20 Blogs Sharing Ways to Celebrate Your Pet

dogSix out of 10 Americans own some type of pet, which shows what an integral role pets play in our everyday lives. Pets have become ingrained into our societies, and it’s not unusual to want to celebrate their presence in our lives. Whether you want to dress your pet up, shower him with new treats and toys or bring him into work to show him off, there are myriad ways you can celebrate your pet. These 20 blog postings will make you laugh as you look at all of the darling pictures of pets and the different ways you can celebrate your own.

Dress Up

Many pet owners enjoy dressing up their pets in pet-size clothes, and it’s easy to see why. Tiny sweaters to keep a small pet warm during the cold months and costumes to celebrate Halloween are just a few of the ways you can indulge in clothing for your pets. There’s even a holiday in January specifically celebrating dressing up your pet! Take a look at these five blog entries to see how people are dressing up their pets. 

Birthday

A fun way to celebrate your pet is to throw him a birthday party with other dogs you may know.  If you don’t have room at your place or are not comfortable with a bunch of extra dogs in your house, you may want to meet at a local dog park for the party. Dog-approved cake mixes are available for dogs now, or you can make dog-friendly cupcakes and party favors using the blog posts listed here.

Gotcha Party

A ‘Gotcha Party’ is a celebration of the day you adopted your pet and welcomed him into the family.  Most of the time there’s no way to know when a pet’s birthday really is when you get them from a rescue situation, which is why people have started celebrating the day that they got their pet.  For ideas on how to throw a ‘Gotcha’ party, read these five blog articles.

Take You Dog to Work

“Take Your Dog to Work Day” is the perfect way to show off your favorite furry friend.  This day is meant to not only celebrate your dog, but to encourage other people to adopt pets of their own.  To learn more about these efforts look at these five blog entries.

30 Blogs Sharing Tips for Throwing a Mickey Mouse Themed Party on a Budget

Meeska, Mouska, Mickey Mouse! Thanks to Disney for bringing back the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so another generation can enjoy Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and all of their friends every day on television. Don’t be surprised when the love of the mouse prompts your kids to want to have a Mickey Mouse themed party. From invitations to decorations to kid-friendly foods and games, there’s no shortage of ways you can bring Mickey Mouse to life during a party! These 30 blogs will show you how to accomplish all of these tasks.

Invitations

Mickey’s silhouette and his trademark red shorts with yellow buttons are easily recognizable, which make them the perfect outline for a party invitation. Take a look at these six blog entries to get the step-by-step instructions for making your own Mickey Mouse invitations.

Decorations

Red, white and black are traditionally the colors used when putting together a Mickey Mouse party, and you can use these colors as the basis for your decorations. Of course, Mickey has gone on many adventures, so you can also tie in more than one interest when decorating for the party.  These six how-to blog posts will get you started on party decorations.

Menu

Labeling the food with clever Mickey inspired names will add that much more fun to your food table.  The easiest item of all is the Hot Diggety Dog song that allows you to serve a kid favorite of hot dogs or cocktail wieners.  For more inspiring food ideas read through these six blog entries.

Activities/Games

What party would be complete without games and activities?  You can put together a craft table for older kids and tweak some traditional games for younger ones. For instance, instead of playing Duck-Duck-Goose, you can play Mickey-Mickey-Mouse. These six blog articles have tons of clever games you can play at your child’s party.

Party Favors

Once the party is over you will want to send your young party guests home with a little memento or favor bag.  To find some creative ideas on how to tie in the bags and boxes to the theme look through these six blog posts.

10 iPhone Apps to Help You Choose What’s for Dinner

sparkrecipesDo you ever feel like choosing what to make for dinner is too much of a chore? Well, with hundreds of apps for foodies on the iPhone, you no longer need to stress. Planning and making dinner will take no time at all once you’ve downloaded these 10 apps that bring meal planning into the 21st century.

  • Ucook – Over 60,000 recipes are provided with this free app, making choosing what’s for dinner a much easier task. There are some great search features, too, which will allow you to filter by region, preparation time and even by the equipment you have in the kitchen. You can also find all those essential missing ingredients with a feature that searches local stores.
  • Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner – Dinner Spinner is an iPhone app favorite. The innovative functionality takes all the work out of searching for recipes. You simply enter all the ingredients you want to use and the app returns a list of recipes for you to create. Still too much work? You can just shake your iPhone and Dinner Spinner will choose a random recipe for you. This app is highly rated and free to download from iTunes.
  • iFood Assistant by KRAFT – Have you ever wanted to just look at an empty package and find out where you can get a refill? Well, with iFood you have the next best thing. A barcode scanner, voice or text search feature will source all your favorite foods in stores that have the items in stock. Once the free app directs you to all the ingredients you need, you can then utilize thousands of recipes to whip up a great dinner for the family.
  • Healthy Recipes – Looking for a healthy approach to dinner? Use Healthy Recipes, another great free app available for the iPhone. Simple categories will guide you through recipes for your breakfast, dinner and summer salads. To help personalize the experience, Healthy Recipes has a completely customizable database where you can alter or create your very own recipes, too.
  • How to Cook Everything Essentials – Based on world renowned chef Mark Bittman’s book  “How to Cook Everything Essentials,” this free app is packed full of dinner ideas. Although there are only about a hundred recipes, each one has a number of variations, which gives you thousands of meals to experiment with. There are also a number of cooking guides that will help you source ingredients, time your meals and teach you advanced cooking techniques.
  • Easy Recipes – No matter where you are, Easy Recipes has your cooking needs covered. The offline function means that you can access recipe ideas even if you don’t have full cell-phone coverage. The search function is clean and easy to use, so you won’t spend too much time looking for the recipes that you love. The app costs $0.99 and is available for download from the App Store.
  • Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List – This app is a two-time winner of the ASME Award (National Magazine Awards for Digital Media). With over 30,000 gourmet recipes available for you to create, dinner will never be boring again. Icons and keyword search will help you find exactly what you’re looking for, and new recipes are automatically added to your device every day. This free app is absolutely brimming with other great features, so explore them at your leisure.
  • Whole Foods Market Recipes – If you, a family member or friend has special dietary needs, then this is the recipe app you need to have on your iPhone. Whole Foods Market Recipes has over 3,000 recipes that you can filter by course, cuisine, special diet and more. Staying on budget is easy, too, with an intelligent cooking guides feature. This is another great free app for the iPhone.
  • BigOven 250,000+ – In case you hadn’t guessed, this free app has an astounding 250,000+ recipes for you to try. Synchronize the app with a BigOven account to store all your created menus, leftover ideas and share your recipes with friends and family. The drag and drop feature is ideal, as you can quickly add menus to your meal calendar for forward planning.
  • Martha’s Everyday Food – If you love Martha Stewart’s recipes, you’ll really love her new and improved app. For $0.99 you get recipe shuffle at the flick of a wrist, detailed video tutorials, and daily articles from Everyday Food editors. There is also a great shopping list feature, which allows you to easily add ingredients from any recipe.

21 of the Best Blogs Highlighting Methods for the Prevention and Treatment of Bug Bites this Summer

bugsprayThe arrival of warm weather means that you’re likely going to be spending more time outdoors, which also means your chances of getting bitten by bugs vastly increases. While it’s impossible to prevent every bug bite, there are a variety of ways you can ward off the majority of them. When bites are unavoidable, you’ll need an effective way to take away the pain and itch quickly. Check out these 21 blog articles to find solutions for bug bite prevention and treatment for both you and your favorite four-legged friend.

Preventing Bug Bites

Bugs are attracted to tight, dark clothing and strong fragrances, so it’s important to wear loose, light colored clothing and minimal perfume or deodorant. Mosquitoes, which are prevalent in the warmer weather, thrive on standing water, so make sure that you rid your yard of any standing water. You’ll also need some type of topical treatment to deter any bugs that aren’t put off by these preventative measures, and the following seven blog posts are full of different treatment ideas.

Treating Bug Bites

Typically, bug bites aren’t life threatening unless you are highly allergic, but that doesn’t make them any less of an irritating nuisance. Sometimes you can find some relief simply by applying some ice to the bite. There are many ways to treat the pain and itch of a bite, and you can find several methods for doing so in these seven blog entries.

Protecting Your Pets

Unfortunately, pets are not immune to bug bites and stings and they can have allergic reactions just like humans can.  What pets can’t do is prevent these bites or treat them after they happen to prevent infection, which is where the owners come in. There are pet-friendly topical sprays that are safe to use on your pet to keep bugs away. If your pet has already been bitten, use these seven blog posts to find treatments and remedies that will provide them with some relief.