Well, as you all no doubt know, Chtristmas is coming and it's got to be frugal. Especially as the folk who take our money in the name of social contributions, the ones who promised faithfully earlier this year that we were up to date with our payments, have now decided to send us a seasonal greeting in the form of a bill for over 4000,00€ (no, that's not a typo. There's really that many noughts).
Anyway, I digress. I know you're desperate to know about my frugal ways this year so here they are:
Presents:
Bike and helmet in excellent condition for eldest daughter bought at car boot for less than half the price of a new one (I might have mentioned this already somewhere on here).
Game for her to use on my nintendo bought at car boot for good price.
Youngest saw something she desperately wanted in local french toy shop retailing at 50,00€. Found same thing on Amazon for £15.00 so bought that one instead.
Bought off small ads for petit prix and all in good condition (things for me and the girls): Lego house, Pokemon cards, Hello Kitty cards, two handbags, board game.
Little wooden desk and chair for 8€ bought in local charity shop for youngest.
And so, onto decorations:
Every year the girls and I do some christmas crafts and decorate the house. My top tip for this: If it's things for their rooms, let them chose the colours. If it's for the house in general, ie, kitchen, lounge, chose the colour scheme yourself and then you've got cute little things that your kids have made and yet still go with everything else. So there's the usual gingerbread biscuits to hang on the tree (already onto the second batch of those, no idea where they disappear to...). And then after I've washed up the cookie cutters, they get used for drawing around onto card and then the shapes are cut out and painted and covered in glitter to be hung up on ribbon around the kitchen.
And then there's this years crafty decoration made by me: A jigsaw puzzle piece wreath. Saw some in a little crafty shop a while back, being sold for a nice price and I thought, I could do that myself, so I did. (Actually, it's turns out that it's not an original idea, I've found a few on the internet since). We've got some old jigsaws we have for the guests, but some of them are really not nice, so I used one to make the wreath.
Instructions:
Select an unwanted jigsaw.
Cut a ring shape out of some thin card.
Stick on a layer of puzzles pieces, overlapping edges of card.
Stick on second layer, slighty 'in' from edge of first layer.
Stick on final layer.
Send husband off to rummage through paint supplies in cellar to find green paint.
Rejoice that on this occasion he comes back with something useful - can of green spray paint for old car.
Get husband to spray wreath outside (well it is below freezing out there).
When dry, tie red ribbon around it and hang up.
Actually, I've been trying to find something like small red balls to stick on for berries, but in the meantime, I'm leaving it blank. It was completely free and looks very good, even though I say so myself. If you want to see it, you'll have to come back in a few days as I haven't taken a picture of it yet.
Anyway, I then got a bit carried away and thought, 'I bet you could make christmas trees like this'. So I did. Unfortunately, had no more green spray left, so had to make some green with the girls poster paints and apply with brush, luckily I found a can of clear car laquer spray, so even though the colour's not so good, it's still got a shiny finish. I stuck little sequins on as tree decorations and the red pot I painted with nail polish. They don't look too bad either, but for the time being, you'll just have to take my word for it.
Food:
Went to the supermarket today and spent points accumulated on loyalty card on food and drink for christmas (total 65,00€ so not bad).
I'm sure there's some other stuff, I'm always thinking of things to say when I'm nowhere near the computer, and then when I get here, I can't remember what it was.
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