FRUGAL FRIDAY

Making things for gifts this year is one of my New Year's Resolutions. I am still knitting dishcloths. I have found self-striping cotton yarn at Hobby Lobby and it makes very interesting striped dishcloths in luscious pastel colors. Now I am roaming the Internet looking for other gifts that I can make without great expense.

One gift idea that I found on the blog, Little House in the Suburbs, sounds interesting. It is a recipe for lotion bars and would make a nice addition to a "Spa Basket" of a handmade wash cloth, a couple of lotion bars and some handmade soap. This particular blog has a "GIFT" bar at the top to click on for great gift-giving ideas and I intend to make use of some of her recipes and knitting patterns. She gives directions for making the gifts she mentions.

Now I just have to get organized so that I think far enough ahead to have time to make gifts rather than rushing out to buy something at the last minute.

Christmas Ideas

The past few days I have been talking to a couple of my daughters-in-law about Christmas gift giving and we have decided to curtail our spending this year in light of the impending financial crunch. We talked about: 1) focusing more on the children and 2) being more practical in what we give to the adults.


I am making some of my Christmas gifts. The past few weeks I have been creating some adult surprises for family members that I won't describe here. For neighborhood giving I am making knitted cotton dish cloths in glorious colors. I plan to make up some of my favorite spice mixes and put them with the dish cloths for adult-type gifts around the neighborhood. I also plan to begin making some of my food gifts early. I am open for more suggestions if anyone is into the Christmas-gift-making mode at this time.

I am hoping that we do not have to endure prolonged economic difficulties, but I do plan to use some of my ingenuity to create nice Christmas gifts without making a big dent in our budget this year.

Today I noticed that Barbara has a blog article on getting prepared for an economy crisis by saving for an emergency. She lists things that one might want to stock up on and in doing so might save some money in the long run. You can view her list by clicking on her name above.