Skip and I love our animals. What’s not to love, right? Well here is the perfect gift for the animal lover in YOUR life. With this lovely pet keepsake kit, you can immortalize your little furry friends. This clever kit comes with everything you need to capture their paw print. Place it next to your favorite photo and you’ve got the perfect birthday gift for Fido or Whisker’s best friend.

Technorati Tags: animal lover, cat, dog, frame, Pet keepsake kit

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A wonderful gift for the birthday boy or girl (of ANY age) is a Party Guest Book.  We do this for the guest of honor at every party we throw and it’s always so appreciated.

We simply find a festive and attractive journal type book, and during the party we have each guest write something funny, nice,  or sweet about the birthday boy or girl.  At the end of the night we give it to them as a final gift.

I have party guest books from my past ten birthdays.  They’re great to skim through years later, and a wonderful way to remember who was at your party.  An inexpensive yet priceless gift.

Technorati Tags: inexpensive, journal, party guest book, rememberance

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How cute is this? This very authentic looking astronaut suit is the perfect addition to your child’s imagination. Who doesn’t want to grow up and fly to the moon?  The talking helmet is sold separately, but the suit does come with the official embroidered cap. A really fun way for any child to learn about space and the great beyond!

Technorati Tags: astronaut suit, costume, dress up, educational

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This is a great birthday gift for any boy or girl. It’s the Dinner Game! Add fun to your family dinner with these 51 easy to play games. No board game or game pieces required. Just be ready to have fun.

And what makes these games even better, is the fact that some of them encourage the kids to eat their veggies and finish their milk. Can’t go wrong with that. Check it out here… at UncommonGoods

Technorati Tags: dinner game, family, fun, healthy

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This is a simple recipe for a delicious dip served warm from a hollowed out round loaf of bread.  We got it from a friend of ours in Canada.  She says she’s always giving out the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened - 2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded - 1 cup mayonnaise - 1 (4 1/4 ounce) can baby shrimp, rinsed and drained - 3/4 cup crab meat, shredded - 1/2 cup green onions, chopped - 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated - 2 tspn dill weed - 2 tspn fresh parsley, minced - 1 loaf pumpernickle bread, or Italian bread

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except the bread.  Cut the top fourth off the loaf of bread and hollow out leaving a 1/2″ shell.  Cube the bread that you have removed, making it large enough to dip with.  Set aside.  Fill the bread with the seafood mixture.  Place on a layer of heavy duty foil and wrap tightly to seal.  Place on a baking sheet and on middle of rack of oven at 325F for 25 minutes.  Remove foil, bake 20 minutes longer or until the crust is golden and the spread is heated through.  Serve iwth bread sticks, crackers, vegetables and reserved bread cubes.

We served this at our last party and I must say that it was a huge hit.  Give it a try!

Technorati Tags: appetizer, delicious, dip, hot seafood spread, recipe

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Here is a fun idea that sounds very obvious, but it’s surprising how many people DON’T do it. So we thought we’d pass it along just as a reminder.

Christmas lights. Most of us have them. Just sitting in our garages or basements most of the year. Well those of you that have birthdays in months other than November and December… Bring them out!!

Christmas lights are a great way to make a birthday party look festive. And you have nothing to buy. Whether they’re white or colored, a couple strings of lights are all you need to really make your place shine. So this year, instead of storing all of your lights up in the attic, keep a couple strands handy, and bring them out in July!!

Technorati Tags: Christmas lights, festive, party decorations

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This is a very cool item I stumbled across recently.  It’s a solar powered charger for all of your electronic gadgets.  It works on everything from your iPod to your cellphone.  It doesn’t need electricity, so it’s very handy when you’re on the go.  In your car.  In a plane.  When you’re camping.  A very handy gift indeed.

Technorati Tags: cellphone, charger, green, handy, iPod, solar powered

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This is a really fun game that anyone can play.  It’s called CELEBRITY.  It’s kind of like Charades, only you can talk!  Give each of your guests about 20 small slips of paper (about the size of half a Post-it) and a pen.  The guests then writes the name of a different famous person on each piece the paper.  They can be living or dead, fictional or non-fictional.  Anyone from John F Kennedy to Elmo.  They then fold each piece of paper and drop them into a large bowl.

You then split into teams.  Each team must have at least two people on it.  You can have two teams to as many as you’d like.  We usually play with about 3 or 4 teams of about 5 people each.  The team that begins the game then picks a person on their team to go first.  They are given the bowl of folded pieces of paper and a clock is started for 1 minute.

Once the timer yells “Go!”, the person quickly grabs a piece of paper from the bowl and tries to get their team ( and ONLY their team) to guess the name written on the paper without actually saying the name.  Along the lines of “I was a sex symbol… blonde… my white skirt blew up…”  they continue until someone on their team yells “Marilyn Monroe”.  When the correct name is yelled, they throw that paper down and grab another one from the bowl.  The object is to get as many names called out within the 1 minute.

Each person has the opportunity to PASS once each turn.  This is done when/if the person doesn’t know who the person on the paper is, or if they feel it’s too hard.  When passing, they MAY NOT utter one word.  They must look at the paper, and immediately pass, placing the passed paper to the side (and to be returned to the bowl after their turn).  If a person STARTS giving clues, they can not pass the name.  They can only pass if they DON’T try to give any clues.

At the end of the minute, you count up the pieces of paper that your team correctly guessed and put that number on the score board.  They then pass the bowl to the next team.

You can play until there are no more pieces of paper in the bowl, or after the bowl is empty, you can place all the pieces of paper BACK INTO the  bowl and start ROUND 2.  In round 2 the person trying to get their team to guess the correct person can only use ONE WORD.  Such as… “blonde”.  They can not say any other word other than “blonde”.  Once they have uttered the first word, they are stuck with it.  If their team doesn’t know it, they can only say the same word in different ways in hopes that their team figures it out.

The team with the most points at the end of round 2 (no more pieces of paper in the bowl) WINS!

Technorati Tags: Celebrity, charades, fun, party game

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This makes a very thoughtful gift to man (or woman), from his (or her) best friend.  This handsome framed shadow box holds a favorite photo as well as a beautiful preserved paw print.  This is a gift that will continue to give for many years to come.

Technorati Tags: cat, dog, Pet keepsake kit, shadow box

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Who doesn’t love chocolate?  And every lady is a Queen on her special day.  So why not give her these delicious Callebaut of Belgium chocolates for her birthday?  The classy packaging will make her feel extra decadent.  Each individually wrapped morsel has a special message, such as “Go away for the weekend” and “Buy something special!”.

Technorati Tags: Belgian chocolates, classy, delicious, queen

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