Category: Money savers
Decorate your wall with custom art blocks that you make with simple Styrofoam and squares of decorative paper. Easy to make and apply, these can be customized to suit any space and any decor.
Recycle the plastic cover from a pocket planner into a recipe card holder that protects your recipe cards, is easy to use, and takes almost no storage space.
A unique idea for creating clips to hold curtains on steel cable that costs a lot less than a standard drapery ring and clip.
Don’t waste money on pepper grinders with metal gears. Learn how ceramic gears can help even an inexpensive pepper grinder last for years.
Learn to sew easy and useful handmade burp cloths. Made of soft and gentle micro-fleece, these become indispensable to parents and make great shower gifts.
Make your own finger paints out of gelatin. These paints give a textured effect that you don’t get from finger paints you buy yourself. They are also completely non-toxic.
Use ordinary pipe cleaners to make bubble wands that work better and are easier to hold.
Learn how to use simple ties to attach your portable DVD holder to the headrest. As easy to set up as it is to remove, and adjustable to almost any car, this solution is also really inexpensive!
Protect pads of Post-It notes from damage in your bag or drawer — and make them look much cuter at the same time — with this cute technique for covering them in decorative paper. Kids love ‘em too!
Dress up boring, old, and damaged tables by topping them with colorful contact paper. Available in a variety of designs, it’s easy to apply and can be later removed. This will really perk up your craft space!
Make your own ribbon tote purse by punching holes in an old plastic bag from sheets or a curtain. Thread your ribbon through the holes and you’ll end up with convenient tote that holds all your ribbon neatly in one place.
Learn how to convert your adult shoe size to kids’ sizes to determine if you can wear kids’ shoes. If so, you’ll open yourself up to a broader selection of shoes to choose from, and usually at a lower price.
Use decorative papers, ribbons, and embellishments to make your own fancy wrapped soaps at home. Even the most ordinary bar soap will be fit for a king when wrapped with a lovely paper!
Like most kids, my niece loves to color. She has a seemingly endless supply of crayons but whenever they get broken or worn down into small bits, she doesn’t want to use them anymore. I’ve tried melting them down into new shapes before, but the colors would always get muddled and she’d […]
In a previous post, I told you all about refurbishing an old headboard for my daughter’s new room. That project went so well, I decided to redo my husband’s old desk to go in her room as well. The general process was basically the same for both pieces and the difference in […]
As you plan your wedding, you’ll fast discover that most wedding-related things are quite expensive, and you can easily overspend almost without realizing it. One of the surprise costs as you shop for your wedding day attire is the veil, which can easily cost a couple hundred dollars for the simplest of designs. […]
I love fresh-baked bread (who doesn’t?) but I don’t have it often because it usually takes a long time to make between the rising and the kneading. When I’m in a hurry for some homemade goodness, though, I use my foolproof three-ingredient bread recipe that requires no kneading and takes only a few […]
I love to cook, and I have lots of tools that help make cooking easier and more fun. The most essential tools are my knives. My favorite is an 8-inch chef’s knife that I use almost every day, and when I first got it, it was so sharp and cut like a dream. […]
I love vanilla lattes from Starbucks and it really is all Chica’s fault. I used to be a flavored regular coffee drinker or a mocha cappucino whenever I happened into a coffee shop until Chica handed let me taster her vanilla latte the morning after a campout. I was hooked! Unfortunately, this […]
We’ve all seen that green, plastic Easter basket “grass” that you can buy for fifty cents in the store. It does the job and it’s cheap, but it doesn’t look very nice. You can also buy fancier shredded papers to fill your basket, but that can get expensive, and you have to […]
Over the next few months, I will be writing a few posts on decorating a brightly colored toddler room. My daughter will be three come April and will be moving from the nursery into a big girl room. The first project I decided to tackle was her new bed. I have had […]
Many of you may see this post title, laugh, and say “Leftover wine? What’s that?” But in my house, we never quite finish a bottle of wine, and I hate to throw away what’s left, no matter how little it is. The good news is that your leftover wine doesn’t have to […]
Learn how to turn a pile of old jeans into a heavy-duty quilt that’s super warm. This is a great project for recycling old jeans and the result is a real conversation piece.
Photo corners are a classic and elegant way to frame your photos in your scrapbook or photo album. You can buy the little gummed-back cheap ones available at office supply stores, or you can go into a scrapbook store and buy expensive fancy ones. It seems that no matter what you buy, […]
My husband went to an auction recently and bought a lot of items from an office going out of business. Four really large boxes of fax paper rolls were included in what he bought. I was stumped as to what we were to do with this paper. After all, fax machines nowadays […]