Felting wool sweaters

I have been felting wool sweaters that I find at the thrift stores!  I find it so rewarding to take something old and make something new from it.  I am just beginning to learn about felting and I am hooked for life.  In my house my feet are always cold, but the frugal side of me refuses to spend the money for the cheap slippers. They are uncomfortable and they only last a few months, for  me anyway. 

When I heard about making slippers out of old sweaters I thought that would be perfect for me so I tried it.  I was a little familiar with felting the sweaters because I had recently made some sweater felted nature study bags for some friends in our homeschool group.

(To felt a sweater, place it in a pillow case, tie the pillow case in a knot and wash in your top loader washing machine. You have to do 2 or 3 cycles but don't let it rinse use hot water, and soap. After the three cycles let the washing machine complete the rest of the cycles.  Untie your pillow case and dry your sweater.)

I have made a pair for each member of my family, now we all have very warm feet.

Felted sweater slippers

Pink felted sweater nature bag

I love this because of the natural colors.

Canning Grapefruit

I did not know that we could can citrus so easily. I just found out and had to try it. I love grapefruit on my salad, I use it instead of salad dressing.

To do this just prepare your canning jars as you normally would, have boiling orange juice ready and peel all of your grapefruit. Get as much of the white stuff off as you can. Fill your hot jars with the grapefruit then fill the jars to the top with the orange juice. Place the jars in a boiling water bath for ten minutes.  This can be done with oranges, Clementines, lemons, limes, etc. 

Frugal

As a family we have, for many years, lived frugally.  Some call it cheap, I call it WISE. We are not at all concerned about what other people have, It is a pet peeve of mine. We try to buy most of our clothes at church sales and thrift shops.  I personally find that Goodwill and Salvation Army are high priced for me. I like to pay $1 or less for a piece of clothing.  We don't pay for haircuts because I just do it myself. I don't need my nails and hair done to feel good, they will just break when I garden anyway.
We accomplished a big goal a few years ago by paying off our credit cards. We do not have cell phones or cable.  This is a mojor expense that most of my life I have not paid for, to me it is a waste. WHAT! 

The past few years we have been doing much better with things like couponing. I have saved a third on our grocery bill. We also bought a new car that gets better gas mileage. The insurance went down and the interest rates are lower than they were when we bought our older car. Believe it or not but it was less money each month for the new one.

We are also gardening more. We had to pay the upfront cost of building five raised beds, well worth it though. Last summer we grew peas, beans, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, radishes, zucchini cucumbers, and herbs. I have saved by freezing and canning the results. We have learned so much from blogs and have made most gifts given this past year. Thanks to those blogs I have also found felting!!!!   OH I love felting.

We have our family financial goals for the year. We bought an olive barrel last fall so that we could make a rain barrel this year. We may also make a solar panel, homeschool science project. Garden planning has already begun. Who knows what the year will bring, so exciting!

We will of course continue with our wise and frugal ways.

A captured moment.

Making and canning my raspberries into jam.

So finally I decided to just jump right into it.  I have been so nervous about canning, I kept putting it off. I organized all of the materials, read the directions four times, then I finally began.  The process was easy once I felt comfortable with it. I did a boiling water bath to seal the jars. I had the wax, but I didn't use it this time. Overall I had one problem and it was a simple one I think.  After filling the jars I put them in the wire rack to lower it into the water and the jars fell over.  This should not be the hardest thing to solve, so I am sure that I can figure it out.  Now I have sealed jars of jam!!!!  It was fun and I was glad that I did it.

Supplies

My Jam

The beginning

This year we decided to grow a garden.  Usually we just have  attempt to have pumpkin, and tomato.  This year I did my research and we have five raised beds. We have strawberries, squash, potato, broccoli, radish, carrots, peas, Nasturtiums, tomato, borage, peppers, 2 kinds of beans, cucumbers pumpkin,  and herbs. We also have our wonderful raspberry patch that I will make jam from.  The borage when grown with tomato will deter those huge yucky tomato worms. Borage is also edible.  The raised beds my husband built in the barn during the winter months. We got the design from Maine Cooperative Extension on you tube, very informative.  We have had some errors with trying to grow from seed, we will learn for next year.  My broccoli bolted, I will have to find out why. Overall things look good out there.

What we are growing.

Borage

Roma Tomato

Black Eyed Susan