Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I'm just going to pretend that it hasn't been more than a MONTH since my last post and just carry on as if I've been blogging right along.  If I just pretend I haven't been ignoring my blog then maybe its not true.  Right? :)

Aaaannnyyyy waaayyy....


Look who came to our house last night!

This little guy snuck in last night and left Cole a pot o' gold!!

He left 5 clues around the house that led Cole to his surprise.

Thanks to a last minute decision to use these awesome FREE printables from One Charming Party and a late night hunt for supplies, we had a lot of fun this morning.  Cole was SO excited about the whole thing.  Thanks One Charming Party for ANOTHER great idea!

 Hopefully I'll be back later today with MORE St. Patrick's Day fun!

ps-- those stinkin' Gold coins were hard to track down at this time of year!

source list:
Chocolate Gold Coins:  iparty   If you're thinking of doing this next year, I would consider buying them  
                                                   around Christmas when they seem to be in abundance (and cheaper)
                                                   -- $4.83
Ice Cream Cups:  I couldn't find these anywhere so I bought a small white tin at Michael's (with a 40%        
                            off coupon of course!) -- $1.20
Paper Easter Grass:  Five Below -- $1.00
Free Printable:     from One Charming Party-- FREE
LEGO minifigure:  LEGO  these are "luck of the draw" surprise packets so you don't know which one
                               you've gotten until you open the package but it can CERTAINLY be done without
                               the minifigure guy $2.00

Fancy on the cheap!

Another resolution of mine is to try to ENJOY life more - like try to make everyday life special.  For me that means making "movie night" a bit of an event as opposed to just pressing 'play' on the Blu-Ray player.  It means taking special occasions and making them, well... special-- more than just preparing a good meal-- making them really special-- get out the good dishes, set the table nicely, and let the meal linger.

That's how our New Year's Day dinner came to life.  By all means, it wasn't the fanciest of meals, but it was tasty, it was inexpensive and it felt pretty special.  

I present to you, New Year's Day dinner-- cheapskate style.

Centerpieces:  2 Dollar Store Hurricanes = $4

                       8 Silver Glitter Ornaments = $.25 for all (post holiday sale at Target last year.)

                       Total:  $4.50

Drink Flags:  FREE printable from the TomKat Studio

and a cloudy glass-- should've hand-washed.   Would love a new dishwasher in the new year too.  Gross.

The black dishes and flatware are our everyday dishes.  The white dishes are our "good" dishes.  A little mix and match and setting out more silverware/dishes than we'd normally used makes the place setting a bit more substantial = FREE.

We don't usually have a tablecloth on our table either, so a simple white tablecloth made the meal a bit more luxurious.  FREE.

And a quick tip -- a tablecloth with a subtle pattern or "grain" allows you to easily line up your flatware with precision.

Grandma's hand-me-down salt and pepper shakers (below), worked perfectly with our sparkly theme and also mimicked the New Year's Eve ball.  FREE.

I had planned to purchase some simple black ribbon to tie around the napkins as a simple napkin ring, but #1. I forgot to stop at Michael's while I was out getting the groceries for dinner and #2. I've also made a resolution to "use what I have"-- as a carry over from last year's resolutions, so.... since our dinner was going to be for 6 and the drink flags printable produced 12 flags, I decided to use the extra flags as napkin rings.  FREE again.

Totally works!

Then using the designs of the printable, I made my own menu cards.  I have just enough knowledge in Photoshop to be dangerous, but definitely no real skill so it took me much longer than it should've, but, I think they came out OK.  Plus a menu card makes the meal more special right?  Free.

more spotty dishes-- that flatware- ugh!  Should've paid more attention before taking photos.

We did four courses, served one at a time.    Most of the items on the menu included ingredients that we already had so there was very little that we actually had to spend money on for the menu.  I think the whole meal cost less than $30 for the six of us.  I even made artisan bread from scratch from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day website-- it was SOOO good!!  There was wine for the adults and grape bubbly for those not of age.  The wine was a gift-- so we remembered good friends while drinking the wine and it saved us some money too!

Guests were welcomed with a Happy New Year sign also from the TomKat New Year's printable collection.  FREE.

because I was in a big hurry at this point I just slapped it up on the wall with scotch tape.  Classy right?

 I had some white string with gold sparkly threads in it -- perfect for a sparkly New Year's party.

All in all-- dinner was a success and the New Year is off to a good start!  I have a good feeling about 2012!

Happy New Year!

Another big reveal!

Please allow me to interrupt our regularly scheduled cheapskate blog to give a quick personal update.  Because many of my readers are people who know me personally, I have to devote a post to a recent (like 2 hours ago) personal update that I did.   But if you get all the way to the end, I do have a cheapskate tip for you!

I FINALLY after 4+  years got a haircut.  A haircut?  This is the big reveal?  Yes.  A haircut.  And yes, this is the big reveal.  You see... when I started calculating in my head I realized that I have had long-- ridiculously long hair for probably ... gulp... 18 years.    In my defense, I haven't really seen my hair much in probably the last 6 or 7 years so I had totally lost track of it.

Everyday without fail my hair has gone directly from shower to tight bun and then down only for the next shower.  It was crazy, but it was easy-- no fuss.  Plus, I couldn't STAND having it down and I kinda liked my look when it was up.   After all these years though it was MORE than time for a change.

So today I went from looking like a hippie, old hag, horse lady with my hair down, to looking somewhat normal.  And I love it!

This is what I looked like EVERY. SINGLE. DAY for the last 7 years:

photo curtesy of an art museum kiddie section where you could change the background to different art prints and take your own photo... long story

Here's what I looked like this weekend when I took my hair down just long enough for it to dry naturally and allow me to take photos.  It went right back up into my "signature bun" (as one of my previous employers dubbed it) immediately after the last photo was taken.    Oh and ps-- I had NO good light or way to take these photos, so please don't critique my photo skills here. :)

yes, I had to squat to get it all in the photo

And here is how I looked this a.m. before leaving for work. I got up an extra hour early this a.m. to straighten it.  (kinda hard to gauge it's length here but if you look closely you can see its kinda pooled up in my lap- gross I know)

yes-- Cole dressed himself this a.m. :)

And.......................................

wait for it............................

Post haircut:  It's not terribly dramatic, but I love it.  I feel like I've lost 20 lbs.  (and I may have) :)

Do you hear the music?  I do.

 

And with a little wind blowing through the hair...

Oh and as promised, my cheapskate haircut tip.  Take say... 4 years or so, grow your hair as long as you can, then go into the salon and cut off about 2 feet (which is what I did today) and donate it to a charity like Locks of Love.  Your haircut will be FREE (at least mine was)!  :)  The best surprise of all today on my birthday!

So.... what do you think?  (be nice please!)

Two of my favorite FREE things.

Hi friends!  Remember me? :)   September is almost here so that means so is my big project that I've been working on-- ok-- it's not THAT big, but... it's kinda fun and I will be revealing it in "stages" through out September.  Here's your first preview:

Intrigued??? (maybe not-- as it's one of the first photos that I have uploaded  from this project and it's not all that exciting)   Well -- you'll have to wait a little longer to see more....

In the meantime, I have to tell you all about 2 FREE internet things that have changed my life-- seriously!  and no one is asking me to tell you about these things, I promise-- I'm just that kind :)

Have you heard of  these??!! Have you used these??!! They are life changers -- seriously!! (start a word count -- I might be saying "seriously" (2) A LOT in this post)

OK-- let's calm down and take a look at these  (oohhh... I'm so excited to introduce you to these guys if you don't already know about them....)

 

otherwise know as:

 

Here's the basic gist of Google Reader (taken directly from the Google Reader site)

Keep track of your favorite websites

Stay up to date
Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Whether a site updates daily or monthly, you can be sure that you won't miss a thing. 

Simplify your reading experience
Google Reader shows you all of your favorite sites in one convenient place. It's like a personalized inbox for the entire web. 

Discover new content
Millions of sites publish feeds with their latest updates, and our integrated feed search makes it easy to find new content that interests you.

Basically-- you "subscribe" to your favorite websites through Google Reader.

Then you download a little icon to your bookmarks bar that looks a little something like this:  Next »

And when you want to start looking at the sites that you visit regularly, just click the Next button and it will take you to the next page that you've subscribed to that has new content on it!

It's genius because you don't waste time looking at all your bookmarked sites just to see if there is anything new-- this ONLY takes you to the sites with new content (and it takes you directly to the new stuff).  It's a total time saver and one of the best things ever invented!!

Only second to:
 

or:

OK-- I am SERIOUSLY (3) excited about this one!  Pinterest is the most amazing tool.  Here is the description from the Pinterest website:


Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

I'm still a novice at Pinterest, but it's pretty much (in my very simple words) like visual bookmarking.  Each picture that you "pin" on your virtual pinboard brings with it the original source of the photo so... say like me, you were looking for some party inspiration and saw one that you adored!  Of course you want to pin every picture, but ... if you just pin one -- for example one specific detail featured --  when you go to that pinned picture, it will take you right to the blog post with that pin in it (where all the other party details reside).  OR if you pin a project that you would like to try, the one photo will take you right to the directions on how to do it!   It's BRILLIANT!  Seriously! (4)

AND you can follow other people's pin boards as well to discover new and exciting things that you might not otherwise find on your own. 

I'm telling ya'.  I'd heard other bloggers sing Pinterest's praises, and was a little skeptical, but... this is the real deal -- prepare your self for hours trolling pin boards...

Now I just have to work on taking all those bookmarks that I'd been filling my bookmarks folders with and get them all on to Pinterest-- this could take a while folks.

Oh and if you want, you can follow my pinterest boards.  I installed a little "follow me on pinterest" button on the right hand side of my blog.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to hunker down for a little Hurricane Irene that's coming this way.  (and I thought by coming to Connecticut I was moving AWAY from bad weather in Syracuse)

 

See that little red line-- I'm right underneath it. :) East Coasters-- Stay Safe!!