents, of course.

Here’s another idea. Collect a bunch of board games, Ants in the Pants, Monopoly, Sorry, etc.  Arrange them on the tables with decorative accents surrounding them.  This can be great for the children in attendance, but don’t be surprised if the adults play with them too.

Another bride wanted to reflect the personalities of her and her groom.  They were “country people”, she says and liked a cold beer on occasion.  She took longneck beer bottles and steamed the labels off of them.  She created their own beer labels on her computer and glued them on with a hot glue gun.  She splatter painted them before attaching the labels and tied each with a piece of twine.  Truly unique, we think!

We like the idea of taking a pint sized Mason jar and wrapping it with tissue paper tying a ribbon around the neck to secure it.  Place flowers in the jar, potpourri or whatever you think fits you as a couple.

If you’re getting married around a holiday, you can come across some fun decorations that celebrate that holiday.  At Christmas, spray paint pine cones silver and gold and surround them with pine sprigs.  Having an Easter wedding?  Use plastic Easter eggs and plastic grass you put in the Easter baskets.

If you’re having an outdoor reception, decorate around that.  Use lots of live flowers and greenery to reflect the beauty of Mother Nature surrounding you.  If it’s windy, avoid using candles and be sure any balloons are secured so they don’t blow away!

Now that you’ve got the place decorated, look for our next post about using favors as additional decorations.

Planning Your Wedding on a Shoestring Budget - Pictures

Pictures are priceless, and you want to be sure you have plenty of good pictures of your special day.  Unfortunately, if you’re on budget, professional photographers can eat up most of your money.  While they are definitely worth the price, they’re not always feasible for people who need to save some money.

So how can you get beautiful photos of your wedding day without breaking the bank? First, understand what you need to do to get good pictures.

Today’s digital technology makes it is easier than ever to find a friend or family member who is proficient at taking pictures. Ask the people you know and chances are pretty good you will find someone who would be very happy to take your pictures. It could even be their wedding present to you. After the wedding you can download the pictures from their memory card and edit them to make your own wedding album.

Once you decide on your favorite pictures you can put them on a thumb drive or take your memory card to one of many discount stores or photo shops to have prints and enlargements made at a fraction of the cost for a professional photographer. 

What are other possibilities?  We recommend you start with a community college.  They often offer photography classes, and the students are eager to practice their craft for a nominal fee or even just the experience.  Talk to the instructor, however, to be sure you’re getting the cream of the crop – the top in the class.  You don’t want to take a chance and get the beginner for your big day.

Don’t be afraid to call the local newspaper and ask to speak with the staff photographer.  You don’t have to know anyone at the paper to offer up the chance for them to make some extra money.  Many will perform the service for a small fee as long as you buy the film – some may even offer their services for the experience.

At the reception, place disposable cameras on each table for guests to take pictures at your reception.  This is a wonderful way to get pictures of those who helped make your day special. Disposable cameras can be found at bulk warehouse stores or even online.  Shop around for the best price. 

When it comes to chic, elegant wedding pictures, nothing beats the look of Black and White photos. Black and White photos can be combined with all of the money saving ideas above. After the wedding, the photos can be blown up and dry mounted for a long-lasting keepsake. Black and white film can be much cheaper than color film as well.

As far as video is concerned, consider what a video will mean to you.  Sure, a video of your wedding is a pretty nice thing to have, but let's face it, who really watches this video? Your family may watch it once after the wedding is over, and you and your future spouse may bring it out on your anniversary every year, but other than that the most public viewing of your wedding video will probably be at your 50th anniversary party (and by then you will have had to pay a couple hundred dollars to have your video converted to the latest format.)

I think a great way to save a thousand bucks is to ask yourself and family before your wedding, "Who owns a video camera that I know?" "Who do I know who has a hobby of videotaping?" Maybe you know one person who owns a video camera but hates to tape, and another person who has the patience and artistic ability to video, but doesn't own a camera. Voila! You have your own videographer, if both parties are willing to play their part (and I think you will find that almost everyone is willing to help in whatever small way they can to help make your wedding a success).

If you do have a friend or family member do your wedding video, there are many studios around who can cut and splice parts of the video together and add background music later if you want a precious keepsake.  You can do this later, however, when you can afford it and not have to figure it into your wedding budget.

Once the wedding has finished, it’s time to move to the reception.  Our next post will consider different ways to decorate your reception location.

Lady Doc Gets Death Threats for Revealing TOP SECRET Fat Loss Secret to General Public

A new breakthrough secret is all you now need in order to forever shed countless pounds, stay healthy, and add many years to your life!
A lady doctor from Arizona has blown the lid off the best-kept secret in weight loss ever discovered -- and this has the whole diet food and drug industries turned upside down and in nothing less than a torrential uproar.
Her name is Dr Suzanne Gudakunst, and she's marching to the beat of a different drum.
And no, nothing about her "secret" is difficult -- nor does it require that you do something completely out of the ordinary or anything unnatural.
Instead, the Arizonian boasts proudly "...this is something that I caught onto just before 2002 when there was so much research and exploration going around concerning the human colon and digestive system working in harmony with nutritional absorption, and I started doing independent studies just to test things at first ... but which I later expanded on after seeing some fantastic results."
This same woman medical practitioner went on to accurately determine a definitive correlation between harmful plague and parasitic infestations of the human bowel tract, and people suffering chronic obesity -- and who despite intense diet and exercise appeared to be unable to lose any weight whatsoever.
Over the course of six years the Arizona doctor developed a number of natural treatments for the removal of these same harmful, even life-threatening plaques and rapidly reproducing digestive parasites -- and when applied to even worse-case patients suffering extreme obesity (98% of which were in immediate danger of dying) she saw a 100% effectiveness and success rate.
She then borrowed from her research on the severely obese, and applied the same strategies on milder cases of overweight persons -- only to find the same effectiveness and quality results as described above (although the individual weight loss per subject wasn't nearly as much as those obese patients 100 lbs to 200 lbs or more overweight).
So powerful is her secret that she's able to reverse diabetes, rid illness altogether in people suffering from cancer (linked directly to poor diet and overweight factors), as well as an elimination of an entire spectrum of serious and otherwise life-threatening diseases.
Nearly 100% of all her case subjects were told in the alternative by "conventional doctors" that they either had just months or years to live, or they would never live a life anything resembling remotely a "normal" existence -- yet after applying Dr Suzanne's treatments saw a complete contradiction to others doctors' prognoses.
Again, nothing about her secret is unnatural or requires someone to do any major action or modification in their lives.
In fact, her entire treatment is based completely on built-into-nature 'protection agents' scattered throughout the world in the form of select herbs, extracts, and organic constituents, and which can be found in a variety of plants -- but when combined in specific combinations and carefully chosen amounts make for a solution to what is perhaps the world's worst ever plague: OBESITY (and the illnesses and diseases resulting from it -- or at least severely aggravated or exacerbated by it).
Now to everyone else's great gain, whether suffering from just a few extra pounds and inches, to those extremely fat and overweight, this brave, bold lady doctor is releasing to the general public her secret for forever destroying the tight unrelenting closed-fist of obesity's stronghold over the now more than 40% of Americans labeled obese, and others worldwide.
But she's not promising any of us for how long.
Some experts and sociologists suggest that in the bigger scheme of things, the world will never tolerate a discovery of such magnitude, any more than it would be realistic to expect a car that runs on water (even if very real) to ever become commercially available to the general public for day-to-day use.
One well-respected and famous diet & wellness author wrote years ago that if anyone ever "truly unlocked the keys to permanent fat loss, they may actually suffer the same fate as JFK."
It is currently available at:
   =>   http://bnldirect.AllInOneHealth.com
...so you may want to head on over there now and get it and before someone or "something" gets it forever yanked out of ever getting in YOUR hand at least.
It's in a very easily readable format and is quickly and readily understood and mastered by anyone with even a 4th grade reading level.
While you're there, why not scroll down and review for yourself the huge successes others are now having with this incredible breakthrough in rapid, massive weight loss and extremely improved and enhanced health, now made freely available to the rest of us?
-Bill Beaver

Planning Your Wedding on a Shoestring Budget - Music At Your Ceremony

Image via Wikipedia

Music for your wedding ceremony could consist of live or recorded performances.  For pre-wedding music, make a CD of songs that are meaningful to you as a couple.  You can also use this CD for the processional and recessional marches.

Do you know someone who plays the piano or guitar?  Ask them to play for you at your ceremony.  Nothing sounds as poignant as an acoustic guitar playing a beautiful ballad!  You can also call your local high school or college for musicians. 

Recruit someone you know to sing during the ceremony.  If you don’t know anyone who sings ask your friends. You might be surprised to find out who among them loves to sing and is very good at it. If not, they may know someone you can contact.

You want to be sure to have plenty of photos to remember your special day.  Unfortunately, a professional photographer can be a real budget buster!  Look for our next post on how to save with wedding photography.