After Holiday Update

As usual things have been a little crazy around here, especially with Christmas preparations. I have (as usual) been meaning to update.

I don't have any how-to's today, just thoughts to share.
After using the credit card for Christmas gifts and a hotel reservation, I'm determined to save money. First, obviously, I have to pay off that credit card bill (don't worry, it's not outrageous, but debt is debt).

Recent events in our lives have made me start looking at houses (again, don't worry, we're not moving, plans changed) but it helped me see how conceivable it would be to buy a house in the next few years, after I have a career started. To get there, I'm trying to save, save, save!!

Now, I'm not attempting my "week without spending" again, but I am looking at want vs. need and if there is anything I can do to substitute things that we already have for something I'd go buy ordinarily.

Today, I needed cold cream. I have been using good old Ponds to wash my face and I love it! I didn't want to spend the $5 for the little container, but I cleaned out my wallet and found an old prepaid Visa that expires tomorrow. It still had $11 on it, so there you go, cold cream bought! Without spending money unnecessarily.

While I was at Target for the cold cream, I found a shirt that Aidan didn't honestly need, but I knew he would love it.

It was on clearance, $4.88. He loves "Woody-Buzz". So much in fact that last night he threw a fit when I took off his other Woody shirt, so he slept with it on top of his pajamas. (I paid $2.50 for that one! Clearance again.)
I very, very rarely buy things full-price.

Another money (and sanity) saving plan of mine is to rotate Aidan's toys. He has more than he ever plays with but he hasn't really outgrown them intellectually yet, so I decided to put some away for a few months and then rotate them. His birthday is in June so he's got a great balance between gift times.

"I'll look in the ads for the best deal on tubs!" I thought. I love buying things, it's true. Then I realized, since we buy diapers at Costco, we have huge diaper boxes. I don't need to buy a tub. Sure a box isn't as pretty and isn't as water-proof, but there's at least $5-10 saved right there.

I have another purchase to make, while it's on sale: yarn. I promised Aidan's brother I'd make him an afghan. That may bet a little pricey, but if I buy it while it's on sale and use a coupon I may save a few bucks.

It is tempting to spend a few dollars here and there (lunch out anyone?) but having something big in mind (like buying a house or actually having savings built up) helps me stay on track.

Christmas Scavenger Hunt

I'll trust you can keep a secret...we're giving someone special an 18 speed bike for his tenth Christmas!! I'm excited! I hope he will be.

I decided instead of trying to wrap the bike or just having it out in the open in the house I'd have him go through a scavenger hunt to find it. Hopefully this will make it more memorable for him, though I still remember when I got my first 18 speed bicycle, without a scavenger hunt involved then.

To give it a little more pizazz I decided I'd kind of decorate the clues a little, I went with a pirate/scroll theme.

Blackadder ITC is a great font for this kind of stuff, it screams pirate. I used a peach/tanned colored paper in 8.5/11 size to print my typed up clues.

In Microsoft Word you can create multiple columns for type on one sheet. I changed the page set-up to landscape and used the columns button to divide the page in two. I didn't want a huge sheet for each clue, so 1/2 sounded pretty good.

From there, I used scissors to trim the edges and give them a "scroll" type look. I considered burning the edges for a while....but that was risky and I wanted something that was (mostly) fail-safe.

Once I had all 14 clues cut out I noted where each one went and rolled them up. After tying them I made a little note of the clue number on the outside, so I could put them where they go without messing things up or undoing the scrolls.

He'll probably be disappointed at first when he sees this little box is all that's left...

...but it contains clue #1, leading to...

The big gift!! I kind of led on that it's too big for us to take out of town with us, but also said it wouldn't make sense to carry all of his gifts back and forth, on top of not having room for his brothers' things and his at the same time.

I'm getting excited!!!

Oh yeah, I made that bow. Pretty fancy, for what it started looking like.

I just took some ribbon with wires on the edges and folded it over on itself several times, back and forth, making the length a little smaller with each layer. Kind of like the old printer paper that was connected and had the holes on the edges....I'm too  young to know what those machines were called off the top of my head. But like that, folding continuously to make layers.

Then I stapled the center of the folds together, underneath the top layer which was folded into a circle so there wouldn't be an end in the middle. I twisted the wrong-side-out layers right-side-out and twisted and shaped them into the circles seen above. Perhaps one day I'll take photos of this process, but my fingers were borderline frostbitten by the time I finished my work.
Oh and I tied on the tails afterwords. It seems to jazz it up a little.

Hopefully I'll get around to making more gingerbread cookies and sharing the recipe (and modifications) I've found with you, but I try to be a little flexible with Christmas. I have obvious goals like shopping and wrapping, but one batch of cookies (ok two, I've frozen some oatmeal ones ahead too, just in case) and store-bought rather than home-made cards just might have to do, in favor of sanity and sleep.

So far, wrapping a few more things tonight and making cookie dough tomorrow is the goal. We'll see how successful I am...

Unique Shopping

Welcome, welcome to the holiday shopping season! Oh wait, that started a month ago according to retail decorations. I'm thankful right about now that I'm done shopping for Aidan and his brothers' Christmas gifts on my list, now just the adults and some home-spun gifts to finish off the rest of those I typically shop for. If you're on my list and reading this, I hope you won't be disappointed if your gift turns out to be cost-effectively home-made. Oh and here's a clue, if I do buy it retail it probably won't be featured here; I'm big on surprises.

I finally started catching up on my magazine reading (or skimming) and cracked open the December/January issue of Country Living. They have a wonderful section full of unique gift ideas titled "fresh picks". I checked a few of the sources out and found some really cool venues.

Sharing this here serves a few purposes:

• I love to share and discuss
• Creating this list allows me to recycle my magazine and not have stacks piling up (ok, I still have stacks, but less in them because of this).
• It serves as another blog post to keep me updating!

The first site I checked out was  the Curiosity Shoppe. Some of their items made me laugh out loud, literally. They have an octopus specimen in a jar! I wouldn't pay their price for him, but these kinds of anomalies are scattered around the site, varying from stocking stuffer prices to, well...not stocking prices at all.

Next, twine has interesting items, ranging from candles shaped like radios to trivets shaped like toast. Pretty nifty stuff.

 Orange and Pear sells items for the home, to wear, for baby, personalized things, etc.

An old favorite for unique items (not featured in CL this month) is the Container Store. They can be a bit pricey but if you're looking for a gift that stands out they have a few cool ideas this year. I like the straw glasses and the re-usable sandwich and snack bags.

Fireworks has a category called "Indescribable"! How cool is that? They are a bit on the pricey side, though.

I hopped on over to Karma Kiss. Among other things, they feature 310 items for $15 or less. It's their largest category. Check them out for anything from toys to wine openers that evolve into trivets.

And last but never least, Mxyplyzyk has a unique site design itself, let alone their products. They sell cups with noses printed on them, so when party guests drink from them they put on a new appendage. Tee-hee. Among other crazy-cool things. They're just cool all over.

Inspired yet?

I am.