Introducing Twined - something exciting and new

Twined is a brand new site with a fantastic concept. The idea is that Tastemakers- people you trust, write reviews of their favorite products explaining why they recommend them- and you can show your interest if you like or want the product, then Twined uses that interest to get the very best price possible for a group buy.

The reviews are well laid out, easy to read and include images taken by the Tastemakers of the product being used or the final result. These aren't slick, glossy images from PR departments trying to sell you something, they are real people who use the products.

Buy with peace of mind.

The Tastemakers can choose what products they review, they get to recommend their favorite things, Offered the opportunity, I wrote about the Ball® FreshTECH Automatic Jam & Jelly Maker (love it and use it all year round) and Aerogarden 6.

The products cover a wide range of things like crafting supplies, toys, home appliances, and beauty items.

Twined has great FAQs and videos to explain the whole process.

Go, sign up, browse the reviews.
You can check out my profile page  and follow my reviews.

Like Twined on Facebook
Like Don't Eat the Paste on Facebook (if you haven't already)


I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Green Giant's Giant Surprise Talent (sponsored)

Surprise talents, my family has a lot of them. My husband impresses me constantly with them. He can seem so serious that it would take most people completely surprise to find out that he can juggle and was a yoyo champion when he was young.

My dad seems anything but silly, but used to wake me up with the most annoying song ever that he made up.
"Wake up wake up you sleepyhead, get up, get up, get out of bed, wipe your eye out with a sock!"

Green Giant has a giant surprise talent too. The name that makes you think of frozen and canned vegetables also makes chips!! Crunchy, yummy chips with veggies in them and a lot of whole grain and fiber goodness. I got to try the Green Giant™ Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips and the Green Giant™ Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips – Sea Salt Flavor.

My husband and I, and our two children are all left-handed, but the graphics that I post on this site are all drawn with my right hand. So that's my surprise talent! The rest of my family has one that I can't do. They can all raise just one eyebrow. I've spent hours making funny faces at myself in the mirror trying to do it, and just can't do it all. But for them, it's easy, and for my daughter, it's two different looks depending on which brow she raises.

This looks doubtful doesn't it? She's not doubtful about the chips, it's just her raising that brow on demand.

Green Giant™ Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips – Sea Salt Flavor are so delicious. Crisp, delicious and lower fat than regular potato chips (40% less fat!). I love these so much and think they would be just amazing on a Southern style macaroni and cheese. If they last until dinner time. They are so good. 14 grams of whole grains per serving.

The other brow, her serious and making a point brow. 

 Green Giant™ Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips have all natural flavors, and the flavor is cheesy. Not the super, salty actually kind of gross cheesy flavor of a lot of corn chips, but a really wonderful cheddar taste that gets a bit of a salsa kick from the peppers and other vegetables in the chip. My husband said "These are pretty doggone tasty!" (yes, he said doggone, yes, I was absolutely charmed by it.) 17 grams of whole grains per serving.

Want to see lots of great surprise talents collected by Green Giant and learn more about these great new chips? Check out Green Giant's YouTube page and see the surprise talents they found. You can also like Green Giant on Facebook and upload a video of your own surprise talent!

Thank you to The Green Giant™ for being a sponsor. Show the Giant your surprise talent at www.facebook.com/greengiant

How to make super easy guest soaps

Guest soaps are expensive, and regular bars of soap aren't very pretty. Here's a really easy way to make guest soaps on a budget. Regular guest soaps also don't look very nice after they've been used a few times.

You will need:

• Soap
• a sharp knife
• demitasse cup

The soap I used is a locally made soap. A lot of times soapmakers will sell "end cuts" which are cuts that aren't as pretty. The ones used were round. So to start, I cut them half. End cuts will usually include several kinds of soap in different colors which look wonderful together. 

Then it's just as easy as slicing off thin pieces. I liked my ceramic knife for this because it's the sharpest knife I have. You don't want them so thin they curl, but you do want them small. I found that cutting straight through with a sharp knife was neatest for the soap I used. That means putting the knife on top of the soap and pushing it through, with harder soaps, slicing might easier.

This is what the looked like after they were all cut. The ends that weren't sliced are going to be used in the kitchen for hand washing by my family.

Arrange them in a demitasse cup or a tea cup for an extra bit of fun.

If you're using regular rectangle bars of soap, you can cut them in half lengthwise, then make little squarish shapes and pile them on a dessert plate. This will also work beautifully with glycerin soaps.

I like the Kleenex Hand Towels for guests because it's a nice clean option instead of shared guest towels. The box can be stood up so the towels come out of the top or laid down as shown in the photo above. They also can be decorated easily with paper or even just wrapped in an embroidered cloth hand towel to fit your decorating scheme.

Join the 14 million people who have already joined the Clean Hands campaign by using Kleenex Hand Towels, and click here for savings and more! 
 I was selected for participation in this campaign as a member of Clever Girls Collective.

Sleeping in the Land of the Midnight Sun

Thank you Fred Meyer's and Kroger's stores for sponsoring this post about difficulty sleeping:

Many places have a mountain they call the Sleeping Lady, this is ours. Mount Susitna.The photo was taken from a place that looks over the inlet in downtown Anchorage.

Sleeping in the Land of the Midnight Sun can be hard in the summer. The sun comes up around 4:30 am now, and goes down around 11:30 pm. Dusk and twilight last a while so there is very little true dark in the night. The sun makes people think it's earlier than it is, and kids are out playing until sunset, neighbors are grilling that late too sometimes.


When I was a kid, I loved it, instead of reading under the covers with a flashlight, there was enough light coming in my windows to read by that. After the dark and cold of winter, playing in the sun until it was late was wonderful.


As an adult, it's a bit harder. There is more reason to keep a regular schedule, but sometimes it's very hard to get to sleep. It's still daytime!

Tips I've found work for me:

• Keeping a regular schedule of sleeping and eating. Eating is part of how my body sets it's clock, so when I get busy and don't eat on a regular schedule, it does affect my sleeping schedule
• Go to bed! Even if I don't feel tired. If I stay up later, I might sleep later.
• Mind games- laying in the semi-dark, when I'm not feeling sleepy enough to sleep can be hard. I've found playing games in my mind helps. Alphabet games like trying to name a flower that begins with each letter of the alphabet, alternating male and female names through the alphabet, building structures or trying to draw fractals are all tricks I use. Your own interests might be different. Try making up a cake recipe from scratch, or counting in prime numbers. 
• Breathe - breathe deeply and evenly like your sleeping. Using this with playing games in my mind with my eyes closed is usually enough.
• Rolling eyes- Your eyes move a lot while you're sleeping. When you close your eyes, trying looking down and see how it changes your breathing, then try rolling them up and see how that changes your breathing. Don't roll them uncomfortably like you're trying to see your brain! Just a little bit of movement helps sometimes to relax.

Occasionally it's necessary to take something to help get to sleep. 

Fred Meyer's coupon for Vick's ZzzQuil . ZzzQuil is not for pain, not for colds, it's a non-habit forming sleep aid. 

I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All the opinions expressed here are my own.

Crafts, Mistakes and Do Over Moments

As crafters, most of us have moments we wish for an undo button, rewind or a do over. Hopefully you enjoy this slightly painful story about one of my worst crafty "oops!" and the printable quote art about making mistakes which will hopefully help you feel better when you glue your fingers together, cut the paper or fabric just a bit too small or realize when you've done hours of beading that it's just not working.

I love working with porcupine quills in my beadwork. The dramatic look of them with their off-white color and black tips, plus their lightweight is a wonderful look in bead embroidery or earrings. When you buy the quills, or get them from local sources, they come whole. Sharp tips with tiny barbs and a root of sorts on the other end. To use them, you have to snip off the tops and bottoms. Because they are natural, they vary in diameter and markings. So to work with them, they need to be sorted. One day I was sorting a bag full of them, matching them into sets so they were ready to go for my beading. There were a few hundred in a cereal bowl on my desk, and I was pulling out about 20 at a time. This already seems like a recipe for disaster. Of course I knocked it over. My desk at that time faced the living room. It was pretty close to when I had to go to work, so I put a towel over them to remind me to pick them up when I got home and to keep anybody from stepping on them.

My husband washed whites that night. He picked up the towel to wash it. He's pretty used to crafting accidents. To glitter on his clothes, spilled seed beads, all those sorts things. So when he saw the quills, he picked up what he saw, and put them in the bowl on my desk.

The towel went into the laundry with his teeshirts.

The next day at work, he thought for sure he had something wrong, an allergic reaction to his deodorant maybe? Something was causing a lot of pain in his armpits. When he got home, he showed me the scratches. I took a close look at his teeshirt. A couple of quills had worked themselves into the seams. So all my other plans for crafting that evening were set aside so I could through all his freshly laundered teeshirts with a pair of pliers looking for porcupine quills. It was about 3 years until I worked with quills again, and I'm incredibly careful with them now.

Click the image for the larger version of this printable quote. I hope you like it!

  I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All the opinions expressed here are my own.