One little dress up outfit

My granddaughter has a quite full calender and she needs a Belle dress to wear to a Beauty and the Beast event later this month. Her momma showed me a few styles of Belle dresses on Pinterest and requested this dress be more everyday than fancy.

So, I went from there. I used the same peasant dress pattern from the granddaughters autumn dresses and I even had all this yellow fabric, white lace, thread and elastic in my sewing room. 

I cut the skirt separate from the bodice and added in several inches so the dress would be fuller and twirl. It is 100% cotton with all the seams finished so hopefully it will stand up to some playtime after the event. Granddaughter can dress up and look like a princess but she can play really hard.

Some of the pins I was inspired by, especially the first one. 

This dress was a fun afternoon project. But I have 2 granddaughters and a room full of supplies so I think I will be sewing up some more princess dresses soon. 

 

 

I did not mean to take a week off from blogging but the past week was busy and that Monday holiday was nice but got me off my regular schedule. 

I was so happy and surprised to see that my old fashioned tea towels post was featured on

Create With Joy

thank you! 

this post will also be linked  up with Show Off Saturday

What's happening here

I took the Christmas decorations down around the first of the year but I left this little white tree up and got out the Valentine decorations.  I really like twinkle lights so i may of been 6 weeks early for St. Valentine, but I like it.

My mom crocheted the heart ornaments. The vintage Valentine postcards were my grandfather inlaw's and I made the felt and sequin ornaments. They were a free-hand project that I used the supplies from a thrift store Christmas ornament kit.

Toile heart wreath, idea from another blog years ago.

In the craft room, I've been sewing on this scrappy string quilt.

Handwork- I am making a set of plastic canvas zoo animal squeezums. I made them for my children back in the 80s and they had so much fun with them. I don't know if my grands will like this new set, but some of their parents and uncle have seen this set in progress and they acted silly with them, just as if they were in elementary school again. Plastic Canvas is not the coolest of crafts these days but I enjoy it, it is easy and quick. A good project for children to start out on needle skills too. 

Cooking- we've got enough weekend leftovers to keep us going for a few days.  Meals will be easy for this cook for a few days.  

Easy meals will be a good thing because I will have grands here 3 days this week

And this morning will be the 2 youngest grands- 9 months and 18 month old boys! 

Won't be any sewing or crafting going on, just lots of playing and cuddling and feeding.....

Saturday morning thrifting

I got my once a month thrifting fix today and spent $9

4 vintage cookbooks - 25 cents each

I was especially pleased to find the book by Sophie Leavitt as Precious at Frugal Makes Cents just mentioned that it is one of her favorite books and I had never heard of this author.

2 big rubber stamps - this store had a big tub of interesting stamps and I thought about buying more as they were such a deal but they were not really my taste

Little JJ needed some more winter clothes and I found quite a few- 

1 pair of GAP overalls, 4 pairs of athletic pants, 1 pjs, 1 long sleeve one piece, 2 shirts and a zippered heavy weight hoodie. Most were 50 cents and I think 2 were $1. Most are Carter's and Old Navy brands. 

I am very selective when thrift shopping- I like good deals but I sure don't want to buy stuff that will add to the clutter level in our home. 

Oh, I almost forget these 2 25 cent goodies. Grandson Gavin will especially have fun wearing these hard hats . 

Homemade carpet shampooer machine solution

Another idea from Pinterest is this simple cleaning solution to run through a carpet shampoo machine.

I had to make a double batch to fill the tank on our machine. 

I used about 3 quarts of hot water, a half cup of hydrogen peroxide, a good squirt of dish soap and a good glub of vinegar.  The original blogger added essential oil for scent.  My scented dish liquid was scent enough.
 

It seemed to work fine and certainly as good as the expensive store bought kind that is more than $10 a jug.

This dish soap is Meyers Lavendar scent. I really liked the scent for carpet cleaning, but I don't much care for it on the dishes.  I don't plan to buy store bought solution again so this pin is a great money saver. 

I did not take before and after carpet photos. The carpet I cleaned is 14 year old white carpet that is in our 3 extra bedrooms and the big hall that connects them. The carpet is much cleaner after today's cleaning but it hardly looks new. It is better and for now, that is fine. 

 

 Pin #3 done for 2014. 

Money management- how we buy Gas

    When I watch news stories with money experts helping people with their budgets or debt, it seems the people usually have all their bills in a grocery sack or 2 that is full.  I just cringe and can't imagine how they ever keep up with so many accounts.

When I was working on my homekeeping notebook and looking at sites with printables and forms to keep up with your money, I realized our spending is more simple than most. 

So, how we do things might help somebody, so I will share.

We use cash for most local spending but we don't like having to go inside the gas station twice when buying gas with cash. We tried using our credit card for gas but it seemed when looking at our credit card statement, those gas purchases were just so much. 

My husband likes to buy gas at Walmart, it is convenient to us and they give a discount at the pump when you purchase with a Walmart credit card (no thank you) or with a Walmart gift card. 

Gas prices change often but we tried to budget an amount to spend on a Walmart gift card to use just for gas. At first we were buying a $250 card every month but that was too much as after doing this for just about 4 months, we still had a full card in December and did not buy one that month. The January one was $200 and so far, we think it will be just about right.

If there was an emergency and we needed more gas than we had prepaid for, that would be OK, as we have a credit card and emergency funds too. 

My husband pumps the gas and he keeps up with the card and balance. Some families who choose to do it this way might need their own card. It might be a great way to budget your teen's gas. 

Financial people would say we should not tie up our money like this with no interest but for us, it works and keeps our gas expense at an amount that fits our budget.