Prairie Scraps

  This was such a fast and easy project!  I got the hats at Hobby Lobby.  You can get the ink, transfers and sqeegee  HERE .  Literally, this took only a few minutes to make, but is so cute!!  I just love this project! Purchasing the materials from  My website  helps support my small business.  If you’d like me to make one for you, or would like to purchase one of these, please contact me at: doristowell@yahoo.com.  I’d love to hear what you think!

My family treated me to a girl’s trip this last weekend for my 50th birthday.  I decided that it would be fun for us to have matching t-shirts, so I made 4 of these this last weekend.  It was so fun to make, and also so much fun to wear them!  This is the  October Club Couture Transfer  and the Ink colors are bright white, papaya and candy apple.  The fact that I was able to make 4 t-shirts just the same, was amazing.  If you’d like to join my club and get a transfer with 3 chalks (won’t stay on a t-shirt - ink will need to be purchased) this is the best deal around - just $19.99 a month.

I’m going to be a grandma!  I found these onesies on Amazon for about $1.25 a piece in a 5 pack.  I decided to buy a bunch of them and ink them with some of the mini transfers I have on hand.   I think they turned out quite cute! This is a mask that my daughter made, so we decided to it it as well! Here’s where you can eat the supplies to ink on fabric:  My website

I just had to share with you that there's some sneak preview's and exclusive buys before one of my favorite company's release of their new catalog in February.  Check it out!  You can join my Facebook group to stay up to date on all of the new and upcoming products! Get It! Get It1 So Cute Now!  Stay posted on all the new stuff on my Private Facebook Page! So Cute Now!

Usually we associate deep cleaning your house with Spring Cleaning, but there's something about the New Year that makes me want to clean and organize my house.  Because of my and my children's allergies, and because of the cost, I've tried really hard to keep my cleaning as clean as possible.  I often make my own mixes for cleaning. You can see my laundry detergent recipe HERE.   In November, I started to switch my household over to Norwex Clothes, which for the most part can clean 90% of your house with only water!  This I love!  Water is free (mostly) and the clothes pick up 99% of the bacteria, as well as have a special BacLock feature that prevents the bacteria from spreading.   So, for the month of January, each day, I am going to feature one area of your house that can be deep cleaned.  I'm going to be giving time saving tips as well as how-to instructions for doing this deep cleaning the best and greenest.   This first we...

December, you can save big on gifts, organizational products, bags and purses, as well as supporting my Direct Sales Business!   Know that your purchase go to help my family of 7 and yes I do make a commission off of all sales on my website.  Please check it out!    Also, if you need some organizing ideas for my upcoming series in January on 31 Days of Green Deep Cleaning Your House, this sale will help you get those closets and shelves looking neat and orderly! Stay tuned, starting January 1, 2017 for this Winter Cleaning How-to Series! I'm going to share Green Cleaning tips every day of January!

With two kids in college, both away for the first time this year, I've been trying to send them Happy Mail on occasion.  This is one of the first ones I sent.  I always comb thru all the boxed candies at the Dollar Tree for idea of candy to mail out to them.  I wanted to send chocolate, but with the warm weather in and out, I didn't want to mail chocolate that would melt so thought that Cow Tales would work. I literally, put the address label on the back of the box, the message sticker on the front and then popped it into the mail. As long as it weighs less than 13 ounces, you can mail it General postage.  My message said: "A little reminder of your routes: The Cow/Dairy State!" We have only lived in Idaho for five years, but before that, we were always in Wisconsin.  I thought this was fun.  If you wanted to send this for your customers in Direct Sales, you could say: "I'm not telling a TALE, you're and awesome hostess! Thank you!" ...

I am very proud to say, I have two kids that are headed to full-time college this fall, at two different colleges, and both of them are on college teams!  One of the joys of having a college athlete, is that they head to college an entire month early to begin training for their sports!  It's a rough time for this Mom, who's heart is breaking, but for you, it's great, because I'm going to share what I did to pack them each a College Survival Kit to take with them to school before you're getting your college students ready I got so carried away with my purchases that I couldn't fit it all in, but if it's microwave popcorn, it doesn't really count, does it? First side of College Survival Kit    Second Side of College Survival Kit   First, I ordered a container to give them all the goodies!  I wanted it to be cute and functional for my kids once they emptied out all their gifts.  I got the Double Duty Caddy  in Charcoal ...

  With the invention of cell phones and texting, and even social media, I knew that we would rarely actually talk to people in person, but I have recently noticed that we don't even respond to people anymore, not even a text!  Is this our fate?    As a direct seller , I make a special effort to really try to personally connect with my customers on Facebook and also by texting them.  I don't just send advertisements, but I try to connect!  I was trying to call them, like a good direct seller, but people weren't answering my calls anymore.  It was then that I realized that people are just not talking on the phone anymore.   I decided about a month ago, to send 3-5 personal messages each day either on Facebook or by text to my friends and customers to try to reconnect.  Here's what I say: "Hi, Jenny!  How's it going?"  That's it!    I would say that less than 5% of people actually respond to this bland q...

I can't say a whole lot about the deals going on, but I can say, you won't want to miss out on them!  You can go directly to my website to check it all out HERE.   The sale items are only while supplies last from January 25-31, so go there right away!  Please contact me if you have questions or need help placing an order. If you are not already in my VIP group, please find me on Facebook HERE and you will be notified ahead of time of deals, new products, fun giveaways and more!

I read the book, "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin on a recommendation of another direct selling leader in my company.   I was so excited that "Purple Cow" was available through our library system to check out for free!  Well, I'm here to say, that you will need to buy this book here , because you will want to really absorb this entire book.  I wanted to take in each and every word, and ended up having library fines for this book, because I just couldn't return it until I had read the entire book. I thought this book was going to give me some answers about how to run my business better.  You know, the specifics.  I thought it would tell me step-by-step how to make my business stand out above the others.  Unfortunately, that's not exactly what this book did.  However, it will change how you work and think about your business. The "Purple Cow" will help you look for ways to stand above the rest and be remarkable. You  will need to own your own co...

Who doesn't love an awesome sale?  Here's the link: OUTLET SALE.   Be sure to go on right away, as sale items are while supplies last!  Thank you so much for supporting my Direct Sales business!

This idea actually came to me several years ago, when my relatives started giving our Christmas gifts away to charity in our name (although they get the tax write-off).  Don't get me wrong, that sounds super warm and fuzzy and honorable to do, if we had everything in the world, and have not needs or wants.  But that's not the case for our family.  Each year when we got the card from the charity organization, I would comment that it would be nice if they gave to the Charity of Us.  (Painfully, we have 5 kids on one income, and one of those Christmases, my husband had been out of work for 6 months.  We were starving and had no gifts for our kids, but some 3rd world family got our Christmas gift of food that year!  Sorry for my lack of excitement!) It occurred to me then that I actually can do the same, but give my own family back that gift.  I started to purchase their gifts from my own direct sales business through out the year...

Today is Small Business Saturday!  Consider supporting someone who owns a small business today!  Why not help individuals instead of the big box stores this weekend?  It's easier, no lines, shop from your seat, not your feet!  Of course I'd vote for you to shop with me today!  I'm running a 12 Days of Christmas Sale on my VIP Facegroup page Here.   Join my group for detail.  Here's a direct link to my website , too, if you'd like to shop with me!  The order will go in on December 8th and will be delivered on time for Christmas. I hope you and yours enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend!

Hoping you and yours are blessed beyond measure today!    As you begin your holiday shopping, please consider shopping with a direct sales consultant.  Although I don't have a physical store front, every purchase you make directly effects me and my family!  Beginning today, I am having a 12 Days of Christmas sale in my Facebook VIP Group.   Please come check it out!

I've had very few occasions where I have unfriended people on Facebook for any reason.  I've had a couple of scuffles with some people where they were stealing my pictures and content and using it for their own, and in that occasion, I actually block them, rather than unfriend them.  I don't friend people I don't know in the first place. I was recently posting a post on my Facebook wall encouraging my friends and family to consider making their holiday purchases with some of my friends that are direct sellers.  In my effort to tag all of my fellow direct sellers, I noticed that one of them had unfriended me recently.  I messaged her to ask if she was still doing it, and she replied that she still was.  I responded back that I was trying to tag and recommend my friends that are direct sellers and noticed that we aren't friends anymore on Facebook.  Here's the response I received back: " It is nothing personal, about 3-4 times per year I ...

I don't know why I've never thought about this before, but I recently had an aha! moment with tipping.  Drum roll please!  Here it is:  When you leave a tip, leave a mini catalog or flyer with a nice note for the service provider thanking them for their service!  So simple!  I try to be sincere and hand write a note on the back of my mini catalog from my direct sales business as well as leave a generous tip, and that's it.  I haven't yet received a call from one of these, but I've only gone out two times so far where I could leave a tip.  This is a tip that I left for the maid of our hotel room recently.  I'll be honest, I don't always tip in a hotel room, but this room was so fantastic, clean and a free upgrade from management, that I felt like I should give back to the maid.  My husband used to be a hotel man service, and he feels you should always tip too!   I went out to Red Lobster, recently, and left a tip with a no...

My personal love language is gifts, so when I was reading posts about going the extra mile for my hostesses, Happy Mail jumped out at me as a wonderful way to do that!  If you're not familiar with what Happy Mail is, it's sending weird and fun packages in the mail to make the receiver happy.  Let's face it, we all smile when we get something other than a bill in the mail.   I've been trying to send out a Thank you Happy Mail to my hostesses following their party.  Here's what I mailed out for the fall.  I found these cute candy corn gift bags at the Dollar Tree and knew that I could do something with them for Happy Mail.  There were 6 bags in the pack.  I also looked high and low for the Candy Corns in a smaller bag (so it doesn't weigh so much) and found this one at Walgreen's for $1 which is my price range.  I also added in some fake leaves to make it fun! I cut the handles off the bag and put everything in.  Tap...

One of the best things about being in direct sales , is that I get to share with others the products with I love, as well as help pay the bills for my family!  There's no better way to have a job!   This last week, I took my oldest daughter, as well as my two younger daughters on a trip for five days to visit a college!  It was so much fun to spend some girl time and create some new adventures with my daughters!  To top it off, we were packed in the very cutest bags ever, sold by yours truly! Check out how many bags it took four of us to pack in for a five day trip!!  Come on over to my VIP Facebook Page and name those bags and their patterns!!  I also try to let my VIP customers know what is coming up for specials and even do some giveaways here and there!  It's a lot of fun, so I'd love to have you join me!   What about you, do you get to do what you love and do you love your products and share them? 

So if you remember, I shared a posting schedule here  that I found, and on Tuesdays it recommends to "Ask a question, share a photo contest or quiz, or post a fill-in-a-blank sentence."  I started trying to come up with a question to post in my groups and couldn't make up my mind!  Then I had a brilliant idea: look it up on the internet!  So cliché, isn't it?  I used bing.com to type in "Ask fun questions."  Low and behold, hundreds of lists of fun questions to ask came up!  Try it!  It works! Take your pick, and you now have a list of interesting and fun questions to ask to captivate your audience on your Facebook groups and Business pages! Here are some of the ideas I came up with to try out on your blog or Facebook page to gain interaction from your audience: What is the last text you wrote in your phone? What is the last picture you took on your phone? What have you always wanted? Did you get it? What is your greatest strength ...