Last year, I decided to go all sophisticated this year so I went out and bought a whole lot of new Christmas tree decorations. I didn't buy anything too flash or spend very much money but I was really pleased with my new red and gold themed Christmas tree. In fact, for a whole day, my tree looked (almost) like one of those trees you see in a magazine - all beautifully co-ordinated and perfect.But the problem was that I missed the homemade things that we'd made together over the years so after a day of tree perfection I ended up getting out all the old homemade decorations and adding them … [Read more...]
The Activity Advent – 40 Fun and Frugal things to do at Christmas with the kids….
Last year, over on my Christmas blog, I started my Activity Advent with the aim of doing one Christmas activity a day throughout December. The only problem was actually finding the time to write up what we did so this year, I thought I'd share all the things we have on our list to try. It's a pretty big list so I'm sure that we'll not have chance to do everything on the list but at least we have plenty of choice!Make homemade cinnamon stick tree decorations Make an alternative kind of advent calendar.Make Homemade S'mores and drink them with hot chocolate while watching Christmas … [Read more...]
#SaveMoneyMonday – Free Printables for EVERYTHING….
I've had an idea in my head for a post for ages but I knew it would take a little while to put together so I left it until I had some time.It turns out that not only has someone already done all the hard work, they've also made it up into an awesome Pinterest board.So instead of doing anything else, I'm going to simply point you in the direction of the Free Printables Pinterest board which has all sorts of free printables (as the name suggests).Follow Cyndy @ The Creativity Exchange's board Free Printables on Pinterest.When I say it has all sorts of printables on there, I … [Read more...]
Our five favourite free family activities to do at Christmas….
Christmas is probably the easiest time of the year to keep children entertained for free because there's so much going on for them. Even the most basic activity can be made more exciting by adding a bit of a Christmas spin to it ;-)So with just over a week to go, I thought I'd share with you our five favourite free things to do at Christmas:An obvious one but our favourite thing at this time of year is to spend time together watching Christmas films. We close the curtains, put our pyjamas on and the kids bring down an assortment of blankets, pillows and teddies and we snuggle down and … [Read more...]
Homemade Cinnamon stick tree decorations….
We've gone for a bit of a change this year with a red and gold colour schemed tree in place of the usual lilac and silver ornaments that we use and surprisingly (because I loved the old colours), I really like it. It feels a lot more traditional and makes me want to fill it with lovely rustic style decorations so I'm on a mission to make some this month.The first decorations I've made to hang on there are some lovely cinnamon stick decorations that took me minutes to make but look and smell great on the tree. Cinnamon sticks aren't very expensive and I've just had a quick look online at … [Read more...]
Get your Christmas Craft on….
I'm really starting to feel festive now (it helps that my wrapping is now all done) although the fact that poor Master Frugal's still suffering from his bad cough means that we're not doing as much as we usually would be at this time of year. Yesterday we were supposed to be going to a lovely local Christmas craft fayre but seeing as he's still coughing every time we go outside in the cold we decided to stay in and have a pyjama craft and movie day with a bit of baking thrown in for good measure.I'm glad we did decide to stay at home actually because we had a really nice day together - we … [Read more...]
