Binkies and Briefcases • Page 83 of 268 •

Small Business Spotlight: Feeling Loved Jewelry

May 4, 2014 By: Stephanie5 Comments

You might have noticed that Get Skinny Saturday has gone missing for the past few weeks. Since my weight loss journey wasn’t going as expected, I didn’t think it was an efficient use of my time to keep writing about gaining or losing less than half a pound each week. Maybe I’ll bring it back in earnest in a few months when the conference is over I can concentrate a little more earnestly on the weight loss.

For now, I’m going to start using my weekend blog posts to highlight small businesses that I love.

A few weeks ago, I told you about Sunrise Soap Company.

Today I want to tell you about Feeling Loved, which is a business run over Facebook by one of my readers. Stephanie wrote to me and asked if I would be willing to try her jewelry and tell you guys about it if I liked it.

To which I replied, “ARE YOU KIDDING? YOU WANT TO SEND ME PERSONALIZED JEWELRY JUST IN TIME FOR MOTHER’S DAY?! YAY!!!”

Obviously, I took her up on her offer. Stephanie sent me this beautiful necklace, personalized with my children’s names and birthstones. It’s stainless steel and hand stamped. I like that it won’t tarnish like silver and I can just clean it with stainless steel wipes.

[Read more…]

2 Ingredient Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

April 28, 2014 By: Stephanie152 Comments

This post contains Amazon affiliate links to the products mentioned for your convenience.

“Stephanie, I ran out of dish detergent and tried this about a week ago and I cannot believe how clean my dishes got!!! Thank you!” -My friend Nicole via Facebook.

“So, I did this last night and it is AWESOME! No spots on any of the dishes that usually have TONS of spots on them! Thank you so much for sharing….we are never buying the pods again!” –Stephanie, a Binkies and Briefcases reader via Facebook

There’s is a “recipe” floating around blogland for homemade dishwasher detergent.

I think it started with Shaye from The Elliott Homestead.

I’ve heard Rebecca share the same thing.

But I haven’t seen anyone share and before and after pictures, so I’m here today to air our dirty ~~laundry~~ dishes.

I’ve been using this recipe for over a month now and it hasn’t failed me yet.

Did you know that you don’t need to buy a special detergent for your dishwasher? [Read more…]

Abby Is Five!

April 25, 2014 By: Stephaniecomment

This week our middle daughter, Abby, turned five.

Even though she is our middle child, since her older brother is adopted, she had the honor of being my first pregnancy.

She was, by far, our most difficult baby. She could stay awake for 20 hours at a time and would only stop crying if you were holding her vertically, standing up, and swaying back and forth a certain way. We got through her entire first year without more than two hours of sleep at a time. She could (and still can) hit octaves only matched by Mariah Carey. When I delivered her, they had to keep her separated from all of the other babies in the hospital nursery because her ear-piercing screams woke up all of the other babies at the same time and caused quite a commotion. That’s Abby, rallying the troops for her cause since Day 1.

There was no denying that she was beautiful, though. Actually, it drives me kind of nuts because often the first and only thing people comment on when speaking to her is the way that she looks. There is so much more to her than that. But even as a baby, strangers would come up to us and say that she should be a model. Once I even had an artist I had never met before approach me and ask me for a picture of her to use as a basis for an oil painting.