Archive | Great Ideas RSS feed for this section

First Anniversary of Thriftfulness!: Sweet Yes Tea Party

14 Apr

Note: Today, my blog is one year old. Happy birthday blog. I made you some springtime sweets. Thanks readers for continuing to read.

When I was a young’n, one of my favorite things to play outside was “Feed the President” with my cousins. I guess we chose him because he was the most important person we could think of, although we might not have actually known who “The President” was. We would walk down to my Grandma and Grandpa’s house and Grandma would give us empty butter tubs and jam jars to prepare our “meals” in. It was always a decadent multi-course affair: grass salad, ditch-water soup, pinecones wrapped in dirty empty candy-wrappers that we found in the woods. We had dead leaves for plates, twigs for silverware, but dessert was the best part because sometimes for dessert, Grandma would make actual food! Blueberries and milk with sugar were my favorite, so tasty that we ate Mr. President’s helping too…

(more…)

Special Delivery! Book Excerpt: Thrifty Gifting

27 Feb

Eesh. What a couple of weeks it’s been. Been drivin’, baby showerin’, workin’, writin’ and doin’ just about everything else besides updating this blog. Have I made awesome crafts? Yes, but I also lost my camera charger and haven’t been able to take pictures of any of the awesomeness. Wah waaaaah.

After about a week of procrastinating or, as I’ve taken to calling it, brewin’, I decided to give my readers (AKA: Mom and Boyfriend) a preview of a chapter that I plan to put in the Thriftfulness book, should I ever talk one of those publishing folks into putting out such a thing.

So here it is, an excerpt from my word processing file, behold the rules of Thrifty Gifting (Shifty Gifting to be Revealed at a later date)!!! Hope you enjoy!

(more…)

2010 Cheap Things: January

11 Jan

Martha has Good Things. I’ve got Cheap Things. Here’s a list of the stuff (and activities) we can love whilst wallowing in post-holiday, post-car repair, post-ridiculously expensive education debt:

(more…)

“Those Aren’t Pillows”: Holiday Traveling

25 Nov

Planes, trains, and automobiles. Hotels, fold-out couches, and old childhood bedrooms. The packing. The traffic. The forgetting of really really important things. And the preparation for questions about just what exactly it is you’re doing with your life. Home is where the heart is but getting back there is a pain in the ass. Did I just make that up? Well, color me Dorothy Parker!

Anyone who finds themselves muttering, “Six bucks and my right nut says we’re not landing in Chicago” or “We’d have more luck playing pick-up sticks with our butt cheeks than getting a flight out of here” knows the pain of holiday travel. That’s why this year, I’m going to make things a little easier on my loved ones far away by sending along homemade packing checklists and mixed CDs. It may not make the flight less expensive or the trucker that’s riding their ass less ass-riderly, but I’m hoping that after some stress free packing and holiday tune jamming, they’ll be a bit more jolly by the time they make it to me. I don’t put up with party poopers.

(more…)

And They Crumble in your Hand: Dead Leaf Deco Extravaganza

8 Nov

Autumn leaves are falling

Ever looked at the ground of your local park? It’s not just for dirty needles and goose feces anymore. This time of year, in fact, you can find more household decorations than the aisle of jars with ironic phrases painted on them at Hobby Lobby. Plus, you don’t have to battle the disgruntled employees with the tin buttons that read, “I’d Rather Be Felting” (I made that up…craft joke).

(more…)

From the Tip of Your Tongue to at Your Fingertips: Keeping a Gift Journal

29 Sep

Scenario: It’s Grandma’s birthday again and you haven’t purchased a gift yet. Scratch that, you haven’t even thought about what to your going to give her. Scratch that, you’re not even aware that it is Grandma’s birthday because when your mom called to remind you, you wrote it down on a paper napkin from the taco place you were at and then got distracted by the guacamole and ended up leaving it on the table where the bus-boy picked it up and thought it was a note to him and, because he reads a lot of sci-fi and believes you’ve led him to some sort of code, is still trying to figure out what “gma SEP 9″ means. So now you’ve got two people to get presents for (Grandma and the bus-boy because you left a crappy tip and cryptic note).

Save Grandma and yourself from the silent treatment she’s going to give you by keeping a gift journal: a little notebook or stapled pile of scrap paper or a space in the back of your dayplanner where you keep all notes gift-related.

(more…)

B & E is for Lovers

8 Sep

So, the CD player for my car is in the trunk which stinks because I don’t remember to put new music in and then I have to listen to same Beyonce mix or the same Dolly Parton song or the same “sad bastard” music I was in the mood to listen to last week but now find annoying.

Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if I had someone to carry out this task for me? Wouldn’t it feel lovely to rush out of the house all flustered and tired and out of coffee and late and then to start my car and have “Rise and Shine” by the Cardigans playing? Or better yet, after work, even more tired and flustered and coffee-maxed and getting in and hearing “Obvious Child” by Paul Simon? This is what got me thinking that leaving a great song for someone to hear while they drive would be a stupendous way to show you care.

(more…)

Pink Lady: DIY Lipstick

17 Aug

rizzo

Warning: Abundance of lines from the movie Grease ahead. Dedicated to my nieces and nephews who love it just as much as I do and will be embarrassed when they’re older and discover what they’re really singing about in “Greased Lightning”.

A story, to you from me Pinky Lee:

I don’t have a great pink lipstick, and the magazines are touting its inevitable “hotness” this season. Am I too pure to be pink? I think not. I said to myself, Self, these summer days are driftin’ away…and I need me a pink lipstick.

(more…)

Parker Brothers Beware: The Song Game

28 Apr

DSC02743

I’m a board game lover. Started with Candyland, moved into Taboo, Trivial Pursuit, and Scattegories and will keep moving right into puzzles when people start refusing to play with me. The hard part is, the prices of some of these games can leave you with no money for snacks and, honestly, who wants to come over if you’re not serving snacks?

Luckily, I grew up the best kind of poor kid: with the delusion that we weren’t buying things because it was “more fun!” to make them ourselves. The jig was up when I realized it wasn’t “fun” to wear knitted Easter vests that closely resembled the afghan I used to have on my bed; but I did come away with one actual recipe for fun and that is The Song Game.

(more…)

Easter 09: Adults Need Bunny-Love Too

14 Apr

basket2

At an Easter dinner party this Saturday (which was lovely, thank you), I was given dessert duty. Since I flaked out and picked up a store-bought pie, I decided to give the other adults an easter treat. I bought all of the classic Easter candy which actually turned out to be pretty pricey. I couldn’t justify spending the extra money on that fake plastic grass but at the same time, I just couldn’t make an easter basket without it. My solution? I took the candy packaging and shredded it into the grass. Then I covered the bottom of the basket with some green yarn to give it some oomph and walah!

(more…)

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 109 other followers