This catchall category covers general services (eg drycleaning, etc.), electronics, office services and supplies, pets and transportation.

GOING CLEAR

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This DIY acrylic barrier will stop canine escape artists without stopping the eye.

Socttie-Pug Dudley Rule - Carolann Rule

DO IT YOURSELF  | We love our Scottie-pug dog child, Dudley (pictured here), but he does have one annoying, potentially life-threatening habit. When we accidentally leave an outside door open, he bolts. While this is never a good thing, it is particularly troublesome at my husband’s garden design office where Dudley earns his kibble working as a greeter.

To foil this behaviour, senior landscape designer Kim Stuart came up with an inexpensive all-but-invisible system that eliminates the need to install those supremely unattractive but highly effective baby (a.k.a. dog) gates. Read more

Emergency Preparedness - Cub Scouts

The Easiest Way To Pull Together An Emergency Survival Kit

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If you have yet to cobble together an emergency survival kit, this well-priced ones from Costco will make the task an {almost} no brainer.

Emergency Preparedness - Cub Scouts

 

MONEY WELL SPENT | I can’t believe how many people I know who still have not put together a basic emergency preparedness kit. But hey, even with straight- forward easy-to-follow directions on this very website (CLICK HERE for our story on how to put together a survival kit from scratch), up until recently I was among the great unprepared. I wish I could say it was Frugalbits that prompted me to get my kit together, but it wasn’t; it was my dear friend and neighbour who showed me hers, a store-bought version from Costco. Read more

How Cool Is Kuler, Adobe’s Colour App?

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Damn cool. Adobe’s new point-and-shoot app for the iPhone allows you to instantly pull a color palette from whatever image your camera snaps.

Adobe Kuler

 

FREE & AWESOME | Have you seen Adobe’s new Kuler app?” my friend Giorgio Verzoletto of vanhit.com asked when we met up for coffee last Monday. “Watch this,” he said, waving his iPhone camera at the Frugalbits website displayed on the laptop screen in front of us. As G gestured with his phone, five circles on its screen bounced around like metal balls in one of those old-fashioned handheld puzzles, changing colour repeatedly depending on where the phone was directed.

When he snapped a shot, the circles turned into rectangles forming a band of the dominant colours in the image and creating what Kuler calls a colour theme on his phone screen. “These themes can be used, modified and shared in so many ways,” G said. “Anyone who works with colour is going to love this.” Or anyone who loves to play with colour, I added. Read more

ResQue

Rescue Me: How To Escape A Sinking Car

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How to escape a sinking car—plus an inexpensive tool that could make the process easier.

Skagit River Bridge - News 1130

 

HOW TO SAVE A LIFE | When an Alberta truck driver hauling an oversize load struck a steal beam on the Skagit River Bridge in Washington state last week, sending a segment of the bridge and two passenger vehicles plunging into the water below, the thought crossed my mind, as I’m sure it did yours, what if one of those vehicles had been yours.

How would you react if you found yourself in a sinking car? What should and shouldn’t you do? Are there tools you can have on hand that will facilitate your escape? Read more

Color coded keys

Never Mistake One Key For Another Again

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A quick way to differentiate the keys on your keychain is to use nail polish to colour code them.

Color coded keys

 

THE CREATIVE SOLUTION | Do you have keys on your keychain with bows (the handles used to turn the keys) so similar that you continually confuse one key for another, an activity that wastes time and causes frustration? You could use plastic key caps to distinguish important keys, but key caps are bulky, often fit poorly and don’t last all that long. Another less obtrusive way to differentiate your keys would be to use nail polish to colour code them. Read more

Duncraft Black Hawk Decal

Give Birds A Chance: Use Window Clings

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Each year thousands of birds are killed when they crash into windows and glass doors. Here’s how to put an end to the slaughter.

Baby Bird

 

HOW TO SAVE A LIFE | I’d been meaning to do it for a few years, but it wasn’t until I experienced three horrible deaths in a single week, each one the result of a small bird crashing into the picture window in my home office and then dropping into the reflective pool directly below it and drowning, that I decided to make a preemptive move. Read more

Chef Sleeve

3 Ways To Protect Your Computer Screen

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When you use your laptop as a cookbook, its surfaces need to be covered. Here are three ways to get the job done.

Chef Sleeve

 

SHOPPING AROUND | When you use your tablet or laptop as a cookbook, calling up recipes and scrolling back and forth between ingredients and instruction, it’s only a matter time before something gloppy on your fingers winds up stuck to its surface.

Computers working as cookbooks need to be protected, which is how I came to discover the Chef’s Sleeve, a clear, disposable (yet reusable) envelope for the iPad that does not interfere with touch screen operation. Great as it is, the Chef’s Sleeve isn’t all that easy to come by in Canada. When you do find it, as I did at Kitchen Stuff Plus, it is a titch pricey when you consider there’s a less expensive, if not as sexy, alternative available in most grocery stores. Read more

nonwoven garmet bags

Keep Your Best Clothes In Nonwoven Poly Bags

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Who knew that nonwoven polypropylene could actually protect your best garments from evil clothes-eating moths?

nonwoven garmet bags

 

THE FIX | I’ve done a lot of things to rid my home of casemaking clothes moths (CLICK HERE for our Frugalbits how to) but, until recently when I read about it on goop, I didn’t know that a particular material used to make clothing storage containers might actually ward off these hungry insects. According to Gwynnie and, as it turns out, a gaggle of other Internet home-keeping pundits, breathable nonwoven polypropylene, the material found in those ubiquitous grocery shopping bags, may do just that. Read more

Postage on Package

How To Pick Up U.S. Parcels In Point Bob

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Why pick up your U.S. parcels in Blaine, when there is a more convenient and practical way to get them.

Postage on Package

 

EASY LIKE THIS | How many times have you tried to order something online only to discover that the company you’re ordering it from doesn’t ship to Canada? In the past, I found a way around this problem by having parcels shipped to Blaine, Washington, and then traipsing over the border to pick them up (CLICK HERE for our story). Now I have an even more expedient way to retrieve them. Read more

Is This The Best Dog Leash Or What?

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There is more to a dog leash than the choice between leather or nylon. The best leashes have useful bonus features like a quick hitch buckle.

1 dog-pulling-leash

 

BUY RIGHT | There are plenty of dog owners who think that a leather leash is the only way to go, but I’m not one of them. A friend gave us an expensive harness leather lead for our pooch when he was a pup, and beautiful as it is, I’ve used it only once because I found it stiff and unwieldy. Yes, I know that leather put to work will soften over time, but nylon-webbing leashes are pliable from the get-go. They work perfectly fine for my needs, particularly the inexpensive brand I use that has a helpful feature no good dog leash should be without. Read more