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?

FRUGAL FRIDAY

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. My mother always celebrated Valentine's Day by leaving some little gift along with a beautiful Valentine's Day card at our place on the table. When we got up in the morning and came in for breakfast, our Valentine remembrance from her was waiting for us. I have always done the same thing.

When I was first married, money was very tight, so I made my Valentine's Day cards and sometimes the presents. In time, I resorted to buying my cards and presents. However, this year I looked at cards and the price for the 8-10 cards I wanted to send added up to more than $30 and those were not the really fancy cards. AND that did not include postage for mailing them. This made me think about how to save money this year!

First of all I remembered that I had a program on my computer for making greeting cards. I bought greeting card paper (on sale) for $10 and found a package of large envelopes on sale for $2.50. I made my cards and added a few bits of glitz that I already had to some of them. I also made gifts for a few of my friends. I must admit that I did buy my husband a small bottle of the cologne that he had a hankering for at Christmas.

The last few years I have ordered a bouquet of fancy cookies delivered to the retirement center where my mother lives. It was expensive, but a nice way to thank the ladies who take such good care of her. This year I decided to make the cookies myself and deliver them to the various shifts that work today and tomorrow. The cost of that was much less than half what the delivered cookies cost.

TALENT

Barbara discussed talents, gifts, and abilities in her blog yesterday. In light of my struggles with painting, I began to ponder talent--or lack thereof! I have a granddaughter, Em, who can sit down and draw a picture that is an exact representation of something she has seen in the past. She really has a natural talent for drawing with ease and confidence. I, on the other hand, struggle with drawing and painting and writing--but I enjoy all three activities! I relish the creative process of starting with nothing and coming out with something that gives me pleasure. It is the struggle between beginning and ending that gives me more grey hair than I already have!

One thing I have learned over the years is that tenacity goes hand-in-hand with creativity. For me creativity is a process (writing, painting, drawing, etc.) and takes time. I do not whip out a painting in one sitting, but might work on it for months. I write, rewrite, and edit before I am satisfied with what I am writing. I tweak, adjust, rework and then finally declare a piece "done."
I suspect that one of my greatest talents is tenacity.

Perhaps you writers might like to make a list of your talents, gifts, abilities, then pick one to write about in more detail. Perhaps you might also like to describe the tenacity you have for completing projects you begin!