Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Well, I can happily say that things are going a bit better around here for now.  We were able to get paid for some work my husband did which allows me to breathe without panicking for a little bit.  Being able to be happy and not worried this time of year really does make the holiday season pass a little bit more happily.

Double bright side is that because we actually got paid, that I was able to go to the store and get a few things that I was hoping to be able to afford, but feared I wouldn't be able to.  Which will save me money later, which is definitely a good thing.

So, some ways I saved money this week are...

1.  We put together one of our advent calendars today (I know, we're running late this year).  You can see it above.  We went into one of our local thrift stores last year around the holidays and one of the owners, who knows we're regulars, gave us a couple of unopened advent calendars for the kids for free.  I put one together last year and my daughter had fun playing with it and also opening all of the doors as advent progressed.  This year my daughter is even reading the messages inside of the boxes to us, which makes me proud.

2.  I went to the store today and hit some sales hard.  Carrs has navel oranges for .99 per pound this week.  I got ten pounds.  It wasn't the lowest price point of the season, that was at Fred Meyer's a couple of weeks ago, but my daughter had already blown through the 6 pounds of oranges I had bought then, so I figured I'd better stock up this time around.  She even wants me to start including them in with her lunch for school, so I'm thinking that these MIGHT last about three weeks...might.

I was also able to get the groceries we needed and still came in 50.00 under my normal weekly grocery budget.  I used part of that money to fill up the gas tank in my car instead of doing the usual 5 to 7 gallons of gas to get me through another week of school.

3.  I made some Christmas decorations for the outside of the house with materials I already had around the house.

4.  I was nearly out of dish soap, but instead of throwing it out when I couldn't squeeze anymore out of it, I added a bit of water to it and shook the bottle well.  This allowed me to do three more loads of dishes with what little soap was left in the bottle.  I have soap to refill the bottles with as I empty them, but I still preferred to empty the bottle completely before refilling it.

5.  I found Andes mints at the store on sale for 1.00 per box.  I bought four boxes.  These will be used as stocking stuffers for the kiddos as well as for some baking fun around here.

6.  I continued to work on Christmas gifts this week, although I'm still hoping to make more progress on those over the weekend.  I was worried about putting up the Christmas tree for fear I'd lose the ability to use my sewing machine, so I thought about it and redid the layout of my den so that I could put up the tree today and also be able to use my sewing machine.  My husband actually prefers the new layout to the old, so double bonus on that (more on that later).

7.  I called in some of my utility bills today, thus saving myself a stamp.

8.  This week we spent a lot of the week at home due to my son still not feeling great from his stomach flu after effects, so I didn't spend money on "satellite items" or anything like that.

9.  I had a problem where I have to shampoo my stairs in my house because of some stomach flu things that happened (won't go into icky details), but my carpet shampooer hose thing for upholstery and stairs has never worked right and finally broke completely a bit ago.  Instead of sitting there for hours messing around with the hose and worrying about trying to get it all working to the point I could get the stairs cleaned, I went and just bought some carpet cleaning foam at the store as part of my normal grocery budget.  The foam will disinfect the carpet and get it cleaner than trying to use the carpet cleaning attachment and it will save me a lot of time and effort.

And there you are folks.  Some ways I saved money this week.  How did you do?

A Gift a Day Gift Twenty-Seven: Handkerchiefs

This is actually probably going to be a stocking stuffer, but I'm counting it anyway. 

Every year I tried for a long time to get my husband a package of handkerchiefs.  In his business he carries one in his pocket every day in case he needs one (really it works better than my system of collecting paper towels folded up in my pockets and constantly putting them through the laundry...one of my faults I've had for years).  The last couple of years, however, I've stayed away from the stores at Christmastime as much as possible and I refuse to pay the full price they want you to pay for handkerchiefs at Christmastime.

So, in short, some of his handkerchiefs are getting really thread bare.  So, this year I figured I'd make him some.

I used bleached muslin and then simply took one of his handkerchiefs and added two inches onto the width and length I got (as the handkerchiefs I've gotten him have shrank over time) and then used that handkerchief as a template to cut out the others.  I used a 1/4 inch rolled hem (fold in 1/4" and then fold 1/4" again, hiding your raw edge) and sewed it down as close to the edge of the fold as possible to avoid any pokey edges getting someone in the nose.

I made him six of them, which I'm hoping will help pad out his current stock.

I know, not a very exciting gift, but a needed one and really if you have someone in your family who likes handkerchiefs (we use them around here, obviously) this is a pretty practical gift that will be appreciated I'm sure.

Total Cost to Make Gift:  I had all the materials, so really free, but the muslin was .99 a yard on sale a while back when I bought it, so I'd say about .80 worth of materials were used.

Total Time to Make Gift:  Two hours.  I had a cat helping me pin, which didn't help my speed any.

What I'm Reading in 2015: October and November

Well, I promised that I'd get to sharing what I read in October and November of this year.  If you aren't into non-fiction types of books this is going to be pretty boring for you to read, but this is what I'm into reading right now.

First up is...

Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett L. Markham

I bought this book a while ago at a used store with the intent to read it and see if there was any knowledge to be gleaned from it.  And I finally sat down to read it recently.

I have to say I was impressed with how much this book covers.  It gives you different methods for raised beds, different things to plant, how to raise chickens and how to dress them and a lot of other things.

It gives you different ideas on planting from seeds and what is the best method to use to get good results.  I have to say that their opinions reflected my own on some methods, so I'm looking forward to trying the methods that he says works better than the ones I've tried. 

It gives you a good idea how to do a self sufficient lifestyle on very little land.  I found a lot of knowledge I could use to make my garden grow better this summer, so I consider this book a definite win on the book finds list.

Next up is a very special book, to me.

Encyclopedia of Needlework by Therese De Dillmont 

This book fell into my possession when my dad passed away four years ago.  I had gone back for the funeral and to help my step-mom as much as I could bring the house into some semblance of order (my dad was a hoarder).  While going through one room of many that was wall to wall books, I found this book while cleaning out piles of others.

The book looked old, so I flipped open the cover and found something very special inside.  My great-grandmother's signature with the date 1902 in it.

I was thrilled to be in possession of a book that belonged to a member of my dad's family as my dad's family wasn't big on passing down heirlooms from generation to generation.  So, I grabbed the book with the intent to read it completely one day.

The book, however, was delicate;  the cover was falling off, the outer binding was coming off and there were several beginning pages that had fallen out of the book.  So, I put it aside with some other old books where nothing would happen to it and just dusted it from time to time.

Until last month, where I saw it on the shelf and was curious to see if there was new things to learn in it's pages.  So one careful page turn at a time, I read through the book.

And I learned a lot, actually.  The book covers tons of things, including macrame and all forms of needlework.  It really is the most comprehensive book I've ever seen on the subject.

There is a newer version of the book available (at the above link) on Amazon, but I guess the digital free version of the book doesn't include illustrations, which you DEFINITELY need for some of the tutorials on some of the techniques.  The book even covers knitting, crocheting and many other really useful things.  And in a very tiny (for my particular edition) book.

I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to learn needlework of any type as it's the most comprehensive book I've ever read on the subject (and I own a couple comprehensive books on the subject).

Note:  This post contains affiliate links.  If you order through these links I'll just get a small amount of money from Amazon for helping them advertise the products.  You won't be charged any extra for your purchases through these links.  If you order through said links, thank you :).

Christmas Decorations on the Cheap Part 1: Christmas Wreaths and Swags

Okay, so confession time.  I come from a VERY superstitious family.  Like one of "those" families that you spill salt and throw it immediately over your left shoulder "for luck".  Never walking under ladders types.  I could go on about the things I was taught growing up.

I think part of it is my dad's family comes from a long line of fishermen.  "Poor as Church mice, but hard working,  God fearing sorts" was my grandpa's way of putting it.  I think the sea is in my blood (if the pure joy I get out of paintings of the old wooden ships is any indication any time I see them *laugh*) and just as surely superstition goes hand in hand with that blood.

One of the superstitions I was taught was that if you don't have evergreen hanging on every entrance to your house comes the New Year you are inviting bad luck into your home for the coming year.  This was one of those superstitions I didn't think much about but kind of thought it was a bit out there.  Until the last couple of years where we've had our share of things happening and those were the two years where I didn't have any money to purchase wreaths for the doors.  So, this year, I decided to hedge my bets and put evergreen on every door. 

You may now laugh your head off at your leisure.  I do not mind one iota *laugh*.

I didn't have money to buy wreaths this year on Black Friday weekend, so I decided to try and find the wreath form I had saved and make a wreath.  Well...I couldn't find it (I'm sure I put it somewhere "safe"...it's like the "Room of Requirement" from Harry Potter, only you can never find the darned room again *laugh*).  I could have used my mom's old trick of using a coat hanger bent into a circle and then using floral wire to wrap the pine around the wire, but this leads to a three dimensional wreath, so it's kind of hard to hang on a door when you have an outer storm door to worry about (which out of four doors, I have have two of those to worry about). 

I tried to think of something else to do and came up with an idea.  I dug around in storage and found a fake wreath I had bought on clearance from L.L. Bean for like 7.00 YEARS ago, but hadn't used in a bit because it was getting kind of sparse (bits of fake greenery falling off as the years went by, etc).  And so, armed with some ideas and a tree saw, I took to my yard and decimated some tree branches today to make some decorations.

And here's what I came up with.

The wreath above is actually the fake wreath I was talking about, but with real pine sprigs secured throughout the perimeter (I just plain stuck them into the wreath as I went along and it worked great).  I then secured some wreath picks from previous wreaths I'd bought throughout the years (yes, I always grab those off before throwing things away) and a bow from a previous wreath and voila!  Front door wreath done!  I even secured some battery powered LED lights to the wreath to light it up on Christmas because I had them in my Christmas stuff from a previous year.

Next up is another "punt" when it comes to decorations.  I put this one up outside of my upper deck/kitchen door.  I ran out of wreath hangers (I had 3, but can't figure out where my fourth one went too...I almost think it got bent out of whack and I threw it away), so I hung this one on a nail by the door.  This is a fake pine swag I found at the used store a few years back for .50 and then I just secured it to some pine branches with some floral wire.  It really does look better in person than the photograph makes it seem.

And then I made two of these for the other doors.  These are straight pine from my yard that I made into swags for the other two doors with layering of pine branches and some floral wire.  They are pretty much identical with the exception that the other one has a more elaborate bow on it (I just forgot to take a picture of it).  I took some pine comes from my yard that I had dried out and allowed to open earlier in the year and wired them to the swags and then I took some cranberry wreath picks that I had and wired those in throughout the swags as well.

Now, just to be safe here I want to assure everyone I have NO IDEA what I'm doing when it comes to floral arrangements of any type, I do not know how to make wreaths without one of those "jam in" forms that you can buy and even then I'm still trying to master that skill and I have never taken a class to help me in this area. 

So, in short, I think these look fine, but they probably are making professionals everywhere flinch *laugh*.

But, hey, they were free for me to make, so I consider it worth it.

You might not have the money to get Christmas decorations for your door, but maybe you too could doctor up a used store find, an old fake wreath or just make something out of what you have.  Just because you don't have the money to buy something doesn't mean your hands are completely tied :).  Get creative!  You might find you enjoy the process!

Thrifty Thursday: Some Christmas Gifts For Free

This is kind of a special Thrifty Thursday post for me as my husband got me some Christmas gifts.  For free :).

My husband has taken up some side work to help out a relative (and us) and as part of the job they are redoing a house that someone got on auction.  So, one of the goals of redoing said house is to clean it out of the things the previous owners left behind.

And my husband found me some vintage Corelle and some Pyrex pie dishes.

He gave the dishes to me early as I had to clean them up a bit (stuck on old food, etc), but they cleaned up just fine.  I'm super happy as I use my Corelle ALL the time and this gives me a few more pieces to put into circulation (thus allowing me to not have to worry about buying more plastic throw away containers too).

You can't beat a price tag of "free" when being thrifty :).

A Gift a Day Gift Twenty Six: 18" Doll Dress

Okay, this was actually an experiment and ended up being a gift for my daughter.  I'm hoping to make her some more clothes for her dolls here, but this was the start.

Some may remember on a Thrifty Thursday post where I found some panels for 18" doll clothes on them.  I was going to have my daughter help me make the clothes, but then reading through the instructions I realized that not only were the instructions over HER head, they were also, in some cases, over MY head.  Reading the numerous gussets, pleats and other things the clothes would have I was kind of baffled as they are doll clothes for crying out loud!  Yet, at the same time, I realized that this was a good opportunity for me to expand my sewing knowledge too.

I had never tried anything with pleats in it before (I tend to go for super simple on patterns), so I cut out a dress that would require pleating, took some material that I had from...I have no idea where honestly as I can't imagine myself buying that pattern of fabric for something, but maybe I had a project in mind at the time...who knows...and decided I'd use the dress cut out as a pattern to mess around with on my own.  I tried to make the dress as close to the other pattern that came on the panel as possible so that it would coordinate with the other outfits on that panel (it comes with some other clothes and a purse and things on it)

So, I cut out a dress using the other pattern as a template and then started following the instructions.  And I'm glad I did that as it allowed me to make a decently cute dress for my daughter's 18" My Generation Doll (speaking of Christmas clearance that was one of those scores.  I got the Christmas edition doll for her ages ago for 10.00) and I've got a better knowledge of how to do front pleats on a dress, so that was a nice bit of knowledge to add to my brain :).

I used a velcro closure in the back where the original instructions wanted you to use some snap or hook and eyes.  I find velcro easier, so I just cut a piece of velcro in half lengthwise to the desired length and used that.  It worked great and took a lot less time than the other way would have.

Total Cost to Make Gift:  Well, considering I used part of the panel project as a pattern...hmmm...about .50 or so?  I can't safely say how much the original fabric for this cost, but the bias tape I used to finish the neck and arms was .10 for the entire package and I still have some left.  So, yeah, .50 seems like a good place to estimate.

Total Time to Make Gift:  2 hours with distractions abounding in between.

Monthly Goals: December 2015

I'm hoping I can remember all of my list for this month.  My son woke up in the middle of the night last night, vomited and then had other stomach "issues" on top of it (I won't go into gory details).  Kind of took us by surprise as he seemed fine and recovered yesterday.  My husband had to work today, so he went back to bed and I and my son were up all night.  Bright side he nearly immediately, after a few bouts, started feeling better and just basically stayed up all night eating and playing, so I wasn't going to complain too much about that.  And I was with it enough after the 1 hour of sleep I got this morning to make my daughter's packed lunch, got her medication down her and got her to brush her teeth.  The hair my husband caught and helped her get that done *laugh*, but I thought I was doing pretty good overall considering my "trudging through mud" mental capabilities this morning.

So, one of the things I did was just plain ADD a lot of the things I'm going to be doing the rest of this week to deep clean the house to get rid of just the shear amount of yuck we have floating around.  It's got to be done and I do better when I check things off a list, so that will get done.

Bright side is my husband has picked up some side work to help somewhat with finances and is actually planning on contacting some leads he has for new jobs as soon as he gets done with the few jobs he's doing at the beginning of this week.  Just him doing that has helped alleviate some of my anxiety, which is definitely welcome.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to send out a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been nice enough to offer up advice and encouragement this last week or even to send up a prayer in our general direction.  It really helped to lift me from my emotional funk and start seeing the good that is still there in bad times...sometimes you just need a reminder that it's there :).  I don't know what I ever did to deserve blog readers like you, but I'm grateful either way.  Thank you all!

So, onto the goals for this month!

Monthly Goals:  December 2015

Sewing Goals:

• Finish Christmas Gifts (this might get tricky in the next little bit as my husband is working weekends, but I'm determined!)
• Attempt to fix husband's boots (I'm working on putting a new sole on the inside of a boot...this might be interesting but I think I can make it work)
• Make table runner for kitchen table out of Christmas Snoopy fabric.  Make new covering of some type for sideboard and coffee table (I kind of need to cover surfaces as my son likes to just leave liquid things on the wooden furniture.  I don't like to see wooden furniture hurt, so I take steps to protect it.  And hey, it gives me an opportunity to make them more holiday-like, so double bonus ;).
• Work on embroidery projects (if I can find time) 
• Make stocking stuffers for husband and kids (I consider these separate from the Christmas gifts, so that is why they are their own goal).

General Goals:

• Put up Christmas decorations (already started on this and got the rest pulled into the house yesterday).
• Organize upstairs video space better (it's kind of a mess right now and I need to come up with something better). 
• Reorganize the gloves and hats and boots/shoes area in the den.  It's always such a mess and so disorganized.  I'm going to do something about that.
• Pull out cookbooks for Christmas baking recipes.
• Make up bucket of bleach water.  Scrub bathrooms.  Scrub son's bed inside and out with said water (make sure it's diluted enough to not bleach out the plastic).
• Wash all the bedding on hot to kill any residual germs.  Change children's beds with nice super clean bedding.
• Shampoo all upstairs carpets at least three times (to remove any residual germs and/or funk in the carpet).
• Make up pot of air freshener and steam the house with good smells.
• Figure out Christmas dinner plans.  Normally I buy a beef roast on after Christmas clearance (yes, I hit meat clearance too *laugh*) and Food Saver it for the next year's Christmas dinner, but that didn't happen last year due to finances, so this year I'm going to have to come up with another plan.  I'm thinking maybe a cheaper roast (I normally get a standing rib roast on clearance) or maybe a ham.  Still thinking on this one.
• Look through what little is left on gift cards and what we have in the pantry to figure out if there is anything we want to do "special" for my birthday.  It's at the end of the month, so I have time.  My daughter gets upset by my nonchalant attitude when it comes to Mother's Day and my birthday *laugh*. 
• Take kids to the Bright Up the Night Display.  This is right up our alley as you stay in your car and drive through the display.  With my son's want to play with everything Christmas light related, I think this will be a lot of fun!

Blogging Goals:

• Do blog post on winter activities
• Do blog post on frugal Christmas decor.
• Do blog post on things I've read in October and November (I did indeed read...just haven't gotten around to the blog post yet *laugh*).