Nicole

Welcome to this week’s Happiness is Homemade Linky Party 210!

Welcome to another week of Happiness is Homemade Link Party! Happy International Women’s Week! We’re so glad you’re here!

Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods and this week’s party will focus on all things wreaths! Because I don’t know about you, but one of the things I look forward to the most each Spring is tidying up my front porch and adorning from home’s front with a new, warm-weather wreath!

So be sure to check out this week’s DIY wreath selections to get your creative thoughts flowing and constructions hands ready for all your upcoming seasonal projects ahead!

On with this week’s features!

This week’s first feature is this adorable Boxwood Easter Wreath from the Michele of the Scrap Shoppe Blog. Perfect for Easter and could easily be made with Easter accessories and decor pieces you have lying around your home!

My second feature is this post on 9 Sensational, Affordable Spring Wreaths your sure to love from Cynthia from Home Beautifully!

Cynthia also featured this great DIY Wreath with Coffee Filters that you’ve got to check out this season as well! She includes an instructional video too! Something that would have been oh-so-handy when I made these wreaths for my ETSY shop many years ago!

Last but not least, I loved this Fairy Garden on Your Door Wreath by Angie of The Country Chic Cottage. The perfect wreath for all those made in the 80’s babies, like myself, who grew up watching David the Gnome on tv!

Angie also shared this awesome Easter Bunny from Bandannas. An easy-to-make, awesomely affordable baby shower or Easter brunch gift idea for this season!I hope you enjoy this week’s features! Now to meet your HIH hosts!

Meet your hosts:

Follow our Pinterest board to see all of the features are pinned on the Happiness is Homemade Board!

Now, let’s get started now with this week’s party. While you are here, we’d love it if you would visit the blogs of our lovely co-hosts!

Love My Messy Messy Mess

Sweet Pea Lifestyle

That Recipe

The Lady Prefers 2 Save

The Painted Hinge

Upstate Ramblings

Party Rules:

The rules? They are really simple! Make sure you visit a few other blogs and make some new friends along the way. Feel free to link up your favorite recipes, crafts or your latest DIY project. We want you to share it all! As always, please make sure to follow your hosts and co-hosts! Link up your posts, make some friends, and earn the chance to be featured at Happiness Is Homemade Link Party! We will feature the favorite posts each week!

Disclaimer: Adding your link to this link party gives permission to all 12 Hosts, along with any co-hosts, guest hosts, and participants of Happiness Is Homemade, to share your posts and pictures via social media and as features, roundups, etc. with an explicit link back to your original source. Therefore, linking up you agree to allow us to use your images on each of our blogs in features relating to Happiness is Homemade Link Party.

An InLinkz Link-up

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5 Ways To Make The Most Of Your Gardening Budget

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When you’re following a frugal lifestyle, it’s highly likely that you put together a budget that covers most of the things that you need for your household. As part of that, or as its own separate budget, you may also cover off gardening.

When you love to be out in your garden, it’s important to you that it can look its best at all times. For that to happen, you often have to spend. But gardening on a budget is much easier than you think.

You don’t have to allocate tons of funds to your upkeep or the pieces that you bring into the garden. Instead, you can look to maximize the budget you do have so that you can get the most out of it. Let’s take a look at five ways that you can do exactly that.

1. Find The Best Retailers

As you start to shop for bits and pieces that you want to bring into your garden or the items you need to be able to do your gardening, it’s important that you shop around. It may be convenient to head to the nursery down the street or shop at a major retailer, but you may be spending more this way.

Instead, you’re able to shop around and do your research on the best retailers that sell whatever it is you need, from soil to garden shears, you will be able to make sure that your budget stretches further.

2. Wait For The Sales

At the same time, you should also bide your time when it comes to making bigger purchases. When you want to invest in new pieces of garden furniture or outside living equipment like a grill, you know that you’ll be spending quite a bit in one go. But you can still make the most of your budget here by buying at the right time.

Throughout the year, companies will have sales on their stock. By waiting to buy your new pieces in the sale, you could save up to 50 or 75 percent.

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3. Buy In Bulk

Buying a new plant here and there could be one way to blow your budget. Sometimes, you think it’s best to spend in small doses so that you’re not really making much of a dent in your budget. However, this could mean that you’re not actually maximizing your budget at all.

Take a look at plant companies that give you a discount when you buy a set amount. Then, you’ll be getting everything you need and getting it at a better price, just for buying in bulk.

4. Hire Experts

If you love to spend time out in your garden, but you aren’t having much luck with certain areas, like topiary shaping or lawn care, then bringing in a company to help will be a smart move. Experts that offer comprehensive lawn care or skilled landscapers that can maintain your topiary for you are always worth the investment.

They will get it right and you know that you’re not causing yourself more work or money by doing it wrong.

5. Reuse What You Can

Finally, you’re going to want to make sure that you cut back on the areas of your gardening budget that you can cover off yourself, to make more available for the bigger purchases we’ve talked over. By making your own compost or planting seeds that you already have, you’ll be making sure you get the most out of your gardening budget.

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Easy Ways To Complete Your Bucket List On A Budget

Creating a bucket list is easy, but affording it? Not so much! Your bucket list is usually a list of places you want to visit or things that you want to achieve before you, well, kick the bucket.

Bucket lists aren’t something that should be concerned about your financial situation, especially when not every bucket list item is a grand plan to travel the world. You don’t have to be wealthy to be able to pull off the things that you want to do before you die.

A bucket list is all about adventures and possibilities and is a dream list rather than something you should absolutely do while you’re still kicking. You can create a bucket list on a budget, and we’ve put together some of the best budget ideas out there. We’ve thrown in a couple, though, that do have that little extra expense; life is for a living, after all.

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Learn To Play Music

For most people, the mastery of a musical instrument is a high achievement and one to be very smug about. Whether your favorite instrument is a piano, violin or even a guitar, the chance to learn how to play an instrument doesn’t have to be kept to childhood.

At any age, you can buy an instrument and get learning how to play. Shop in the thrift stores for a preloved guitar or hit Craigslist or even eBay. Then check out some free music lessons online, or simply use videos on YouTube to follow along and learn to play yourself.

Visit Somewhere You’ve Always Wanted To Go

Travelling doesn’t have to be expensive, but there are two ways that you could go about this one. You could choose to take an indulgent weekend in wine country with a loved one, spending time in the tasting room and getting to know new flavors. If your budget deems that to be too expensive, you could use websites like this one to couch surf your way around the world.

This website connects travelers to people in the community that are willing to host visitors from different countries. The adventures that you have with your friends or family or partner are out there for you, you just have to be a little creative with how you travel and give up a few small comforts.

Master Chess

It doesn’t cost much at all for this one, but it’s a goal in life for many to master the game of chess. The skill that chess takes is often mistaken for a little bit of geekiness, but chess is a game of kings! Get someone to learn with you – this is one of those bucket list items that takes two to complete.

The one thing that you should understand is that learning how to play chess strategically is a huge achievement. This is because you’ve learned something starts to finish and have added new skills of thinking and reasoning to your belt!

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Complete Your Book Bucket List

A library is a place to be on a bucket list containing titles of books that you’ve been longing to read. These can range from original Shakespeare plays to the works of chick-lit wonders like these. Your book list is going to transport your mind to a whole other world; more than one if you like!

Heading to the library can mean that this particular bucket list item is totally free for you. Reading a few of the classics can change your thinking and expand your mind. Plus, what is more, relaxing than sinking into a comfy chair with a great book?

Go Get Educated

Did you know that college isn’t just for high school grads? If you put off going to college as a teenager, there is nothing to stop you from going now. There are tons of free college courses that you can start online.

You may not get that coveted diploma, but you will be full of brand-new knowledge that could take you further than anything ever has before. It will take you to new places and could change your career for you. It could even prompt you to save the cash to go back and get that diploma yourself.

Fit In A Foreign Language

As with chess, learning a language is a skill. It takes time to completely master a new language and be able to speak it with clarity and fluency in the same way that you do English or your mother tongue. You can check out this link for free language classes, or you could go the whole hog with a Rosetta Stone set.

There’s nothing to stop you from traveling in the place that holds the language that you want to learn, either, and the best place to learn a new language is where you want to speak it! There is so much material online to be able to cobble together enough information to teach yourself a language if you can’t get to an official class. Bucket list item checked and your wallet happy!

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Do Your Dream Job

Even if it’s just for a day, pick a job you’ve always wanted to do and go and get it – for fun. Have you always wanted to dish out movie theatre snacks? How about learning the ins and outs of behind the counter at Chick-Fil-A?

Either way, choose the job you’ve always wanted to do and go and tell them about your dream to do the job for a day. Keep searching for all the places until you find one that says yes to your dream. Offer your services as a volunteer if you need to – it’s an item to tick off.

Most of these items are totally free. Your dreams can be big and they can be bold but they don’t have to be expensive and crippling on your finances. Bucket lists are there to be a guide, a dream list that you chase. Chase away and grab what you can; we’re not around forever!

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5 Instances Where It’s Always Okay To Splash The Cash

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When you tend to live life on the frugal side, you often program yourself to spend less and save more. In fact, you would have probably worked really hard to get yourself into the rhythm of doing this, that you’re not so great at breaking it.

More often than not, this is a great thing. Because if you’ve had issues with managing money in the past, you don’t even want to fall off the wagon. However, when you stick to a really strict frugal mindset, you can often be afraid of spending. And sometimes, that’s just as unhealthy – particularly if it’s hurting you or holding you back.

So let’s take a look at some of the instances and occasions when it’s definitely okay to spend freely and guiltlessly! Because you have to be able to live a little in life too!

1. To Treat Yourself

First of all, it’s always okay to treat yourself when you truly deserve it. We’re not talking about treating yourself on a Monday afternoon just because you can – but for special occasions. Treating yourself is a great way to make sure that you’re spending wisely, but still able to keep your sanity when you’re on a strict budget.

Maybe you’ve just got a promotion or you have an anniversary coming up? Then definitely go ahead and go for a nice dinner and treat yourself to an outfit to wear to it – you’ve earned it.

2. When It Saves You Time

Next, you’ve got the occasions when spending a little more freely saves you a lot of time. When you’ve got a super hectic lifestyle and it often means that you suffer from stress trying to keep it going, give yourself a break.

When you find companies that can do your laundry for you or offer comprehensive lawn care, it sometimes makes sense to pay someone to do it for you. Because you’ll save time, your sanity, and be able to lead much more of a balanced lifestyle too.

3. When You’re Saving More In The Long Term

Another really important to thing to remember is that you can often spend more now to save money in the long-term. While you will be spending a lot in one go, you’re actually still being frugal, so let yourself spend if you’re doing it for cost-effective reasons.

4. To Improve Your Quality Of Life

When it comes to your life, you always want to make sure that you’re living as healthily and happily as possible. If you’re miserable, then you’re going to want to think about changing your spending system if your situation allows you to do so. Anything that allows you to improve your quality of life is always worth it, remember that.

5. When You’ve Reached A Goal

And last but not least, never feel guilty about splashing the cash when you’ve actually saved it up for a particular thing. Setting yourself savings goals is great, and when you’ve reached your amount to buy a house, go on vacation, or whatever it may be, then go ahead and spend without feeling remorse – because you’ve reached your goal!

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5 Creative Things Bloggers Do Daily

Please note: This post has been Diamond Bloggers. All opinions expressed are mine. Thank you.

There are so many everyday tasks that bloggers perform daily. Some mundane such as checking our SEOs or altering tags and categories. Others are more interesting like the creative endeavors that make blogging fun and exciting. The tasks that help to make the everyday humdrum of working from home more enjoyable. So if you’ve been in a blogging rut remember the following 5 creative endeavors that help make blogging fun:

Advertising

For anyone who has made that transition to blogging knows that bloggers are nothing if not writers and art directors of their own personal public relations firm. To our credit, blogging has helped me to understand just how important crowdsourcing advice and tips can be when it comes to promoting and sharing my work with others.

Setting Objectives

Bloggers have the awesome opportunity each day to set creative objectives that help improve their work moving forward. Each day your blog allows you to transmit helpful material understandable way to your audience by way of infographics, informative links, or convincing points of reference.

Approachability

Blogging allows me the ability to be able to reach out to my audience in new ways each day. My platforms allow me to have a digital platform to express my feelings and commentary to others in a manner that is both approachable and accessible to others. Something especially important to me as an introvert extraordinaire.

Temperature Taking

Each time a blogger ends a post or newsletter they are able to gauge the temperature of their reader’s opinions and positions. You are given the opportunity to engage your readers by asking them how your piece resonated with them, how you can tailor future pieces.

Cultural Engagement

Bloggers have a constant opportunity to create a culture of honest engagement. Allowing anyone at any level to speak their mind, throw in an idea, or express their opinion about your work in small, feasible ways. Blogging allows you to be able to ascertain who your readers are, populate your media kit for potential clients, and create new seasonal campaigns. Work that helps you be a more creative writer, creator, and more interview post sources moving forward.

Friends, those are the 5 ways that blogging helps you be a more creative director. Now I want to ask, how does blogging help you be a more creative person at home? I’d love to hear about it below!

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Welcome to this week’s Happiness is Homeade Linky Party 209!

Welcome to another week of Happiness is Homemade Link Party! Happy International Women’s Week! We’re so glad you’re here! Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods and this week’s party will focus on all things natural, frugal cleaning. Including fun DIY’s, a free cleaning guide, and more!

Be sure to check out this week’s greener living selections to get your creative thoughts flowing and constructions hands ready for all your upcoming seasonal projects ahead!

On with this week’s features!

This week I loved this Budget-Friendly, simple-to-make, Budget-Friendly Homemade Laundry Detergent from Busy Being Jennifer. Perfect for laundering quilts, blankets, sheets, throws, and duvets when changing out bedding this Spring!

I’m also loving this DIY Foaming Hand Soap from A Fireman’s Wife. Perfect for Spring Allergy season and Spring gardening and decor project cleanup!

If you need tips for Spring cleaning this season, be sure to check out this Free House Cleaning Tips Spring Cleaning Ebook from Nepa Mom!

If your a natural frugalista like myself then you’ve got to check out this handy post from FiveSpot Green Living on 15 Uses Around The House for Peppermint Essential Oil. A must-have essential oil for all your warm-weather cleaning ahead!

Meet your hosts:

Follow our Pinterest board!

All of the features are pinned on the Happiness is Homemade Board!

Now, let’s get started now with this week’s party. While you are here, we’d love it if you would visit the blogs of our lovely co-hosts!

Love My Messy Messy Mess

Sweet Pea Lifestyle

That Recipe

The Lady Prefers 2 Save

The Painted Hinge

Upstate Ramblings

FOLLOW OUR PINTEREST BOARD! ALL OF THE FEATURES ARE PINNED ON THE HAPPINESS IS HOMEMADE BOARD!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Mobile Games Which Will Take Over Your Evenings

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Our mobile phones are attached to us for most of the day, and they are like tiny computers which we can use to do pretty much anything we want. One of the things phones are great for these days is parting games, and there are tonnes of amazing choices on the App Store for us to choose from.

If you are looking for some new games to get addicted to in the evenings and when you are stuck on the bus, then look no further because we’ve got some gems for you.

The Sims

The Sims has always been a game which people love to play because it is so simple and it can be really fun to make people go about their daily business and build houses for them. Sims have tried to come up with a few mobile games before but they have never quite captured the style of the original game… until now.

The Sims for mobile is the closest we have ever got to the full game in the palm of our hands. You can build your sim and change their image, make a career for yourself and even form relationships with others.

Final Fantasy 15

Final Fantasy is the perfect combination of action and fantasy which will keep you on the edge of your seat every evening as you play this game. There have been many final fantasy installments, but the attack on the new empire with Final Fantasy 15 is definitely one of the best out there for mobile.

Have fun building your kingdom and defending it against those who try to attack you, while never having to leave the couch.

Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go has been the most successful mobile game in history, and in its year and a half of being life, it has over 70 million downloads. If you haven’t played the game before, the whole idea is to go out into the real world and catch Pokemon.

There are currently 3 generations available to catch plus legendaries which you can battle for on gyms. It is a way to encourage people to get up and moving and is really the perfect game to play as the weather starts to get warmer!

South Park: Phone Destroyer

South Park is well known for its dirty humor and rude quotes, but they have recently added a new game to their saga called Phone Destroyer. If you love South Park then this game will very quickly become one of your favorites to play in the evenings as you watch the TV. It is a card based game which of course has a few twists along the way and can become very addictive very quickly.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp

Nintendo’s Animal Crossing was one of the most successful games the developers released back in the early 2000’s. Everyone had their own animal crossing town with unique characters and spent their days catching bugs, fishing, and paying off their mortgages (yep, that was a thing).

This game was an incredibly popular one because it focused on living a simple, rural life while collecting items and building your dream house. Since the game had been released, fans have been begging for a mumble version and it is finally here.

The main difference here is that you are given a campsite rather than a house. The game allows you to make friends from all over the world and brings back those good memories of the game we all used to love.

Super Mario Run

Mario is one of the most recognizable characters in gaming shorty, even if you have never actually played the games yourself.

For mobile, there has now come a classic Mario story which allows you to relive the full game in its glory on a tiny screen. It is an expensive mobile game, but if you really want to play the game then it is worth the investment. The game manages to keep its retro feel even with having touchscreen controls, and it has every element of the classic games for you to enjoy once more.

Plague Inc.

Plague Inc is a unique game which will appeal to the slightly more strategic and a sick of you out there… the whole aim of the game is to create your own diseases which are capable of killing every person on the planet. Once you have crafted your disease you must pick a starting location to set the disease upon the world.

You need to think about populations and travel, as well as other things which could affect how quickly the disease will spread. It can be a frustrating but also incredibly satisfying game to play if you do manage to kill everyone.

Trials Frontier

If you want a game which brings physics to your mingle device, then this is the perfect one for you. The idea of the game is to create the perfect racer and make sure you can beat the tracks. It is a difficult racing game which requires you to bring some brilliant elements to your vehicle in order to succeed.

Ballz

This game is literally the most simple premise of any game you will ever play, but that is what makes is too incredibly addictive to play. You have a ball at the bottom of your screen which you have to fire up to hit numbered cubes.

Each time the ball hits a number the number will drop until it hits 0 and disappears. All you have to do is prevent the boxes from reaching the bottom of the screen. As you progress you will collect more balls and the game becomes incredibly frustrating and addictive all at the same time.

Happy Racing

If you loved happy wheels, then this online multiplayer racing game is the perfect game for you to play. Happy Racing features lots of different characters and allows you to race through crazy tracks and basically try not to die. It’s simple, addictive and hilarious to play with friends.

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