Frugal Farmhouse

2010 is right around the corner! So all of you will be needing to change out your planner pages. Instead of running on down to Staples or Office Max and spending $20 or $30, I've got this simple idea for you! Items you will need for this Project: planner ($1- dollar tree) scissors hole punch total $1 Start out with a dollar store planner of your choice. Take it out of the plastic sleeve. Open up to the center pages and undo the staples. Remove the unwanted pages. (cover, phone numbers, etc.) Keep it open to the middle pages. Cut down the middle of the pages. Now you have the beginning of your new planner! On the step I took one page from my old planner and used it as a template for the hole punches. Punch all the pages. Now slip it into your old planner. Wallah! A new planner for a new year! Happy New year!!

Christmas is one of favorite times of year, the other is 4th of July. But as I get older I enjoy Christmas more and more. I learn more each year. I love hearing other peoples traditions. I thought I'd share our christmas tree this year. Frugal Farmhouse

Tomorrow I will share my snowman soup gift bags, but for today I'll show you the tags I will include with the gift bags. Supplies 5 pack snowman chipboard ($1 @ Michaels) Christmas paper Printer Glue Print poem(at bottom of page) in a fun font. Trace the chipboard onto a piece of scrapbook paper. Cut it out. Glue onto each side of the chipboard. Next I cut out the poem with a pair of scrapbook scissors. Glued these onto one side of the snowman. On the back side I took different Christmas themed chipboard, stickers, etc. And decorated. Poem: Snowman Soup Was told you've been real good this year. Always glad to hear it! With freezing weather drawing near, You'll need to warm the spirit. So here's a little Snowman Soup Complete with stirring stick. Add hot water, sip it slow. It's sure to do the trick! Check back in the morning for the gift bags these will be attached to!

No lights have been on during the day. No spend day 8/15 Well.. the kill-a-watt has taken the back burner to the Christmas rush... Yet again entertainment has been at home. Some other frugal activities going on around the Frugal Farmhouse: -homemade cooking spray -all homemade breakfast, dinners and desserts - made bread crumbs -made HM febreeze -used hand poured candles instead of electricity What were your frugal achievements this week?

A few months back I found these tubes of plastic loops at Walmart for $1. I came up with these cute belts made out of ribbon and the plastic loops. Line up your loops. Take your ribbon, loop under pink ring, back up through purple ring and repeat. Easy right? Such a cute belt! I also made one out of different loops.

Everyone loves a Snowman right? These little Snowmen will brighten up anything! Supplies -large marshmallows $.96 -Halloween sprinkles- on hand - toothpicks- on hand Total cost $.96 + First put 4 toothpicks in a cup of water Take 3 marshmallows, smoosh on down. This will be the head. Push one toothpick through the bottom marshmallow into the middle marshmallow. Next push one through the head into the middle marshmallow. Beginning of Snowman! Put the tip of a toothpick in the water. *This sounds weird, but seriously it makes the toothpick glide in the marshmallow so nicely! * Start poking holes for eyes, nose and mouth. Pick out your sprinkles. The Halloween ones are perfect; orange and black! Slide the sprinkles in the holes you prepared. *Don't use your fingernail to push them in, it makes the sprinkle crack and then you get sprinkle dust all over the water that you just put on the marshmallow when you poked the holes, BIG mess :)* Continue down with buttons. Finished Snowmen! Are...

I don’t know about you but this time of year I start reevaluating my life, existence, you know the normal ordinary new years resolutions.. While I have come up with a few resolutions that I will be sharing a little closer to the end of the month. I wanted to try something a little different. I had a friend do this and she said it really helped her with motivation; it’s a Dream Book. What I did was sat down with a notebook, cup of chai tea, and turned everything off. I wrote out 4 categories 1. Home 2. Career 3. Love 4. Extra Then I asked myself “What do YOU want?” The operative word being YOU. If you are like me, you don’t think of yourself often, you put everyone else first and make sure they are happy before you are. YOU are important too!! So every time I answered my above question I would then reevaluate my answer. “Is this what (FILL IN BLANK i.e.: husband, kids, friends, family, etc.) wants, or is this what I want?” After I went through all 4 categories and wrote dow...

Great Cheap, Easy way to get the smell of Christmas in your home. Fill a sauce pan with: 3/4 full of water 1 cinnamon stick broken up 5 cloves splash of vanilla extract Heat on low for as long as you want the house to smell wonderful! *note* be sure this doesn't run out of water *which it will obviously boil down :) * it makes a lovely mess of your pan. Nothing a good scrub won't fix, but burned cinnamon doesn't smell wonderful!

This is one of the best recipes I've found for a while. Here are some pictures to drool over ;) AND.... The finished product You can find the recipe here . Thank you Rachael Ray!

This is a great gift idea for little kids. I made these for my 5 year old cousin For this project you will need -pool noodles (free-$1) -sharpie (on hand) -exacto or pocket knife (on hand) -craft paint(on hand) -bottle of baby shampoo ($1-dollar tree) -nylon bag ($1) -travel bottles ($1) Total cost of Project- free to $5 next cut into 3 to 4 in sections decide what stamps you want to make draw out with a sharpie and cut out with exacto knife I thought it would be fun to personalize and spell out her name. Koya is her nickname. Next for the paint Squirt about a 2 teaspoons of paint into bottles. Fill the rest with baby shampoo. Shake Well. Put all the Stamps in mesh laundry bag. I also included a little bath poof that came with the bottles to clean the shower walls off with. Happy Crafting!

So far its been a week of the Super Frugal December Challenge We have mostly ate at home. DBF has wanted to eat out a lot.. I have talked him out of it about 3/4 of the time.. lol No lights have been on during the day. No spend day 4/15 As far as the kill-a-watt I am still reading directions Entertainment has been solely at home, this is great! Still coming up with “Dreams” for the dream book- check back on monday.. This will be next weeks project :) Hope all of your Frugal Challenges are going as planned

Ever wonder how people make all those homemade cleaners ? Well here are a few tips! Start out with a spray bottle and Vinegar. Fill the spray bottle 2/3 of the way full. Fill the rest of it with water. And Walla!! Vinegar is a natural disinfectant. At this water to vinegar ratio you will have a clean, germ free, chemical free home! TIP: If the vinegar smell is too strong for you in the beginning (you'll get used to it, I promise) what I did was lessen the vinegar a tad, add a 1/3 of a cup of lemon juice (also a disinfectant) and 10 or 15 drops of essential oils (lavender). Now I no longer do this, but it does add a nice scent, and helps get your family adjusted to the smell of vinegar.