Frugal Fakes - Fruit Cups

I can't for the life of me remember if I saw this on Pinterest, or if it was just "Pin-spiration" from all the DIY's I've seen on it.  I searched my boards and the site but no luck in finding it, so maybe it's my own brilliant idea. ;)

I fancy myself to be a pretty frugal girl...I love a good thrift store or yard sale, I use coupons and buy on sale, but after seeing all the DIY's on Pinterest, I realized that I'm not as thrifty as I thought!  How humbling...

Soooo, while grocery shopping the other day I had a frugal idea, thanks to Little Miss!  Little Miss saw fruit cups.  Little Miss wanted fruit cups.  She loves them.  I try to get the ones made with fruit juice or extra-light syrup so she's not getting too much sugar.  Being "frugal" I only buy them when they're on sale, and hopefully I have a coupon.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a coupon the other day, so I would have spent $5 for 2 packs.  Right next to them was a can of fruit (no sugar added - bonus) for $1.69.  So I decided to DIY my own version of fruit cups.

I've been saving the cups from the pre-packaged kind when Little Miss is done with them, for all sorts of things, so I knew I all ready had the same size cups, but I could have used any little bowl that we had on hand (plastic baby food container would work great too since they have the lid!).

First I drained the fruit, which I usually do when I open them for Little Miss anyway, so she doesn't spill it.  Then I spooned some into each cup.  I guess if I'll decide after this batch if the fruit is dried out, I'll either leave the juice from the can, or add a splash of whatever juice we have on hand.

Then I covered each cup with Glad Press & Seal to prevent any leakage.

Voila! Semi-homemade fruit cups!

Breakdown:
 2 cans fruit cocktail @ $1.69 each - $3.38
8 4 oz. servings @ $.42 each
 2 packages fruit cocktail cup @ $2.50 each - $5.00
8 4 oz servings @ $.63 each
Savings of $.21 per cup

Next time I'll probably only open 1 can at a time since we'll hopefully be getting into warmer weather and Little Miss will be eating more fresh fruit than canned.


Linking up to A Bowl Full of Lemons

Easy Peasy - Pin Copy Cat Calm Jar

I saw pins for "Calm Jars" all over Pinterest many times, but only just got around to doing it a couple weeks ago.  Partly because I hadn't thought about it in awhile, partly because I didn't know if we had glitter glue...I know, lame excuse!  What a procrastinator, having to go to the attic to check the art supplies would just take so much time.  NOT!

Anyway, I ended up finding a whole bunch of glitter glue pens in our art supplies so I was able to do this really quickly once I decided to do it!  No before pictures though (did this before I decided to blog all our pinning adventures).  Supplies were 1 empty glass jar I had grabbed from the recycling bin, 3 little tubes of glitter glue pens, extra glitter, food coloring and HOT water.

Little Miss helped with this project since it was primarily going to be for her. (Well, that's what I thought but everyone has used it including the 17 year old!)

The original "recipe" calls for 1 tablespoon glitter glue to 1 cup hot water.  I didn't measure the glitter glue tubes, but we started with one tube, but it was not enough, so we added another...It still wasn't enough, so we added a third.  If I had been smart I would have measured the jar and known beforehand how much we were going to need, but I wasn't that smart that day!

We went with green food coloring since it's supposed to be a "calming" color...At least that's why I was told the yoga studio I teach in is painted green...Personally, I find blue calming, but we ran out of blue food coloring when we made purple icing for Little Miss's birthday cupcakes, so it all works out anyway, I guess.

We added some extra glitter, but I wish it was smaller pieces.  These big pieces swirl around and then just plop to the bottom; the glitter from the glue pens is perfect!  Next step is to modpodge the lid with some pretty scrapbook paper.

Little Miss loves the Calm Jar.  She's asked for several times...funny, because she asks for it most when she IS calm!  Whatever, it works...I've even used it!!

Linking up to The Pinterest Challenge

Thrifty Thursday - Rummage Sale Haul

I will freely admit that I'm addicted to thrifting.  I love finding a good bargain, and I find it hard to shop in "regular" stores and paying full price for something that I know I can get cheaper somewhere else.  I love a good yard sale and I really love a good rummage sale, particularly church rummage sales!

It's a little early in the season for any yard sales around here, but the weather in NJ has been SO beautiful, so I'm hoping that yard sales will start popping up soon (like this weekend with any luck!).  A couple weeks ago a local high school held a rummage sale to raise money for the debate team.  It was about 20 minutes away, farther than I would normally travel for just one sale, but I've been totally jonesing for one, and the elementary school right near it was also holding a children's sale, so I went.

As far as rummage sales go, this was the most organized and spread out one I've ever been to.  It was held in the cafeteria so the lunch tables were set up like a regular school day.  That meant there was room to walk between tables (even with Little Miss in the stroller) and I could see (almost) everything at one glance.  The toys/games were double-stacked and required more "digging". But there was hardly anyone there so Little Miss was able to get out of the stroller and play while I browsed.  It was great!

The children's sale unfortunately wasn't as successful as I hoped.  :(  I got there towards the end, and they were starting to pack things up.  The prices weren't that great either, so I only picked up one thing there for Little Miss for next year.

Here's my haul:

 All this for $25!  I picked up:

Winnie the Pooh Candy Land game
4 Games-in-1 Pack with Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Memory and some other game I never heard of!
BCBG Max Azria dress for $1...Unfortunately, it has a bleach stain on it, so I'm going to try to bleach, the dye the rest of it...but that's a whole other post!
Make-your-own popsicle tupperware thingies (another pin-spiration post about that soon!)
A TON of homeschooling stuff, including workbooks, lessons, and activities
Play-doh accessories
Magnets
Felt "board" and letters
LOTS of books, including a Charlie & Lola lift-a-flap, which has occupied Little Miss for countless hours, coloring books, writing pads
Cute little Panda box
A bunch of butterfly stuff for Little Miss's room
Sidewalk chalk
Pink over the door organizer for Little Miss
New Disney princesses pajamas for Little Miss for next year

White metal hanging shelf...not sure where I'm going to put this yet, but I'll find a place!

Pink shelving unit with baskets for Little Miss's room for $5

We had a plain white one from Lowe's ($12) before, but it didn't have the base or the cute baskets. Definitely a find!


The best deal was definitely this:

A Quiet Book!  Little Miss loves it, and has played with it almost every day since we got it.  She asks, "Mommy, can I do my quiet book?" Um, yes!!!  I've priced them online and the cheapest I found it was $25!  I got this and everything else for the price of one quiet book...I LOVE THRIFTING!!

Printable Blog Topic Sheet

I've only been blogging for 1 week now and I realize I need help.  Too many pins, too many ideas, too many thoughts!  As my goal for 2012 is to get organized, I realize I need to organize this area too.

So I did a bit of searching...And not just on Pinterest either (in case anyone thinks I ONLY rely on it, I also Googled it)!  But I didn't find anything that really served what I wanted.  I pinned a couple that I liked, but were not exactly what I want/need.

So what did I do?  I used them for pin-spiration, and created one, combining the aspects that I liked of all of them.  Little Miss helped with the title!

And you can use it too if it suits you!  Formatting is a bit off in the picture above, not sure how to fix the image, but when you open the PDF, it formats properly.  Click here to download the PDF.

I'm sure as I continue on this blogging journey I may make changes to it.  Leave a comment below to let me know what you think.  Am I missing stuff?  What else should I include?  Should there be other stuff on it?  Is it perfect the way it is? (Fat chance!) I'm open to any and all ideas to make it work, especially from those who have more blogging experience than me!!

My first link up!! Linked up to: A Bowl Full of Lemons

Easy Peasy - Pin Copy Cat Cupcake Liner Storage

One of the first pins I saw and definitely one of the easiest was for storing cupcake liners.

Not that I do a lot of baking, and particularly not much of cupcakes, but while organizing my "pantry", I found 3 separate stacks of liners! One set was in the original plastic container they came in, unopened; another was in the bottom part of the container, missing the top (how the heck?!?!); the third set was in a plastic bag, obviously missing both parts of the container they came in.

So I stuck them all near each other with the other baking stuff.  Then I saw the pin-spiration

 
 originally from Toriejayne.blogspot.com

Unfortunately the ones in the plastic bag lost their shape, so I stuck them with the craft stuff (plenty of pin-spiration out there for wreaths and other crafts!).   I see these containers everywhere for upwards of $15, but I don't need them hermetically sealed or anything, so I just grabbed an empty peanut butter jar and put the liners in that and voila!

Cupcake liner storage that is cute, cheap and easy, peasy!