the simple life

Frugal Fun With Kids And Felt

December 21, 2012

I came across this winter felt board idea a couple days ago, and this afternoon I spent a few minutes cutting out felt for our son.  I have a bag full of felt scraps left over from my felt food project (I used some of it for the ornaments I made last month, but I [...]

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Easing Back Into Travel As A Family Of Four

December 13, 2012

Before we had children, my husband and I used to travel somewhere relatively far-flung at least once a year.  Then our son was born in 2008, and suddenly it seemed much easier to stay home.  And really, that’s what we wanted to do anyway.  A year later, we bought our current house, which has been [...]

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A Frugal Curtain

November 17, 2012

Last night I made a curtain to go between our downstairs bathroom and the under-stairs storage area behind it.  The whole thing cost about three dollars, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. This is an old sheet (leftover from when I bought fabric to make diapers for our first son five years [...]

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Felt Birdhouse Tree Ornaments

November 8, 2012

It’s that time of year again, and I’ve started making Christmas ornaments for our nieces.  I’ve been doing this for 12 years now, and our nieces and I all enjoy the tradition.  Our oldest niece is 15, and she has quite a collection of handmade ornaments now.  I always have fun figuring out what to [...]

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Curbing Impulse Spending

October 26, 2012

Happy Friday!  I have another post inspired by Kate, and I’d love to hear from the rest of you on this topic as well.  It’s one that is the downfall of many a budget:  impulse spending.  Here’s what Kate writes: I need to leave my debit card at home. I go out for one thing [...]

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Made My First Cough Syrup

September 19, 2012

Have you all discovered Frugally Sustainable yet?  I had browsed around over there off and on in the past, but I’ve started reading more posts lately and loving it.  If you subscribe to the blog, you get a free copy of Andrea’s e-book “Herbal Rescue:  Your Guide To Creating A Homemade Herbal First Aid Kit” [...]

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My DIY Wall-Mounted Jewelry Box

July 8, 2012

A couple weeks ago, I saw this post on Organizing Made Fun, and I really liked the wall mounted jewelry box.  My jewelry was in a regular box on a shelf in the back of our closet.  It was hard to get to, hard to see what was in it, and I realized that I [...]

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Progress On Our Projects And Some Good Links

May 14, 2012

I hope you all had a great weekend!  Our was spent working on the rough wiring in our basement, with a lot of help from my parents.  I have a circuit map that I’ve been drawing onto a blank floor plan, adding x’s and o’s for all the outlets and lights.  The whole basement map [...]

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A DIY Bike Cargo Area

March 29, 2012

My husband recently spruced up his bike to make it easier to carry stuff, and I thought I’d share his cool DIY design.  In the past, he always used a backpack to haul stuff on his bike, or he put stuff in next to our son if he was hauling the kid-trailer.  But now he [...]

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More Improvised Exercise Equipment

January 22, 2012

Remember when I told you about the walker I started using as a dip station for my Bodyrock workouts?  Well, I have another inexpensive, DIY piece of workout equipment to share with you. They use sandbags as weights on Bodyrock all the time.  The one they use sells for about $100.  Of course there was [...]

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