Frugal Friday, a bit late...

PICTURE OF THE WEEK:
These little folks have been with me for years.   Right now they sit on my window sill above my desk so I can see them while I am working.   Their smiles are infectious!   And I always smile when  I think of the Peanut's Specials around the  holidays. 

FRUGAL FRIDAY:
Can you beat that...my first Frugal Friday is late...but we had a wee bit of an emergency which took up most of my time and all of my energy last Friday and on through the weekend.   So here's the first Frugal Friday.   I spent all of $15.50 plus tax last week for all of those adorable suitcase sets.  

 

Had I not decided to go into ACMoore's and look around, I would not have known about them.   So the question becomes, did I need them?   No, of course not!  But did I want them?   Yes, as soon as I saw them.   Now comes the real test in my mind...do they fill a purpose?   Yes, not only will I be able to store things in them and use them for easy transport from room to room, but perhaps even more important, they are beautiful and a joy to behold.   So my test is not just one of utilitarian purposes, but also of the joy to my spirit.

So what does this have to do with money, or more appropriately, my attitude toward money?   My experience is that our society has been conditioned to look at our lives through the lens of scarcity rather than abundance.  This is probably a natural outcome of capitalism which is based on purchasing with all the commercials and ads aimed, especially at women, to buy 'this' with the promise that you will be happy, successful, etc.   Then when we find out that the promise did not come true, we seek something else to fulfill the promises. 

It is not that I do not want to purchase things, although I do want to limit the amount of money I spend if possible.  It is that I want to be free of the 'implied promise of something bigger' that we are so conditioned to expect when I purchase something and the 'implied loss' if I do not purchase it.   Well, on to the second week...

CRAFTING:
I am so excited about trying my first mixed-media paper journal.   I know....I know....I am behind the times, but I am finally trying it.  I found a great site with daily journal prompts and lots and lots of pictures.  Here's the address.  (http://sarahwhitmire.blogspot.com/) Best of all, it was free, so here is my first day where I tore up a book and covered the journal pages with pieces from the book.   Then I wrote whatever came to mind.

 

 

The second day I was to cover it up and on the first page write 'this journal belongs to...' and put down my name however I wanted to.   It was a lot of fun, freeing and completely different from my more controlled expressions!   I'll keep posting my progress.  

 

 

 

One thing I realized is that I will be using a completely different set of resources for this journal and other mixed-media paper items than I do for my fabric projects.   That presents a problem because my work area is not large.   What I would like is two stations, but I do not think that is possible.   I will have to work on this problem.  

Actually. I could put something in this area (from the computer desk to my work table.)  

 

(Dale came for a visit, or to distract me from crafting....don't know which?)

I could get a piece of wood about the same depth as the computer desk and attach brackets to the bottom of the computer desk for the wood to sit on.  And have the wood long enough to reach the work table.   After taking the height measurements of both the table and the desk, I found that they vary enough to make it work nicely.   I guess a piece of wood is in my frugal purchase for this week!!!!

UPDATE ON THE COMPUTER:
I spent almost a day on it, but I managed to get the computer up and running and set back to factory default settings.   Then I downloaded all the software needed and I even managed to get a copy of the documents.   Wow!!!!   Thanks for the advice.....

Thanks for stopping by....