Bargains and sewing

Hello everyone, 

The only bargain shopping I’ve done this week was a trip to CVS.  

Before I went,  I knew I would get deals but my low totals surprised me a lot.  

Some of my coupons were not attaching so the manager, who was training a new worker, checked me out in 3 transactions.  

I only paid $3 total for everything! I started with $28 in CVS Extracarebucks and coupons.  

I left with $13 in Extracarebucks for next time and all this merchandise.  

Around the first of November, our big freezer was just so full.  We decided to use it up before we did much meat rebuying and restocking.  

We’ve done a good job of eating at home and using what we had. 

Coupons.com recently had a Wild Mikes pizza Coupon for buy 2 get 1 free.  We had never even heard of them.  I found them at Walmart for $5.74 each and bought 3.  

Well, they are really good frozen pizzas! They are bigger than most frozen pizzas too.  

We liked them so much, I asked my daughter to print some coupons too.  

And now our freezer still has a good amount of meat, vegetables and 14 pizzas 😍 

No, we don’t eat pizza everyday.  But we do eat almost all our meals at home so I expect we will eat a pizza every week or so.    If we have grandchildren over,  they all like pizza just fine.  

I don’t know if this Coupon is still available to print on coupons.com though.  

But if you like other frozen pizzas or salsa,  both those foods Always are on good sales the week before the Super Bowl in the USA.  

My latest sewing was a new bedspread.  

Our bed is extra big and tall and I haven’t been able to find a bedspread even close to the size it need 130x108 inches.  

Aldi has these plush blankets for $16.99 this week.  I bought 2 king size ones and it took almost all of the blanket fabric.  It was a fairly easy sewing job and I’m so happy with it.  The bedspread is soft as velvet and it will launder easily in our washing machine.  

Ours is the sage green color.  They also come in a pretty white and denim blue navy. I had a hard time deciding which blankets to buy as I liked them all.  

New patio and bedroom makeover

We have wanted a bigger patio ever since we moved to to this home 15 years ago.
And now we finally have one 😄

It extends from our backdoor, under the pergola, all the way to the tornado shelter, my husband's shop and a good bit under the basketball goal.  

It's big enough for the picnic tables and chairs, and still plenty of room for the grandchildren to ride trikes or play.  

It needs prettied up still. The tables will get refinished and I want to add some planters with color.  My husband also needs to move back his grill and smoker.  We will add extras as we can but for now,  we are just thrilled to have the concrete patio.  

We like to do things ourselves but concrete on this scale is out of our ability range.  We hired a local man and he was so honest, skilled and hard working.  

In our bedroom, we wanted an adjustable bed.  My husband has bad knees and sleeps best when his knees are elevated.  I sleep best when my head is elevated a lot.  

So, we shopped on Amazon and picked out the motorized adjustable beds frames and compressed mattresses.  We learned through the reviews, that the bed frames are heavy.  So we thought we should replace the 17 year old white carpet before we put the heavy beds in.  We shopped at Lowes for some but there was a waiting list for installation.  So we decided to do the carpet ourselves with carpet tiles from Home Depot.

Before we pulled out the carpet, we moved out everything in this room.  While it was out, the walls were cleaned and paint touched up and the window blinds and window were cleaned.  

Doing all that made it feel like a brand new room.  

I ordered a king size bedspread but it was way too small as this bed is rather tall.  After shopping for 2 days for a big enough bedspread, I decided to order 2 king size fleece blankets and sew up one that would be big enough and still machine washable.  

My husband built the ladder to display quilts. 

I sewed the curtains and changed around the things on the walls.

We bought this vintage Ethan Allen vanity at our favorite thrift store a few months ago.  I didn't have it set up until we redid the whole room.
The lid lifts open with a mirror inside and cubbies for cosmetics and such.  I am really enjoying this vanity.

Actually, we are enjoying all of these improvements and are so thankful we could make them.

If anyone has questions about the bed or carpet brands,  I'll answer.

So after these two big expenses, can anyone guess what the theme at home will be for a good while?
Yep,  we are back in frugal mode and I plan to have quite a few frugal posts through July.  

Evelyn’s new bedspread

Evelyn was given a pile of fleece blankets and she remembered this older post from me where I made our bedspread from fleece blankets

https://ifyoudostuff.blogspot.com/search?q=Bedspread+

And then she made her own.  

I think it turned out great and really suits her Texas lifestyle.  

She blogs at  

Blessed in Bowie.

She is a thrifty, creative and upbeat woman and she lives not too far from where I grew up in Texas.   

So, we pretty much share the same accent 😊 

A dust ruffle for the full size bed in our toy room

We have just a full size bed on a metal frame in this room.  I didn't like how when the bed was made the traditional way with a regular dust ruffle and a quilt on top, it got so messed up when the grands played in there.  The dust ruffle was always crooked and the quilt would slide one way or the other and it just  messy.  

So after a lot of thought,  I came up with an idea to sew a dust ruffle in a way that it shouldn't slide and to just use a colored fitted sheet on the bed when no one sleeping.  

I moved the top mattress and covered the bottom box spring with an old fitted sheet and pulled it so it was tight.  

Then with a yard stick and marker, I marked a line 3 inches inside.  It will be my sewing line.  

This way the dust ruffle is completely under the top mattress with no poking out of the base sheet the dust ruffle is sewn to. 

Then I looked through my fabric stash (I have a big fabric stash, most of it was gifted to me). 

My original idea was to reuse some floral curtains but I can't find them (maybe they were too faded and I got rid of them, who knows?). So I decided to use a fabric that the children would like.  

I had long lengths of some mountain wildlife fabric and some deer fabric.  

I went with the wildlife print.  Then I measured the length - I think it was 18 1/2 inches, allowing for hem and turning under top. 

I cut out lengths and I used either 5 or 6.  I sewed them all together in to one very long length and machine hemmed the bottom and turned under the top edge about a 1/2 inch.  

Then, I got down on my knees and pinned the dust ruffle to the fitted sheet base all around 3 sides.   I pinned it on the line I drew.  

At the corners,  I just folded the extra length into pleats until it looked OK.  

I took the whole pinned together sheet and dust ruffle to the sewing machine and sewed it close to the pinned edge.  This was the trickiest part as it was a rather big piece to steer through a sewing machine.  

I put the freshly sewn dust ruffle back on the bed, put the mattress back on with a sage green fitted sheet and added some patchwork pillows I sewed about 6 years ago.  

 Now the grands can roll their cars all over the bed and not mess up the bedding. 

Also, I know the top sheet will need laundered often and it will be much easier to wash than a bedspread or quilt.  

The bed is ready for anyone to sleep in it, We can just add the top sheet and blankets.  

I like that the dust ruffle hides the ugly metal frame and I think the grands will do some pretend playing with the animals and cabins on this dust ruffle.  

Coupon and thrift store shopping this week

The bulk of our groceries are now being purchased at the new local Aldi.

They don't accept coupons and I have not used many food coupons in the last few years anyway,

But I do still save coupons and save money with them by purchasing sale health and beauty items at CVS and also on a few things at Walmart. 

CVS had their own store coupons for $3.50 on Huggies and there was a printable manufacturer coupon for $2.50 on Huggies. So, I got the Huggies, that were $9.49 minus $6 in coupons on each one. I thought I could get another discount on them with my just downloaded Ibotta app but when I do the refund, the Huggies offer was gone.  Yes, couponing is complicated. 

I saw the CVS dish soap for 2/$3 and the bottles are big, seems like a good value. 

Walmart - used a newspaper B2G1F coupon on the Mr Clean erasers.

$3 newspaper coupons on the hair color that were $4.42

Thrift store shopping - and these pictures are not great

I just did some organizing and noticed we had just a handful of baby toys. I know we used to have a lot more but maybe the older grands were hard on them or took some home or they just got lost. 

I was ver happy to buy a bedspread bag full of nice baby toys for just $3. One is a mirror to attach the headrest in front of a rear facing car seat. Another is a string of action toys that can be attached to a car seat or stroller. 

I also got a batch of little boy clothes for the 2 youngest grands- lots jeans and shirts, 2 sleepers, a cute Nike one piece suit. The thrift stores in my town sell children's things for 50 cents up to $2. Most of the ones I got today were 50 cents or $1 each,

No pictures but I also bought 5, all like new, tops for me.

 3 are button up blouses (a red one, a light blue one and a dark denim one) with 3/4 sleeves, my favorite style, all from Dress Barn. 

1 is an aqua v neck sweater from Dress Barn and the last one is a brown short sleeve pullover, Chaps brand. 

I did not spend a lot of time shopping but the deals I got were things we need and use, the time spent was more than worth it. 

Rescued from the rag bag

Finishing this quilt top did not take too long. If you remember,the finished top was something my dad got at a yard sale or thrift store. It is all scraps and was not much to look at it. But my husband likes it, and since I want to make a bunch of quilts in 2014, I finished it.


Linking to the party at Green Willow Pond

Our bed is a queen and the new quilt is laying on top of the bedspread. I think the new quilt would cover a double bed just fine. It should be quite warm as the batting in it is a thick cotton one.m

Oh Sew Scrappy......

The back is scrappy too, I couldn't decide what the predominate color was so I used 4 scraps and pieced them to back a piece big enough.

Quilt Purists would think this is very primitive but that is OK with us. I like precise, perfectly made quilts but at this stage of my life, I can't fit that fussy sewing in. Sew- if I do finish 6 or 12 quilts in 2014 like I hope to- some of them will be more projects like this.