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Personalized housewarming gifts

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Have you ever visited the online store Roland’s Housewarming Gifts?

The company originally began as a source of house closing gifts for real estate agents and it’s grown over time as a source of gifts for the public.

I think this site is the perfect place to find housewarming gifts. You know when someones just moved into their first home? You want to give them something that will help them make their new home their own. This often takes the form of some kind of personalized gift. Well, you can find all kinds of gift items to personalize at Roland’s housewarming Gifts.

For example they have some lovely personalized doormats to chose from, as well as address plaques that can be personalized, custom door mats, address signs, ceramic address plaques, beautiful crafted crocks which can also be personalized, house address signs, birdhouses, cookie jars, planters, mailboxes and other unique personalized gifts.

This is yet another site that I’m going to bookmark for future use. Check it out.






Outdoor cedar furniture

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I’m sure many of my readers have lovely gardens, and patios from which to sit and enjoy their gardens. Others might not have full gardens, but you might have a nice apartment or condo balcony that you’ve added potted plants to and have tried to create a nice area to relax in.

What kind of furnishings do you use in your yard, patio or balconies? If you need more outdoor furniture or if it’s time for a change you might want to take a look at the various types of outdoor wood furniture that is being sold at Adams All Natural Cedar.

I don’t know about you, but I really like Adirondack chairs and cedar tables. The chairs are comfortable and I like the color of the wood.

If you also like lovely outdoor wood furniture do take a moment and visit Adams All Natural cedar. It seems they carry quite an impressive selection of items. Just looking in the Patio section of the site I see listings for Wicker furniture, barstools, cedar chairs and loungers, potting benches, outdoor storage, gable vents, cedar planters, Garden benches, Garden bridges, Garden trellis accents, Dog and cat houses, Swings and Gliders, Outdoor rockers, outdoor tables, mailboxes, door mats, flower window boxes, log furniture, arbors and pergolas and much more.

If you were to purchase some furnishings from Adams you’d also receive free ground shipping if you live within the U.S. contiguous 48 states. I can imagine that it’s not cheap to ship wooden furniture so it’s nice that they offer free ground shipping to customers.

Visit the site if you are looking for outdoor furniture. I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy the selection.

Living green can save you money

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As a follow up to the post I wrote about whether the Live Earth concert would make a difference in the way people live I thought I’d write about one of the comments on the Go Smell the Flowers site that inspired my post in the first place.

One of the posters seemed to believe that changing over to a green life style would cost a lot of money and might discourage people from making such changes.

Well as someone who has changed her own life style over the years to live in a greener manner I can tell you that a green lifestyle can actually save you money.

Sure the energy efficient light bulbs cost more, but they last four or more times longer than regular light bulbs and barely make a blip on your energy bill so you’ll end up saving money by using them. Plus, if you’re a little bit afraid of heights like I am you won’t have to stand on chairs, step stools or ladders as often to change bulbs.

We compost our food scraps and then use the compost. We also add grass clippings, a small amount of paper product and leaves collected in the autumn to keep our compost going then we use the compost on our garden each spring. The compost is rich in nutrients and acts as a natural fertilizer for our garden.

Growing your own food is cheaper and less fattening than buying processed food or even veggies and fruit that have been transported from the other side of the country. The fruit and veggies that you’ll grow will be full of nutrients and fresher than those you can purchase in a store, plus the act of gardening is good exercise.

If you have a small space you can grow veggies in window box planters – whether they are mounted in a window area or not. If you compost you can use the compost that you’ve made on your own to fertilize your home grown veggies. Once you purchase your initial materials the cost of growing your own food is very low.

Hanging your clothes outside on a line to dry in the sun is cheaper than running the dryer and your clothes smell fresher. Our dryer is very old and uses a lot of energy – we save a ton of money by not using it very often.

Walking, or biking more often is good for you and doesn’t cost you a cent.

Taking public transport is cheaper than paying for gas and insurance for your car and has a lower C02 footprint.

Buying a re-usable bag to bring to the grocery store has an initial cost, but if you shop at a store that charges 5 cents per plastic bag you’ll save money in the long run and keep plastic bags out of landfills.

The law says we must recycle here in Toronto – at least if you are a home owner. The city provides the various recycling containers that we use so it doesn’t cost us any money to perform this task.

If you convert your house to an alternative power source it will be expensive, but in the research I’ve done on this I’ve learned that many homes in my city that have converted actually make surplus energy and the local energy company ends up buying it back from them. So in the long run that saves money or possibly even makes you money.

All of what I’ve mentioned above can save you money and I don’t find them difficult to do at all.

Do you have any more tips or ideas?

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