Belated Wrapping Ideas...

I found these on my camera, which I guess I forgot about. This year I made a pledge to not buy any wrapping paper and in fact to push it just a little further by reusing Trader Joe's grocery bags. I hand stamped a forest scene, made gift tags with vintage stamps and usedred and white baker's twine to finish it all off. I think I'll do it again next year, it was relatively easy and felt good to be reusing something. Really though, this is a look that could be modified for any holiday or occasion, just change the stamp and color of baker's twine. The best part of all was that the "wrapping paper" was all recyclable afterward!

Alternative Shopping/ Gift Ideas

I did a simple google search a while ago to find charitable organizations that have items that can be given as gifts, but benefit the cause, or organizations that I thought were run well and that gave donations in someone's name. This is a great resource that I recommend, it's called "The Good List".

We ended up choosing to get a water bottle for my father-in-law from water.org, a shirt for my sister from charity: water, a Kiva loan for A, and two handmade and hand screen printed bags for my best friends from Made By Survivors. I really want to start doing this all year, throughout the year, as well as for other gift-giving holidays in addition to our handmade gifts.

Tis' the Season!

How is your holiday shopping going? Mine is pretty on track, but for the first time in years I wasn't able to stock up very many gifts during the year (when you find something perfect for someone on your list, there's a great sale, or you're somewhere you can't buy it further down the road) so I'm having to do a lot of my shopping/ crafting/ baking etc. this month. This month being December. HOW IS IT ALREADY DECEMBER?! A's birthday is also this month so I'm having to pull a little double duty. I'm really making an effort this year to be getting more gifts where the proceeds go to charity, or gifts that are the actual donation to the charity. I've long been a fan of Heifer International where you can do your part to end poverty and hunger across the world. Here is their mission:

"To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth.

By giving families a hand-up, not just a hand-out, we empower them to turn lives of hunger and poverty into self-reliance and hope.

With gifts of livestock and training, we help families improve their nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. We refer to the animals as "living loans" because in exchange for their livestock and training, families agree to give one of its animal's offspring to another family in need. It's called Passing on the Gift – a cornerstone of our mission that creates an ever-expanding network of hope and peace."

There are so many worthy causes that deserve your donation, and in fact I plan to do another post about some of the other charities we're donating to/ purchasing "gifts" from this year. Another great thing about Heifer is that you can also do shares on animals, where you pitch in towards a full animal purchase, meaning you're still doing something amazing, but you can do it on a budget as well. I do have to say that I love to watch someone's face when they discover that I've given them a goat (or chick, water buffalo, sheep, camel, and more!) for their gift!

Frugal Friday!

Do you want to make someone's face look like this when they open their Christmas gift this year? Strapped for cash for the latest gadgets? Well, A & B are here to save the day! Okay, I'll stop writing like a used car salesman now. The truth is that we are getting closer and closer to the gift giving season and this is a very important time to exhibit frugality! For saving on gadgets I really love refurbished items. I have been finding myself drooling over a dyson vacuum on Overstock.com and reveling at how cheap Kitchenaid mixers are on the Kitchenaid website (in the outlet, refurbished section) and in previous years A & I have gotten both an ipod and a laptop off of the refurbished section on mac.com. I also got A a refurbished electric razor off of Amazon.com a few x-mases ago. They really are an amazing resource and you get things you really want, that would normally be too expensive, for so much less!

Frugal Friday!

Some lovely ladies I "crafted" with a few weeks ago mentioned using their "groupon"(I'll be honest, I thought we were moving into some risque girl talk!). Quickly, I learned that it is another website much like Living Social with local savings, it's great. I've signed up and already got an x-mas gift for A I know he'll be excited about! They have salon, spa, hotel, food, entertainment, fitness classes, other classes, you name it! All at amazing discounts, Groupon also has an iphone app for those of you with iphones (come on Verizon, have one out before x-mas!). It's also all over the U.S. (they're even getting it in Salem, OR soon!?). One thing that I really like about Groupon is that on their sidebar they've got all of the other local deals that are just out of your city, and if you live somewhere like the Bay Area that's amazing because there are so many other towns close by that are also having "Groupons" that day. Check them out, they're great, and it's really amazing to do things you would already do, for at least half off; or things you didn't think you could do because it was too expensive. My dahlings, the internet can make ALL your dreams come true! Err....yes....

Frugal Friday!

While obsessing about Le Creuset again (and no, I still haven't used them! I'm afraid, and clearly a weirdo. I'll get over it, thinking I'll cook a chicken in the round one tonight!) A friend of mine told me about the website Slickdeals.net where you can sign up for your favorite things, be it Le Creuset, a Yudu , portable margarita maker, etc. You will then get sent an alert when anything with that name gets posted. So, the other day I got an email allerting me that Le Crueset had been mentioned in a post, sadly it was only to say that it was excluded from the online 20% off sale that Macy's was having that day. But, my friend had been alerted about some Le Crueset pieces she bought in the past, as well as a crazy sale on their tv and more. I need to add more to my interest list so I can broaden my savings, but it seems like a great Frugal Friday resource (and even for stocking up on Christmas gifts as well!) and I look forward to more "slickdeals" coming my way!