Desiree Gets Creative

 The first week of my no buy was up on Sunday. I meant to post that night but for some reason I also decided I wanted to be Martha Stewart so I made some home made blueberry jam and then made some muffins with it.  Delicious, yet time consuming.   So by the time I finished with all that I didn't have time to write a blog. So I've decided to save all but $30 from every paycheck. I can do whatever I want with that $30 per paycheck except spend it on makeup or fabric, unless it's a small piece of coordinating fabric I need to finish a project. I'll be buying some solid colored flannel to use as a contrasting fabric for a nightgown I'm going to be making my daughter with next week's pay.  Last week I went to visit my grandmother. I meant to eat lunch before I left but the rolls I bought two days before were already growing mold even though they didn't expire until a week later (thanks Food Lion) so I ended up having to grab something while I was out. I met a fri

 Hi all! Sorry that I haven't posted in a while. We went on a trip to see some of my husband's family, had a death in my family, and honestly I've been a bit embarrassed because my no buy has been going so poorly. I'm thinking a complete no buy is a bit too much for me to be able to stick to, especially considering how stressful things are right now.  What am I going to do now, you ask? I'm working on a low buy with a friend of mine who has also been trying to spend less money. Our low buy rules are slightly different because she has bills and things to pay like a normal person and I don't right now. I'm giving myself $30 a week to spend on whatever I want. The rest has to be saved for the larger items I'd like to buy (like a cutting table and storage for my craft room, my hair appointments, Christmas presents, etc.) so that I don't have to feel like I'm missing out but I'm still saving the majority of my money. I figure $30 is good because m

So this whole quarantine I've been binging various shows on HGTV and DIY Network, as I'm sure a lot of you have been doing too. After about the billionth episode of Property Brothers I decided I wanted to repaint my living room, powder room, as well as finally paint the foyer, kitchen, and the little hallway between my living room and the powder room and mudroom. Pretty much most of my home decor has been handed down or gifted to me and I've always decorated based on those colors which were mostly burgundy, gold, cream, warm-toned things. I've always preferred cool tones myself so I decided that it was time to redecorate. I mean I'm 37 and I'm not sure what I like home decor-wise. It's time to figure that out. Not that the things I had been given weren't nice, they just weren't entirely what I wanted. I decided to start with the living room, as it's the biggest room and I figure it will be the most time-consuming. Last weekend my husband took t

In my last blog post I touched a little bit on how I've been feeling less stressed out lately. Some of that is partly due to my decreased spending leading to a bit more flexibility in how much I work but another thing I've changed lately that is also helping with both my spending and my general mood is the amount of time I spend on Facebook. Last week I noticed that all the negativity that's been on Facebook lately has really had an effect on my mood. I've been stressed out, and depressed because it seems like everywhere I look on Facebook there's people fighting with each other. Posts from my friends, posts in my groups, random things that pop up in my news feed, lately everything seems to offend everyone and I've been feeling a bit burnt out so I decided to take a two week break. I've been continuing to post pictures of the kids because we have out of town family members that get to see what they're up to, I'll continue to post when I put up a new

Hi all! I know I've mentioned here before that one of the ways I planned to avoid spending money was to unroll from some of the marketing emails I receive. I figured this would help me clean out my email too. Unfortunately, I've had problems with continuing to receive these emails even after I've unsubscribed so it's been pretty unsuccessful thus far. Luckily I found out about the Unroll.me website. Unroll.me takes all your marketing emails and rolls them into one email, they call it a rollup and it's kind of like a newsletter with all your ads in one place. You can then choose to look at it, or delete it and voila, you've organized all your junk mail in one place. It's free to sign up. I like to keep my rollups in a folder in my email so that if I'm going to be buying clothes for the kids or something I can go thorugh the last couple of rollups to see if I have a coupon in there from Carters, or if I need shampoo I can look for Ulta or Target emails

So when I haven't been totally blowing my no buy I've been working to use up some of my craft supplies by way of getting some projects done. First I made masks.  Lots, and lots, and lots of masks. Any proceeds I made from masks were used to buy more supplies to make masks to donate to hospitals and nursing homes. Most of the places I've been donating to have said that they've got enough as of now so I've stopped making them for now unless someone asks me for one. My dining room was mask central for a few weeks. My husband was not amused. Some of the masks I made. I think this stack went to FMH Other than that I've been making a bunch of things for myself and the kids. I made this cute shirt for myself: Apparently a crappy vanity selfie is the only photo I have of it. My bestie liked it so much she asked me to make one for her too: I also made some shorts for the kiddos for summer: And a cute romper for my daughter: I've started