FRUGAL FRIDAY

Today I am going to talk about making gifts instead of buying gifts. I know Christmas is a long way off, but it is not too early for me to begin thinking about gifts if I plan on making them.

First of all, I try to think of things that I can make from "found" items or things we have around the house. Recently I found some old, weathered fence wood in my husband's pile of wood. It has nice knots in it and I pictured a wooden cross carved with the knot hole in the middle. If the wood has a natural hole in it, I thought about inserting a stone in the hole--perhaps turquoise or something I might find at our local bead shop. I marked off several crosses that might be interesting and now I need to get my saw out to make the rough shape. Then I will sand until it is smooth and in the shape I want. I will finish it off by rubbing it with a number of coats of tung oil and using steel wool between each coat of oil. I love working with wood and seeing the lovely grain as it appears with the tung oil.

Last year my granddaughters made luminarias out of cans--soup cans, vegetable cans, etc. They removed the labels, filled the empty cans with water and froze them until hard. Then they drew designs on the cans and used nails to puncture the cans to make their designs. I put a candle inside the one they sent me and I keep it on my hearth where it looks very pretty in the winter time.

I am still busy knitting dish cloths or wash cloths. I found some lovely new all-cotton yarn at Hobby Lobby that is very soft--doesn't feel like cotton at all and the colors are lovely. I plan to pick some blackberries/dewberries in the next couple of weeks and make jam or preserves. I figure a pretty basket with a knit dish cloth, a kitchen utensil and a jar or two of jam will make nice gifts for the neighbors.

Since I am still oil painting, I have at least two pictures in mind to paint for favorite people who have expressed a wish to have one of my paintings. The picture below is of a water lily and is for an art show in October. I am really a slow painter, so I started early. Soon as I finish this painting, I need to get started on my Christmas pictures. Do you have any favorite things that you can begin making now for Christmas gift-giving?

A CHRISTMAS STORY

Several years ago I invited members of my family to write their Christmas stories and send them to me. I gathered those stories up into a booklet, printed it out and that was one of my Christmas gifts to the family that year. I have asked several of the family members for permission to print their stories and they have given me the okay. Here is one of my favorites from Son #4:




MY CHRISTMAS STORY

I will never forget the first Christmas away from my family. I was eighteen and just finished up with boot camp for the Coast Guard and got stationed in California. It was December 1995 and I was new to the Coast Guard and the people at the small boat station. It was Christmas Eve and I showed up for work in the morning and saw all the people go home who had the next two days off and became a little jealous of them knowing they will be with their families. It was just another day at work and being the new kid, the jobs were not the best. Christmas Eve consisted of watching some movies with five guys and just kicking back and relaxing a little.

On Christmas morning about six thirty I woke up and got dressed. Just like any morning I started my normal routine since I was not told any different the night before. I walked downstairs to a smell I have never smelled before in my life. The officer of the day was cooking in the kitchen by himself since three thirty in the morning. He had food all out on the tables and he asked if I had ever had roasted chestnuts. Saying no, he opened up the oven and had trays of chestnuts (the smell I was not familiar with). Soon everyone got up and came down to enjoy the fine food. When we all sat down to eat the front door opened and all of the people that were off and their families came over to enjoy the day with us since we were stuck at the station. The rest of the day was spent throwing the football, lying around on the couch, and eating. For the first Christmas away from family I knew I had a new family made up of people that were in my situation once before.


I have not had a Christmas like this one in the Coast Guard since, I don’t know if the people are changing or the mindset of taking care of one another has changed. All I know is I will always remember the first Christmas away from my family could have been sad but I was so full of food and laughter that I was full of holiday cheer.

Frugal Friday

I saw an interesting gift yesterday. At the gym a trainer was giving someone a birthday gift and it was three quart-size Ziploc bags with four cookies in each bag. Each bag contained a different kind of cookie. The bags were stacked one on top of the other and tied with a red curly ribbon and had a tag on the top.

I thought that would be an excellent Christmas gift idea for neighbors, friends at church, and other casual gift giving. That type of gift gives someone a dozen assorted cookies and perhaps a hand-painted ornament on top. I have already begun my cookie making for Christmas giving. I have a container of oatmeal cookies and one of chocolate chip cookies in the freezer--had to make them for a party this week, so I made a double batch of each. Next I plan to make a chocolate cookie that has a piece of Rollo Candy baked in the middle.

Making these cookies ahead of time gives me the opportunity to watch for nuts and other ingredients on sale. Last week I found waffle pretzels on sale in the bulk section of the store where I shop (see recipe below). I stocked up! This week the Rollo candies were buy three and get three "free." I have come across three cookie recipes using Rollo candies this year. The following is a very easy recipe a friend in Hartford gave me and I used it last year:

Wendells

Waffle Pretzels
Rollo Candy
Pecan or Walnut Halves

Put one Rollo Candy piece on each pretzel and place on cookie sheet. Heat in 350 degree oven about 5 minutes or until Rollo Candy is soft but not melted. Press 1 pecan or walnut half on top of each Rollo Candy and allow to cool.

Yum! And fast and super easy!

CHRISTMAS GIFT IDEAS

For some of the families that I gave gifts to last year, I made up baskets of food mixes. One I called the Southwest Gift Basket and it had the fixins' for a Texas-flavored soup mix, a cornbread mix and a salsa mix or a spicy dip mix. Another one was a Country Gift Basket that had a good ole country soup mix, a bread mix, and either a cookie or cake mix.

This year I am working on making up some spice mixes to give as gifts. Today I bought the various ingredients for the spice mixes at a store that sells spices in bulk form. I paid about $4 for 12 different spices by buying them from the bulk containers. I was looking for ground rosemary and found that it cost $8.00 a pound. I bought the 1/2 cup that I needed and it cost $.08!! I almost fell over when I saw the cost compared to a jar of rosemary that I would have to grind myself!

I started buying my spices in bulk form several years ago when I found out that I could refill my spice jars for a fraction of the cost of buying new jars of spices. And for some of the spices that I use only occasionally, I just buy a small amount and renew them every year--or as needed. That way the spice does not sit on my shelf and grow stale.

I scrounge at the Dollar Store or other discount stores for interesting baskets or containers for these mixes that I put in freezer zip-loc bags, put the directions on the zip-loc bags, and then tie it all up with a bandana, shrink wrap or plastic wrap, some nice ribbon and perhaps an ornament that I make. If I have to mail the present, I try to find a very light weight container for the gift.

Please feel free to share your frugal tips for Christmas gifts you are planning this year.

Penny Pinching Memories

Today I was thinking that some of my penny-pinching stories might be of some value in the days to come. Then, this afternoon we watched part of the University of Illinois football game and I was transported back to three very lean years there while my husband went to graduate school. The campus looked beautiful this time of year--my favorite time there with all the color, pumpkins, fall festivals, etc. In an effort to make use of any free foods available I made applesauce from the Jonathan apples in our yard and canned it for future use. I also cooked up the rhubarb that grew wild along our back fence for pies. Yum! After Halloween I asked neighbors for their Halloween pumpkins before they pitched them into the trash and cooked them up to make pumpkin bread, cookies, pudding, pies. Yum! Yum! Good memories of using what was available naturally.

One of my neighbors was from a farm near Kankakee and she often brought back bushels of corn, green beans, and peaches from home. She shared her goodies with me and taught me to can these things for our winter eating. What a savings that was for our family of four living on a small fellowship each month.

As the weather turned cool (cold! Brrrrr!) and we stayed in more, I began making Christmas gifts for family members. I remember painting an oil painting for my brother, making bread boards shaped like a piece of bread out of some scrap lumber I found by a trash can, and knitting and crocheting hats, bags, and scarves for the adults. I also crocheted and lined book bags for students and my husband sold them on campus.

I am not sure how I did all that with two toddlers running around, but I managed somehow. Good memories!

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.