Failing to Explain What we've been doing

I have tried to write posts for the last 3 weeks but my tablet has stopped letting me upload photos :( I will have to borrow hubby's laptop, though I often finish posts in the evening after bear is in bed but hubby usually has school work to do. I will have to work out the best way of keeping updated.... apologies again. 

An Explanation

I've been rather quiet on the blogging front lately and wanted to explain why. In the Spring, we will become a family of four! Although I haven't as sick as I was with Bear, I have been quite tired, which means that I have not been as adventurous with activities. We have, guiltily, spent a fair few afternoons just playing in the house.

I'm really hoping that I get some energy back now I am into the second trimester. Of course, this also gives me a whole new topic to cover - kitting out and entertaining a newborn.

Recent Bargains

Another quiet week here so I thought I'd share a few of our recent bargains.

 I picked this up today for £2 from a Facebook selling page. Bear loves the one at a group we go to, so now he has his own.

This was £1 from a nearly new sale...

As was this!

These skittles still have the label, and seem brand new. They were £3 from a charity shop.

The stroller was £10 from a Facebook selling page and makes Bear look as though he is in an armchair. (He's into clips at the moment so I couldn't get a picture without him in the way!)

I keep an eye out all the time for things we might need or toys I think Bear might like. For example, we have already bought a toddler bed with mattress, duvet, pillow, and duvet cover set from John Lewis for £25. The bed frame alone from Ikea would cost more than this! 

Have you picked up any bargains lately? 

This Week

I seem to be apologising a lot recently for not keeping up with posts. Illness is to blame this week; bear has had an awful cold and I have had 2 migraines. So, to be honest, we haven't done very much this week. We played with some chalk and went to the park a few times, and that's about it!

Hopefully normal service will be resumed next week.

Oh, I've done pretty well with planning lunches though - we've had leftovers 3 times and scrambled egg.

Lunchtime Lethargy

Up until recently, Little Bear would have sandwichey bits for lunch - bread, cheese, ham, cucumber, sometimes avocado,  and some fruit for afters. However, over the last few weeks, he has stopped eating most of these things including cheese which was his favourite! So I have had to come up with some other ideas, which are quick and easy to prepare as we are often out in the mornings and rush home to get lunch. Cost is a factor, obviously, and to be honest, I don't want to spend my whole day cooking; making a main evening meal is enough.

Eggs have been a hit generally. Scrambled, omelette and eggy bread go down well.

I want to become better at planning for leftovers. We had pasta bake a couple of nights ago but there was none left.

I thought I'd try some soups, seeing as Bear is getting really good with a spoon. Today I made vegetable (1 carrot, 1 leek and 2 small potatoes, and a stock cube). It cost way under £1 for a pan full that will feed both of us for 2 days. Well, that was the plan anyway. Little Bear wouldn't eat it :( So for his lunch he had some crackers, a rice cake and a satsuma. A really balanced meal.

I liked it anyway. 

What do you do for lunch?

Return to Normality

So the summer holidays are over, husband has gone back to work and groups are starting to resume. We had a great time over the 6 weeks doing not so frugal things. We tried to keep costs down where possible but really just used the time to do activities as a family.

We therefore have to tighten our belts over the coming months to save for Christmas. I'm going to try really hard to spend as little as possible, utilising free activities. I will have a car one afternoon a week which I'm really looking forward to as I can take Little Bear swimming or to soft play. These aren't free but I'll have to budget accordingly.

I might share some ideas for Christmas presents (if I think of any!) and I'm in the middle of knitting bears winter sweaters which I will also share.

In the meantime, back to colouring.

Paper from ikea, crayons from my local newsagents for £4.49

What we've been doing Wednesday

First off, I need to apologise for the recent lack of posts. My husband is a teacher (don't know if I've mentioned that before) so is on holiday for 6 weeks - Yay!! This means that we have been doing (not necessarily frugal) family things, with access to the car. A lot of our normal groups don't run in the holidays either, but normal service will be resumed in September.

I'll give you an idea of what we have been doing though:

Soft play

We went to Sea World in Birmingham while visiting my brother in law and his partner (half price tickets booked online in advance!)

We went to the RSPB nature reserve in Sandy because little bear loves birds. It was £5 to park, and then free entry. Unfortunately we didn't see that many birds but we did see some rather pretty butterflies. 

I did a messy play date for some of bear's buddies, with spaghetti, jelly, edible paint and water play.

We've been swimming, and spent lots of time outdoors going on walks.

Next week we are going to the zoo thanks to Tesco voucher exchange, and at the end of August, we are going to Pembrokeshire for a bargain week holiday. 

I'll try to update a bit more regularly. xx

Wonderful Water Wall

Having tried loooaaads of messy play ideas with little bear, none of which he has been particularly interested in, I thought I should indulge his interest in water. I can't remember where I first saw water walls but decided to make one - my husband's reaction was 'Oh, great, something else for you to obsess over until you've done it'.

I asked on our local Facebook selling group but no one has any spare trellis I could have, so bought a 6x3ft piece of expandable trellis from our local hardware shop for £4.99. Bear was very helpful in getting it home!

I also got a pack of 50 cable ties for £1.80 but we only used about 15. As I mentioned before, my husband is a teacher. Each year, a class wins a prize for most commendations; £25 to spend how they wish. Last year, they ordered pizzas for lunch but this year, they wanted party food. This slight ramble means that most of the bottles were completely free, as they were left over from the party. Husband was under strict instructions to bring the empties home!

So it was just a question of arranging the bottles, punching holes in to tie them, and adding some cable tidy tubing we had in the shed. We made funnels, troughs and roses.

We used some tacks from the shed to nail it to the fence. We live in a rented house so wanted to be able to move it easily; you could build it on your fence if you wanted to.

He liked it but can't quite reach the taller ones - something to grow into. 

It is easy being green

I'm sorry, I just completely forgot to do a what we've been doing post on Wednesday. My husband is a teacher and he broke up for the summer on Tuesday afternoon so we've had some relaxing family time. I've also signed up to walk 26 miles in the London trekathon in support of the PSP Association (not so relaxing! More on this to follow) so I was a bit preoccupied thinking about when I can fit in training.

So here is a post I wrote a while ago about cloth nappies:

It probably comes as no surprise that we use cloth nappies on little bear. We use the totsbots 2 part system and have size 1 (which bear grew out of around 4 months old) and size 2 which should last until potty training. Each set contains around 20 nappies and 5 or 6 wraps and we got both second hand for £50 each; a total outlay of £100. Bargain!

We also use cloth wipes which we used exclusively for a couple of months but we now use wet wipes for poos. We put paper liners in the nappies (from tesco, a few pounds for 100 but they are really wide so we tear them in half. 2 for the price of 1!) Bear is also in disposable nappies at night as we couldn't find any combination of cloth nappies and boosters that didn't leak. Having said that, he doesn't wee as much at night anymore so I've been thinking about switching back to full time cloth - it's just having the courage to do it one night...

We wash every other day at 40°, line dry in the summer (radiator in winter) and don't iron them. This keeps the 'running costs' down.

The Nappy Lady explains that it can cost £800-1200 for disposables from birth to potty training. This means we have potentially saved  upwards of £1000! Plus, we will reuse the nappies for any subsequent babies.

I love cloth nappies. We've never had a 'poosplosion'. We rarely have to change bear when out and about anymore but have a wet bag if necessary. Cloth don't sag like disposables do and they're really no more bother than disposables but the environmental impact is so much less. Annecdotally, babies in cloth potty train earlier because they feel the wetness more obviously than disposables, which have become too good at wicking the moisture away, ironically. My mum once told me it's the one of my parenting choices she is most proud of.

Plus, they're really cute!

5 a day

To go with the kitchen, little bear needed some play food. I googled 'crochet play food' or something similar and found this directory. All of the these are from patterns on this website.

There's an apple, orange, banana, strawberry, pear, leek, potato, carrot, mushroom, egg, bacon and slice of bread.

I have a rather extensive yarn stash so these were all made with scraps. I also have stuffing in the cupboard as I used to make amigurumis and have been knitting some animals. This means that all this food was FREEEEE!

Facebook Finds

In the town where we live, there are 2 very good selling groups on Facebook; one for general items, and one specifically for baby and children's things. I've picked up some real bargains - not necessarily age appropriate for bear yet but it's sometimes too good an offer to turn down.

This massive bag of megabloks, including the bag was £5 (small child for reference!)

This big bag of brio (or a compatible brand) was £20 and will be saved for Christmas or a birthday, whenever bear takes an interest in the set he was given for his first Christmas.

 Just picked up this little tikes car for £5. I think I'm going to spray it like the door of the play house. 

What we've been doing Wednesday

Going to the park (again).

Picking flowers

Watching the world go by

Little bear also said 'Mama' for the first time today :)

Play Kitchen

Departure from What We've been Doing as this is what I've spent the last few days doing. I waited all week until we could go to our local second hand furniture shop, Emmaus. They had this cabinet for £30. This was more than we wanted to spend but it is really good quality, all the hinges work, and the money goes to help homeless people get back into work and find accommodation.

Job number 1 was sanding it down which didn't take as long as I thought it would.

I then primed the whole thing. (I'd started painting the inside of the oven black before I remembered to take a picture).

When hubby got back from his mum's with the drill she let us borrow, he set about cutting the hole for the sink. He drilled all round lots of times until the middle fell out. I neatened it with a small saw and sandpaper.

Then came the painting. Lots of painting. I bought tester pots from B&Q for £1.10 each (2 black, 2 turquoise, 1 ocean blue, 1 white and 1 silver acrylic from Hobbycraft). Everything needed 2 coats, including the inside of the cupboards. I had definite backache after I'd finished! I laid out the sink, tap and hob to check it all fitted. It was at this point that I thought it needed a pop of colour so decided to use the leftover red spray paint from the playhouse for the knobs.

The knobs are model wheels from Hobbycraft. The tap is a J decoupatch letter, also from Hobbycraft. The sink is a curry dish from Poundland that hubby broke the handles off. For the hob, I used some old coasters which I painted black.

Finishing touches were adding the oven handle, drilling some holes for the knobs and threading each one on a screw with a washer so they will spin, and super gluing on the tap and hobs.

Here is a breakdown of everything I used;

Stuff I already had/ borrowed
● Tools (brushes, saw, drill)
● Coasters
● Screws and washers
● Red spray paint
● Sandpaper
● Primer

Cost breakdown
● Cabinet £30
● Paint £6.90
● Knobs £1
● Sink £1
● Tap £2
● Door handle £3 (I thought this was £1.50 but just checked the receipt)
Varnish £7.95 but I used about 1/3 which is roughly £2.65

Total: £46.55

Not as frugal as I'd hoped but if you take out the cost of the cabinet, it was only £16.55 to transform a tired cupboard into a fabulous kitchen!

Tah dah!

What we've been doing Wednesday

Helping to tidy up

Working on fine motor skills with chalk

Watering the plants. Sort of.

Play Kitchen Project

Today, little bear and I went to a play centre so Daddy could clean the house (double winning in my book!) They have play kitchens with food, pots and pans. Bear had a great time opening and closing the doors, putting things in and taking them out, bringing things to me in the process. I've been thinking for a while about making him a kitchen from a tv cabinet or similar. Kinda like this


From http://www.hillebrandphotographyblog.com
/2013/04/selahs-play-kitchen/

I've spent the last hour or so trawling ebay, gumtree and local Facebook selling groups to find the most appropriate piece of furniture with little success. I will keep looking and hopefully something will come up.

I have primer and white gloss in the shed but might get some tester pots to paint it. I'll need to get a silver bowl for the sink and I saw somewhere to use a 'J' decoupage letter upside down as the taps. I might get some cork coasters/ mats for the hobs, painted black.

I've also just been searching felt and crochet food to make sure Bear's kitchen is fully stocked. I have measuring cups that might work as pans, depending on the scale.

I'm getting really excited about this, even though it might not end up being very frugal!

What we've been doing Wednesday

This week we have.....

been strawberry picking,

walked in the sunshine,

played with foam (not very successfully),

played with small bubbles and

big bubbles! 

Giant Fuzzy Felt

I think this is another Imagination Tree idea. I went to a knitting and stitching show back in March and a large piece of felt for the board was part of my 'to buy' list. Abakhan had a stall and were selling polyester felt for £2 / meter. I bought one meter and stapled it to a cardboard box that my sister got me from her work. There was a bit leftover so I glued on a small rectangle to keep the shapes in.

I cut the random selection of shapes out of left over bits of felt I had in my stash so I only spent the £2 on the meter of felt!

Felt stash kept neatly... in a plastic bag

 Still mainly into just pulling the shapes off

The pieces get wrinkled in little bear's sweaty hands!