Ask Anna

Black Friday Shopping Tips

Do you love a good bargain? I know I do. I’m going to share my top 5 Black Friday shopping tips to take Black Friday (or Cyber Monday!) by storm. 1. Decide which stores you MUST go to. We can’t be everywhere at once (although if you figure it out, please do share with the rest of us). The first thing to do is narrow down the list to which stores you want to hit up. 2. Figure out when each store is open. The most confusing part to Black Friday shopping, in my opinion, is that all the stores are… Read More

20 Beautiful Christmas Mantels

This year is going to be our first real Christmas in our house. Last year we were here for Christmas but our house was under construction and our decorations were mixed in with a big mess of tools, wood flooring scraps and more. Since we knocked out the wall between our living room and kitchen, we don’t have a fireplace in the living room anymore, but luckily we still have one in the master bedroom! This year I’m planning on putting a Christmas tree in there because you have to hang your stockings on the mantle, and you have to… Read More

24 Easy Elf on the Shelf Ideas

Our Elf on the Shelf isn’t mischievious, she just wants to have fun. Here are 24 easy Elf on the Shelf ideas that your kids will love! UPDATE: After the 1st year of having our elf she became a kindness elf. To see my post with ideas for 24 days of kind acts, click HERE. I have resisted the Elf on the Shelf trend as long as possible but last week my mom took Malea to the bookstore, where she noticed them and, like every kid, just “had to have one”. Personally I think the idea of an elf watching… Read More

4 Keurig Machine Hacks – Protect Your Investment

Hi it’s Leah again from Simple.Home.Blessings. I think I have shared this here before: I LOVE coffee! It is a must have for me each morning. And I enjoy making it at home for convenience and price. We have had a traditional coffee maker for our entire marriage, but recently we took the plunge and decided to purchase a Keurig machine. The decision took us a LONG time to make and to be honest, I was still hesitant to purchase it. Sadly, when we got it home, we had some problems with it. This made me pretty sad that I… Read More

DIY Rustic Christmas Tree Tealight Holder

Thank you HomeRight for sponsoring this DIY tutorial and giveaway. Have you ever used a heat gun? I never had but when I got one from HomeRight I was really intrigued by it. I started thinking about different projects I could use it for but I also wanted to do something super cool with it, something I hadn’t seen before, which is when I noticed a scrap piece of 2×4 in my garage, and knew exactly what I wanted to do! This time of year I love lighting candles, and with Christmas right around the corner, I thought it would… Read More

Tips for Organizing Holiday Meal Ingredients

Hi, Susan here from Organized 31. Can you believe that Thanksgiving is almost here?! I’m not sure where the time has gone, but I do know that it’s time to get organized for the holidays. Today I’m sharing one of my favorite tips for organizing holiday meal ingredients. I took a quick trip to my favorite warehouse store to grab a cardboard box tray. I like to use the boxes from the warehouse store because they’re sturdy. I found this vinyl fabric in the clearance bin at my local craft store, but you could use regular fabric, wrapping paper or shelf paper. I used… Read More

How to Keep Soft Blankets, and other Fuzzy things, Soft

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a long time but it’s such a random topic that I wasn’t sure if I should. But I finally decided that because I like to keep my clothes, blankets, socks, etc. soft, that I’m sure there are others out there that might want to know how to keep their things soft too. For years I hated when I’d buy a super soft pair of socks and then a few months later they wouldn’t be soft and cozy anymore. I mean the reason you buy them in the first place is because they… Read More

Not your Momma’s Bleach

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Clorox. All opinions are 100% mine. Let me be honest, I like to use bleach. (Gasp!) I know a lot of people are against using bleach, for lots of reasons, but I’m a little old fashioned and I like to use it for certain things, especially for my white laundry. There was a time when I didn’t used to bleach my whites but that was before I met my college roommate, Sally. I remember having a debate one day with her about our white clothes and I said to… Read More