By Cortni Marrazzo
My husband and I are do-it-yourselfers when it comes to home improvement. This is mostly because my husband’s dad is a contractor and he often guides and helps us when we need it. That being said, we’re barely a year into owning our first home and are still newbies. We recently […]

By Jennifer Derrick
With the prices of everything skyrocketing, making your own cleaning products can be an easy way to save money. In addition to saving money, most are non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and safe for use around pets and children. They take very little time to make, so they don’t add to the workload. I […]

By Jennifer Derrick
This week I attended the funeral of an old family friend. This man was a member of the “Greatest Generation,” growing up during the Great Depression and coming of age during WWII. Aside from his stories, the thing that always amazed me about this man was his ability to construct the most useful […]

By Jennifer Derrick
With the economy slowing, everyone is looking to cut back in many ways. Some people are eliminating their daily coffee, others are combining trips to save on gas. These and similar strategies are great and will help you save money. However, there is more money to be saved by learning how to do […]

By Ann Hartter
At craft shows, a maze of booths show off handcrafted original wares. Some things are common from show to show, like polymer clay jewelry, stained-glass window décor, and beaded designs, but it’s not the medium that matters, it’s the artist’s individuality and handiwork. I go into stores and see things mass produced and […]

By Ann Hartter
The forums are buzzing with new money-saving tips and tricks. “We don’t purchase these anymore,” and “we’ve done this ourselves.” “I found a new way to do this,” and “I always wondered why people would pay for that?” For some of us, these ideas are intriguing, but seem a little out of our […]

By Ann Hartter
Dear Mom, I’ve been at school for three weeks now, and I still hate the pale green of my dorm room walls. What do they think we are? Prisoners? Classes are going great…
As I previously mentioned, many people love art, and as the popularity of shows like Design on a Dime shows, […]

This is my project for the weekend - to build a solar window heater (shown in the video below). It’s been a fairly mild winter here in Japan thus far and I have managed not to take out the space heater, but it’s been getting colder and it is just a matter of time. With […]

By Shannon Christman
In James Grippando’s novel, Lying with Strangers, a nurse tells a doctor, “We are the last repairmen on earth.” He goes on to explain that people rarely take the time to fix things anymore; soon the only thing left that’s worth fixing will be the human body.
Though I had trouble […]

By Meredith H. Kaiser
How much money do you spend on your hair? Are you worth it? The woman on the hair-dye commercial says, with great certainty (that annoys me for some reason) that she’s worth it, but I wanted to find out if I am. Curious, I walked into my bathroom to […]