Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

This was another week where we were battling illness (honestly, I'm still not feeling great and now my daughter is sick...luckily she at least avoided the fever that comes with this thing), so I did manage to save money by not spending money.  At least not much. I'll get to that in a minute though.

So, onto this week's accomplishments!

1.  I managed to finish my embroidered floral napkins.  Be prepared to get deluged with some photos here as I was determined that at least ONE photo of these things wasn't going to come out dim and dingy looking.  Of course taking pictures of these on a cloudy day PROBABLY didn't help the lighting much.

A shot of all four napkins is seen above/top.  I took direct inspiration from the tablecloth (that you can see part of underneath the napkins in the following photos), but I wanted to make each napkin a bit different for fun.  So, this is what I came up with.

Since there was only about four different floral themes going through the tablecloth, I used the blue flowers twice.  Once in a group shot.

And one in a more close up shot.

I think the big pink flowers on the tablecloth are actually peonies, but when I got done with mine it came out looking more like a rose (flowers aren't something I normally draw much of), so I just turned it into a rose by adding a few thorns to the stem.  It still fits in with a floral theme *laugh*.

I am also noting when I took pictures of these that there are some embroidery floss loose ends on the back side of these that are showing through the muslin.  I need to tuck those in better before I put some interfacing onto the backs.  Note to self.

And the napkin that took me the most time to finish.  That was a lot of flowers to outline and shade.

I do have to say that I LOVE the vintage-like line work I did on these as I think it matches the tablecloth really well.  And I'm starting to realize why women in my grandma's generation did embroidery this way on their "everyday" items like dish towels and napkins and such.  Because it is a LOT easier and goes much quicker, so if you stain them up beyond all recognition it won't make you cry to have to do another one *laugh*.

I used white muslin for the material on these as I use that as my work horse fabric around here.  It's cheap (if you get it on sale), it cleans up well and after a few washes it gets really soft.  All bonuses to me.

And might I say that I loved being able to pull out some of my French White and Spring Blossom patterned Corelle to stage these photos.  The table shouted Spring, even if we are getting some snow right now :).

Isn't it cute?

Anyway, onto the rest of the things I managed to accomplish this week.

2.  Despite being sick last Friday I did remember to go online and check on Freebie Friday, which resulted in a free pot pie for the freezer (and a free lunch or dinner when my husband is working weird hours, for me).

3.  I had to check on some orders on Amazon for my husband and while I was on there I happened to look down and see that a book I've been wanting for a while, "Victorian Farm", had a copy from a seller for less than 1.00!  This is a book that goes for 25.00 USED, and that's on a good day, so I swooped in super quick and grabbed it up before someone else did.  So for less than 5.00 I got a book that normally would have cost me 30.00 shipped.  I was thrilled and can't wait to get it in the mail :).

4.  I got an offer to try out some cleaning supplies in exchange for maybe doing a review on the items.  I jumped at the chance as free cleaning supplies...who is going to turn those down?

5.  I fixed a bunch of stuff this week and replaced batteries in a few of the son's toys as well.  I am happy as he's using the toys again now where before he was mainly just beating on them trying to get them to work.  I also replaced the batteries in his constellation nightlight, which was a good move on my part as if I'd waited until the batteries were completely dead I would have had a meltdown on my hands with him.

By the way, overall, I've been really impressed with the generic Safeway brand of batteries.  I'm definitely going to buy those again as they've held up really well compared with the name brand batteries.  I'm not getting anything for saying that...I have just been impressed with them :).

6.  I spent a lot of time this week reading books that I got for free with gift cards.  I do have a quick blog post with some suggestions on WWII rationing books in the works for those who might be interested.  I'm learning more everyday when it comes to this period in history and enjoy it so much that I'd love to share some of the books I've run into.  At any rate, spending gift card monies on books, to me, is a really frugal thing to do as it's really a great way to get hours of entertainment value out of a small investment.

7.  I managed to make dinner around here this week despite still not feeling well, which definitely saved us money.  On days where my son was freaking out and we had to buy him french fries, we tried to make sure that we ate before we left home, so we only had to buy my son his french fries when we were out.  It saved us money doing it that way (and saved my stomach...me and fast food don't mix well).

8.  I dug out my Spring decorations in the middle of cleaning endeavors this week and put those up around the house (I'll do a post on that sometime soon in case I can share some tips people might appreciate).  Since I have used the same decorations for years, this was a completely free thing for me to do and really helped to brighten the house a bit.  Of course as soon as I did that winter finally decided to show up in force and we have snow on the ground and colder temperatures, but ah well.  At least my house is nice and Spring-like *laugh*.

9.  My daughter outgrew some of her pants this week and I put them aside.  One pair is a velvety materials, so I keep going back and forth about potentially reusing them to make a purse for her for Christmas or something out of them.  I'm still debating, but either way putting the pants aside out of the way saves me money in that they won't get thrown on the floor, continually rewashed for months and then tried on, yet again, only to find out they were too small (lather, rinse, repeat).  As soon as I see clothing that is coming out on the daughter that is too small I IMMEDIATELY make her take them off and stick them in the "too small" pile or inevitably what I just described happens for months before I realize what she was doing and want to pop a vein.  Soooo, it's worth nipping that problem in the bud ahead of time :).

10.  I baked bread this week, which with how sick I was last week it felt GOOD to get that done.  I was going to also bake "Wacky cake" which is a Depression Era recipe I've been wanting to try, but I ran into a box of cake mix in the pantry that was one month past the "use by" date.  I knew it was still good, but should be used up, so I made that instead.  Cake, after all, is cake.  It used a few more ingredients (oil and eggs) that the other cake wouldn't have, but it was still just as simple to make.  The kids are thrilled with desserts this week.

11.  Instead of watching TV, my daughter asked me to help her do a puzzle instead.  It was a lot of fun (we still need to finish it actually) and it was nice not having electronics plugged in around here during every moment my children are awake.

And there you are folks.  Some of the things I did to save money this week.  How did you do?