My son knows that Easter is coming and that we will be traveling to MomMom and PopPop’s house this year. He is so excited and keeps asking, every single day, “how many days until Easter?”

I got tired of saying, “it’s a lot of days.” Or, “it’s a long time away.” At Christmas, we use an advent calendar and that really helped him understand how long away it was. We try so hard to get our kids excited, but if you tell them about special days too soon, it’s something you might regret.

A couple of nights ago we created a paper chain to use as an advent calendar of sorts. Each paper link on the chain represents one day. Each morning my son can rip a chain off the link. As the link gets smaller, he’ll know that Easter is getting closer. I think he was surprised how many links we needed — 32 days is a lot of links. Since we made the chain, he hasn’t once asked how many days until Easter? Mission accomplished.

How to make a paper chain:

• Cut paper into about 1 inch wide strips. No ruler needed. We used a paper cutter and just eye-balled the measurement. I even used scrap paper. It would certainly look more festive with construction paper or scrap booking paper, but I used what we had available.
• Form a circle with paper strip and glue or staple ends together. We opted for the stapler because my son loves using it and we didn’t have to wait for the glue to dry.
• Intersect second strip into first circle. Staple/glue second strip together to form circle.
• Intersect third strip into second circle. Staple/glue third strip together to form circle.
• Continue intersecting, stapling until chain is complete.

I added numbers to each circle so that I would know how many days are left without having to count the chain the next time I get asked the how many days question.

Just so you know … there are 30 days until Easter.

I received an advanced copy of the new book from “The Coupon Mom” back in December. It’s taken me this long to digest the book and write this post because there is so much great information in it. I was excited when I had the opportunity to read the book because I’ve seen Stephanie Nelson on television and she makes it look easy.

In her new book, “The Coupon Mom’s Guide To Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half,” Nelson shares her secrets on getting the most for your dollar. She starts by talking about what type of shopper you are: busy, rookie or varsity and has advice throughout the book based on each shopping type.

What I like about the book is that Nelson is not only a mother and savvy shopper, but she’s well spoken and clearly uses her business background to help shoppers learn techniques that can help save their families a lot of money. Here’s some of what I’m taking away from the book:

• Even though I’m a busy working mother, I can save money with coupons. Nelson’s personal strategy is not to spend hours every week cutting coupons; instead, she saves the circulars each week and puts a date on the front. No clipping coupons yet. When she’s ready to shop, she consults her Web site’s Grocery Deals database to find the best deals for the week. The database will tell her which circular to find the coupons and then she simply clips the coupons she’s using for that shopping trip.
• Knowledge is power, or in Nelson’s case, store and pricing knowledge is money. She says to learn what is on sale, when at your local grocery and drug stores (as well as other stores) so that you know when to buy what. An example she gives is that her local grocery store puts chicken on sale once a month. She knows when this happens and buys four weeks worth of chicken when it’s on sale.
• Combine store coupons with manufacturer coupons to receive maximum benefits. Before reading this book I didn’t even realize there was a difference between a manufacturer coupon and store coupon, let alone that you can use them both on an item and save big! I think this is the secret to how Nelson can go into a store and get $100 worth of groceries for pennies (see video below).
• Sign up for and use couponmom.com. Nelson’s Web site is a goldmine. This is where the time saving techniques really come into play. Every week her site is updated with local discounts. The magic is that you can find discounts in  your local area simply by clicking a few pages of her site and you be rewarded with a grid that tells you what items are on sale, which coupons to use, where to find the coupons and it will show you a final price you’ll pay for that item. It also shows you when you can get things for free using sales and coupons. You don’t have to do the legwork, just use the database to find the deals.

The book also has chapters on wholesale clubs, the breakout of drugstores and their rewards programs, how to use couponmom.com and chapters about how to save buying meat, vegetables, dairy and sweets. She even throws in some recipes that she uses with her family. This book is like an encyclopedia for saving money. Well worth the read because even if you implement only one of her strategies, you’ll surely save money.

If you don’t believe it or haven’t seen Nelson in action, watch this short clip where she gets $100 worth of groceries for 25 cents!

Photo credit: Stephanie Nelson

Related:

• CouponMom.com
• Stephanie Nelson’s Coupon Mom show airs on You Tube every Thursday. “In her new series, Nelson teaches real families how to save BIG by sharing her infamous tips and tricks on how to get the biggest bang for your buck without sacrificing quality.”
• “The Coupon Mom’s Guide To Cutting Your Grocery Bills In Half” Amazon link and reviews
• Time.com’s Q&A with Stephanie Nelson, “Coupon Mom: How To Cut Grocery Bills In Half“

When I was pregnant with my son I decided not to do a baby blue nursery. I’m just not a fan of the traditional baby colors for either sex. We opted for a soothing pale green and complimented it with an animal crib bedding set.

Our dear friend Kevin came over to help my husband paint the vertical stripes on the wall — alternating shades of green in a 5 inch and 8 inch pattern around the room. They even painted the ceiling the palest of the green palette. Kevin died just over a year ago and I can’t look at this room without thinking about him. Several months ago we began planning the birth of a baby girl and had to start thinking about the nursery and how to decorate it. Painting over it was not an option.

Three years later, I still love the room. We decided to keep the green for a girl. I chose crib bedding that continued the same shade of green and complimented it with a wonderful deep magenta and soothing ivory shades: flowers and butterflies complete the picture.

Here’s what we did:

BEFORE (above)

On the left is the tie back I made for my son’s room. I kept the curtains and made a new tie back with a butterfly on it (right) for my daughter’s room.

I simply swapped out bedding for something more feminine, keeping in mind the green color in which it needed to coordinate.

I purchased huge butterflies and used a staple gun to attach them to the walls instead of hanging them from the ceiling. I love the affect they have and how they bring more color on the walls.

All in all, I am really pleased with the transformation of the room. I even think that if I hadn’t had the walls already painted, I would want to do the room just like this anyway.

Wish I would have known about this trick when I was potty training my son. While watching an episode of “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ where they took the kids on a trip to a theme park, Kate Gosselin explains how the girls were afraid to use the potty because it had the automatic flusher. My son used to freak out with these things too. The first time one flushed on its own he cried for what seemed like hours. Just couldn’t comprehend 1.) how it did that on its own and 2.) why I didn’t let him flush it.

Kate explained that she now puts a piece of toilet paper over the sensor so that it won’t go off until the kids are doing using the toilet.

Genious.

I decided to create a photo frame to wrap around a photo of my new baby and send to our family for St. Patrick’s Day. It’s going to be her first “holiday” so I just thought it would be a creative way to send an updated photo. Since I went ahead and did all the work in PhotoShop I decided to offer it here as a download for anyone who wants to use it. I put together a quick how-to.

Enjoy!

How to:

1. Open stpattywrap.psd in Photoshop.
2. Click (highlight) on the “Insert your photo here” layer.
3. In a new window, Open your photo.
4. Size your photo to 375 x 500 (width x height). (Go to the Image menu, choose Image size, type in your dimensions and click OK.)
5. Drag your photo to the open stpattywrap.psd file. Since the Insert your photo here layer is highlighted it should show up behind the green border.
6. Save the file as a JPG. (File Menu, Save as.)

DOWNLOAD THE FILE NOW.

Now you can post it on your blog or sent to your family and friends via email. Leave a comment below if you enjoy this and I’ll try to make more for other holidays.
Enjoy!

Baby photo courtesy stock.xchng.