Thursday, October 28, 2010

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 $1I 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.

 

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

WIP Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!  Time for WIP Wednesday in conjunction with Every Day Crochet.

Please click the button at the end of my post and join in on the fun.  If you don't have a post, please stop by and check out what others are working on.

Your WIP's don't have to be crafts.....it can be a room you are remodeling, the book you are writing, garden work, just about anything!

I didn't get near done quilt wise that I wanted to.  I did get my daughter's baby quilt cut, pinned, and the edges sewn.  All that is left is to tie it.   Otherwise I got very little of my scraps bought ironed to be cut.
The new rug I am making with sheets looks great so far.  This is how far I got with what I had.  I did find a sheet in my closet that I had previously cut curtains out of, so I will be able to work further on this rug.  Otherwise, it waits until I get more quilting done to see what is left from backs.   The other rug is made with t-shirts.  I started with blue, then white, then when I was putting on the red I decided to do 3 more of each of those colors and market the rug for 4th of July.   I have lots of t-shirts already cut to work with on rugs, so that is good.
 Then we have the prayer shawl again.  I should be able to finish this before next Wednesday...just a few more rows then putting on the fringe is all that is left.


Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Giveaways Linky Tuesday

Time for the weekly giveaway linky.

Please post your giveaways here weekly.

List the name of the prize, and the end date.  Link directly to the giveaway post, not to your home page.

The linky is available to post on until the following week when the new linky is put up.

Most of all, have fun and good luck!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Mail Box Monday Blog Hop

Good Morning and Happy Monday to all!

Time for the Mail Box Monday blog hop in conjunction with afrugalfriend.net.    Click the button at the bottom on my post to join in on the fun.

Again, I managed to get something in the mail each day.  Pretty good week.(sorry I didn't get any photos to add this week)


I got magazines:
Sports Illustrated
People
Entertainment Weekly
Samaritan's Purse catalog

$5 gift card from Ace Rewards
 Kotex samplesand $1 coupon
coupon train
7 pieces of hausernet mail
Ohio postcard from Ruthi C (thanks!)
Jerky Direct autoship
set of 2 Best of the 80's music cd's won on listia 

In my email:
$30 paypal from gather
order for 4 dish scrubbies
payment for fabric bag order

Not free:
I joined a crafters book club through inboxdollars and my 4 books came in.  I rec'd $10 credit in my inboxdollars account for joining and rec'd the 4 books for $4 with free shipping.  I will have to order a few more over time, but if I want to really make a business of my crafts, I need to keep learning and getting inspiration.

Does anyone know how long it takes to get in prizes from pointsandprizes.com?  It's been several weeks since I used some of my points to order a book.

Frugal Friend
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