Here is the list of words you need to find throughout the month to win.

1 – Pumpkin
2 – Yellow
3 – Apples
4 – Hot chocolate
5 – Maple
6 – Hay
7 – Gourds
8 – Sweater
9 – Change
10 – Spice
11 – Brown
12 – Rake
13 – Fall
14 – Orange
15 – Chilly
16 – Cornucopia
17 – Colors
18 – Marshmallows
19 – Hayride
20 – Leaves
21 – Acorn
22 – Corn
23 – Holidays
24 – Fireplace
25 – Harvest
26 – Trick or Treat
27 – Rain
28 – Scarecrow
29 – Turkey
30 – Windy
31 – Orchard

So in case you had questions yesterday this is how it’s gonna go down:

1. Take a look at the list. Today is the first of October so the word you’re looking for is Pumpkin.
   
2. Tomorrow you’ll be looking for the word… Yellow
3. Where you’ll find the word of the day is at a random Home & Dining Channel blog. So the word Pumpkin might be here at Offbeat Homes (this post does not count by the way) or it could be at Chocolate Bytes or Declutter It or maybe you’ll find it at one of the many other fine blogs here in the Home & Dining Channel.
4. Keep track of where you find each word of the day and at the end of the month send your list to Deb at deborah.ng@b5media.com.
5. If you found the most words you’ll be entered into a drawing to win that fly basket. Don’t remember it… ok here it is again:

Participating blogs include:

• Offbeat Homes (of course)
• Simply Thrifty
• Keeping the Castle
• Chocolate Bytes
• The Food Bowl
• Declutter It
• Baking Delights
• Foodie Obsessed
• Mother Earth’s Garden

Get hunting, keep track, and good luck!

Post from: Blisstree

Fall Harvest Scavenger Hunt: Words to Find

First the eye candy… Better known as what you can win if you play!

This lovely autumn basket:

Oh, so nice. In fact I would like to win this, but frankly, if I play, that might be considered cheating. That said I fully expect my smart Offbeat readers to do me proud; which means one of you should win.

Want the stats on how to win this cool basket and show us you can play detective with the best of them? The ever clever Deb from Simply Thrifty wrote some guidelines up for you to follow.

Read away:

“Remember going on scavenger hunts when you were a kid? Sometimes they were the most fun part of a social gathering – wasn’t it fun to be given a list and going off with your teammates to locate feathers, safety pins and purple crayons? b5Media’s Home and Dining Channel also remembers. What better way to reward our loyal readers than with a fun Fall Harvest Scavenger Hunt?

Here’s how it works:

On October 1st, participating Home & Dining blogs will post a list of words and the date that word is to appear in Home and Dining. Each day those words will appear on one of the participating blogs. It could be in a title of a blog post, it could be the post’s particular theme that day, or it could just be a word in a paragraph somewhere.

Contest participants will locate each word and write it down. On October 31st, the last day of your contest, send your words to Deb, from Simply Thrifty, at the email address listed below.

Here’s the rundown:

1. Words and rules will be posted to each participating Home & Dining blog on October 1st.
2. A list of participating blogs will be posted as well.
3. Each day, participants are to check out each participating blog to find which one hosts the day’s word. Sometimes the word will pop out at you, other times it won’t be so obvious.
4. After October 31st, send your lists to Deb at deborah.ng@b5media.com. Each list should list the word, day it appeared, and blog on which it appeared. Those who complete the scavenger hunt, or have the most entrants, will be entered into a drawing to win a gorgeous autumn gift basket. Entry cutoff date is November 7th.

We hope you enjoy participating in the Fall Harvest Scavenger Hunt. We’re having a blast planning it – and blogging it!”

Now secondly, I’m moving houses today and tomorrow (and maybe the 2nd too) so… if you have questions right away about the contest you can leave a comment here and hopefully my internet will be working and I’ll answer it. If you don’t hear back from me just hop on over to another Home & Dining blog and ask — all my blogging friends will be happy to answer any questions.

Even though I’ll be moving this blog will still be running thanks to the magic of the pre-post.

Remember to look for the words you need to hunt down tomorrow and good luck!

Necessary prize disclaimer: The Home & Dining channel loves the basket we picked as the prize; however if said basket is for any reason unavailable Home & Dining reserves the right to switch out this basket for one that is equally as cool.

Post from: Blisstree

Fall Harvest Scavenger Hunt: Read, Play, Win!

With the exception of me here at Offbeat, (seriously are there really offbeat school tips?) the H&D channel has lots of great stuff that you need to know to get your kids back to school with style, organization, and the everlasting bagged lunch.

Here are the offerings:

Maricar has the MOST AMAZING idea at Keeping the Castle for back to school Bento; seriously, your kids will be the envy of the lunch table. Maricar has seriously earned her bold print — go see her post because I think you’ll agree.

BUT the rest of Home & Dining is rocking out the back to school tips as well…

Julie Bonner over at Declutter It has tons of tips that will get you and your kids organized and ready for back to school time, in no time flat. Trust me, they’re easy and anyone can follow them.

If you think that Heather over at Chocolate Bytes is just here to tell you to jam pack the kids lunches with yummy chocolate; well, you could not be more wrong. Heather came up with the coolest chocolate ideas for back to school that I’ve ever seen — go check it out. That’s an order!

If you want to be able to afford to send your kids to college later on, be sure to check out Deborah’s helpful money saving back to school info at Simply Thrifty.

At Foodie Obsessed, Tracey Thompson tells you how to quit worrying about how to pack creative lunches that your kids will eat and gives you the tools you need to simply get packin’.

Noel Bautista has a great recycling project you can do with your kids that will help them learn to save the environment and get them ready for school in style, over at Unplugged Living .

Mother Earth’s Garden tells you how to impress all those new teachers and gives tips on how to help your kids concentrate. (always useful).

And what, dear readers, am I suggesting?

Well for starters, I think you should try out these fly methods of transportation and for two maybe try to find a newer school than this:

Fox Creek is an old 19th century cottonwood limestone schoolhouse in Kansas. It looks cool and all, but the last thing your kid needs is the school falling down on his head while he’s trying to learn to spell Mississippi.

Too new?

Here’s the official oldest wooden schoolhouse in the United States; St. Augustine, Florida to be exact:

Yikes! Scary. Built in the 1700s, some say that it’s haunted. I say it looks full of spiders. But look there are still some teachers there…

Hey, wait… there’s something not quite right about these school attending folk? Hmmm.

Good luck getting your little ones back to school!

[Fox Creek photo via :Kansas Geological Survey]

Post from: Blisstree

The Official Home & Dining Channel Back to School Kick Off

So, I figure, why not find each blog a suitable offbeat house.

Here goes…

Maricar at Keeping the Castle is always offering great homemaking tips including how to design your own artwork and this week she had great nature-based furniture. I loved the lamp!

Now if Maricar and her blog were to live in an Offbeat home which home might that be?

I figure, that since Maricar’s always making our lives easier she might like something like this:

Treehugger recently featured this Push Button House from architect Adam Kalkin:

“The Push Button House is exactly that: it starts as a shipping container until a button is pushed, and it turns into a house. Motorized walls unfold like a flower, revealing a fully functional house, complete with refined, understated furnishings”

How do you like that! A house that unpacks itself. Treehugger friends are currently debating where the walls are. A fact that might be of use to the normal home dweller. As is, it’s way more art than home in my book. Still, it is easy.

Next up is a blog I visit often, Chocolate Bytes. Why? Well, there’s the chocolate thing…I like my kisses. Plus Heather always finds the rarest chocolate items. The other day I sped over there so fast because she found bubble chocolate! Very neat. Also, the fastest chocolate cookies ever — really good (I’ve had them).

I wanted to find Heather the best ever chocolate house. Do you know how hard that is? For one, no one seems to build chocolate structures (I think there’s some sort of melting issue) and when they do, she already knows about them first.

Like this amazing indoor chocolate fountain:

And the largest chocolate skyscraper in the world:

If she’s seen this castle I will freak:

Neat huh. So, Heather does not technically get a house she can live in. (sorry) But maybe a chocolate castle is even better. This one, featured by the cocoa clever folks at Chocolatework.com stands almost five feet tall. Visit Chocolatework.com or Chocolate Bytes to see more amazing chocolate treats.

Okay, heads up, we’ve got an action packed Offbeat weekend in store.

Check back later. There are eight other Home & Dining blogs. I read all of them. So I’ll be back with some more recommendations in a bit. I know you may thinking, there is no way Jennifer can find a suitable offbeat home for each H&D blog by the end of the weekend. Hmmm, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Post from: Blisstree

Home & Dining Channel: Offbeat Style