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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Fall Glue-Batik Wall Hanging

When you hear Batik, you might think it's really too hard and messy to do.  I thought the same when I received the October 2009 Disney Family Fun Magazine (which I got free!), I loved the look of the banner, but though for sure that it was too hard to make. 

My daughter and I found this project extremely easy to make and really, aside from drying time, it was extremely quick too!  For the directions and color pictures of how, please see Family Fun for the full details.  Here you can see the banner made on scrap material from around the house.  We used glue from the school supplies that were given to us by Grandma.  Then we wet down the material (after the glue was dry) and used acrylic paint (from my craft supply & I had to buy orange for $.92 at Wal-mart).  My daughter painted the colors on that she wanted.

The final step was to let the paint dry and soak in cold water to get the glue out.  Because the paint is acrylic, once it dried, it's perminant!  My daughter sewed a hem across the top, put a dowel through and used a piece of yarn to hang it up with!  The entire project cost use the $.92 for the paint - not bad! 


I think the results are wonderful and look great in our entryway, especially since I've been taking everything down to decorate other rooms in the house.  This is my least favorite area of the house right now, so I'm looking to spruce it up.  This little section is visible from the living room, but behind the door.  I see a Christmas one in the future - don't you?

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Piggly Wiggly Deals - October 28- November 3, 2009

Here are the Piggly Wiggly (PW) deals for the next week.  They are not as steller as last week, but use the week off to recoup your budget a little.  Please let me know if you find anything more on your shopping trips in the area by commenting.

  • Apples - $.99/3lb.
  • Minute Maid Lemonade or Fruit Punch - $.99
  • Betty Crocker Fruit Snacks $.99 when you buy 4 - $.50/2MC = $3.46/4 or $.87 each

Monday, October 26, 2009

Decorating for Free

One of  the things that I have been doing lately is trying to change around my house a little.  I have been blue about my home and don't like the way things have been looking lately. I wish I could just go out and buy a bunch of new furniture and decor items, but we don't have the budget for it.  I've done the next best thing and shopped in the rest of my house for free.  Here's one example of my shopping trip through the house.  This is my master bedroom. The king size bed can't go on any other wall.  That is the one thing that does work for me because I like my bed being the first thing you see when you walk in the room.    What I didn't like was the file cabinets (which my husband doesn't use for filing - it's all stacked in his closet - but that's another issue!) for end tables.  It reminded me every night about the papers that weren't filed before I went to bed - really it did!  To the right of the bed, used to be my sewing cabinet with my machine on it.  Now, empty space that I wasn't too sure how to fill.

Here we are almost there.  I had the matching table lamp on the other wall, but wanted it to be even.  The end tables are those old school desks that raise and lower.  This was a find on the side of the road.  The legs happen to chocolate brown, a perfect fit for my bedroom.  I stuck an antique wooden crat underneath to fill space and store extra magazines, because I just can't seem to read them all!  The tall cabinet, is special because my grandfather made it.  It is better feature now, because you can see it.  I used an idea off another blog and stacked my magazines under my clock to raise it.  A live plant and I even added an award statue my husband earned on his side of the bed for decoration.  He was so excited that I put that there, you would have thought I awarded it to him.

Just one more picture, because I realized that I had changed out the bulb in the left lamp (for whatever reason, we didn't think florescents had different lights and got an outdoor light set of bulbs and found them to be blaring in the house!)  Also, it just wasn't right yet, so I added a picture on the left side to even it up.  Now the pictures aren't exactly my favorite, but it feels so good to walk into my bedroom with a "finished" look!  Relaxing and retreatlike!  Please let me know what you think!

By the way, a free way to get new ideas on decorating, is to get involved in some of the linky parties that are going on!  A lot of these ladies are professionals, and I couldn't have even had the confidence to try anything if I hadn't been parusing the blogs!  Use this great resource and you will save a ton of money! 

Here are the sites that I am linking to:
Second Time Around Tuesdays - A Picture is Worth 1000 Words
Met Monday - Between Naps on the Porch
DIY Day - A Soft Place to Land
I would love to win this cute Magnetic board at Beneath My Heart to go in my new office!

Friday, October 23, 2009

Making Your Own Cards to Save Money


I've been a little slow to the card making fads, but I have discovered that making cards saves money.  I don't necessarily sit down to make a bunch of cards because I like to, but because I happen to be an Independent Creative Memories Consultant and do a ton of scrapbooking.  But I have found that cards don't take that many supplies to actually create and I have so many scraps on hand.  I use scraps from here and there to make them, along with plain cardstock, and Voila!  I have saved myself $2-$3!  Now it may take a little time, but I think it even means a little more to the person that you are making the card for, that you took precious time out to make them a card.

I am linking this post to:
Fall Festival - The DIY Show Off

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Piggly Wiggly Deals - October 21-27, 2009

Sorry this weeks specials were a little delayed, as you probably already noted, I was busy canning.  It seems to not only take a whole day to do, but then a day to really recover from.  So, here it is.  Again, I will list the general sales, and then there are two Mix or Match deals and a Buy $20 get $5 off hat I will list a scenerio for.

  • Pork Shoulder Roast - $.99/lb.
  • Bananas - $.44/lb.
  • Gallon Milk - $1.99

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

More Canning!


I'm apologizing in advance for not posting the Piggly Wiggly sales today, but I'm just exhausted from my day.  As you can see above, I have been very busy canning!  I did 22 quarts of beets, 6 pints of beets, 6 quarts of Apple Pie filling, 2 bags of 4 cups each of beets in freezer, and 3 containers of applesauce for the freezer!  I didn't take a picture of the two bags of freezer beets, but I think you get the picture!  All of this I did for next to FREE!  Yes, you read right!  A friend invited me over to get any of the beets I wanted from her garden!  in addition, I got a bag of squash and some kolirobi also!  The apples came from two different people off their trees in the yard!  I am very thankful for the wonderful blessings of food!

Also pictured, we got a UPS shipment tonight - it was the homeopathic Children's Flu & Cold Medicine that we signed up for online.  I don't even remember where & when I did this, but often I sign up for freebies and almost never get a full size itme, let alone 3 full size items!  I went to their website: http://www.boironusa.com/ to see if it was still available, but I couldn't find it.  I did see some $1 off coupons, and one of the items had that you could request a sample, so maybe they would send out several to you too. 

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Free Chair Make-over!


I was driving home last week with my children, and lo and behold, there was a chair on the curb that was screaming my name!!  I do this all the time, I see a random chair (or other piece of furniture if I'm lucky!) that someone else no longer loves and I just can't drive by!  I have to stop, pick it up and take it home!  My husband is starting to threaten me about this habit of mine!

So this time, I thought I would just take care of the ugliness before he really got used to the old look  right away.  The first photo is what it looked like from the curb and the second is my redo!  Although I really appreciated that the prior owners had the original plastic still on the seat...I just had to repaint and recover.

Can you beleive the timing on this one?  It was perfect for my new office and with a fresh coat of black spray paint looks fabulous!  I just added some material that I had picked up to go with the curtains (don't tell my husband I bought it without a plan - I would have found something, sometime to use it for!)  This was so simple and took my about an hour with the paint drying while I redid the seat!  I didn't even sand it!  Let me know what you think!  Cost: 1/4 yard material = $.50 + half can of paint =$2.00.  Grand Total = $2.50!!!  Priceless!

If you like free giveaways, check this one out: Centsational Girl - 2 $50 Shopping Sprees!

I am also linking to: DIY Day - A Soft Place to Land
Shades of Pink - Room a Month (I made it there first!)
Poppies at Play - Creative Cats Friday
Metamorphosis Monday - Between Naps on the Porch
Second Time Around - A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words
Flea marketeer Party - Flea Market Style

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Piggly Wiggly Deals - October 14-20, 2009

It's a great week at Piggly Wiggly this week!!  There are two different  things to take note of, the first is the 4 Day Fall Harvest Sale that goes from Oct. 15-18 and then there is the Smucker's Fall Baking Specials.  I will start with the regular items first, then do the Harvest Sale, and end with a couple of scenerios for the Smucker's Sale.  You can only do one Smuckers per purchase, but I recommend doing it twice if you need more.  Just use separate purchases.  Every time I have done this at PW, they seem to be used to it, so I know I'm not the only one.  Here goes!

  • 8-lb. Bag Russet Potatoes - $.99
  • General Mills Cereal - $1.49 when you buy 4 (for some reason, there seems to be no GM coupons right now - $1.49 a box is still a great deal - I would just love to get more off it! - there are some printables here  for $1/2, so you could take the ad and the printables to Wal-mart and have them match it and it would be $3.96/4 or $.99 each!)

Monday, October 12, 2009

Roman Shades from Mini-Blinds and Window Mis-Treatment

I absolutely loved the idea of making window treatments from mini blinds that were featured here.  This summer I sewed Roman Shades for our 1963 Airstream Red (see my other blog here)  So, when I thought about being able to get the same effect cheaper and quicker than my Airstream Roman shades (I spent no less than 6 hours per shade to make 2 in the Airstream, sewing on all the rings by hand!)  I was all on board for a good try.



It was extremely difficult to cut the first strings out of the mini-blinds, but once I convinced myself that I was only losing $3.50, I decided that it was worth the effort.  I had to send my dear hubby out of the room, because he was starting to have an anxiety attack about my project.  Just a few notes about the expense of this project.  We have mini-blinds on all the windows throughout the house, so I chose the most raggedy ones for my windows in my office.  (This is part two of my office redo on a budget.)  I bought the fabric on the ends table at Hancock Fabrick's and had a Preferred Customer Coupon for 50% off one item.  The material was originally $16/yard, but I paid $4 a yard for 3 1/2 yards total.  So it cost me $16 for the material.  The fabric glue was a little more stiff at $6 for a small jar, but I will be watching for that stuff to be cheaper, now.  I would love to own stock in it!!  Those were the only costs that I incurred, but would highly suggest getting the mini blinds for $3.50 at Wal-mart for this project.  If you went with cheaper fabric, you could save some more money, but really, I was able to do this whole project for under $20 for the Roman Shades!

Honestly, I was done with each of the shades in under 1 hour!  My husband was out of his pain very quickly and he even compliments me on how great they look when he comes home at night.  I do have to say that I'm not completely satisfied with the mechanism of the blinds going up and down, but they seem to get better with use.  I think that may be the nature of mini blinds anyway, which is why they always break!

Here are the pictures of them up and down!  I am so excited about this new addition to my office, especially after I was so set in having different colors, but had decided to stick to the less expensive route!
Now on to my Window Mistreatment!  I have my own reservations about Not sewing things, since I was raised by a seamstress, but really like the quickness of getting my projects done and the fact that I can reuse the fabrick later for a different project!  If you would like more ideas for Window Mistreatments, please go to the Nesting Place for more wonderful ideas!  This material I purchased two years ago to use for a llama costume at the fair (yes you read correctly - llama).  The llama used this to be the Statue of Liberty, while my hubby was Uncle Sam.  This year, my daughter used the Statue of Liberty costume and the llama used the Uncle Sam costume, so this material has really seen some use.  For the tie-backs, I used some crystal fringe that I found in the clearance of Hancock for  $1.60 a yard and used less than a yard here!  Can you believe they actually had trim for 70% off?  I was salivating, but my hubby was already being challenged with tolerating my shopping there.  I didn't think he'd find it humerous for me to buy several different kinds!

Please let me know what you think!  I will be linking up to the following:




Friday, October 9, 2009

It's Fall, Y'all!

My mom gave me this bushel basket that she was going to throw away, so I was trying to come up with something clever to do with it. Well, I really am in love with the fall leave colors right now, so decided to get some fakes and fill the basket. I also picked up one stalk of the grass and 2 red feathery looking things at Michael's this last week - all of which were 50% off. I spent under $10 and have fall decorations. I'm sure that I will be coming up with a new use for the basket soon (a place to put Christmas presents?)...I'm not absolutely sold on this one, but, I did decorate a little for fall!
P.S. I'm linking up to this to the following sites:

Thursday, October 8, 2009

More Free Movies at Rogers Cinemas, Sparta, WI!

I just got back from taking my oldest to a movie and the sign posted in the window said they were extending the Free movies until October 15th!! Check out here http://spartasavings.blogspot.com/2009/10/free-movies-in-sparta-rogers-cinema.html for more details:

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

My Office Redo On a Budget

Here is my before picture of my new office formerly known as my daughters' room!
I wanted to show you the progress on the decorating of my office/craft room. We have finally gotten all of our kids moved into their bedrooms in the basement (don't feel sorry for them, my daughters have a dream walk-in closet!), so I have gained my daughters old bedroom as my office and craft room! I feel so spoiled, but I can't think straight in it because it was not what I wanted.

I really wanted to have the room in Robin's egg blue with chocolate brown accents, and was even ready to get the gallon of paint with my birthday money, when I decided that maybe it wasn't so bad for color if the stencils were gone. Now, to my defense, this was the first time I actually got to decorate a bedroom for any of my kids, so I went crazy with the girly things. Just so you know, my daughter still chose pink for her new room!

Anyway, I've held onto the stencil for so long, because I spent hours creating it!!! I don't think I'll ever do one again. So my ah-ha moment came the other day, when I realized that I still had about a half gallon of the two colors of paint left in the basement! I decided to just paint the trim and butterflies off the walls!

Voila! Here are the results:


I am actually quite pleased with the results, and it was free!! I guess I realized that although I had dream colors in mind, sometimes it is very satisfying to take the more economic way through the project. So, the colors are still pastel like Robin's Egg blue, but it's in pink and purple. Actually the lavender is more on the blue side...I even thought about doing the pink walls in the blue, but was afraid I would run out and end up buying that color of paint again (instead of the blue I really wanted!). I will be posting more soon on the budget friendly window covers!!! I can't wait!


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

DIY - Fall Craft with the kids


You're going to have to bear with me for awhile, because I seem to be nesting like crazy! I don't know if it's because the weather is getting into hibernation, if it's because I love the fall decorations, if I can't stand my house, or what, but I have been trying to change decorations in my house. In an effort to do that, I have been looking for ways to Do-It-Yourself for inexpensive or cheaply. I thought I would share those ideas here, because I think that when you are trying to save money in anyway possible, that everyone should consider cheap ways to decorate.
This week, I was looking for some ways to do a craft with the kids, and was enjoying the fall colors, so I found this craft project, that turned out to be a great success with all four of my kids from 3 to 13 years old! We went out and found some leaves from Maple and Oak trees (science class!) and brought them in to do leaf rubbings on newspaper (is that science or art?). All of the kids loved doing this part. We needed a little more assistance with the 3 year old, but my Kindergartner loved this! He even free cut out his only leaf! We then traced around the leaf and cut it out. I punched a hole in the top and then strung it through raffia. Then, I hung it across an old window that has my kids pictures in it in the living room! Free, cute, and educational. I also made sure that I wrote each of the kids names on the back, so next year we can remember who did what!
I actually found this idea on another blog, but can't find where for the life of me (I'm sorry to whomever it was, but please contact me & I will gladly credit you!). I am trying out a DIY link blog, check out the button to the right to see what everyone else is doing today!

Check out these other great blogs this week for more great cheap DIY projects:

Piggly Wiggly Deals - October 7-13, 2009

There's good and bad news this week - most things are Food Club brand (FC) so they don't need coupons. The good news is that you don't have to assemble too many coupons, but because there aren't coupons for these items, it may seem more expensive. I would buy only what you absolutely want and can fit in this week and pray that there are better deals next week! Here are my recommendations for the week at Piggly Wiggly (PW):
  • Chicken Drumsticks - $.69/lb.
  • 2 Pactrick Cudahy Sliced Bacon - $1.69 each + Get FREE 1/Doz. eggs (you decide if you think this is a deal. The bacon is pretty decent priced, so the eggs would be a bonus.)
  • Cantaloupe - $.99 each
  • Iceberg Lettuce - $.99 each
  • Chips Ahoy - $1.99
  • Cottonelle 12-count - $4.99
  • FC Flour - $1.49/ 5 lb.
  • FC Spaghetti Sauce - $.79
  • FC Macaroni & Cheese - 3/$.99
  • FC Cream Cheese - $.99
  • FC English Muffins -$.99
  • FC Sour Cream & Dip - $.99
  • FC Hash browns - 3/$5
  • Bartlett Pears - $.89/lb.
  • Green Cabbage - $.39/lb.
  • Red Potatoes - $1.99/ 5lb.
  • Carrots - $.99

Meal recommendations:

  • BBQ Chicken Drummies, Veggies & Dip - Football game day
  • Pork Chops (we purchased a whole pig back in August, so we still have a lot left), Fried Cabbage & Red Potatoes
  • Individual Pizzas on English Muffins, Lettuce Salad
  • Eggs, Bacon, and hash browns - we love breakfast for our main meals, and it's cheaper
  • Baked Spaghetti (pasta from last week) & Cantaloupe
  • Okinomiyaki (Japanese pancakes) (made from cabbage & bacon) - if you want the recipe, and pictures, please comment here! We love this - even the kids and Dad eat cabbage!!!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Free Movies in Sparta - Roger's Cinema

Customer Appreciation Week
in Sparta
October 2nd to 8th
See these movies for FREE!
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs(5:15 p.m.)
Transformers 2(4:30 p.m.)
Night at the Museum 2(4:50 p.m.)
Land of the Lost(5:00 p.m.)
Rogers Cinema reserves the right to alter the lineup, show times, pricing or cancel this promotion in its entirety. Seating is available on a first-come first-serve basis. Advance tickets for this promotion will not be sold.

Here's the link to see the schedule:
http://rogerscinema.com/Sparta/Customer%20Appreciation%20SPARTA.html