Re:Made in June

10:10 have been encouraging everyone to re-make and fix things up, rather than dumping things when they get broken or are no longer needed.  Being a bit of a squirrel myself, I like this challenge a lot!

My Jubilee Weekend Project was to fix up a snooker table with JW.  We saved it from the jaws of a skip and turned it from this:

                                                                        Into this:

Next up, it was my lovely Grandma's 86th birthday.  Yes, that's right, the same age as the Queen, and she still works every day too; amazing!  To celebrate Grandma's birthday I turned these dry-cleaning coat hangers (donated by a friend):

In to these rather fetching padded coat-hangers, using left-over dress-making fabric:

My final recent re-make was to turn this:

 Into this: An Apple Tree for my Dad on Father's Day.

 Go on, what can you re-make this month!

The Mother of all Thrifty Birthdays!

One of the ways I am saying Goodbye Magpie, is by giving myself a strict budget of only £100 to spend on birthday cards and gifts for 12 months.  Seven months in, I have very limited funds left, but thankfully I now only have four family birthdays left to cater for, hooray!

Mumster Two's Suitably Ironic Card

Two big birthdays came up this month.  Mumster One and Mumster Two (i.e. my mother and my mother-in-law) in very quick succession.



First, let's get the confession out of the way.  I got Mumster Two's birthday wrong and missed her actual birthday by a few days, meaning she didn't even get a 'birthday wishes' phone-call.  'Favourite Daughter-in-Law points' were deducted for that one, whoops!

None-the-less, a few days behind schedule I did manage to send her down a handmade card with a suitably ironic ink-drawing on it.  And I picked up a fab gift from the lovely Mary's Living and Giving, Save the Children charity shop I work in.  I chose two lovely wooden painted bangles and a matching necklace.  Which are right up Mumster Two's street.

For Mumster One.  I did manage to get the date right!  So thumbs up on that one.  She also got a handmade card and a gift from Save the Children.  This time I selected a Sophie Kinsella book and a really pretty purple necklace (which handily matches a bracelet I bought her last year).

The presents looked as good as new and I don't think either Mumster actually realised that the gifts were charity shop finds!

Total cost: £6.00 each.  What a Bargain!

Another Thrifty Birthday; No.1 Son is 17!

As you lovely readers will know, I am attempting to stick to a strict birthday present budget of only £100 for 12 months; for everything! End of story: that's it!  This represents a cut back of over £600 on last year's spend.  With over 30 birthdays throughout the year, I have been having quite a challenge making and charity shop buying all my presents.  And the latest birthday was a biggie!

It's hard to believe it, but at the tender age of 34, my own baby has reached the wondrous age of 17!  The age in fact, that I was when he was born, (but you maths' fiends would have worked that one out already!)

The Hat Collection

Thankfully, No.1 Son is a dream-teen, a real smart cookie and nothing like his rebellious mother was at his age!  So, to celebrate his 17th Solar Orbit, I literally put my thinking cap on. 

You see, No.1 Son has a small, but perfectly formed, hat collection, (did I mention he is quite eccentric?) And I couldn't believe my luck, as I was walking through Stockbridge the other day and saw the ideal present in a charity shop window...

The Perfect Present

             


     .... the perfect addition to the collection!

Uncle Al

Much fun was had on the day,  with everyone trying it on (after all, who doesn't love a hat?!)

All the fun of the fair, for a £10 donation to charity.   I don't think you can get better than that!

And no, he didn't want driving lessons.  He is an accidental environmentalist (hooray!), who doesn't see the point in learning to drive ("that's what buses are for").

Birthday Madness: Is it possible to give a decent gift for £1.49?

I am mid-way through the Birthday Madness challenge, where, in an attempt to get my magpie-self under control, I have pledged to only spend £100 for 12 whole months on birthday presents and cards.  With over 30 birthdays and occasions throughout the year, this is no easy task!

A spate of birthday's are on the horizon and the challenge is really beginning to bite.  With very little money left in the pot, I have had to come up with some creative presents for the next two birthdays.

KitKat's Gift: Card, Room Spray, Marmalade & A Story.

First up is my sister KitKat's.  She is one of my favourite people, so I wanted to give her something really nice.  But with no money to spend, it isn't easy.  Thankfully, I do have time, so I spent the best part of a day making her gift.  Total spend £1.49 (for the spray bottle top).

Next up, is my little nephew.  I went for the easy option of two books from the charity shop and a home-made card.  Total spend £1.49 (spookily, the same amount as KitKat's...this time it covered the cost of two books from Oxfam).






I have to admit, the more I get into this particular challenge, the more I am beginning to think that we really are all gripped by birthday madness. 

My Dad and his family have never bothered with birthdays.  Growing up, I always thought it was funny that poor old Dad would be lucky if Granny remembered to say, 'Happy Birthday', on his special day.  The thing is Dad totally doesn't mind.  He doesn't feel that he has missed out, or that his Mum doesn't love him.  The older I get, the more I think that Dad and Granny are actually on to something!

Don't get me wrong, I am not a miser.  I will really enjoy giving KitKat her gift, because I know she will really appreciate it and hopefully it will make her feel special, as I put so much effort into it for her.

But, take my nephew, sweet as he is, it is highly likely that on his birthday, my present will get passed over quicker than you can say 'What's Next', because my present isn't a game for his Nintendo DS, (No. One Son was exactly the same at his age!)

Maybe at the heart of my birthday woes, is the expectation that you need to give everyone something, even if you know they don't need it, or because of your budget, you know that they won't really like it.  I'm not sure...

Once this challenge is over and everyone has had their annual presents from me, I will be very, very tempted to call it quits and opt out of gift giving in future.  This is based on my own experience too.  What I love about my birthday is spending time with my family, being treated like a princess for the day and not doing any housework or cooking!  But, others might not see it that way, especially when I don't send them a present on their special day...

What do you think, do you spend a fortune on birthdays too?  Or does your family do things differently?  I'd love to hear any good ideas to solve this dilemma!



 

A Low Spend Birthday: Happy Birthday to Me!

My Birthday Cards

I am now officially 34 years and one day old.  Yesterday was my birthday and it was my turn to be on the receiving end of a limited spend celebration.  Having pledged to spend only £100 over 12 months on birthday gifts, I was looking forward to experiencing a low spend birthday for myself.

I had spoken to both JW and No.1 Son beforehand and asked them both not to bother buy me any gifts or cards, but just to be nice to me all day instead.  I was going for the Princess for the Day attitude.  No.1 Son agreed to this plan without a moments hesitation!  But on the evening before my birthday he confessed that he felt bad that he hadn't even got me a birthday card.  I told him not to worry at all about it and that I really didn't mind and that I would much rather have a nice day instead.  JW agreed to the no present buying, but I got the feeling he was going to sneak something in anyway.

On the night before my birthday JW let me know that he was taking the day off work to spend with me.  This was a really nice surprise and really thoughtful, as I know how busy he is at work (he runs his own company).  Taking time off to spend with me, meant a whole lot more than any present.  So, we had a great day visiting the newly re-opened Scottish Portrait Gallery and going for a long walk around town; both completely free activities!  I used some vouchers I got for Christmas to pay for a coffee and a cake.  Instead of a gift my mum had given me £50, so at night we used that money to pay for four of us to have a meal out, with my sister  KitKat and her husband (on a special cheap January deal offer!) 

JW did attempt to buy me a present, as I thought he might.  He offered to get one of two things: new peddles for my bike or a Roomba Hoovering Robot.  I would like both of these things a lot, and they were very sweet and thoughtful birthday gift ideas.  But buying either of them would have meant using the credit card and I explained that I didn't feel a birthday present was worth getting into more debt over.  We agreed a compromise that means that JW can buy me a Roomba, once the credit card has been completely paid off and we can afford it outright.

As well as lovely birthday cards in the post, I had two presents to open, one from each sister.  I got a bookmark and pin-cushion from my elder sister and a book from KitKat and my brother-in-law.  Both are really lovely, thoughtful presents.  And being 100% honest here, it was such a relief not to open up lots of unnecessary presents and then have that flat feeling pervade the day.  Knowing I wasn't going to get anything much, present wise, meant that I was actually looking forward to just having a special and relaxing day.  I actually got a lot more out of the day than I would have done if it was focused on the gifts as the day was about spending time with the people that I care about most.  So, for me anyway, a low spend birthday is definitely the way forward, here's to many more! 

Birthday Madness Continues: My Brother's Birthday

Another year is upon us and the challenge of creating birthday presents from very little continues.  As you may remember in the 12 months previous to beginning my Goodbye Magpie challenge, I spent £713.96 on birthday presents, special occasion gifts and cards.  For the twelve months of this challenge I aim to reduce that to £100.  Total. Full Stop.  End of Discussion.

So, how am I getting on?  In the first three months of this challenge I have given 13 birthday greetings, including eight gifts, and paid for various parcels to be posted off.   I have so far spent just over half my budget at £52.29.  With around 11 birthdays left, I am over half way through.  And with just under half of my money left I am happy with my progress so far.

The latest birthday was my brother's.  And I have to admit that I spent zero pennies.  I managed to give him a gift by sending him off a voucher for John Lewis, one that I had been given for my own Christmas, along with an old card. (The stamp was an old unused 2nd class one I found in a drawer and the envelope was one of those free ones you get all the time in the mail!)  My brother isn't precious, so he won't have minded the sticky white labels covering up the previous message on the card.  And as he has just moved into a new home I think he will find a better use for the voucher than me and is in much greater need of it.  It may be ungrateful of me not to spend the voucher on myself, but at the moment, that is the best that I can do.

As my own birthday is in January, I was very tempted to e-mail everyone, to ask them not to send me any cards etc. and that I would do the same for them on their birthdays in 2012.  But, although I wouldn't mind this at all, I think that it might not go down so well with others, and it is tricky where children are concerned, so I decided against that plan.

Some may say that by being so mean, I have lost the meaning of birthdays.  But I wonder if we haven't all just been suckered into this idea, that one of the main ways we show our nearest and dearest that we care, is to buy them stuff? What about being nice to them?  What about cooking them a tasty meal?  What about spending time just playing a board game together, or having a laugh while sharing a pot of tea?  Or if they don't live nearby, why isn't it good enough to send them a thoughtful message now and then?

The real lightening strike moment came when helping my mum, brother and sister to do various household clear outs in quick succession last year.  I realised that a lot of the things that I was taking to the charity shop, were gifts that I had carefully picked out, paid for (while not really being able to afford it), and given to them for various birthdays and Christmases, and that a lot of these gifts really weren't from that long ago.

I don't blame them at all for chucking my presents out.  We all have too much stuff and they were right to have a good clear out.  But it did make me wonder what the point of it all was.  I was spending money I couldn't afford, they were getting gifts they didn't want.  The only people that were winning here were the retailers.

Given the choice I would rather spend my money were it was really needed and wanted and where it would have a real benefit; such as a lovely meal out for myself and JW, a new pair of trousers for No. 1 Son, or a regular donation to a charity I believe in.

JW certainly appreciated his homemade gift this year; it gives us inspiration every day!  So, I will continue with my Birthday Madness Challenge and see where my remaining £47.71 takes me.

Travel Map

It was JW's birthday on Wednesday and, as promised, here is the thrifty creation that I whipped up to celebrate his 39th year on the planet:

I painted a giant map of the world, with all of the places that we have visited together marked with an iconic image of the area. 

As you can see, I painted on the Eiffel Tower for Paris, the Matterhorn for Zermat, a red bus for London and a big Troll for Norway.  Mount Etna is also there, along with a pint of Guinness (sorry Dublin!) and a mountain in the Highlands of Scotland.  And Edinburgh castle for home of course!




I also have a camel for Kuwait and a carpet for Azerbaijan.  And over on the other side there is a roller coaster for Disneyland Florida.

And I added on some things just for us!!

And some decorative features

The whole thing is about a metre and a half, by a metre.  It is going to go up on our bedroom wall to remind us of all our travels so far.  Each time we visit somewhere new, I will paint it on the map, so that when we are old and grey we can look back at all the exciting places we have been.  We may not be able to travel much for the next year or so, but we can still dream of all the places we will go...

And the cost of the map?  Ten quid for the primed canvas, plus the cost of the paint.  Not bad for a birthday spend me thinks.

Birthday's are a'coming thick and fast!

JW and his nephew share the same birthday and both will celebrate being another year older on Wednesday.  This has meant a bit of panic on my part, in order to get our nephew's present dispatched in time, as well as finishing JW's gift, (more news on that to follow after Wednesday!)  And let's not mention all the Christmas presents that are in the process of being made... 

So here is my decoupage birthday card. My only grumble is that I have made the number a bit off centre, but hey-ho, let's not be picky!

It is quite simple to make, I just followed the following steps:

 Fold an A4 piece of card in half and with a Stanley knife, cut out the number two on the right hand side of the card.  

With masking tape, tape the card to newspaper and spray with silver spray paint.  

 (please excuse the orientation of this image, the computer has decided upon it and won't be convinced to change it's mind!)

The cut out is then filled in with catalogue clippings of pictures of toys, by gluing them onto the back of the front of the card.  

Finally glue a piece of A4 paper to the centre of the card, to cover up the messy gluing of the pictures on the inside.  And there we have it, one finished card; simple! 

As to a present.  My sister-in-law and brother-in-law are pretty well off; so I didn't think they would really appreciate a second hand book from the mad Aunt and Uncle.  Instead, I got a big lift-the-flap hardback picture book called, Poppy Cat's Book of First Words by Lara Jones.  I picked it up for a good price, at £3.99 from TK Max, (it is selling on Amazon for about £7 plus, and has a cover price of £9.99).

I think it is a really fun book, with lots in it to talk about.  I hope our nephew likes it as much as I do!

Nephew No. Two's Birthday

Another birthday approaches, which means that another birthday card has been made.  After a slight lull in November, which sees only one birthday, the madness continues a-pace with five birthdays in December.  This is going to involve some work with the old paint brush!

The first birthday is next week and is my little nephew's, who is going to be nine.  LB is an absolute character and I happily spent a couple of hours creating his birthday greeting.  He is a huge Super Mario fan, as all my nephews are.  So I continued the Mario theme, started with my earlier birthday card to his brother LJ in November.  This time I went for my own personal favourite Mario character, Yoshi.

With zero money in the bank (minus zero actually, which is even more depressing!),  I put my much needed thinking cap on to come up with a present.  I knew that a book would always go down well, as all my nephews are keen-bean readers.  So yesterday, with a whole £3.00 in my pocket, (scrambled from the change jar), I headed down to my local Oxfam book shop on Stockbridge High Street.

It was a bitterly cold December day yesterday, with the frost nipping at my nose all the way to the store.  The sight of the lit up Oxfam shop was a really welcome one.  The store was busy with couples and families browsing through the eclectic mix of books.  In the children's section, at the back of the store, I was delighted to find a little toddler sitting reading a book with her dad and flipping between English and her parents' home language.  She was chatting away about the animals in her book.  She knew to speak to me in English, and at the same time replied to her dad in his language.  Really amazing stuff to see dual language emerging, and so natural!  She was an absolute sweetie and bright as a button!

I love having a good rummage in this book store, it is clean and tidy, well laid out and I can indulge my love of books without breaking my (piggy) bank.  Whenever I do buy something, I know that I have helped out a good charity. Oxfam do amazing stuff with the donated items they receive, if you are interested, check out this article about how much they achieve from one bin bag of goods Oxfam Article.

It didn't take much looking to come up with a few good options.  I eventually settled on Grimble's Christmas, by Clement Freud.  A really funny tale about a boy who has very forgetful parents, so forgetful in fact, that Grimble thinks they have forgotten about Christmas!  I think it should appeal to LB's sense of humour. I duly paid my £2.49 and left with .51p in my pocket, which will go towards the postage. 

My paint brush is now at the ready for the next birthday; JW's!

The Wise Owl Who Sits on the Tree of Knowledge

My latest birthday card is complete.  This one is for my brother-in-law.  Can you guess what he does for a living?...

Yes, that is right he is a Modern Studies teacher. 

I am really pleased with this card and feel like the colours have worked well and the owl, (which I based on a photograph of a Little Owl from my 'Complete British Birds' book), looks very cool and like a very stern teacher. 

Deciding to make birthday cards for everyone has certainly meant that I am practicing my drawing and painting much more than I would have done otherwise.  When you sit down to do a painting you know that you are going to be there for a couple of hours, so it takes some dedication to find the time to do it, a deadline certainly helps concentrate the mind!  When the picture works out and you are pleased with your work, it is a really good feeling, one where you know you have made something others will like and most importantly which you yourself like.  I just wish I had a scanner at home so that I could record all of my work properly (oh no, magpie alert!)

I am also really pleased to report that my sister loved her card (you may remember Geraldine the Guinea Pig), in fact she was so pleased with it she photographed it and put it up on her Facebook page!  I am delighted that my handmade card had such an impact!

My Sister-in-Law's Birthday Present

Another day, another birthday, October is such a busy month for birthdays!  My Sister-In-Law is up next with her birthday on Friday.

I just finished making her a padded, scented coathanger and a matching fabric covered butterfly birthday card.  The birthday card is pretty ropey and I definitely need to improve my skills here!  But I am happy with the coathanger, which I scented with fresh smelling sweet orange essential oil.

I have to dash as I have only an hour or so to get going with a birthday card for my brother-in-law who is celebrating his birthday on Saturday.

Birthday Madness Number Six

Another card is complete:

Auntie Helen's Birthday Card

But I have to admit I don't think that it is very good.  I was trying to see if I could speed the process up a little bit, by using clippings from magazines, rather than painting a picture myself, which takes me an average of about an hour and a half per card.  I was also unsure if my 81 year old Auntie would really want a picture of a cuddly animal to look at.  The major problem with this card was the glue, which just wanted to leak everywhere; but what do they say about bad craftsmen and their tools?!

So far I have felt quite pressurised with this challenge to dramatically reducing spending on birthday cards and gifts.  Having such a long list of things-to-make has meant that I have found myself putting the Birthday Madness Challenge as a priority over other jobs, as I knew the gifts and cards were going to take time to complete and I have wanted to score them off the to-do list.  I do feel much better now that the first 'batch' is finished.  But maybe that is just because I have so many birthdays back to back in the next couple of weeks and it will be less of a manic process from now on.  I hope so, as I want to enjoy it!

My Auntie and Nephew's Birthday Cards

The Birthday Madness challenge is only just getting going, with gifts and cards for five out of the 35 birthdays and special events now completed.

Here is the card I made for my Auntie.  It is a 'wise old bird' and is based on a card I drew for my sister KitKat last year.  KitKat now uses her bird as a book mark.

I also made my nephew LJ's card.  His birthday isn't until November, but I thought I would get it finished up, as I had the gift already wrapped up and my husband can deliver them to his mum for safe keeping while working in their area on Thursday, (and therefore avoid postage cost too!)

Yes, I know it is a rather dodgy version of Mario, and his left arm is too short.  But my nephew is a really big Mario fan and it was the only thing I could think of this morning!  Still it is all really good practice for me and I have learned from my mistakes here.  For LJ's birthday I have wrapped up a magic set which my son received for Christmas a few years back and never even opened.  LJ is really into magic tricks, so this should be right up his street.

Just in case you were wondering what I was doing about wrapping paper, I have been making use of the drawer full of paper bags I have collected over the years.  The ones you get from 'posher' shops.

I have cut out and glued on nice pictures from the national geographic magazine that we read, (for free thanks to my mother-in-law who buys us a subscription each year as a birthday gift for her son).  The wrap itself is sheets of plain packing paper which were left over when we moved five years ago, I still have a huge wodge of it left.  I just added a few sticky stars, which I had in my 'desk o' craft materials', to make it a bit more attractive.  It certainly isn't as beautiful a finish as a more expensive wrap might be, but it still looks pretty and original!

It is interesting that all the time I am spending making the presents and cards, I am thinking about the person who is going to receive them while I am working.  Which makes the statement, 'it is the thought that counts' very true.  I do worry the people receiving my presents won't like their gifts, or will think their cards are rubbish, but I just have to hope that they think they are a bit quirky.  Each gift is taking me a really long time to make however and if I am to keep this up I had better get quicker at making and painting!

My Sister's Birthday

Having committed to spending less than £100 on birthday presents in the next twelve months, I started off by successfully making my first two birthday cards yesterday.  I was feeling rather pleased with my initial success until I realised this morning that it is my big sister's birthday at the beginning of October and I am away for the last two weeks of September, giving me only a few days to get a gift and card organised for her.  So all plans for the afternoon went on hold as I thought I had better get cracking on her present and card before the Birthday Madness Challenge is a failure before it has even begun.

After my initial mild panic, I am really pleased with the result:

My sister loves my guinea pigs, so I painted her one of her own!  For her present I made her a scented, padded coat hanger, as she has lots of clothes and is always running out of somewhere to put them.  I made her gift from an old wire hanger, which I had 'hanging' around from the last time I visited the dry cleaner and some scraps of material and wadding left over from other projects.

And I turned it into this:

Third birthday sorted.  I actually think my sister will be happier with this gift than the one I gave her last year; which was a rather natty set of driving gloves from John Lewis, which I have never seen her wear, (and the scarf I got her for Christmas was last seen on the muddy garden lawn where it had melted off the kids' snowman!)

Now I have to get on with birthday cards for my two Auntie's which need to be ready for next week, as my husband is working in their area and I want to miss out on postage costs too!

Challenge Two: Birthday Madness

I love giving my friends and family nice presents and cards for their birthdays.  Unfortunately it does cost a small fortune.  Over the last year I did try to be really frugal with my gifts, without buying tat, however I still managed to spend the tidy sum of £713.96 on 35 different birthdays and special occasions throughout the year, (excluding Christmas, which is a whole other story).  Which gives me a mean average of over £20 per gift.

I am also jaded with the commercialisation of birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions such as Mothers' Day.  Unfortunately it now feels like card manufacturers have created an annual calendar of events, which they seamlessly flow one into the other and which are all must-buy occasions. I recently read an article by the daughter of an artist, who told the story about the tradition in her family to hand make cards and how personal they always were, which got me thinking.  This year I want to invest some time and energy, rather than money, into giving people lovely, thoughtful cards and presents. So...

Challenge Two is: to spend only £100 on birthday and special occasion gifts in the next 12 months.

I started today and I have to say that I can't believe that it is 6.30pm already here in Edinburgh, I have been totally absorbed in my work.  This afternoon I got started on the two birthdays which are looming on the horizon, my brother-in-law's and a really good old schoolfriend.  Both of these birthdays are normally card-only occasions, so I set to work. 

I am lucky in that I have a lot of craft materials stocked up, with a desk full of acrylic paints, watercolour pencils, ribbons, bits of material, stickers, card and so on.  So I didn't need to buy anything, but I have to say that a lot of the things I have collected up over the years have been free, such as ribbon and ties from used gift wrapping, buttons from old clothes and so on, cards and pictures that I have received over the years, so it needn't cost a fortune. 

I decided to paint a card for my brother-in-law and I am quite pleased with the results.  I haven't been painting for very long, so I hope I will get better the more I practise, and making this card today certainly gave me the impetus to get going and get the paints out.  It may look weird on screen, but in real-life the squirrel is quite endearing.

The other card I made used up some pressed flowers that I have had drying for about two years!  I am less pleased with my efforts here, but again I am sure I will get more inspiration as I go along.

And an added bonus was that while rummaging in my desk for craft materials I found some old second class stamps which I had forgotten I had, so my cards cost me absolutely zero pence to make and post.  A good start!

The key to keeping this up will be planning ahead to give myself enough time to make things.  I really enjoyed my afternoon and hopefully the thought is appreciated by the two recipients, and they don't just think I have lost the plot.  I will let you know!