Desiree Gets Creative

I'm sure most of you remember a few months ago when I got a little tipsy and decided I needed some Witcher fabric that turned out to be entirely appropriate for the massive dumpster fire 2020 has turned into. Well, I've finally turned it into some pajamas you might want to toss a coin to.  Yes Geralt, we all feel the same way about 2020. They're super comfy and my only regret is that I didn't get enough of the coordinating fabric to make some pants instead of the shorts I ended up with. I have a feeling that once the colder weather hits I might be wearing the shirt with warmer bottoms. I like the shirt so much that if it weren't for the F bomb I'd probably wear it as a regular shirt.  I've also been working on some things for the kiddos. I cut out some cute overalls for my son the other day, now I've just got to find some time to put them together. SPACE CORGIS! I'm also working on a Halloween dress for my daughter that, being the spider and fruit ba...

 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 ...

Hi all! Long time no see. What have you been doing during this quarantine? Me? I've been SPENDING MONEY. Ugh. I was doing so good and then here comes Covid 19 with it's stress, and prolonged stay at home orders, and the resultant cabin fever and next thing you know I'm shopping online. I've broken all my rules. I bought fabric, I bought eyeshadow when Melt had their reopening sale, I bought books, I bought a new outfit, I bought a new sewing machine (which is fabulous, but more on that later.) With all my plans being cancelled, the salons closed, and nothing fun on the horizon it's been really hard to talk myself out of buying things. I've decided that today I have to reign it in and restart my no buy ... Again. Same rules, new start/end date. From Memorial Day 2020 to Memorial Day 2021 I will (hopefully) find no further excuses to spend loads of money for no apparent reason on things I really don't need anyway. Now let's talk about that sewing machin...

Hi all! One of the things that I've found difficult during my no buy has been curbing my Starbucks addiction. I have allowed myself one trip to Starbucks per month (vs. my usual every time I'm shopping at Target, or out running errands and drive past one, or out running errands and not really driving past one but there's one that I can make a detour to, or just whenever I actually leave the house because, hey, I'm outside ...) So, in order to provide myself that pick me up that only a fancy coffee seems to give I did some research. Now I don't have a milk frother or anything fancier than a Keurig for my at home coffee making and I didn't want to buy anything because that would miss the point entirely, helloooo I'm on a no buy, so instead I opted for finding out how to make delicious steamed and frothed milk with what I had. All you'll need to make lattes and cappucinos at home is strong coffee (because I also do not have an espresso machine. Yes, I know...

Hi All! So I've been implementing a new workout/cleaning schedule to keep myself on track and unfortunately that's meant that I haven't had time during the week to blog. I decided today that I'll blog on the weekend from now on while my husband's home. My daughter doesn't let me do anything on the computer when she's awake (she actually closes my laptop!) and I've been using her nap time to write for Textbroker and do transcription. So, you'll be seeing one post from me on Sundays from now on where I'll discuss how my no buy is going, give tips, and let you know what item I've decluttered for the week. Valentine's Day weekend I had a minor regression. My husband brought home a bottle of wine to go with my Valentine's Day chocolates and I may or may not have had a glass too many. I woke up the next day to discover I had made a purchase while tipsy. What did I buy? Was it the adorable fabric I had my eye on for my daughter with the sup...

Hi all! Here we are on financial update Wednesday. I know I missed declutter Friday and Makeup Monday but I've been recouperating from a minor procedure I had on Friday and didn't feel up to blogging. Nothing serious, and I'm fine, just needed some rest. Of course one of the things that I tend to do when I'm not feeling well is to spend way too much time looking at things on my phone I have no business looking at which led me to notice that a bunch of fabric companies have really cool fabric out right now that I'd love to buy but can't. While it's been tempting I managed to not get anything so I'm pretty proud of myself. Some of the preorders are going to be open for a while yet so I have to keep not buying them until the end of the month. I'm dodging fabrics with images ranging from The Witcher to Rainbow Brite here so it's not going to be easy. Helping me along the way is the fact that Awesome Con just announced that the cast from Back to the...

So here we are just about one month into my reboot of my no spend year and I'm doing really well. Last week I took some time to just focus on spending time with the babies and getting back into my fitness routine (I do LES MILLS workouts at home through their On Demand platform, it is amazing.) I only made about $80 last week, which is definitely below my weekly income goal, and you know what? I'm okay with that. Typically this would've been a cause of anxiety for me. How am I going to pay my Sezzle or After Pay bills? I won't have enough to buy that fabric, book, makeup, or article of clothing I've been coveting all week. This week I didn't care. I think this is probably the first week in a long time where money wasn't at the forefront of my thoughts all week. You know what else? my daughter's finally starting to call me Mommy, sometimes she comes to me for play time instead of my husband, and she loves snuggling with me in the morning af...

Hi all! As I promised earlier this week I'm going to talk about counterfeit makeup in this blog post partly because I'm pretty sure I accidentally bought some on Mercari. Now I know you've seen in my makeup Monday posts that I own some dupe palettes from Bad Habit. So the main difference between dupes and counterfeits is that dupes, while considered problematic by some, are completely legitimate, legal products. Bad Habit is/was (Again, I'm not sure. They still have a website but there aren't any products listed on it and I'm pretty sure the "away" message has been the same since Shop Hush closed last year.) a registered brand and their products have to go through all the quality tests and have all legal ingredients listed on their packaging just like any other product you can buy at a legitimate retail store. Their product can be similar in color and packaging as the original product but they can't be the same, no logos, no claiming to be the br...

I think one of the hardest parts of my no buy is not buying fast food. I made this decision both for my health and for my wallet. When you're out running errands and you get hungry it's easy to just pull into a drive through and get some lunch. I always think, "Well, it's fast and it's cheap." But all those cheap meals really add up over time and so does that cholesterol. Since I tend to plan out my week it's easy for me to know which days I'll be running errands and plan accordingly. I try to do most of my errand running between the hours of 9 AM and 12 PM so that way I leave after breakfast and get back home in time for lunch. This tends to work really well with the kids too because they tend to be at their most agreeable in the morning. Well, my daughter is a grump before breakfast but once she's fed she's fine. If I can't do my errands during that time period, like I have a doctors appointment or something that got scheduled during lu...

Hi all!  I just wanted to drop a quick post to apologize for missing this week's Makeup Monday. My Just My Luck palette seems to have gone missing. I had hoped it would turn up, because I haven't taken it anywhere so it should be in the house somewhere, but it hasn't. I'm not sure if my daughter decided to play with it and I just haven't located it yet, or what happened to it. Hopefully it turns up soon because I really liked it and I can't buy a new one until my no buy is over. Anyway, I rolled the dice for this week and came up with the Bad Habit Retro Love palette. This one was a dupe for the ABH Subculture palette. I really like the colors in this but I haven't really used it much since I got it. I've noticed that some of my palettes just don't get used as often as they should because I tend to stick to my favorites (Sweet Peach is my most used, it's just really versatile.) Here's a picture: Stay tuned for my Friday declutter, I...

Hi all! Since restarting my no spend I've been doing very good with sticking to my rules. I'm looking forward to doing it for the rest of the year. I really think this is going to be beneficial to me and help me to think about shopping in terms of things I need, not just things I think I need. I'm also having a good time decluttering my house and I can tell you the weight that has lifted alone has been incredible. I'm finding that something about clutter just causes stress and not having all the clutter is pretty freeing. Today I'm going to talk a bit about how I make my money. I'm a stay at home mommy with two kids so I don't have a lot of time to work, I normally do so when my little girl is taking her nap. The baby naps sporadically and not for as long but he's usually pretty content to lay beside me on the couch or on a blanket on the floor and chew on his toys while I work. Right now I have two steady revenue streams. My main "job" is ...

Welcome back! It's makeup Monday again and last week I used my Bad Habit Luna palette all week. Here's a photo of the product that used to be on the Bad Habit site: If I remember correctly, Bad Habit was operated by ShopHush which is now closed. I tried looking on Bad Habit's website but they just have an image stating that they're off working on new things and they'll be back soon. I'm not sure if they're going to be putting out new product at some point, or if this palette will ever be available again but it was a dupe palette for the Anastasia Beverly Hills Norvina palette. I really liked the colors, but I didn't know if I'd use them enough to justify the price tag for the ABH palette so I was happy when this more affordable alternative popped up. for a $10 palette the quality is not bad. Here's what I came up with this week: I feel like these always come out looking muddy, the eye makeup definitely looked better in person than it doe...

Hello out there! This week I've decided to declutter something that isn't an article of clothing. I have lots more clothing items that I can get rid of but I think I'll save some of them for weeks when I can't think of something to declutter. I've decided to get rid of a powder foundation instead. Pictured: the driest powder foundation of them all I don't know why the description on the Ulta website says that this blends effortlessly for a flawless airbrushed finish but it made my face look dry as a desert. It also says that it has medium to full coverage but I couldn't get it to cover anything. If I tried to build it up it just started looking more and more dry. I really wanted to like this because I thought that it would be something easy I could just swipe on when I didn't feel like doing anything else but that isn't happening. I've tried this over primer, on my bare face, over moisturizer, with a hydrating setting spray, you name it a...

So I have to admit I fell off the wagon just a little bit over the holidays. Steam was having a sale and I ended up buying the whole set of Witcher games (they had them on sale for like $15!) and I also bought a notebook to help me track my workouts and a notebook to help me track dinners and groceries. I'm on a new healthy eating kick and I wanted something I could keep notes in regarding the new recipes I've been making. Pictured: Me being disappointed with Me BUT! there were also some victories. My new favorite lipstick is part of the Safiya Nygaard and Colour Pop collab (Berry Me in Lipsticks, it's the best berry color ever invented. I'm sure of it.) I wear it just about every time I wear makeup right now. They announced their last restock a couple of weeks ago. Old me would have bought four of them and kept them around forever just to look at because I'd be afraid of running out of them. New me did not buy any and instead researched some possible dupes f...

So I know I've said this before but I have a lot of makeup. I have 20 eye shadow palettes, at least five different foundations, tons of little samples that came with the Ipsy bag and Boxycharm subscriptions I used to get, five blushes, four mascaras, blah, blah, blah. I've decided that I want to wear makeup at least three days a week so that I can use up the products I have, find out if there's anything I don't like and discard those items, see if there's anything that's expired that I can get rid of, generally just to know my collection and eventually get it down to a more reasonable size. Again, this is one of my major areas of overspending and I'd like to have a more reasonable amount of makeup for a woman who barely has time to wear it. I've made a list of the eye shadow palettes I own and every Monday I'm going to roll my D20 (because I have exactly 20 palettes, how fortuitous!) and use whatever palette the fates choose for me for the whole we...