Saving more money for holiday shopping...

Here's a thought...instead of blowing some serious coin on graphic layout bond, try spending $2.79 for thirty square feet of parchment paper at your local grocery store.  This (of course) is not meant to be a permanent solution, but it works great for preliminary drafts and budgeting for holiday expenditures.

Getting more mileage out of your paint.

You've reached the end of another tube of paint...in the middle of a job...and you don't have a backup.  There are many techniques for getting the last figments of pigment out of the tube and onto the canvas (the roll method, the press method, the squeeze method, the re-roll method) but none of them seem to yield enough paint when you need it most.  Behold...the "insert-clever-name-here" method.  

Step 1:  The culprit...take your nearly empty tube of paint and press as much of what's left towards the traditional evacuation point (keep the cap on while completing this step).

Step 2:  Grab your scissors and cut off the top of the tube (cutting point will vary for each tube).

Step 3:  Discard the top portion of the tube.

Step 4:  Pry open the remaining portion of the tube to reveal the precious pigment pressed down from the first step.

Step 5:  Grab a paint brush and paint directly from the tube.  Preserve any leftovers by wrapping plastic wrap over the opening or scraping out the pigment and transferring to another container.

Final notes:  This method may be applied to toothpaste, hair gel, shampoo, face wash, body wash and other various products packaged in plastic tubes and materials that can be cut with scissors.

Meditative interlude.