Thrifty Thursday: Frugal Advent Calendar

For this Thrifty Thursday, I have a project that I found to be VERY exciting.  Probably because I thought it up all by my lonesome (thanks to being bored at work!) and also because it's for my little baby bear and I think he's really going to like it!  I have always admired advent calendars but I've never found one that was really just it for me.  I also wanted something that was going to allow me to include activities each day that Ty and I could do together.  So, I made one myself.  And I'm so excited how great it turned out.  I hope you think so too! 


Here's what it took and how much it set me back:

• 24 clothespins--FREE (just stole them from my laundry room) for me but you could probably get a whole big pack at the dollar store for only. . .well, one dolla!
• 3 cans of spray paint (white, red & green)--$3.40 for all three cans @ Wal-Mart
• Sisal rope (need a higher weight rope to hold up all those clothespins)--$6.48 from Lowes but I have a TON leftover so I'll probably finish that rope jar project that I never got around to making for my mom's beach house (Sorry, Mom!)
• 24 mini cards and envelopes--$2.00 from Micheals

You could number the envelopes any way you wanted but I found a super cute set of tiny letter stamps at Wal-Mart for only $.97 plus some small Christmas themed stamps (3 to a package!) for .97 so I splurged on those and an extra ink pad for $.97 also. 

Grand total spent: $14.79--not too shabby when you consider that I now have enough sisal rope to either complete another project or hog tie a herd of wild elephants.  Cuz I sometimes find those walking around in my neighborhood.  Just sayin'.


And here's how I made it happen:

Step 1: I laid out all 24 clothespins on some old newspaper in the garage and seperated them into three groups of 8.  One group was spray painted white, one group red, and one group green.

I put two good coats of the red and green on each side but the white took three coats.

Step 2: I took my mini stamps and spelled out the different numbers from One to Twenty Four on the mini envelopes.  I then took my little Christmas stamps and decorated the envelopes.  This step is totally optional.  You could number the envelopes any way you wanted or decorate them any way you wanted. 

Step 3: I took the Sisal rope and strung it between the two light fixtures that Tyler has hanging in his bedroom.  You'll want somewhere fairly sturdy (tied to a banister going up a stairwell, hung from a mantel, etc) because once all of the clothespins and envelopes are on there, it's fairly heavy. 

Step 4:  Once I had everything else done, dried and tied to the wall, I wrote an activity inside of each of the little cards.  Since I wanted activities that were going to allow Ty and I to spend some extra time together, I included things like:

• Extra snuggles before bed
• Pick out a movie to watch together
• Go on a nature walk
• Breakfast at IHOP
• Paint a picture together
• Do something nice for someone else
• Put together a puzzle together

And other activities that I thought would really help us bond during this crazy stressful time otherwise known was the Holiday season as well as some things that would give Ty an opportunity to learn about the giving that is associated with the Holiday season as opposed to only receiving.

Step 5: After all of the cards were filled and put into their envelopes, I used alternating colors of clothespins to hang the cards on the line.  I started with number Twenty Four and went all the way down to One since the idea is to have a countdown till Xmas.  I'm hoping that by spelling out the numbers, versus just printing the numbers on the envelopes, it will help Tyler with his sight reading skills of numbers.  Always gotta think about the educational spin! 

And there you have it.  An advent calendar that I'm totally in love with!  I put it together last week while Ty was at his dad's house as a suprise for him when he came home to me on Thursday.  He LOVED it!!!  He's gotten so excited about seeing what is inside of each envelope each day.  I've tried to schedule around the fact that he's with his dad 50% of the time so I've included activities on those days that he's with his dad that I thought would be relatively easy for his dad to complete with him.  

What do you think?  Do you have an avent calendar project that you love?  If so, please share!!

You Cannot Seriously Be Serious! Part Two

Yes, there's a part two.  Because only having a Part one wouldn't be sufficient enough.   My motto is "Go Big or Go Home".  And that's just what I was about to do when we got to the beach house.  Turn around and go home. 

By time we made it to the beach house after the unexpected side of the road detour that we made, it was almost 1:00 a.m.  Since there are only visitors to the house every other month or so, we have the water and heat/AC turned off when we're not there.  So standard ritual when we first get there involves turning the water on and getting everything flowing.  Yeah. . .I should have known that I was in for an unpleasant surprise.  As soon as I turned on the water, I heard BD shouting frantically "Turn it off, Turn it off, TURN IT OFF!". 

Apparently, when the water first turned on, he heard a spitting sound coming from behind the washing machine.  He went over to the water valve behind the washer and attempted to turn the water off at the problem.  It didn't turn out so well.  The valve was so corroded that it literally broke off in his hand. 

Oh the four letter words that were running through my head.  I was SO tired and dealing with a plumbing problem was the abolute.last.thing. I wanted to deal with.  Instead of breaking down in tears (which is what I wanted to do), I just turned off the water to the entire house and went to bed.  I was defeated and figured we'd just deal with it in the morning.  Afterall, how hard of a fix could it possibly be?  I would live to regret that thought.

The next morning, we got up, ate breakfast and BD ran out to Lowes to get the parts that he thought he needed to fix the problem.  I didn't care what he did, I just wanted it fixed so I could take a shower.  And flush the toilet.  Again, I was seriously thankful that BD was at the house with me so that I at least had some help to deal with this problem.  Plumbing isn't necessarily his thing but he'll work on any problem until he can get it figured out so I knew he would be able to get it fixed. 

Once he came back with the parts he was going to need to fix the problem, BD got to work.  He had been working for about an hour when he came and told me that I needed to call my mom.  He said he was going to need to cut into the wall to get to the pipes that he thought were the problem (he was convinced that the pipes were leaking down into the interior of the wall--bad news) and he didn't want to do that without at least talking to her about it first. 

Of course, my Mom told us to do whatever we needed to do in order to get it fixed.  She just didn't want us in a house for three days with no running water.  And she certainly didn't want a leak to continue that was leaking down the inside of the walls!  So, with that, BD started cutting a hole into the wall. 

Once he got a hole cut into the wall, he explained to me that what he saw wasn't what he was expecting.  At that point, I wasn't sure if that was good news or bad news. 



Of course, I could see the water damage that the leaking pipe had done to the interior of the wall but aside from that, I wasn't sure what exactly it was that he was expecting to see.  He explained to me that the way that the pipe was connected to the valve wasn't something that could be undone and fixed.  What did that mean?  It meant that he was going to have to cut the pipe off of the valve and replace the entire pipe.  And he didn't have the parts necessary for that job.  So, back to Lowes he went.  About two hours later, he was back with more parts.  Back to work he went.

So, he worked for a couple more hours and seemed like he was making progress.  In fact, he had new valves installed and had reconnected the plumbing.  At about 6:30 p.m., he asked me to go turn on the water again.  B-A-D NEWS!  As soon as I turned on the water, he started screaming for me to turn it back off.  When I walked back into the kitchen, I saw that he was soaked, the floor was soaked, the washing machine was soaked, and the wall (including the cut out part) was completely soggy.  Yeah, the water had been on for about 3 seconds total.  Clearly, we still had a huge problem.  So after throwing around almost every four letter word that the two of us knew, we got back to work trying to figure out what the problem was.  BD indicated that he thought he was going to have to cut deeper into the wall.  And that's just what he did.  Cut a bigger hole. 

Once a bigger hole was cut, he realized that this problem was much bigger than he had initially thought.  It was going to require a complete replacement of the pipe.  That meant more tools and materials that we didn't have.  For the third time in one day, BD was making a trip to Lowes.  But this time, Ty and I went with him.  Off to Lowes we went.  Again.  The greatest (read the sarcasm.  It's dripping right here.) part is that Lowes didn't have all of the materials that we needed.  Great, it's almost 8:00 at night and I'm being told that after working on this problem all.day.long that I may need to pack up the car and head the five hours back to Richmond (at this point, we still can't shower, make coffee, or flush a toilet) all because Lowes doesn't have all of the materials?  Fabulous.  The guy at Lowes was trying to be helpful and called over to Home Depot to see if they had the items that we needed.  They did, but they were also across town which meant that we were going to end up about 30 minutes away from the beach house.  What choice did we have?  This woman needed a shower!  So, off to Home Depot we went to get the rest of the materials that we were going to need in order to fix the problem. 

By time we got back to the beach house, it was almost 9:30, and we still hadn't eaten dinner.  We had picked up a pizza on the way back and Tyler quickly ate before heading off to bed.  Thankfully, he didn't need a bath before bed!  Once Ty was in bed, BD and I got busy.  Not like that!  Busy working on getting this darn plumbing issue fixed. 

It took a couple more hours but we finally. . .FINALLY. . .got the darn thing fixed.  It was nearly the stroke of 2 a.m. when BD told me to turn on the water to the house and, thankfully, didn't scream (or stomp--we had to adapt our communication method after Ty went to sleep) for me to turn it back off.  I nearly passed out from exhaustion and exhilaration that we were done.  Or maybe I almost passed out from smelling my own stink all day?  Who knows.  Either way, the water was fixed.  FIXED! 

And I think Mom will be happy when she sees that the washer totally disguised the hole that BD had to cut in order to fix the problem.



After that was done, all I wanted (aside from a shower) was to sleep and enjoy my trip to the beach.  Luckily, I got to do just that the next day. 

Lowes Build-N-Grow

If you haven't heard about Lowes Build-N-Grow, you are totally behind the times.  It's like the best thing EVER to occupy a rough-and-tumble boy on a Saturday morning.  I've been making a real effort to get more involved in some of the "boy" things that Tyler likes doing and stop forcing my poor boy to bake cookies and cakes with his girlie Mama. Quite honestly, this boy stuff is hard!  It goes against every nail polish painting, make up brush weilding, cake baking bone in my body.  I just don't get the whole Backugan and Transformers obsession and I don't have anywhere near the energy level that a five year old has.  However, I truly enjoy the time that Ty and I spend together at Build-N-Grow.  Every other week (at least in our area), there is a workshop at our local Lowes where the kids get to build different projects with their parents.  This week, it was a tow truck.  Now, this is much more advanced than the projects that we usually complete.  This one required a significant amount of work from Mommy! 

So, for this one, we started out with all of the parts.  Wow, that's alot of parts.  Mr. Lowes Man, you mean you want ME to help this kid put this stuff together?  You do realize that I can't even hang a picture, right?  I mean, I don't even know how to work a screwdriver.  This looks intimidating! 

But, my little man wasn't afeerd.  Nope, he jumped right in by grabbing the hammer and thrusting the directions at me saying "Mommy, you have to read these because I can't read the words yet".  Lovely. 

So, while my baby was hammerin' I was readin'.  All along the way, I kept reading those directions and dutifully watching over my little baby bear making sure that he didn't nail one of his little fingies (fingers) to a piece of wood. 

Just look at that concentration:

We even got down on the floor to work! 

Little by little, we put pieces of wood together and they started resembling a truck. 

Once it started looking like a truck, I'm not sure who was more excited.  The little being that had created it or the Mommy that had supervised.  I was bursting with pride that my little man was such a carpenter.  I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I was a little proud of myself for being able to read those directions so darn well!

Once we got all of those pieces together, then it was time to put the stickers on.  Ty got so excited about this part because, in his words "Now it's a REAL tow truck!".

Sure enough, that little puddin' pop is right, it is a real tow truck!  What a fun Saturday morning!