Frugal Friday #9 (Held Over To Saturday)

Hello everyone that matters which you get my vote of your reading this post! Yesterday I went out nice and early, 10ish, to get some wall trim wallpaper to put on my homemade banana box bookshelf I had put together to hold our books.

It's not completely done but I took pictures anyway. I plan on glueing magazine pages in a collage type of look for the inside of the boxes. Here is what I have done so far.

Plain Look

With wallpaper wide screen

With wallpaper long screen.

There is a store I may of mentioned before called The Rusty Bucket where stuff is made out of other stuff a little pricey but a great place to get ideas from.

I hope this gives you some ideas.

Frugal Friday #7

Vermont Farmers Market

Hello, everyone. Today is Farmer Market day for me. Where we live now we get coupons totaling up to $27 which will be very nice addition to our groceries. That's one of the best perks we have since our move. Plus it's a walkable distance. We are so happy my husband and I that we can finally live the way we want.

Buying from your local Farmer's Market helps the town staying local the wonderful colors of the fruits and vegetables beckons you to buy fresh. Especially if you can't have a garden of your own.

Frugal Friday #6 #FixThePlus #Follow Friday

Welcome to Frugal Friday. Today I'm going to talk about growing your own food indoors. I love to save money and I'm a bonified cheapskate and if I could I would be right there when the grocery stores want to get rid of their surplus or expired food stuff.

My local market is doing a pretty good job marking down their produce which I take advantage of. Bananas, potatoes, different fruits that I use when marked down I buy right up.

The most fun you can have is growing your own fresh fruit and vegetables. And it's easier than you think! I grew up with my mother sticking toothpicks into either a potato (has to have eyes) or avacado placing them in a glass in our windowsill. My father loved green grapes planting a vine outdoors which the birds loved to eat.

Let us grow some herbs. Some of the easiest herbs to grow are Chives, Basil, Oregano, Parsley, Mint, and Thyme. It's a wonderful thing to watch these herbs grow and use, plus it smells so good.

Growing Herbs

When you pick container for your plant's size does matter so choose wisely. If the pot is too small the roots could become rootbound, to big and the plants will use all their energy on their roots.

You must have a sunny south window with at least 8 hours of sun. If you don't have a place like that you can use fluorescent bulbs. Two 40-watt bulbs will do.

Make sure your herbs are all placed together and misted regularly. They love the humidity. When my plants get going well when I wash out a ziplock bag (told ya, I'm cheap) I will place over a plant to dry. They seem to thrive and love it.

I have a problem with dryness in my living space so filling a small bowl with pebbles and water will help. I fill up a kettle of water and set it on the stove sometimes when it gets too dry.

Fertilizer 
Using kitchen scraps that you would normally throw away like Eggshells. You can save your dried out egg shells putting them in the blender to make them powdered sprinkling over the top of the soil before watering. Not too much at once, you can always add more.

I also found that plants love Pasta water (without the oil) after boiling pasta noodles drain into a container letting it cool off before adding.

Stale or used Coffee grounds plants seem to love. Just sprinkle a little on top and water. The plants will take right to it.

If you don't want to go through all that looking for the easier way to fertilize just go out and purchase  Jobe's 5001T Houseplant Indoor Fertilizer Food Spikes, 50 Pack from Amazon and no I don't get paid to mention this at all. These are nice and easy, you can buy fertilizer sticks anywhere. I have seen them sold at Family Dollar for cheap!

Lastly, Watering, be careful not to over water for that will drown the roots. Touch the top of the soil, if dry, water as needed and have a spray bottle handy for plants love the misting.

Next week I will explore with you on the making an indoor garden container for free.

Good luck with your indoor herb garden!

Have you ever grown an indoor garden?

Frugal Friday #5 How To Build Your Own Worm Bin Cheap #FixThePlus #FollowFridays

Good morning, welcome to Frugal Friday where I make you sit and read all about what I think about the state of affairs of our Planet Earth not to mention ways to use some of what we throw away into something useful which brings to when I made my own Worm Bin years ago.

Back when I lived in Maine of 2010 I had the summer off when I normally had two jobs going leaving me with all kinds of time on my hands so I started a garden so I wouldn't go bonkers. I loved the idea of making my own fertilizer sitting down one day to google HomeMade Worm Bins.

After hours of research, I found what I wanted on the internet having the stuff I needed around my duplex to start my worm bin. These are great for smaller gardens or if you live in a small apartment or if you don't have a big backyard.

Materials

• One 8-10 gallon rubber storage boxes (dark, not see through) as shown in pictures Cost: about $5 each
• 1 lb. of Red Worms
• Shredded moist newspaper
• 1or two cup of dirt, dry leaves
• Canadian peat moss, sawdust, (rinsed) horse manure are also great for composting.

Drill (with 1/4″ and 1/16″ bits) for making drainage and ventilation holes. If you don't have a drill try using a hammer and big nail but be careful. You can use the lid to let water drain down into after you have put all the materials in plus the worms. On the sides drill 6-8 holes. On the bottom drill around 20 holes for drainage.

Using about 50 pages, tear newspaper into 1/2" to 1" strips. Fill up to about 3/4 of the tub. A newspaper is biodegradable but don't use the colored pages. Before adding newspaper wring out the water. It's better to shred the newspaper first. I found that out the hard way. After adding the shredded damp newspaper, fluff it up throwing the cup of dirt (grit) on top so the worms can digest their food.

It makes quite the mess so make sure you cover whatever you are working on with newspaper getting to use in the bin when done. The white bucket I got from the pizza place right down the street, leaving it outside to catch rainwater. Make sure when you have added the materials and the worms you have a cover for the top that will come off easily in case the compost gets too wet. My favorite is place a burlap bag over the top fastened in place with a bungee cord. You might need two.

Adding The Worms
Estimate 1 pound of worms for every square foot of surface area
I went outside and placed an old blanket I wasn't using overnight making it easy to lift up the blanket for the worms were right on top of the soil. The kids loved that part. In fact, I woke up one day being in my kitchen I opened up my door and on the steps was a bowl of worms waiting for me from the kids. Now that was a first for me!

Now for table scraps of foods, NO Bones, Meats, Oils Or Dairy Products. Just fruits and veggie scraps cut up real small after all these worms are small. Bury the scraps under the bedding so the bin doesn't stink. Move the food around so the worms follow. Put a sheet of dry newspaper on top to soak up any excess moisture and/or fruit flies. If the top newspaper gets wet change over to a dry sheet.

Now you are ready to choose a place for your brand new homemade worm bin. Get 4 bricks to put in each corner of the bin's lid placing the bin on top leaving space for drainage. Keep away from windows and heaters finding a well- ventilated spot so the bin can breathe.

Feed, Water and Fluff to keep worms happy. Feed them about once a week. If bedding dries up, spray with water. (If bedding gets too wet, add dry newspaper strips.) Fluff up bedding once a week so the worms get enough air. There you are done and good luck!

The perks are the kids interest in what you are doing. One child made a worm bin for her school project and got an A+

How would you like a worm bin in your home?

Frugal Fridays#1 #FixThePlus #FollowFridays

Hi, and welcome to my new Frugal Fridays where you will find ideas, stories, tips, on how to be as frugal as you can be. I have always used an item until it can't be used any longer all the while thinking of what I can do to remake an object as in glass jars, plastic containers, paper, you name it.

A while back I threw my first and last Avon party. I told the friends I invited to bring 'recycled' stuff that we could use as prizes for the games. It was a total success. Then again, I had awesome friends back in Maine.

Again, back in Maine, I had started a garden wanting fertilizer and made a worm bin out of a big plastic bin. 

Even further back when I lived in California, where I grew up my first apt. held a big cable wheel for a dining room table. I just love getting something for free and fixing it up.

So my wish is that you like my new Frugal Fridays and be inspired by what I have to offer for ideas. 

Plastic Bags

To start off with I have a thing about plastic bags and the harm it can do to your environment and wildlife. I once read that small or even larger animals can get stuck in a plastic bag trying to get at any food bits that were left behind suffocating to death. Now I'm sure the land isn't littered with dead suffocated animals gasping for their last breath but just in case I tie used plastic bags in a knot then throw the bag away.

I have my Go Green cloth totes that I like to use with the wide strap it seems to make carrying my purchases easier which I desperately need. I have to stop having so much fun with the clerks at the stores I go to for if I'm not watching they are putting my purchases in their plastic shopping bags, then in my tote which defiantly defeats the purpose of recycling.

I reuse the plastic shopping bags I do end up with as garbage bags but it still bothers me about how long it takes for plastic to biodegrade.

Researchers fear that such ubiquitous bags may never fully decompose; instead they gradually just turn into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. The most common type of plastic shopping bag is made of polyethylene, a petroleum-derived polymer that microorganisms don’t recognize as food and as such cannot technically “biodegrade.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines. 

I just hope that a plan will be put in place to stop this plastic onslaught or the whole planet will someday be smothered.

How do you feel about plastic recycling?

How To Avoid Dangerous Freezers

Isn't my freezer pretty?

How in the world could a freezer hurt someone you ask? Why would you post something so random?The answer, I have a tendency to take pictures of what I find interesting and hopefully someone else will too. This random picture taking often gets shoved to the side becoming old news because I'm always coming across something new and exciting, at least to me leaving those random pictures that I'm sure you would be so excited to see lost in cyberspace.

Staying home a lot nowadays leaves me time to think of great ways to make my life easier with my often ignored aches and pains. One of those things is my freezer. I can not break the habit of buying in bulk say a chicken package, breaking it up into smaller portions, separating them into my emptied out bread bags to place them in my freezer, which is smaller by the way. This unit is meant to be for a single occupant. The chicken packages are all shaped oddly thus not very stackable.

I don't know how many times I have had to throw myself up against my freezer when opening the door with frozen, lumpy, packages of chicken would come sliding out at an amazing rate of speed causing me to think of that phrase, 'Colder then a Witches Tit' causing just a wee bit of discomfort.

Or not being real awake being first time in the morning taking out a frozen meat product not catching the one hundred mile an hour frozen solid piece of meat hurtling your way and A. having it land on the top of your foot or B. hitting the floor with the sound of thunder visualizing my little old landlady grasping her heart yelling the big ones coming! Sorry down there.

The solution was easily solved. I got a box, put it in my freezer putting all the separated chicken into it. My feet and the landlady are safe now and other delicate parts of my body.

Reuse,Recycle,Create (Redo) #FixThePlus

I love to mess around with projects. Especially plastic bottles in all shapes and sizes. I love creating stuff which really appeals to my cheap nature aka recycling. And when it actually works...bonus!

I have been recycling a long time. I'm especially happy when what I create I can actually use.



I went into this "funk" for a while. I went completely bah humbug on just about everything and all things holiday which is so not like me. I didn't even decorate for Christmas or Halloween I was so depressed.

With this chronic pain thing going on, not working, my adult kids living so far away, the combination of all these things that were missing in my life brought me to my knees which I am not used to being a fighter.

Then in June, I was 'cleaning' my computer out of stuff I didn't use or remember using and came across Blogger. I had already decided to write  a book of my life for my new Grandson that is due September 10th. So as in all things I plunged right in and started blogging as well. 

How does this all tie together you ask? It has brought bringing me out of my funk where I may actually decorate this holiday season and now I have a reason and a place to put my creative ideas at. Weird the paths we that we end up taking  to get to a better place.

How To Make Simple As Doing Dishes #FixThePlus *

I was doing dishes. That's when I do my best musings. I'm eyeing the dish drainer wondering for the millionth time how does a dish drainer get  so dirty from clean dishes and water?

I was doing dishes as fast as I could before my back pain settled in.
Wash wash wash...rinse rinse rinse.
I'm almost at the end of the dishes. All I have left to do are the silverware which to me is a pain in my tush.

Usually, I throw them in the dish drainer willy nilly and forget about dishes having to rush to my seat with the back pain monster right behind me but not today! Today I have a plan!

            I'll make a silverware holder.

Now that little invisible voice who loves to "voice" her opinion in my head speaks up trying to shame me by asking, "why now stupid,you've lived here three years" to which I reply, "don't judge me voice".

An idea was forming in my head. I watch a lot of YouTube projects and read about homemade projects that you don't have to spend money on so I think to myself, I got a 2-liter bottle of Root beer in the fridge! Yes, I love love love recycling.

I take out the bottle and notice I have to drink the rest of the Root beer before I can use the bottle so ~gulp gulp gulp~yes I know, I could have poured it down the drain but I'm cheap and besides...its Root beer.

Argggg brain freeze I think to myself, but the bottle is almost empty. A couple more gulps and its done. After a nice rinse, I can now begin.
The first "silverware drainer" I made I did it with the hole down. 

For the drainage. That wasn't a very good idea because straws, knifes and anything narrow enough to stick through would fall out. Hmmmmmm.
So one day I finally had enough and proudly threw away my homemade silverware drainer. Proud because I had made it and prouder I actually threw something away I'm such a hoarder.

Project #2 is now starting to form in my mind as what I consider an ingenious mind for all things homemade and crafty, I go downstairs and dig through the big black plastic bag full of returnables for another plastic 2-liter bottle. I find one, I'm on a roll now and return back upstairs and promptly find my scissors. 

I cut off half the bottle like a pro stabbing the bottom for drainage and there it will sit until it gets dirty although I'm resigned to never knowing why or how that happens, until I need a new one. 

What do you do to save money?

Crafting Shibori Looks Fun #FixThePlus *

Today has been quite the eventful day at least

from my perspective.

And it's not over yet.

Went to see Susan, my counselor this morning. I

really love that woman she is so much like me.

We have a lot in common which is always nice.

I have come a long way since February when I first started seeing her.

I loved what she was wearing so she introduced me to the wonderful world of shibori which I cannot wait to try out!

That's next on my craft list.

From what I understand, it's economical and easy.

Right up my alley for I have this glaring white cotton dress I'm 'dying' to try out!

Will let ya know for sure.

I just finish the American Community Survey so now I'm free for the more fun stuff.

So I got a new person to add on Facebook so I'd better get to that before I lose the piece of paper. Bye for now.

What do you like as a craft?