The End of 2008 & Quilting

I can hardly believe that 2008 is almost over! As I look back on this year, I see so many ways that the Lord's hand was on our family. Sadly, I also see so many times that I have disappointed the Lord. I have to say that I just feel so unworthy of the grace He so freely gives. I want to do better in 2009!

I am so excited about my new "hobby"!! I have gotten the quilting bug! My great-grandma (yes, GREAT! she is 97) was the family quilter for many years. I always wanted to but felt a little overwhelmed. After reading Simply Susan's easy Invisible Nine Patch (in a previous post), and actually completing it, i got hooked! I have actually made five of them! And a Christmas lap quilt, and a quilted music bag for my oldest daughter for Christmas gifts. (thus the reason for no blog posts in December, lol) I love it, love it, love it. I am going to teach my daughters to quilt too.

Here is my lap quilt. I made it from strips of fabric that someone gave me. Quilting can be very frugal but can easily become very expensive! Buying new fabrics, all the cool quilting gadgets, etc... I am starting out small.

Here is the wall hanging I did for my bathroom.

If you want to see the tutorial again, here it is!

Frugal Decorating Ideas

If you live near a Dollar Tree or Deals, get there! They have a ton of items there that you can use to decorate, or even make decorations. From ribbon, leaves, flowers, & wreaths, just a lot of stuff. Here are a few things that I made this week from dollar store items and things that I had on hand. Some of these ideas came from here.

I used a quart sized canning jar and put some artificial pumpkins & leaves inside. The floral arrangement was $1.00, the pumpkins $1.00, and about 1/4 of a bag of leaves ($1.00 for the bag).

No, I cannot tie a bow. I tried and tried but this is what I got. I told my husband and he said to let him try and he did it. This picture is before he made his beautiful bow. He told me it's just like tying your shoes. Duh.

Plates for my plate rack, $1.00 each and the leaf garland was $1.00.

I made the floral arrangement with about 3 bunches of flowers and the basket has little pumpkins painted on the sides.

I took the spring colors off this hat and made it more autumn-like. This hangs in my bathroom.

For less than $20, I decorated my living room, bathroom, dining room, and have some things left for the kitchen. If you haven't figured it out, I think autumn is the most wonderful time of the year!

My new mirror!

While we were gone, we stumbled on a pfaltzgraff outlet store. Woohoo! I have the Tea Rose pattern and Jason said we could stop in there to possibly add something to my set. There were so many pretty things but I just couldn't decide. I did see some Luncheon size plates but they were $10 each and I need 12 to go with my set. I decided against those for now. We left and walked around some and then came back to the store. I still couldn't decide so I figured it was best to not get anything. When I got to the door, I saw this mirror and I knew this was it! My husband just laughed...spent an hour in the pfaltzgraff store and got a mirror! I thought of this post from a wonderful homemaking blog that I enjoy.