Frugal tip- holiday edition 11/29

My nativity
When I was in high school, my parents bought a new nativity set. This was their old one. I love this nativity. #1 it is the one I grew up with. #2 my dad made the stable back when he and my mom were first married. That must be where I get my "I can make that" mentality from :-) thanks dad!

Happy thanksgiving!

Morgan and I made these cute turkeys yesterday in perpetration for today's festivities.
After we left Mr.Fulmer's grandparents house, we drove by best buy to see if anyone was in line yet.

CRAZY!!

Creativity Runs in the Family

Morgan got a huge box of Popsicle sticks from his Great Grandma. He loves them!! Today he gave all of his match box cars wings. Creative and Frugal.

Rainy Day

Today was a rainy day. I did some sewing, planned Thanksgiving, payed bills and got ready for real kids. A pretty normal day, so not too much to blog about.

So I'm going backwards today.

Morgan's school (Summit School is #1) was having their yearly auction to help make ends meet. I helped organize the art project that the PK class would enter into the auction. We decided to make these plates using the children's thumbprints.

I am thinking about making the tree one for myself.

1st of November

Happy November 1st!

I hope you all had a safe and happy October 31st!

My little cowboy...

Let me breakdown the costume and tell you all my great, frugal deals!

The hat - Mr. Fulmer bought this hat the first year we were married. He just knew that someday we would have a use for a cowboy hat. I guess he was right after 10 years.

The Vest & Chaps - I made them both out of a yard of felt. Felt is cheap and very easy to sew. I did however spend $7 on the pattern :( That was the most expensive part of the costume, but I have never seen chaps before, so I didn't know where to start when building them. It was well worth the investment.

Rope - Morgan made the rope this summer while we were at the Linn Co. Fair. It was a free demonstration, thus a free prop!

Cowboy Boots - I searched all over CR looking for affordable cowboy boots. No such luck, so I turned to my trusty friend... ebay! I scored a great pair of boots for $10 and that included the shipping.

Sheriff Star (not pictured) - Funny story; We bought Morgan a sheriff star pin while we driving to Maine a few years back in Indiana. It went right along with the cowboy theme. So I added it to the vest as soon as I made it. Well we were enjoying a day at the pumpkin farm, in the corn box (a giant box filled with dried corn) when Morgan lost his star. We searched and searched, I left my number at the office and I called hoping someone turned it in. No Luck. So my parents found a sheriff star in Ohio on their drive back home. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Horse - I saved the best story for last. I found the horse at the Dollar General. I went to pay for it with my master cars credit card. My card was declined, because DG doesn't accept MC credit. I told Morgan we would have to come back and buy it later. He was fine with that, but the cashier was not. She pulled her purse out and purchased the horse for us!! Can you believe that?!?!?!

Total cost for the costume - - - - - - $20

True, a real frugal-ista could of found an entire costume online or free cycle for $5 or less, but wheres the fun in that?

Socks 4 Christmas?

Mr. Fulmer had an 8:00 appointment today with the car doctor. So I thought it would be a great day to finish sewing the socks we started on Saturday. BUT my sewing machine is still in the trunk of my car, who is at the car doctor.

So I will blog about socks instead.

Have you heard of the Lakota People? If not here is the link to an ABC special that was done on them. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/saving-lakota-nation-14757610

Our church has organized an outreach to help them with blankets, socks, canned meat and soup.

As soon as I heard socks, I thought "I should organize a sock making night" And so I did!

10 sock sewers showed up and we will have around 30 pairs of socks made by the time Mr. Fulmer and a small group from our church head west.

It was a lot of Fun! Tim Lewis made chili, Michelle Nicholas learned to sew and we meet a new friend and her daughter (pictured above)

The stores are already playing Christmas music and their trees have been up for a few weeks now, so it's about time that i post about Christmas :)

With the help of Dee Winn, we were able to rent a place to hold our annual Christmas Party. Mark your calendars, everyone is invited!

December 10th (Time TBA) at the Eagle Ridge Community Center. Mr. Fulmer wants me to plan some games, so if you have any ideas, please post!!

I will also be making my famous lobster stew! YUMMM! There will be other food too for all the crazy people who don't do seafood :)

Here is a decoration idea I found on my new favorite website

http://pinterest.com/ last night. I might do it, I might not..

YUMMY MUMMY

YUMMY MUMMY!!

Need I say more?

Morgan said, "Those Mummys are so GOOD!!"

JELLY

Last night Courtney "P" and I attempted to make Carrot Cake Jelly. After several burns from hot jars, hot water and hot rolling jelly, we finally got it into 16 half pint canning jars. The best part was hearing them pop after they got out of the water.

Now for the real test... I am going to hyvee after I take Morgan to school to find some low carb bread and some low fat cream cheese so Mr. Fulmer and I can sample this stuff right :)

Stay tuned - Same Jelly Time - Same Jelly Channel - I'll let you know how it turns out...

UPDATE: The Jelly is oh so Yummy!!

Turkey Sighting

Yesterday while we were getting ready for church we spotted 7 wild Turkeys in our yard.

Now for some of you that might be normal, but we live in the middle of the city and in the 10 years we have lived at this house, I have never seen turkeys.



That got me thinking about Thanksgiving. In fact, I told Mr. Fulmer to get in the car and try to hit one so we would have our holiday Turkey :)



Some of my fondest memories from Thanksgiving involve creativity. I am the daughter of a seamstress and a grand daughter of a school teacher, what do you expect!?!



Every year we would make place setting cards, so everyone would know where to sit. We started off with card stock, a sticker and the name printed with marker. But as time went on so did the creative ideas. I will share some as it gets closer to Turkey Day.



I loved making Indian vests out of paper bags and Pilgrim hats out of construction paper.



Share with me some of your creative Thanksgiving memories...

October Link

My favorite thing to do at church is THE LINK.
The first Sunday of each month, the pastors meet any new people in the multi purpose room.

My job is to create a table with snacks and juice.

I always try to decorate with the season.

Thanks to my new friend Jeanette for taking these pictures for me. She did a GREAT job!! I am still not very good at remembering to bring my camera.

The orange cups with green spoons are supposed to look like pumpkins. Would you have guessed that?

Now I can start planning for November. TURKEY!!

SMORES!

Back in August, I helped a good friend of mine plan a s'mores party! We had so much fun!!

The table was set up with 4 different cookies/ crackers. 5 different chocolates and 5 different marshmallows. The combinations were endless.

Mr. Fulmer came up with the idea for these indoor s'more pots. In June we went to a restaurant that we often set tents up for. After the meal hey brought us a complimentary s'mores platter. It had a hibachi in the center like you would find at a Chinese food restaurant with your poo-poo platter. We went home and googled them. It was about $20 for the cast iron hibachi alone, more for the platter and even more for the burning gel. So Mr.Fulmer took it upon himself to create these. It is a lawn tractor rim, with the center cut out. Then I bought some chaffing gel at a restaurant supply store and voila! Indoor fire pits!


Before the party, Courtney and I went to the farmers market to buy some flowers. We had enough to fill a few mason jars, but we wanted more for not a lot more $. So we stopped by a few ditches on the way back to her house. The back seat was full of beautiful wildflowers.

It was a great time had by all! After eating indoor s'mores and playing a round of balderdash. We headed outside for a real bonfire and hot dogs and more s'mores.

Tenting

This is what we have been up to for the last few days...

Setting up tents (not wine tastings) :)

This 60'x90' tent was up at Hy-vee in Marion for an Autumn extravaganza!! Did you see it?

SOAP

While I was whipping up a batch of my homemade laundry soap, I was thinking, I should blog about this.

These are the three main ingredients that most google search recipes will call for.

#1 Borax (1/4 cup)

#2 Washing Soda (1/4 cup)

#3 Fels-Naptha (1/3 bar chopped into very small pieces)After you mix those three, I always add 1/4 cup of color safe bleach.And 1/4 cup of Oxi-Clean.

Add 1 TB to each load of laundry. There's not much of a smell to it, so I also add snuggle fabric softener, just for the smell :)

Looking Forward

We have been so busy last week and this week with tents. Which is a great thing! I just didn't want you all to think I just started a blog to give it up so quickly.

Some things to look forward to...

I am planning a sock making night at church for the middle of October. The socks will be donated to the Lakota nation. Please mark the date on your calendar and come to help! Even if you can't sew, we will need cutters and pinners and food :) It's gonna be either the 14th or 15th.

The link is coming! The first Sunday of the month is the Link. New people can come and visit with our pastors. It is also a great excuse to make cute seasonal foods. I think we might be planning an owl theme.

Courtney and I are going to try our hand at jam making... wish us luck :)

Apple Day

Today I accompanied Morgan on his first field trip of the school year. We went to the apple orchard!

My dilemma was that we had to bring a sack lunch for our child and for ourselves. I don't own a lunch pail :(

So I contemplated running to wal-mart or target after I dropped Morgan off at school to scoop up a great clearance lunch pail, but then I had a better idea... "why not just make one?"

I used a cute fabric that I had purchased for the apple themed link table last month at church, I lined it with fleece to keep my meal insulated and then the inside layer is tent vinyl to keep it all water proof.

I actually think I am going to make another one. This one is just not tall enough for my nifty water bottles, so if anyone out there reading wants a new, one-of-a-kind, custom lunch pail let me know and I will give you this one!

PS The apple orchard was fun too!

PPS Anyone want to go apple picking with us?

Husband-less Part 2

Mr. Fulmer is back on the road to Nebraska.

Sometimes that means free time for me, and other times it means I have to step up and do some of Mr. Fulmer's responsibilities. This was a fun project!

This big UFO is a gazebo top. It had ripped off during a strong wind. So I fixed it! A great feeling of accomplishment.

This is how dusty my sewing table was after working on the gazebo top.

Time to clean...

Inpatient Surgery

We had a very special friend at our house for the last few days. This is giraffe. Giraffe had been in terrible accident, but due to modern science, we were able to give her a second chance on life.

Enjoy your friend Micheal!

Busy Weekend

Mr. Fulmer and his crew spent the whole day Saturday re-roofing our house.

My job was to keep the guys feed. I made a Rachael Ray recipe, sweet corn quesadillas They were YUMMY! You should TOTALLY try them!!

I also made potato skins - they were pretty basic.

And for dessert I made a peach cobbler. I was not impressed. The topping was made with flour, sugar and cornmeal. So it was kind of crunchy, kind of like when I make rice :)

Then Sunday was our church picnic. We were at the Park at 7:30am to set up a tent and deliver Tables and Chairs. Thanks to all our friends who came to help set-up before church!

Mr. Fulmer was the grill master. In the photo above he and Rob Zeck are trying to turn the grill on. If you were one of the unlucky ones who had to wait for hamburgers and hot dogs to arrive, this might have been part of the problem. :)

It was a great time had by all! I am looking forward to planning parties for those who won my certificates! PS If you didn't win, I would still be more then happy to help you plan an upcoming event!
After the picnic we came back home and went right back up on the roof. Trying to finish without a crew.

Just Mr. Fulmer and I

As of right now the roof is still not done, but it will be tomorrow when Mr. Fulmer gets back from Nebraska.