I'm Stuck...

Yep! On Pinterest. I've become addicted to pinning. I've found a lot of inspiration! I have boards for craft ideas, quilts, gifts and just cute findings. Surprisingly, I have a recipe board! I cook only because starving isn't an option. So far the projects Pinterest have inspired are a baby quilt for my new niece, a mug rug, a cup cozy, a scarf organizer and a greeting card organizer. I don't really need any more craft ideas. What I need is more time to do the crafts.

I pulled out the kids scrapbooks and realized I'm "only" 5 years behind. That's more than half of the Beans life and Sissy graduates from high school next spring. It might be nice to have her scrapbook ready for a graduation party. A mom can dream *sigh*.

I have finished a couple of projects this winter. This baby quilt was inspired by Pinterest.

My first potato chip scarf, modeled by Sissy. It made its debut way back here.

Hopefully, with the help of Snapfish.com and my new friend at the scrapbook store in town, I'm going to get some scrapbooking done. I'm also still working on organizing the storage room.

Family Fun

Last Sunday we decided to take the kids ice skating. Well, I skated, Honey took pictures. He's never been on ice skates - ever. Both the kids did really well skating (translation: no trip to the ER). It was Beans first time skating, Sissy has been before but not often. I was surprised how quickly they caught on.

Skating was followed by Starbucks! It helped ease my sore ankles and warm my cold...toes! Next weekend is the art museum.

I Heart Organizing

I'm so excited I found this blog post! I've been looking for it all weekend! I knew it was floating around in cyberspace somewhere, also proves I'm not losing my mind...today anyway. I would have helped if I could have remembered it was on New Nostalgia but I couldn't even remember that much. Why am I so excited about this blog post? Because of the "Donation Station"! I have been looking for a way to organize my basement storage room, or at least reduce the chance of bodily injury while looking for other things. The biggest problem I have is organizing the things that come into the storage room and need to go out again, either to the Goodwill or recycle.

Here is the picture that inspired Amy at New Nostalgia. Isn't it wonderful! A place for every thing. My area isn't going to be as pretty, I get to hide it behind closed doors, but I hope it will be functional. Honey and I made a trip to Stuff Mart to get bins for my organizing project but the trip was a bust. They didn't have anything that would stack and be open in the front to put things in. I found this on Amazon with free shipping.

My plan is to have one bin for clothing recycle, one for clothing donations to Goodwill, the last one for stuff donations. I don't know if I'll be able to get my family on board or not. They may still just put stuff in the storage room but I'll have somewhere to put it until we'll be near a drop off location.

I'm pretty excited to get this project started, I'm tired of playing shuffle the piles in the storage room. The hardest part will be waiting for the UPS truck. Come back and visit for before and after pictures!

The Project One Year Later

I can't believe it's the beginning of a New Year! What happened to 2011? I know what didn't happen. I haven't been at the Stuff Mart! For the past year I've tracked my trips and how much I spent. I'm glad I did this little experiment but I'm also happy I don't have to track the trips any more.

What I already knew was that we went to Stuff Mart way too much and picked up too many "extras". What I wasn't sure about was if we could not go as often. I had also hoped to save some money.

Surprisingly we could go to Stuff Mart less, we cut down our trips by 100 for the year! In 2010 we went made an estimated 171 trips (no, I didn't count all the trips I averaged a 4 month period) this year it was 71! We also spent less, average $100 a month. Does that mean we saved that amount? No! We spent it at other places.

What I learned was we could survive without running to Stuff Mart for every thing we think we need. I improved my list making skills. The less time I spent in the store, the less time I wanted to spend in the store. Less time spent seeing things I think I can't live without but didn't need or want when I left the house. It is possible to run out of plastic shopping bags!

This year my goal is to cut our spending and stay within our budget. The first step is to track my personals spending. Honey got me a weekly pocket calendar for Christmas because it has Mickey Mouse on it. I'm going to use it to track my spending. I also am very bad about keeping the checkbook up to date, that is step two. So far today I spent $1.20!

Happy Saving!