No Cost Chest Freezer Organization

We have a medium size chest freezer. Chest freezers cost less to buy and power than upright freezers but they do take some tricks to organize.

Most of the meat we have is bought in bulk and then I repackage it, so they are usually irregular sized and don't stack well.

Finding anything in this freezer was really taking effort.

Then, I spotted these fabric shopping bags that my daughter gave me, she hosted a Velveeta House Party and had extra bags.

I got 3 of the bags and sorted the meat - beef into one, pork into the 2nd one and chicken into the 3rd one.

I put them into the bottom of the freezer and all 3 fit perfectly!

Does anyone else have an abundance of these shopping bags? We bought some big ones at Aldi when they first came out and since then, Jeff and I have both got them from different companies and we have way more than we will ever need for shopping.

Anyone else have any good uses for these bags?

I fear that so many of them are being produced, that in a few years, there will be complaints that the reusable bags are filling up the landfills.

Tuesday sewing and thrift store goodies

I woke up early today, 4:30 a.m., so I did some sewing. I made 2 pair of bloomers for toddler Elizabeth. Most store-bought baby dresses come with bloomers/diaper covers but once you move up to toddler sizes, you usually just get a dress. Elizabeth is for-sure a busy toddler and she will just look a little more dressed with bloomers to cover her diapers when she is wearing dresses.

I met 4 girlfriends for lunch today but I had a few minutes before we were scheduled to meet so I stopped at one thrift store. These fancy embroidered letters, about 4 inches tall, were 5 cents for each bundle. These were they only letters they had. I have no idea what I will do with them but I could not resist for 25 cents total.

I can spell "busy" or "USA" except the A's are orange.

I love buying bias binding at thrift stores. I used bias binding on all 4 of the aprons I made last week as well as the casing for the elastic legs on the bloomers. And I really like it when I can find it for 5 cents a package.

3 nice lengths of fabric. The apple and polka dots pieces are 2+ yards each and the red checks have 4+ yards.

I also bought 1 shirt and 2 pair of shorts for Gavin and a vintage gold 8x10 photo frame for 10 cents.

Lunch was so much we fun, we are going to met again next week too.

thoughts on Monday

July is the time to buy whatever school supplies you might need for the coming year. Sale prices are low right now.

This is my 3rd year to get the 70 page spiral notebooks for 10 cents each at Big Lots. I make all kinds of lists in a spiral, everything for my daily to-do lists, grocery lists, bill paying schedules, gift ideas.

I also like to stock up on glue sticks for craft projects when they are on sale for back to school but have not done that yet.

any school supplies you like to stock up on for your home?

these 2 pictures are not good but they are the best I can take right now. My digital camera gets lots of use and is acting up, whenever I rotate a picture, it disappears - so I can only take horizontal pictures and not vertical ones.

These are my aprons. I just finished sewing 4 of them. It takes me longer to finish things than it used to but after about 3 weeks of sporadic sewing, I finally finished them.

I have them hanging on a coat rack in the laundry room. I guess I have 7 aprons now, one for each day of the week!

oh, and I am getting a new camera this week. Just have to decide which one and where to buy it.