Work at Home Moms Articles – WAHM Articles

If you are expecting a new baby or if you are already a parent, it is extremely important that you take time out of your busy schedule to childproof your home. When it comes to purchasing safety items to make your home child-safe, most parents just think about outlet covers, cabinet and drawer locks. However, there is a lot more that you need to be doing!

Before I get started with giving you my checklist of items that you will need, I first want to remind you to invest in a good infant and child first aid kit and a few up-to-date fire extinguishers. It is always better to prepare ahead of time for an emergency than to have an emergency you are not prepared for.

Childproofing Items Every Home Should Have

Door Alarms – These are great for all doors leading to the outside and for doors that lead to a flight of stairs such as your basement entry door.

Window Guards – These will help to prevent accidental falls out of the windows. All windows that children have access to should have window guards and/or alarms on them.

Safety Gates – You should use safety gates to prevent falls from stairs or to block off entryways to rooms that you don’t want your children to wander in to. When it comes to purchasing a gate, always look for updated new models so that you avoid outdated or possibly recalled baby gates.

Toilet Locks – These are pretty inexpensive and can be found in most department stores. You will want to place one on each toilet in your home to prevent accidental drowning’s or expensive plumbing costs should your child try flushing something they shouldn’t!

To continue reading this article, click here.

When you run and operate a home business in Direct Sales, you need to be really conscious of the type of customer service that you give to others who come into contact with you and your business. Unlike big brick and mortar retail type of stores, you have no one else to blame if poor customer service is given to your party hosts and customers.

It is a proven fact that people will purchase products and services from party plan consultants who they feel comfortable with, who treat them well, who consistently contact them and with who they make a personal connection with.

Today I would like to share with you, several ways that you can make your party hosts and customers feel special and important, to you and your home business.

1. If you are utilizing email to stay in touch with your business associates, party hosts, customers and/or downline team, it is important that you answer those emails in a timely manner. When people contact you via email regarding business matters, they don’t want to be left hanging for days on end. Business emails should be answered in a minimum of 24 hours unless it is the weekend.

2. When you are corresponding with business associates and clients via telephone, it is important to do so when you are not feeling rushed. In addition, background noise should be kept to a minimum. In other words, customers deserve more than two minutes of your time and they should be able to talk to you without a screaming spouse or kids in the background. Those who you speak to via telephone deserve your undivided attention when you are speaking to them about business matters.

3. It is important to try to make a personal connection with your party hosts and customers. I like to ask them a few questions and I really try to act interested in their answers. You could talk about marriage, children, sports, hobbies, food, whatever…just try to make a personal connection with them so that they feel comfortable in working with you.

To continue reading this article, click here.

During the weekends I love to get into my kitchen and do some baking and one of the things I enjoy baking are a variety of homemade buns. Two of the following recipes utilize frozen bread dough that you can purchase from your local supermarket. The third recipe uses homemade dough that you make yourself.

Here are 3 of our favorite homemade bun recipes.

Cinnamon Walnut Buns Recipe

2 loaves of frozen bread dough
1 cup dark Karo syrup
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons cold milk
1 stick of butter, softened
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup walnuts, chopped

Remove the frozen bread dough from freezer and thaw according to package directions. In a large saucepan combine the Karo syrup, brown sugar, milk, butter and ground cinnamon over medium heat until it’s nice and hot but not boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped walnuts. Pull off small pieces of the dough from the loaf and place into a baking pan. Cover pan and let dough rise for 1 hour. Pour the sauce over the dough and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes.

To continue reading this article, click here.

Bananas are one of my favorite fruits to enjoy and I love how versatile bananas can be when cooking with them or baking with them. When it comes to their nutritional information they are high in potassium, vitamin C and they are a great source of dietary fiber.

When Bananas are on sale at our local food market I like to purchase them in bulk and make some homemade banana butter and jam. The following two recipes are really easy to prepare and taste delicious. You will need some basic canning supplies, mason jars and a water bath canner to make them. Once they are made, label your mason jars with the name of the contents, the expiration date and store them in a cool, dry and dark place. When properly processed…they should keep for up to 1 year.

Tips: You want to measure out your ingredients carefully and in the exact amounts given in the recipes. When cooking the mixture, follow the time guideline exactly as stated to ensure that your products set up properly. Every water bath canner has different processing times so please follow the times recommended in your instruction booklet.

Banana Butter Recipe

3 cups of ripe bananas
1/4 cup fresh or bottled lemon juice
1/4 cup maraschino cherries, finely chopped into small pieces
6 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 (6 ounce) bottle of liquid pectin

In a large mixing bowl, mash down the bananas with a fork or a potato masher. When you have 3 firmly packed cups of fruit pour it into a large saucepan or stock pot. Stir in the lemon juice, finely chopped cherry pieces and the granulated sugar. Bring the mixture to a full boil, stirring constantly. Boil the fruit mixture for 1 minute and then remove from heat. Stir in the liquid pectin. Ladle mixture into clean sterilized mason jars. Seal and process your jars in a water bath canner for 10 minutes or according to your canner’s instructions for canning jam.

To continue reading this article, click here.

As a busy mother, grandmother and wife, I am always looking for easy to prepare dinner recipes that I can make for my family that don’t take a lot of effort or time. Each of these three recipes will make 4-6 servings. If you have any leftovers, you can refrigerate them for up to 3 days or freeze them in a freezer safe container for up to 3 months.

Stroganoff Pork Chops Recipe

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
6 lean pork chops
1/2 teaspoon ground paprika
1 envelope brown gravy mix
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 (4 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
1/2 cup sour cream

In a small bowl, combine together the flour with the salt. Rinse chops under running water so that they are moist. Dip them into the flour mixture. In a large skillet that has been sprayed lightly with non-stick vegetable cooking spray, brown the meat over medium heat. In a small bowl mix together the brown gravy packet with water (as directed on package) and then pour gravy into the skillet with the meat. Stir in the chopped onion, cover and simmer over medium heat for 30 minutes. Uncover the skillet and simmer for an additional 10-12 minutes. Remove meat from skillet and transfer it to a serving platter. Stir sliced mushrooms and sour cream into the gravy mixture until it is well combined. Simmer gravy for 5 minutes and pour it over the pork chops before serving.

To continue reading this article, click here.

One of the hottest ways to market any type of written online product review is to promote that review over on the social media networking site Twitter. As a product review blogger…I can tell you first hand that I get a slew of traffic by marketing my reviews on Twitter. With that said, there is a right and wrong way to promote your review on Twitter. Let’s take a look at the correct way of doing it.

1. Set up a professionally looking profile page. This page should include an avatar of either yourself or your site’s logo. Your profile should state that you are a reviewer and it should have a link to your web site. There are company’s and brand ambassadors who cruise Twitter looking for PR bloggers to get involved with. When they stumble across your profile page you want it to look professional and you want it to be filled out correctly.

2. When you write up your Tweets to send out to those who are following you, the message should include the name of the product and it should state that it is a review. For most of us who have been doing this a long time, we will put “Product Review for XYZ Company” at the beginning of our message.

3. You should include the hashtag of #productreview some where within your message (Tweet). There are people and company’s who will search out that hashtag keyword on Twitter so make sure you use it.

4. Don’t bombard your followers with too many tweets in a short amount of time. You should spread out your messages over several hours. You can do this by downloading various Twitter approved tools such as TweetDeck or HootSuite and pre-schedule them to send out when you are not online. You should never send them out less than 3 minutes apart because people can’t read them that quickly. Furthermore, you should not pre-schedule Tweets to go out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

5. You need to get chatty and converse with your followers. If you do nothing but advertise your reviews and never chat or try to connect with those who are following you, you will be labeled as a spammer. Folks do want to read what you Tweet but they also want to converse with you.

To continue reading this article, click here.

When it comes to summertime barbecues, one of our favorite meats to grill is pork chops.

We purchase ours in big family value packs and then repackage them into smaller packages to save money. You can freeze them uncooked for up to 12 months.

Grilling Tips

1. If you are concerned about sticking, spray a clean grill grate with non-stick cooking spray.

2. The longer you marinate your meats, the stronger the flavor will be. I recommend no less than 2 hours marinating time.

3. Use one platter for raw meat and a clean platter for cooked meats. Never reuse the same platter.

4. Use long handled grilling tongs for flipping meats.

To continue reading this article, click here.

Are you looking for some quick, easy and affordable handmade Easter greeting card ideas? If so, I have two greeting card designs that I would like to share with you today. This project would be great to make with older children, scouting troops, church youth groups, paper craft groups and with school groups.

We made these cards with 10-14 year old girls for them to give to their parents for Easter. Once they were done making them they were very proud of their creations. If you don’t own a Cricut Die Cutting Machine (used to cut the ovals and lettering) you can hand draw and cut out various sized oval shapes and you can purchase letter stickers at your local arts and crafts store. We used the Cricut George and Basic Shapes Cartridge for these projects.

Supplies Needed:

4″ by 5″ blank cardstock note cards with envelopes
various scrapbooking papers (prints and solids)
decorative edge scissors and regular edge scissors
adhesives – glue dots, glue sticks and glue pens
various colored scrapbooking fine tip markers and pens
*optional ink pads and Easter sentiments rubber stamps

For these 2 designs we also used self-stick plastic scrapbooking mesh in mint green and 4 mm round self-stick purple rhinestones.

For Card Number One:

To continue reading this article, click here.

Those who are in a Direct Sales business tend to really work their butts off when it comes to advertising their home business. For those of us in this line of work…we have to work “much” harder than those in big corporation to get the word out about our business.

With that said, we don’t have the advertising budgets that the big guys have so we need to get creative with our advertising campaigns. Today I thought I would share a few “creative” ways I have successfully marketed my business over the years and all of these ideas are super affordable.

T-Shirts: I went to VistaPrint.com and had a dozen T-shirts printed up with my business information on them. I got a variety of sizes and did it when Vista Print was having a deal on them. I then handed these shirts out to friends & family members and had them wear them while running errands in our community. Cost was less than $8.00 a shirt and it’s an advertising campaign that keeps on giving since the shirts can be worn many, many, many times!

Cook Books: Since I was selling products for a kitchen company I would actively seek out print ads in charity cook books in our community. The PTA, local Animal Rescue Groups, Health Groups, Scouting Groups, School Groups, etc. have cook books printed on a yearly basis and then sell them to raise funds. For around $25.00 you can get a 1/2 page print ad with your business info printed in the back of their fundraising cook books.

High School Year Books: Every year I would spend $50 to $75 to have my business ad printed in the back of our local high school year books! These ads are a ‘worthy’ and ‘affordable’ investment and your ad will be seen for many years by hundreds of people.

To continue reading this article, click here.

I have been professionally working from home for the past 21 years and at times I have gotten so bogged down with doing things for my family, friends and my business that I had no time left over for myself. Over the years…I have learned to say no to others so that I had time for myself.

At the beginning of my work at home career I was juggling way too much. I tried to put in 6-8 hours a day working on my business, cleaning my home, taking care of the kids, making dinner, running errands and all of those things that we are responsible for as mothers. At the end of the day I would be stressed out and exhausted and didn’t feel any self-worth or self-importance.

Over the years I have learned to balance both my professional life, family life and personal life into something that works for me. The solution for me was to come up with a daily schedule and routine. To start your own daily schedule and routine you need to sit down and make three lists. Label your three lists: Work, Family and Pleasure. Your next step is to list the tasks you want to accomplish along with the amount of time you think you will need to accomplish those tasks in. You will want to block off 1 blank hour per day onto each of your lists for those things that ‘pop up’ that you didn’t plan on.

To continue reading this article, click here.