I cut coupons. I also join manufacturer websites so I can get more coupons. Land O Lakes (who doesn’t want coupons for butter?) recently asked for Christmas memories and stories, so I submitted one of mine and won. This means that the email newsletter that all the Land O Lakes subscribers get included my story, along with a couple other stories. I also got two coupons for free butter.
The other winning thing I’ve done is make a Green Bag Lady bag. This was one of the easiest things I’ve ever made. Ever. The only thing I would change about the pattern would be to note WST or RST on the pieces. That would be Wrong Sides Together or Right Sides Together. You can also figure it out on your own but a pattern marking would have been faster. I did view the video once I was done sewing . It’s a six minute time suck. I will be giving the new bag away soon.
I have used my yellow Green Lady bag twice, and I like it. Here is a photo I took of it last night. I’ve read a few articles about reusable bags — USE THE BAG seems to be the moral of all the articles. If you want to have an impact, environmental or financial, you have to use the bag frequently.
Hauling stuff to meetings in it keeps my stuff from being mixed up with someone else’s; everyone has store bags. It holds a lot and is strong, so I’m hoping to get 100+ uses out of it within the year.
Speaking of meetings, I attended the last meeting of 2009 for one of my homeschool moms groups. About half of us participated in an ornament exchange. It’s a lot like winning, even though it’s trading. I gave a quilled tree and received two handmade snowflakes. The snowflakes are already on the tree, so no photo yet. One mom had her kids make ornaments, the other mom made the snowflake herself. Pipe cleaners and some beads in really neat shapes make very nice snowflake ornaments.