Dry Idea Advanced Dry Review and Giveaway

I've been using the Dry Idea Advanced Dry 24 HR Antiperspirant & Deoderant Roll-On for about a week now.
I sure have been giving it a good test too!  We've had highs in the 90's mixed with lots of humidity due to rains.
I know that I was doing some heavy sweating having to be out and about in the heat.  

I do have to attest to the 24 hours of odor protection.  Yep, I smelled my underarms several times during those days just to check.  No odor at all!
I also like how the Dry Idea Advanced Dry gives my underarms a powdery soft feel.  It dries very quickly after being applied.  I have tended to stay away from roll-ons because they stay wet.  I'm glad the Dry Idea isn't like that.

Here is some more information:
 The roll-on provides 24 hour protection, uses a fast drying MicroCotton formula, is hypo  allergenic and contains Vitamin E.  The roll-on is available in 3.25 oz size in unscented, powder fresh, or cotton dry.


The clear gel provides 24 hr protection, goes on clear, is extra effective all day and is Hypo-allergenic.  It's available is 3.0 oz size in unscented or powder fresh.


The Invisible solid offers 48 hour odor protection and 24 hour wetness protection with it's clinical level wetness protection and is hypo-allergenic.  It's available in 2.6 oz size in unscented, powder fresh, or Cool Burst with Air Conditioning Effect.




Dry Idea is currently offering a sweepstakes that you won't want to miss entering!   Top prize is $500 and there are also 10-$50 prizes!  Entry is an optional entry for my giveaway.  If you won't be entering the giveaway, please enter HERE!




On to the giveaway---please note that you must live within the Unites States to enter.  Winners will have 48 hours to contact me, or another winner will be chosen.  Good luck and have fun!

Disclosure: Dry Idea provided a free sample of their Advanced Dry Roll-On for this post. My participation is voluntary and my opinions, as always, are my own.


 

Frugal Friday Link Up--4 Uses for Adhesive Bandages

Here we are to Friday again already. It's been the usual busy week for me.
I started this new routine for housecleaning that I found online, but have failed. I've only done 2 days out of 5. My priorities aren't in order as far as what comes first is the basic problem. I'm a lot more concerned with my computer and my crafts over what the house looks like----that is until I take my blinders off and really look around.

I plan on going to yard sales tomorrow. I'm just not really sure if I should. Do I really need to bring more stuff home? Then again, I might find just the storage I am looking for, or craft materials cheap. (sigh) I will have to try to give a yard sale report once we get back home.

I started reading The Tightwad Gazette book. Oh gosh, it's been on my shelf for ages, but with so many books coming in for review I hadn't ever gotten around to reading it. It's 20 years old but still vital information for anyone wanting to live a simple, frugal life.

I also started watching a tv series through Hulu called Simple Living with Amanda Urbanska. Wonderful show! I'm even taking notes to build something on it later.
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This week from the 99 Cent Solutions book I am sharing 4 ways to use adhesive bandages.

1. Test for allergies. You can test that new perfume, lotion, or other product to see if you are allergic to it by applying just a bit inside your wrist or elbow and then covering it with a bandage. Let it sit for 24 hours, remove the bandage and check your skin.

2. Stick it to your skin. Use an adhesive bandage whenever you need to stick something to your skin. For example, you can get rid of a wart by soaking a cotton ball in vinegar and applying it to the wart for 2 hours each day. Tape won't hold that cotton ball in place, but a bandage will.

3. Test your painting power. Before painting a large area, test your walls with an adhesive bandage. Paint a small, clean, inconspicuous spot with the paint you plan to use and let it dry for 2 days. Put a bandage over the area, then strip it off. If the paint comes off then you need to clean the walls more or use a better primer....if not, then get to work!

4. Protect your fingertips. Thimbles save wear and tear of your fingers while sewing, but are too rigid for some sewers to work with. Ditch the thimble and put an adhesive bandage on your fingertip instead. You'll get the protection without the resistance. (I've done this before, but because my fingertips were getting sore. I need to remember to start out with the bandage!)
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I hope to see many of you linking up this week. Hopefully I will get it in gear and start sharing my coupon shopping trips and such again. I will share a few of my grocery buys this past week:

1. The store has a buy 5 items get an additional $5 off your order. Juicy Juice is part of the deal. It's on sale for $2.79, so $1.79 each after the buy 5 deal. I had 2 coupons for $1 off 2 bottles, and if you bought 4 bottles you received a $2.50 catalina coupon to use on your next shopping trip. I needed one more item for the 5 items, so I chose a Beneful meaty meal for .88 after discount.
I spent $6.04 for 4 juices and 1 dog food plus received the $2.50 to use later.

2. I used that $2.50 catalina to get 2 half gallons of milk, which are on sale for $1.25 each half gallon. I paid .20 sales tax is all.

3. Farmland Deli Style hot dogs were on sale for just $1 a package (normally $2.29). I went to farmlandfoods.com and signed up for their email newsletter to receive a printable coupon for .55. I printed 2 from my computer. I then had my husband sign up for the newsletter and we printed 2 more coupons. I bought 4 packages of a good hot dog for just a total of .18 sales tax!

4. Other free foods this week included 6 bags of Pillsbury Bagettes chips that I will soon have a review and giveaway up on my blog----2 bags of Jerky Direct jerky (my autoship is covered by my downline)---and 4 boxes of Dr. Lucy's cookies that I won in a blog giveaway. If I can keep this up, at least we won't go hungry!

Printrunner Business Card Giveaway!

Printrunner has given me the awesome opportunity to host a giveaway for 250 business cards.  One lucky winner will get to design their own business cards.

A little information about Printrunner.com:
PrintRunner.com was established with little more than a small press and a dream. Ten years later our company became one of the foremost quality printers in Southern California. Our commitment to provide the best value and high quality full color printing at affordable price made our company grow.  PrintRunner is a full service high quality printing company located in Chatsworth, California.


Prize details:

Business Card Size and Style Business Cards - 2x3.5 (Standard)

Quantity   250

Colors    4/4 Color Both Sides

Paper    14 pt. UV Coating on Front, 14 pt. UV Coating on both sides,

Proof    NONE

Rounded Corners   NO

*Giveaway is open to US Residents only, ages 18 years old and above.
Please note that winners are only able to win once over a 2 month period.

Printrunner.com offers a lot of different types of printing for your business as well as personal needs.  Shop around today.

You will want to like their page over on facebook.  They offer great articles to help you along with discount codes and offers.  Printrunner facebook fanpage. 

You will also want to follow Printrunner on twitter to find out about giveaways and get more good information that is helpful to your business. 

Enter to win the business cards using the rafflecopter below.

 

Disclosure: Thank you to PrintRunner for providing us this giveaway, I will receive a set of business cards for hosting this.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Squidoo Hopping-Let's Do Themes--This Week is Cartoons

Let's change this up with this weekly hop.  I want to start having a theme each week.  I have made this week's theme cartoons.

****Please note, that if you do write about squidoo in your blog, this is the preferred thing to link up each week.   If you do write about squidoo in your blog and link it up, you are still also free to share 1 or 2 of your lenses in the linky that are related to the theme.****

The cartoon lenses that I have were built in dedication to either my children, or grandchildren, based on their favorites.   I made all of them back in 2008!  I've been doing a lot of updating to them lately, especially attributing, or changing photos.

I wish I had known about copyrights, creative commons, public domain and all that back then.  I still don't know it all!  Today I am sharing 2 that I have fixed up, replaced pictures etc.

WIP Wednesday--Progress Made

Well, I set myself a goal of working on things that were already started, and I did pretty well.

I did finish three of the soap savers I was crocheting, but haven't listed them in etsy yet.  I'm almost done with another one, and  have yarn to crochet 3 more.  Here is one of them in white:

 I got my granny a day 2012 challenge blanket caught up to date.  It's day 172 today.   I'm so itching to just get this done, but just think, the year isn't quite half way over.

 I ran out of pink thread while working on the flowered string quilt, but did make progress.  I have 6 more squares to sew together and cut to size for the final row.  The middles of the last 2 rows are at least pinned and ready to sew.  I won't be out and about to buy more thread until Friday.  I would love to finish this before next Wednesday, but I have loads of things going on starting Saturday, including Bible school all of next week.  If you notice in the picture, I picked up another little cubby storage unit, which is still in the box.   Hubby will put it together for me today and I will work a little more on getting my craft room organized.

 I got all of the squares cut for this quilt for sewing club at church.  Let the fun of piecing it together begin!  As I said though, super super busy week coming up so I just don't know if I will get anything done at all.  In fact, I doubt I do a post next week.

 I worked on completing a hot pad and coaster set that I started, but didn't take a picture.  I can at least get those finished by next week just working on them while I'm also on the computer.
I hope to finish up this toothbrush rug that I started months ago too.  Those are my 2 goals for the next week.

I am linking up with the following blogs:
 

SIS--Shares in Squidoo--Cleaning House

This week my mind has really been on cleaning my house.   I just can't seem to find the motivation needed to get our house back into the clean, organized and de-cluttered state that if should be in.

Strange that I did a search on cleaning house on squidoo and came up with all kinds of matches that had nothing at all to do with house cleaning.  I've realized now that I was searching with Happy Snowman, so no wonder everything was coming up having to do with Christmas.  Still strange to me, but I guess I was on a Happy Snowman post when I started my search.   Starting over from my dashboard I did find results, most of which I had found on my own anyway!

This one was in the updated lenses list today in the squidoo facebook community group:
Tips on Cleaning Your House 

Here's another one that is great:
The Ultimate Clean House Schedule

This is the best one I found--the one that I think will help me the most.  IN fact, I've clicked out to read more about the method.
Cleaning My House the Easy Way

Here is my own lens about a book that has served me well in the past.  Great method, it's just me getting back to it after sitting on my couch for over a month and being away from my box!
Sidetracked Home Executives

Private Selections Make Your Summer Meals

As a bzzagent I've had the opportunity to try some more of the Private Selections foods.  Private Selections is Kroger's exclusive store brand.

I was sent coupons in order to try the Private Selections Angus Ground Beef, Private Selections Ice Cream and a Private Selections 6 inch apple or cherry pie.  I was also sent a bag of the Private Selections chips in Sea Salt and Black Pepper.  The kit I received is pictured here:

Upon arriving at the store I found that our Dillon's store does not carry the Angus Ground Beef.  I chatted with the meat manager at our largest store and he hadn't heard about it.  He assured me that my coupon doesn't expire until August 1st so to keep checking back.  A few weeks later, no such luck, so let's start by talking about the chips.

My husband and daughter are big pepper fans, I'm not.  I tried the Sea Salt and Black Pepper chips though.  They weren't bad.  The pepper did come in after a few bites.  Hubby and daughter liked them, but felt they were too hard and thick.  Four of my grandkids were over and hungry--they finished off the bag of chips, not saying a word about the pepper.

But......the store has the chips on sale 2 bags for $5 and they put out a coupon to buy 1 bag get 1 free.  How could I resist not trying some of the other chips with such a great deal?  Here is what we bought:

 The Tortilla Thins were eaten by my teenage daughter.  I asked her what she thought.  She replied that they were good, but tasted like they were fried in a different oil.  I checked the bag and it says vegetable oil.  She did like them and finished off the bag in 2 days.  She did let the grandkids have a few tastes.  My 4 yr old granddaughter especially liked them.
But.....let's talk about those Sea Salt Rice and Bean Chips.    Wow!  These are outstanding and so delicious!  Thin and crisp with just the right amount of salt.  
Since buying those 2 bags, I went back to the store and bought 2 more bags of the Beans and Rice Chips in other flavors.   I chose Salsa Picante Rice and Bean Chips and Chipotle Cheese Rice and Bean Chips.   Both just as grand as the Sea Salt ones.
I noticed they had quite a variety in the Private Selections chips, even including cinnamon and sugar chips.   I can't wait to try even more of them.

Now let's move on to the pie and ice cream.   I chose to use my coupon to get the half gallon of the Private Selections Ice Cream.  I bought Crushed Vanilla Bean flavor.   I also chose to get the 6 inch Apple in the Private Selection Pie.

Just look at this photo of a little slice of the pie, warmed up, with the melting ice cream on it!

 It was yummy.  The apples tasted great.  I did think the pie crust was a little too thick for my taste.

Do you have a Kroger store in your area?  If so, I encourage you to try the Private Selections brand.  Lots more food is available on top of the items that I have reviewed.

Disclaimer:  I received a Private Selections campaign kit as a bzz agent (http://www.bzzagent.com)  in order to try the products for this review.  I was not compensated in any other way and all opinions of the products are my own.

Sunflowers and Dragonflies Finish

yay me!  a finish for this week too!  I did almost let Friday get past me again.  It's been a rush here, rush there, stand in line at the courthouse forever, kind of day.

Anyway......I have made a wall hanging and plastic bag holder for my kitchen.  I bought the materials on an awesome Saturday Sampler deal at the quilt shop.  For attending the sampler, our deal of the day was to buy 1 yard of the spring clearance fabric and get the 2nd yard free!  It was just $6.80 for one yard each of the sunflowers and the dragonflies.   I've made these items and have plenty of fabric left that I will be making some more of the plastic bag holders to put up for sale in my etsy shop.

I used the pattern from the Emerald Aisle table runner, using just one square, and modifying it a bit for the wall hanging.  This is the front.   I even tried my hand at drawing a dragonfly to stitch in the middle.  I'm glad you can at least sort of see it in the photo.   This was my first time to draw the picture on paper and then stitch over the paper onto the fabric.  What fun!

This is the back of the wall hanging.  I made it this way so that I can turn it around on occasion to change things up.  I actually think that I may like the back better.

And, here is the matching plastic bag holder:

With any luck, I may just be able to finish that string type quilt that I've been working on forever, by next Friday.  Heading in soon to do just a bit of work on it for today.

Frugal Friday Link Up--Even More Uses for Vinegar

Happy Friday!
I have spent this week working on getting myself back into some routines, using my index card system from the Sidetracked Home Executives book.   I love the system but when my computer chair was hurting my back, I moved away from my desk and sat on the couch----away from my box of cards.
Once I got a different chair I didn't get back to using the cards.  There are lots of systems out there on staying organized, this is just one that happens to work for me.   I've been feeling a lot better about things this week, and getting more done.

I'm also still keeping up with my coupons like I should too.  I've already saved over $20 more this month than I did last month and the month is only half over.

This week I am sharing the last of the uses for vinegar from the  99-Cent Solutions: Easy Ways to Save Thousands of Dollars
book.

1. Stop excessive barking. Fill a spray bottle with water and add a few tablespoons of white vinegar. If your dog is known for a lot of barking while out on a walk, just spray a mist in front of him when he starts. He will soon get the idea, but be careful not to spray it in his eyes.

2. Eradicate a carsick odor. Yuck! You know that smell after someone has gotten sick in your car. Erase the smell overnight by placing an uncovered bowl of half-full undiluted white vinegar on the floor of the car. This will also work for other odors as well.

3. Mark your car gleam. Skip the wax and use vinegar instead. A teaspoon of undiluted white vinegar in the bucket of soapy wash water will help remove road grit and tar from the paint. Add another teaspoon of vinegar to the bucket of rinse water. For an added touch, wipe down the windows with vinegar to repel rain and frost.

4. Treat a cold sore. When you feel that cold sore coming on, get out the apple cider vinegar. Douse a cotton ball and dab your lip three times a day. If you already have the cold sore, do the same. The pain and swelling will subside and the vinegar speeds the healing.

5. Use as an aftershave. If you've got sensitive skin, commercial aftershaves with their strong scents can result in itching and irritation. Splash on a handful of white vinegar instead for a bracing tonic with no redness. (There's a Father's Day gift idea for you--LOL)

6. Save a paintbrush. If you forgot to wash out the paintbrush, it's not lost. You may be able to revive it by soaking it overnight in undiluted white vinegar. Bend it as it starts to soften to let the vinegar work in. When it's soft again, wash with hot soapy water.

7. Keep plaster pliable. Plaster dries quickly. Buy yourself some time by adding in a few tablespoons of white vinegar as you mix the plaster. It will dry more slowly.

8. Protect plants from mildew. A quart of water and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar sprayed directly on the leaves--preferably in the early morning or evening---will stop those powdery mildew or rust spots on your garden plants.

Shut Up!

I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing Shut up by Anne Tibbets.

Shut Up is a young adult fiction, but based on a real life situation.  Families that are torn apart by each other.


Here is an excerpt from pages 30 and 31:


"Do you even get that because you can't watch TV, that none of us can watch now?  Don't you get it?"  I was screaming.
    What the hell was the matter with me?  I was the one who wasn't sinking.  I was the one in control.  And now, I'd lost it over the TV?
I couldn't stop myself.
    "I'm sorry!" Mary pleaded.  "Let go!"
    "Not everything is about you, Mary!"  My grasp remained tight.
    "Paul!  Let Go!"  Mary's face was turning purple.
The words came out before I could stop them.  "You're so stupid!  If you'd just shut up....!"


I have a full review written on squidoo along with an author interview.  I do hope you will check it out:

Shut Up by Anne Tibbets

 

 


I am linking up with: