It's been a while since I've done written about the refashionistas, those creative, frugal fashion crafters who take older, unworn clothes and thrift-store finds, cut, paint, sew, style, and design great new functional items from them.  A gold-mine of ideas for used jeans can be found at WiseBread's post: Twenty-five Things to Do With Old Jeans by Myscha Theriault. Let's examine some of her ideas:

If you celebrate, I hope you had yourself a merry little Christmas this year. Despite the usual suspects -- unexpected illness, a deeply coveted toy which turned out to be broken right out of the box (argh!) -- I think my children and nephews experienced the kind of joy that parents always wish for their kids to experience. It was a pretty magical day, all around.

It's only fitting that I write a guide to last minute gifts... at the last minute, eh? Well not quite the last minute. I realized I was going to be writing this a couple of weeks ago, but I put it off... errr, sort of like folks who put off gift shopping 'til the last minute. I've found that writing a last minute gift guide at the last minute is a heck of a lot more fun than doing last minute gift shopping. It's fun because when you ask people about last minute gift shopping, they have a lot of opinions.

Teens can either be really, really easy to shop for or really, really difficult to shop for. I should know. With six kids ranging in ages, nine to 24, I've experienced it all. There was the year my really cool teen wanted "Tickle Me Elmo" and that was just about all she wanted. This year, I have a teen who flat out refused to make a wish list - that's a first, seriously. The boy doesn't know what he wants and is leaving it up to "Santa" which really doesn't make "Santa" happy. AT. ALL. If you're still looking for gifts to "flesh out" your teens' holiday, here are a few to consider.

It was tempting, when I was working on this guide to gifts that will spice up your love life, to resolve that I’d have to test each and everyone myself.

1. My friends at Cool Mom Picks suggested the playsets at Imagiplay, and I have to admit I think the Vision Quest Native American playset is totally cool. I have ALWAYS wanted a teepee. And I like the name of the set – very deep for the preschool set.

I didn't think I was going to join the BlogHer Holiday Guide fun by contributing a "10 great gifts" list but here I am and I'm a wee bit nervous about it.

Nearing this winter holiday season when stores sell more toys than at any other time of year and during a year when we've heard so much about dangers like lead paint in toys, I've been wondering where can parents find safe toys? Do you wonder the same? Parent News at The Pikes Peak Gazette, a newspaper serving Colorado Springs, Co., offers a standard tip to parents with toy-safety concerns this year:

Yesterday I listened to a rant from my good friend Legal Eagle about Oprah's "favorite things" show. She was royally pissed because she's been trying for ages to get any ticket to an Oprah show much less for the favorite things show. As Oprah says---with only a hint of exaggeration---it's the "hottest ticket in television." Oprah took this year's show to Macon, Georgia as a thank you to her viewers there. According to Oprah, when her show is on in Macon, a whooping 45% of televisions are tuned in. Eagle's like, "I'd like to go to the Oprah favorite things show. I'd like to go to any Oprah show! You know how many times I've been online trying to get tickets? It's impossible! I need an LG refrigerator with an HDTV in the door! I need an HD video camcorder and a pretty little Kitchenaid Mixer!" Read This Complete Post At Megan's Minute.

I was asked to write about 10 Great Holiday Gifts for Spiritual People. Then I had to figure out who, exactly, was that spiritual person. I decided that was someone who would value content over form, meaning over monetary value. Some of the holiday gifts I suggest are explicitly Christian in nature, but most are not. That is because spirituality at the holidays is not limited to observing Christians. When the holidays are doing their magic, there is a big and wonderful spirit that settles in.

Ah, giving crap to teachers. We do it every year, on the pretense of it being somebody's holiday: Eid, Hanukkah, Solstice, Christmas, a New Year of some variety, the start of summer break. As a college instructor, I'm mostly immune from the gift-giving, but as the daughter of two (now retired) high school teachers, I can attest that they get some wacky stuff. And the poor elementary school teachers. . . Type "teacher" and "gifts" into your favorite search engine, and you'll find a bunch of pablum that assumes your teacher is a lonely, white, Christian, middle-class, middle-aged, female, third-grade teacher starved for personal care time who yearns for child-crafted stuff or gardening gloves. Allow me to set you straight.

You can brave the malls, or you can take a vow and only buy handmade this year. Think I'm kidding?