Friday, May 20, 2016

Frugal Friday with Marsha -- Uses For Newspapers Part 1





Many Ways to Recycle Your Newspapers!
I guess I've had newspapers on my mind all day. First of all, I needed to renew my subscription. Secondly, I was reading a book on being self sufficient that mentioned using newspapers in your compost pile. Thirdly, I came home and started tearing some of my newspapers up. More on the 3rd one later in this post.

It made me think that there has to be so many ways to recycle newspaper other than just throwing them in your recycle bin. I've been doing some research and want to share my favorite ways.

Enjoy and I hope you learn some things and get inspired too!



Use Newspaper in place of cat litter.
When we had our cat declawed, we were told to use torn up newspaper in his litter box for 10 days (or buy the Yesterday’s News litter that they sell). I used the torn up newspapers. Once the 10 days was over though, we went back to the litter, both regular and scoopable.
A few months ago as a way to save money, I went back to tearing up the newspapers to use in place of litter. I remembered how well it worked when we had to use it before. I have plenty of newspapers laying around, that was for sure…..and I still do!

The newspapers soak up the urine very nicely and are a natural odor absorber as well. It’s super easy to clean the litter boxes too!



Wrap Tomatoes to Ripen Them
Summer before last the tomatoes really took off in our garden……but not until we were on top of frost. My husband got the advice from a farmer to wrap them individually in newspaper and put them in a box in a dark place. We did just that…wrapped each one individually, placed them in stacks of 3 in two boxes. we placed them in a dark room in the basement.
Each week we checked them, taking out the ones that had turned red and putting the green ones back in. Within 3 weeks all tomatoes had ripened and we were able to save over 6 lbs of tomatoes that we would have lost to frost otherwise!



Pack Breakables and Delicates
I’ve always used newspapers to wrap glassware and other breakables when packing them away.
I do recycle the wrapping from the previous year, and use new newspapers when I re-pack the items. An example is all the Christmas decorations that we just put away this week.
There is one things to make note of. When wrapping dishes for an extended time, they will pick up the newsprint and have to be washed well before using them to eat.



Clean Glass
This one has never made sense to me…how does newspaper clean glass without leaving newsprint? I still have no clue, but I do know it works! Over the years I have always used crumpled up newspaper to clean the glass on pictures hanging in my house.
When I worked at a motel as a housekeeper we used newspapers (and vinegar) to clean windows and mirrors.
Just use your normal glass cleaner with crumpled up newspaper. As I mentioned above you can use a mixture of half vinegar and half water. This is both natural and economical!



Kids Scoop Page
Our local newspapers offers a Kids Scoop page in each Monday’s newspaper.
This is a learning page. Even though it’s geared towards grade school children, I still had my teenager do them. They were put in her “away from home” school work folder. They give her a break from text books, are fun, and are educational.  Although she is grown up and we no longer homeschool, the grandchildren love these pages.  They are nice to keep in the folder in the van to help keep them busy on long rides or long waits in the van.

The Kids Scoop page sitting in front of me is about wants and needs. It starts off with a definition of both. It has pictures for the child to mark whether these items are a want or a need. Some of the pictures include socks, a comb, skateboard, television. One assignment on the page is to go through the newspapers and cut out pictures of things and then glue them in the wants, or the needs column.
Also included is a vocabulary builder, which is a different word each week. This week’s word is survive.
Puzzles are always part of the page including a word search, a word scramble, etc.



Weave Newspaper Strips Into Baskets
This is something I’ve not tried, but I am intrigued with the thought of giving it a try.
I want to try making the circular newspaper basket shown on this page: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Paper-Basket

There are some who sell baskets made with newspapers on etsy.  Check out this page!  https://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=recycled+newspaper+baskets

Stay tuned next week as I will continue this post to part 2.

Images courtesy of pixabay.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Stories of Courage and Faith by Isabella Augustus -- A Book Review



Stories of Courage and Faith is a sweet book.  It's written in poetic form to tell the stories of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and David and Goliath.  Yes, stories from the Bible.

The stories are from the Bible and stories that the children learn in Sunday school.  I love that they are in poetic form.  The grandchildren have loved me reading them out loud to them.  They pick up the book and read the stories for themselves.  They are fun to read in this form and the illustrations are a full page with each page of writing.

At our church, Sunday school is over for the season.  Unfortunately we don't have enough children in our congregation to have Sunday school in the summer.  I have gathered materials so that I can still work with them and read to them over the summer.  I am very pleased to add Stories of Faith and Courage to the line up!



About the author:

Isabella Augustus is a parent who aims to teach children valuable life lessons in fun, innovative ways.
You can visit her Outskirt Press page at:  http;//outskirtpress.com/courageandfaith

Faith and Courage go hand in hand and she teaches that in the moments when we require courage, we exercise our faith.  In the book she teaches children about courage and faith in a fun and unforgettable way.  She has written these stories in a fun and unforgettable way that the children will enjoy again and again and again.




Disclosure:  I rec'd a copy of the book for the purpose of this review.  I was not compensated in any other way and all opinions are my own.  Post does include affiliate links.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

WIP Wednesday Projects

I spent most of the week working on the microwave hotpads for quilt guild.  Once done with the stack of 9 that you see in the picture for quilt guild, I cut the rest of my cotton batting to make sets for sale.
I only ended up having enough for 2 sets plus 1.  I will make that one for us at home.
I chose to put the green fabrics on the top of the pile so I can also post working with green for the soscrappy blog challenge too.



The ladies at church and I are working on this baby blanket for a church member.  Oopsey, had a mistake cut.  I have it at home with me to hopefully fix it.  We will then finish it up together by tieing it.  It's been a challenge and if I remember, I will take a picture of it to share when we get it finished.



I worked on the yo-yo's for quilt guild this past week and I'm almost done with the bags.  I'm taking the advice of a few gals and only doing 25 each of the other fabrics instead of 50 that I did in the sheer fabric.  I plan to finish these up this afternoon at my Needlers group.



So many projects that I want t work on and so little time.  I must get to crocheting the Princess Anna doll before my little granddaughters birthday gets here!  That is next on my list to work on and finish before working on anything else.

UFO's:

Rectangle quilt
challenge wall hanging
Hexagon quilt
Emerald Island Fusique table runner
Five and Dime quilt
Brown half square triangle table runner
3 sets of doll blanket, pillows, bed and rug--plus more to sell
Wall hanging for quilt guild
yo-yo's that need to be made into projects
black and white rail fence quilt
Arkansas Crossroads scrap quilt
T-shirt latchhook rug
Rainbow colored locker hook rug
Blue and Brown yo-yo table runner
Charming Stars quilt
Special crocheted prayer shawl
Fall Squares table topper

2016 Finishes:
Smaller pink 4 patch quilt for charity
Pink 4 patch quilt for charity
Hexagon flower table runner
T-shirt toothbrush rug


I am linking up with the following blogs:
WIPs on Wednesdays
RSC16

Monday, May 16, 2016

April 2016 Online Earnings


Finally getting around to sharing what I was paid last month from various websites and apps.
I can't say that I'm happy with the lack of earning and I am looking at some different things this month.  I guess all I can say is wish me luck!

I rec'd earnings from:
squirlytraffic -- $4.89 paypal
PerkTV -- $10 amazon  Use my code 860efbf6 and get 50 bonus points and an online friend told me just yesterday that you can now watch videos online too.  I did that this morning and it was easy!
Pinecone Research -- $5 amazon
Swagbucks -- $25 paypal and $25 amazon
apptrailers -- $3.78 paypal  if you sign up, bonus code predictableuranus2 for bonus points
zubeezone -- $5.27 paypal
redstaghits -- $14.62 paypal
Trafficmagician -- $10.13 paypal

This comes to a total of $103.69.  After a total of $37.48 paid in upgrades in TESurfSocial, squirlytraffic, hotflashhits, orbitaltraffic, postmanhits, admasterplus, zubeedownlines, and trafficswirl, my take was $66.21 for the month.

I want to note that I chose to buy credits with $4.95 of my earnings with hotflashhits.
Also that I am waiting on payments from 4 sites that should have paid me some time ago.  I will be putting in support tickets, so as I said before, wish me luck.  Getting paid by them will shoot the earnings up for this month.

As far as selling my crafts and used books, I had a profit of $10.97 for the month. This takes my earnings online for the month to $77.18
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