Starting on My Frugal Christmas

I am getting started on my frugal Christmas and wanted to share.

First of all.....welcome to my sewing room, also known as the kitchen.   Some day, maybe someday I will have a room where my crafts, sewing machine, etc can stay out.

I had decided I wanted to make potholders/hotpads for Christmas gifts for the women on my list this year.  A recent trip to Wal Mart I found some of the insulbright in the remnant bin!  2/3 of a yard marked 20% off for $3.72.
I need to make for my mother, Steve's mother, Steve's sister, my sister-in-law, my 2 oldest daughters and my oldest daughters boyfriend (he just bought his first house).  I need to make at least 14 then for gifts and by looking and figuring in my head, I should have enough of the insulbright to make all of them.
The little squares are leftover material from all the quilts I made last Christmas.  (If you want to see those, you can visit my squidoo lens Blankets for Christmas)   I was throwing away the little bits of material but Steve mentioned I should cut little squares and not waste  (hhmmm  pretty good idea  LOL)
Now where do you think I got the black that I am using for the backs??  You would never guess.  We bought a futon at a yard sale for $15 a few months ago.  Well, it didn't take long with my daughter sleeping on it every night for the metal to bend in the middle and end up on the floor.  We recently went and bought a brand new futon.  Again, I was going to throw away the covering when Steve mentioned he thought I might want to use some of the material in my quilting and stuff.  Oh boy......he is learning my frugal ways (isn't it great?!)  It hit me then that the black lining type part would be good for the back of the pot holders, so there you have it.
I'm not picky on the thread and will use whatever I have in my sewing box.
How is that for some nifty and very frugal gifts??   Here is a photo of the one I have done so far.  I do still have to put the ring on the back, but again, I got a package of those in with some other craft things I bought, so no extra money going out.

 
The other gift that I have completed is the baby blanket that I am giving to my middle daughter and her boyfriend for Christmas.
I spent $2 on the green material with animals.  The back is a set of yellow pillow cases that I bought for $1.  
The batting in the middle I was trying to buy at a yard sale that was marked $1.  I was informed I had to take a whole box of craft things because they had too much and wanted to get rid of it, so to just throw the batting into any box.  Ok.....so for the same $1 I got a whole crate of things, and trust me, there were a lot of things in that tote that I will be using (and the rest will go into my next yard sale).
I did buy the thread for this new at Wal Mart as I wanted it to match.  This was $1.94, with lots of left over to sew other things.
The yellow thread that I tied it with was given to me by my oldest daughter.  She got quite a bit of it in a big box of yarn she got at an auction for $1.
I'm going to say I spent under $4 total to make her this quilt.

I hope you have enjoyed my post, and I will continue to post as I get Christmas gifts ready to go.  Not all are crafts as I do a lot of bargain shopping all year long on health and beauty aids, toys, school supplies etc. that will be made into gift packages as well.