Tag: craft

I want to know why anyone who is frugal is always the butt of someone’s jokes? Why are they dismissed as silly? Do they how much hard work it is to be frugal?? It takes a lot of discipline or creativity or both. I certainly try pretty darn hard. I am disciplined and creative and I admit – I get a real kick out of the whole thing.

There are millions of books, articles and Youtube videos on the topic of saving money. Well, let me throw my 2 cents in. Maybe if you hear it enough you might start acting more frugal!

If you know me, you know sending and receiving cards in the mail is kind of my thing. I love sending birthday cards, anniversary cards and of course thank you cards! Let’s say I have about 50 cards to send a year. If I bought a card from CVS I’d say the average (bland, boring) card costs $3.99. But of course I wouldn’t buy those I would buy the cards with more sentiment! Think $5.99-$7.99. 50 cards at $7.99 would cost me a total of $399.00 (before taxes).

Let me share with my little secret. I love making cards. It doesn’t take long. If you are going to take the time to drive to the drugstore and look for the right card, you may as well stay home and make it! I will share with you my secret weapon – scrapbook paper pads. They sell for $19.99 at Michaels. It seems about every other week the pads go on sale for $5. I will scoop up one pad (only on sale) and that will yield one year of cards plus extra scraps for other projects like bookmarks. The pieces of paper are huge! One side has a lovely design and the other side is white. So if you fold, cut and glue you can pretty much make a better card than the $7.99 mass production. I purchase one pad for $5.00 and by doing it myself, I save hundreds of dollars.

My only regret in this process is not taking photographs of the cards! I must get into that habit!

I have committed to using neutral color/patterned wrapping paper from now on to save money. At Christmas I try my best not to buy holiday paper. So this year I had to get a little creative. I noticed that Michael’s has this scrapbook paper in holiday designs as well. So I grabbed a pad and used it not only for my wrapping design but also my holiday cards! Took a bit more creativity but it sure was fun! I actually wrapped some of the smaller gifts in the scrapbook paper because it was so pretty!

Used up some of my leftover twine and a 3D printed Pokemon character to make it fun for my young cousin:

Here are some of them in a sweet box in front of the tree: