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.  

Monday list and our family Christmas party

Good morning everyone,  

I’m feeling the need to get back to my organized habits so I made a pretty to do list for this week.  

As always,  it’s just notebook paper on a clipboard, decorated with rubber stamps.  It hangs in my kitchen where it’s easy to keep track of and check off tasks as they get done.  

For several reasons,  we were finally able to celebrate Christmas with our family party.  It was in our home Friday night, 15 adults and 8 children. 

To make it easier,  we tried having the meal catered.  I ordered it from Chipotle and it turned out to be a great decision.  I selected a meal for 20, which is the smallest size meal they cater, and I upgraded it to 3 meats instead of the standard 2.  

It included everything we needed- rice, beans, meats, chips, tortillas and shells, so many toppings along with the warming stands, utensils, bowls,  instructions.....they even included matches for the Sterno heaters.  

The food was all delicious.  

Clean up was easy and there were a few leftovers that we enjoyed for the next few days.  

Yes it was more expensive to have takeout than scratch cooking but for the price, it was worth it to us to be able to enjoy our family party instead of being busy and tired with cooking.  We won’t do it every family meal but for big events like this,  we will have catering again.  

It was busy, fun party and I took only a very few photos.  

Here are our 3youngest grands enjoying the fresh fruit tray that my brother and his girlfriend brought.   

RJ is 1,  Charlie and Jackson are 2.  

Eating fruit is fun, especially when you have a fork in each hand like Charlie or get to use the tongs like Jackson.  

Lots of sewing -gift bags and curtains

Hello everyone, 

I had a good size stack of Christmas themed fabric, so for the last few weeks,  I’ve been sewing up reusable, fabric gift sacks, to wrap future Christmas gifts in.  

I used only fabric and trim I already had.  

They are assorted sizes, since some of my fabric was scraps, I let the fabric decide what size each bag should big,  

I think there are 27 finished bags, from small to extra large.  

When I put gifts in them,  I will tie them shut with ribbon or twine.  

Tuesday morning,  this is what our breakfast nook and..........

Living room looked like.    

I started with these older Waverly Vintage rose tablecloths.  

And by Wednesday evening, the rooms like this..........

I used the Vintage Rose to make curtains, a short table runner and 2 bench covers.  

The new prints on the wall were free printables found via Pinterest.  

The dining room got a new curtain, sewn with a huge length of sheer fabric.  (Most of my fabric stash was gifted to me, either from my mom, from some friends and some from my Dad’s yardsale purchases.  I’m guessing this sheer fabric was in a fabric lot my Dad bought) 

It was kind of pain to sew with but it made such a full curtain that it is fairly private even though the fabric is sheer.  

In the living Room,  the big white tree was packed away.  The heavy curtains were swapped out for the muslin ones that were hanging in the dining room.   

I added a table top white tree with winter themed ornaments

We still have wrapped presents, because for several reasons, our big family Christmas will be here this weekend.  

While I was swapping things around,  I put these 2 pictures that my mother embroidered about 60 years ago in the Living room.   The deer and horses are all satin stitch with embroidery floss and just beautiful. 

Little Ducky is just fine.  He’s grown a little but not much so I’m guessing he may be a small dog even when full grown.  

He is very fond of his toys and amazes us that he already plays fetch with that big taggie ball.  

My father in law thinks we should of named him “two socks”