Amazon.com

• Amazon posts dozens and dozens of online specials, and for sure, they’ll be updated hourly on the big shopping days, below is the link to their special deals page.
• You can start now on the deals, or after Thanksgiving.  Amazon shows for how much longer or how much stock is left of the items.

Amazon Black Friday and After Thanksgiving Deals

LLG & Company

• Handstands CD/DVD Binders & Insert Pages
• Old Town Photo Albums
• Journals
• Discounts for bulk purchases
• Free shipping on orders over $25 (gift wrap available)

LLG & Company Black Friday and Deals Page

Rustic River Leather

• Refillable Leather Journals
• Gift journals
• Free shipping on orders $25 or more
• 10% off large orders (see site for details)
• Sports Logs (golf logs, hunting logs, fly fishing log journals)

Rustic River Leather Black Friday and Holiday Deals Page

REI

• Ski Equipment
• Coats, hats, etc.

REI Winter Sale & Clearance Page

Walmart

• Walmart is offering instore deals

Walmart instore deals link (enter you zip code once on the site for store deals)

• Online deals include TVs, cameras, toys, and a whole lot of other items

Walmart online deals page

NewEgg

• TV’s Laptops
• Contests

NewEgg Deal page

Target

• All sorts of home items
• Deals change on the page
• Free shipping on lots of items

Target deals page (2 day sale)

Enjoy!

Anyway, in this techno world that we live in, it’s become more and more easy to take pictures and store them.  I’ve found myself taking more and more pictures and simply storing them on my computer.  There’s really no constraint other than hard drive size, so away I snap.

More recently, I’ve begun storing pictures in photo albums.  There’s just something special (how quaint), about viewing pictures in an album.  Recently we took a horseback riding trip, and I wanted a great place to store the pictures.  The Rustic River Leather Photo Album hits the spot perfectly.

I got the Dark Brown Version (pictured is the Saddle Brown), and oddly enough, I found a spot for it on the mantel, and it looks great.  The leather is very rustic.  It’ll show marks and dings, but that’s part of the style.  However, I’m still pretty careful with it.  The album holds 100 4×6 pictures and is hand sewn.

The inside of the album is similar to a regular photo album.  It’s the outer construction that makes all the difference.  It takes a few tries to get the leather wrap knot correct.

So in our high-paced, ever changing world, it feels great to do something a little old fashioned.

Wickless LED candles can provide the perfect candlelight atmosphere without the danger and smoke of wick burning candles.  We purchased a 3 pack of candles that are LED powered and are quite impressed.

The candles make a great addition to the home decor and are great for dinners, parties, etc. A few more things we like are that the candles:

• Flicker like real candles
• Will last for hundreds of hours on 2 AA batteries
• Do not heat up
• Have a Vanilla Scent (it’s not strong, but there, and probably better than nothing)
• The LED light is hidden within the wax about half way down into the candle
• Make a great flashlight at night if you need to go and check on the kids without turning on the lights
• Are portable

Because the candles are so portable and safe, they take you back a couple hundred years when candlelight was the “light bulb” and flashlight of the day.  We’ve found ourselves turning on the candle at night and taking it down the stairs to check on something at night rather than flipping all the lights on and going blind.  The candles are fun to use and the kids like them at times instead of a night light.  There are a variety of candles such as these; the three-pack is nice for the cost savings. The wickless candles are available here with free shipping.

Anyway, the lights do help to brighten up a room.  We’ve done some limited testing with normal fluorescent lights (which give off a yellow hue), white fluorescent lights, and the HappyLite.  The HappyLite and the white fluorescent lights were amazing compared to the regular energy saving fluorescent bulbs.  Even regular light bulbs give off a yellow hue.  The white light from the HappyLite emits a bright white light more similar to what you would see shining in to a room through a window on a sunny day.

The lights come in a 2-pack and are pretty bright, so position them however seems best in your room or office.  One funny thing was that after we got our lights, we saw the same ones in our doctor’s office a week later.

It was getting out of hand! We were either going to stop getting movies (which might not be a bad idea) or figure somewhere to store all of our discs.

Then, we found the Bellagio-Italia CD / DVD Storage Binders by HandStands, and we fell in love. They’re not perfect mind you, but the storage albums have solved our big problem of a mess of DVD jewel cases.

At last count, we have 10 of them, and are needing more because I’d like to store software discs in them too.

Our shelves look soooooooo much better having swapped out all of our DVD cases and placing the DVDs into the binder.

We’ve organized the storage albums by genre: kids movies, adventure movies, etc.

HandStands is the manufacturer and Bellagio Italia is the Brand. The storage albums we have are the Black Pebble and the Brown. They have a burgundy as well, but the Black and the Brown are the favorites at our house. I’ll link to where you can get them below.

Top 10 reasons why the HandStands CD/DVD Binder is better than a plastic DVD storage case:

1. Cleans up shelf space – Think of how much space 48 DVD plastic cases would take up!
2. Lets you recycle the plastic DVD cases
3. Looks great on the shelf
4. Impresses the neighbors when you reach to pull out a DVD
5. Creates organization from the chaos of tons of DVD cases
6. Makes it easy to take movies with you on a trip
7. Gets rid of the frustration of trying to remove a DVD from a tight plastic case which can bend the disc
8. Makes a labeling system easy & ability to categorize your discs
9. Expands to hold more DVDs
10. Finally gives you a space to store home movies and picture discs

Important Specs about the Bellagio-Italia CD / DVD Storage Binders

The binder is “3-ring” and holds 48 discs.  Extra pages can be ordered if you want to store more discs in a single album.  We’ve categorized our DVD binders into Kid Movies, Animated Movies, Adventure Movies, etc.

There’s a little bracket on the spine that lets you write what the binder holds.

You can customize what it says to identify a certain genre or group of movies.

Video Demo from LLG

The albums help protect the DVDs even better than the DVD cases (in our case) because our DVD cases tended to get tossed on the floor and stepped on by the kids.  The storage binders are sturdy, and stand up just fine on their own.

A Sampling of What other reviewers have said about the HandStands Storage Albums

What should you watch out for when using the DVD Storage Albums

The album storage pages have a little lip that you can pull over the DVD’s to keep them securely in place.

Guess what it’s for? To keep the DVD’s from falling out if the album gets turned upside down. Guess who has accidentally turned one upside down…you guessed it…me, and I didn’t have the little lip from the covers pulled over the DVDs. Not all the DVDs fell out, but it wasn’t fun. So be sure to have the lips pulled over the discs.

What you should pay for the Bellagio Italia Albums

The price varies for the albums, but I wouldn’t pay anymore than $20 per individual album. We’ve seen frequent sales, so check on the price. If it’s below $20, you’re good to go.

If you want to save more money, you can buy them in 6 pack.

I’ll put the links below where you can get them on Amazon.com

Why the Six Pack (and we’re not talking drinks or abs)?

I’d recommend getting the pack of six of albums to start off with because most people (like us) have enough DVDs in different categories to merit a separate storage area for each. Having lots of these albums makes it easier to pull out the kids binder and go through the movies in the binder when they want to watch something rather than sort through all the mess of having everything jumbled together.

You’ll also save by ordering in bulk rather than one by one.

Where to Get the DVD Storage Albums

You can get the Bellagio Italia albums at multiple places.

I personally like the brown and the black albums, but hey, if you’re in to Burgundy, more power to you.

Click the pictures or titles below to view the product reviews on Amazon for each pack of 6 albums.

	View the Bellagio Italia CD/DVD Storage Binders (6 Pack Black) on Amazon.com
	View the Bellagio Italia CD/DVD Storage Binders (6 Pack Burgundy) on Amazon.com
	View the Bellagio Italia Brown Cd/ Dvd Storage Binder (Pack Of 6) on Amazon.com

If you want to buy them individually, you can view them here: The Bellagio-Italia CD / DVD Binders on LLGco.com

The leather writing journal is a fun return to the old cowboy style journals. The book is hand-made with acid-free pages (to better preserve what is written).

It’s not a regular book binding, but is stitched. The side flap opens up and can been secured by wrapping the leather strap around the journal.

A great device deserves a great protective yet stylish case. The iPod Touch Leather Case by LLG helps to enhance the look of the Apple iPod Touch.

LLG iPod Touch Leather Case at www.llgco.com

Problem with Silicon iPod Cases – Too Soft

Silicon cases tend to pick up lots of dust and lint especially if you put your iPod in your pocket.

If you ever do try putting a silicon case covering your iPod Touch in your pocket, good luck getting it out. The cases are kind of tacky (not just in looks) they stick a little bit to everything.

Although they do provide a little bit of protection for the iPod there are better covers for iPod Touch out there.

Problem with Hard Shell iPod Cases – Too Hard

Hard-shelled cases tend to obscure the beauty of the Touch. I’ve tested some of the jumbo hard-shell, can’t-send-a-bullet-through-it types of cases, and although impressive that they’re so tough, they don’t impress in terms of function. They’re hard to use and hard to open. Good luck ever getting the iPod Touch out of the case.

The not-so-tough cases that are still hard shell are kinda-cool, but they really don’t protect the iPod if it gets dropped. Don’t ever drop your iPod, but if you do, the thin shell cases don’t provide much protection. You’d be better off with the silicon case in this…um…case.

Related to this on are cases that have a “protective” screen that covers the iPod are usually hard to remove and can leave a residue on the device. My iPod Touch is such a cool device, I don’t want to devalue it by placing some sticker over the front of it.

Leather iPod Cases = Just Right

The LLG iPod Case really does a great job of protecting the Apple iPod while keeping it classy. The leather case fits the iPod Touch 2nd and 3rd Generation. It will also very snugly fit the first generation iPod Touch.

There is room on the side for access to the volume controls. You can store small cards in the wallet slots. Very big cards may have trouble fitting, but average to smaller cards should fit just fine.

You don’t have to take the iPod Touch out of the case to charge it or to access the headphone jack. Those connections areas are left open at the bottom of the case. You can also access that top button on the iPod Touch that turns the screen off.

A small magnetic clip helps secure the case when the iPod is not in use.

Free Shipping on the Case

You can get free, 2-day shipping on the case if you’re an Amazon Prime member since LLGco.com is tied into the Amazon.com fulfillment system. Just be sure to select the option at checkout if you’re a Prime Member.

People love it

People I’ve shown the case to love it and ask where I got it.

LLGco.com is the manufacturer of the LLG iPod case, and you can view the case on their site here:

View the LLG iPod Touch Leather Case Official Site