New Year, Bargains and Excesses!

We are back after our winter break and would like to wish all our readers a very Happy new year full of new adventures. Just thought we would give you an update of a few of our adventures over the last week or two. Our baby Christmas / Yule tree has been outside now for a couple of weeks and is looking much better.... hopefully it will continue to grow all year ready to be brought in again for next year.

The decorations have been very carefully packed away... If you follow our blogs you will know that we hand make a lot of decorations and each one contains so much love and so many memories of past seasons and the children growing up that we would absolutely hate to lose any of them.

As an extremely thrifty living family this careful packing also saves us much money each year... Talking about thrifty living, we have used the January sales to stock up on anything we may need for next Christmas at just a fraction of the price!

We have bought the crackers and all of the wrapping paper for next year for bargain prices many things were just a few pence, plus some rolls of paper which could also double up as other occasion wrapping paper, for example stars can be used as birthday or congratulation wrapping paper too. Extra thrifty bonus points! No need to worry or stress about these things throughout the year or in the run up to Christmas now.

Another good money saving tip is to look out for bargain foods after Christmas... most supermarkets are wanting to offload their seasonal excesses very cheaply. One of the things we bought were these parsnips for just 3p a bag, I have to admit we bought lots... more than 10 bags. Well, we do eat a lot of vegetables and most of them have been prepared for the freezer, ideal to grab a handful for a casserole or just for roast parsnips. We have also been enjoying parsnip crisps too.

My freezer is also now full of carrots too, apart from the ones used for carrot stick snacks and of course carrot cake. Not only has this saved us a lot of money, it has also stopped a lot of food being discarded and ending up in landfill. As a zero food waste family this means a lot to us!

For the whole festive season we have been enjoying the beautiful flowers on my rhipsalis pilocarpa cactus plant, it's like looking up a lots of tiny white stars. We are also looking forward to the new season of growing especially with the arrival of our new seeds.

So once again we wish you a very happy new year and good bargain hunting!

Happy New Year!

Just a short post to wish all my family, friends and readers a Happy New Year, not long of 2010 left  to say good bye to old father time and prepare for the arrival of the fresh baby new year 2011. I hope you have all had an eventful year, and will join me in raising a glass in toast to all the challenges and adventures that may lay ahead for us next year, whether they be big or small, hopefully some steps will bring us closer to the life we dream. Thank-you also to all the wonderful people who have inspired us all year.

We had such fun in December making our own decorations, some of the natural pine cone ones are above, some of the others I have already posted about. It was a shame to pack all the decorations away, but this was done with great care so that we could hopefully enjoy them all next year again, and start the new year afresh.

The whole family got involved making our Christmas cards too, I hope everyone who received one liked them. The paper quilled one above was made using the snowflake pattern and some of the others are below. What matters most to me is the fun we all had making them. We even made our own crackers, complete with hats, jokes, toys and snaps. 

so good bye 2010 and I'll see you all on the other side 2011. Happy new year, blessings to you all.