The Frugal Mama

Crafting on the Cheap

  It’s easy to come up with fun crafts for your kids without spending any money.  Toilet paper tubes, tissue paper from an old gift, macaroni, junk mail… it’s all kid craft gold.  Glue sticks, safety scissors, crayons and tons of other school sale staples are super cheap around this time of year.  I’m talking less than 5 bucks to make a serious art supply box.  Oh and don’t get me started on the 99cent store.  GOLD.  I keep two different boxes on hand: one box of things like paint and scissors that are best used with my help, and a box of coloring books, paper and washable crayons and markers that the kids can get out and play with by themselves.  If you haven’t experienced crayola’s washable markers and crayons, you are in for a treat.  They wipe off.  Simple as that.  They wipe of CARPET.  Give the people at crayola a prize, this makes up for all the dumb gimmicky crap they sell.

  The hidden away art box also holds supplies for future projects.  Old socks are new sock puppets with a few buttons and scrap fabric.  Ribbons from birthday gifts are ribbons for pig tails.  Anything shiny goes into the art box for later use.  The spoons and forks I used to steal compulsively from Denny’s when I was younger are now hanging as wind chimes in our front yard.  I wanted the kids to be able to hear the wind and I wanted to stop grabbing the cheap metal cutlery when what I needed was a decent knife.   Unfortunately, I hung it too low and the knife grazes the head of any tall visitor who comes to our door.  Not too welcoming.

  The best thing is, no matter how bad you think you are at artsy stuff… your kids are worse.  Hey, it’s true.  I don’t care how unartistic you claim to be, you will totally kill in a drawing competition between you and your preschooler.  And your preschooler will look at your mangled tree and say, “it's BEAUTIFUL, I want to make one like YOURS!”  But one way your kids will beat you in creative competition is, well, creativity.  Our adult imaginations have been sucked dry by the media and what we’ve come to learn as the right and wrong way to create. 

  My son stole all of the paint brushes yesterday, while we were trying out water colors for the first time.  His sister didn’t say a word; she just started using her fingers.  DUH.  No crying, no hitting, just messy fingers.  She was so pleased with her polka dot paper.  Charlie left and came back with a pair of his shoes, filled with crayons.  He pushed them around the kitchen like cars.  No right or wrong way to play, no right or wrong way to create.  There is no such thing as artists block when you’re a kid.

Raising kids on the Cheap

  As thrifty as I am, I am finding it hard to be a thrifty parent.  I’ve been broke; I’ve lived on ramen noodles and beans.  But feeding my kids ramen for dinner because we are low on everything makes a little ball of guilt in the pit of my stomach that I didn’t get when it was just me.  When it was just me, the only feeling in my stomach I got was from the ramen. 

The good news is they like cheap food.  They like ramen, a lot.  “Noodle soup”, we call it.  I usually add some vegetables for them to pick out.  They like peanut butter and jelly, they like cheerios.  I can cook decent dishes with little in the house, but it’s nothing the kids, or their dad, will eat.  I stick with the rule of a fruit or veggie at every meal, two at dinner.  Whole grains never white bread.  I don’t buy soda, chips or anything with tons of sugar in it.  Don’t get me wrong.  We are NOT starving.  But like so many people, I find comfort in food, and when I don’t have 4 boxes of vegetarian sausage patties in the freezer, I start to panic a little.  Frozen peas instead of fresh green beans, just to save a dime or two?  Makes me shudder to think about it. 

  While I can’t control how many veggies get wasted at dinner, I can make some simple changes around the house to save a few extra bucks.  I have banished paper towels from after meal clean up in favor of a towel I cut up to make into little wash rags.  It was ugly, no one will miss it.  I can’t believe how fast we went through paper towels, and it was all just from cleaning off the kids after we ate.  Charlie is a good thrower, the window behind him, wall, floor, chair… Charlie… covered.  It would take at least 10 medium weight paper towels to get things clean enough for the next messy meal.  Now I only use one rag a day and toss it in the wash pile after dinner.  Saving money on stuff like that helps reverse the ramen noodle guilt feeling.  It’s better for the environment too.

I realize the kids will need more as they get older.  It was very hard to convince Maddy that she did not NEED a Hello Kitty sweater from Target.  She cried, she screamed, we left.  I tried to turn it into a learning experience and include her in ‘making’ her own.  I tried to explain to her that her home made Hello Kitty sweater is even better than the one at the store because she helped make it.  She seemed dubious and she’s only 3.  Eventually they will refuse to wear hand me downs from their cousin, from craigslist, from thrift stores.  Eventually, they will need text books and computers and designer shoes.  If I recall correctly from my stint as wanting be in the popular crowd in Jr. High, there is a fine line between ‘need’ and ‘want’, especially if social acceptance is what you ‘need’.  But sooner than that, they will need to go to preschool. 

The thought of sending the kids to school both thrills me with my new found freedom and terrifies me.  What on earth will I do?  Oh my god, will I have to vacuum?  Charlie fears the vacuum and I refuse to traumatize him.  I hate vacuuming, I’m glad the kids feel the same.  Madeline is 3; she is potty trained and wants more than anything to go to school.  We talk about it all the time.  I tell her she can’t go to school until she can put away her toys, pull up her pants by herself, write her abcs, play nice with her brother…  it is the ultimate incentive for her.  But as much as I stall, she IS ready.  As a still newish mom, I had not had the pleasure of knowing just how expensive preschool can be.  Is this the price for genius baby school?  Is Maddy going to come home and recite the classics?  Will they at least teach her to look after her brother?  Because I would need someone to baby sit while I go out and look for a job to pay for it all.  That’s what I thought when I learned how much a macaroni necklace and few hours without Madeline would cost.  I cannot afford for her to go to a private preschool.  For our family, it would not be money well spent.  I don’t need someone to teach her numbers, to look after her all day all week, to sing songs to her and play games.  That’s why I am a stay at home mom.  I need a place she can go and be with kids her age, for a few hours a day, for a few days a week.  We already do ‘lessons’ while her brother takes his nap.  Don’t get me wrong, her education is very important to me.  We read all the time; I try to make every little thing into a learning experience.  What I can’t teach her from home is how to interact with kids her own age.  That is why she NEEDS school.  But there’s no way I can spend all of my grocery money for the month on 2 days of preschool a week, just so Maddy can play with other kids.  So far the library has been a wonderful start.  Story time is FREE, Madeline has her independence from me while I chase her brother, and she gets to be in a learning environment with kids her own age. 

  Wouldn't it be great if a bunch of parents came together and just kind of made their own preschool?  Free lesson plans are free all over the internet, and really, all the kids require is an adult or two to lead some songs, read some books and clean up some glitter.  I’m not claiming it would be easy.  I don’t think it would be anything close to easy, but it could be fun, and cheap.  If all the moms take turns bringing snacks, buying supplies or hosting or teaching… whatever, it could be so great!  This could be my desire to be a teacher taking over, or this could be a really good idea.  And my desire for my child to get what she needs.  It’s right in between homeschooling and preschooling. 

  Long story short, there are ways around spending money.  It’s nice to be able to say to my 3 year old “why buy it when you can MAKE it yourself?” and follow through.  I don’t want the kids to ever feel like they are less fortunate.  They have everything they need and more.  But I can’t make internet myself.  I can’t make new tires for the car; I can’t make a dinner that everyone will like.  Unless of course it’s Noodle Soup.

INSPIRED!

I am a believer that art can not be forced.  If I get bit by the art bug and the kids are sleeping... get the F out of my way and don't expect the dishes to be done, because IT'S ON.  But sometimes the smallest things can become a roadblock.  Like if I cant find the stack of old playboys I bought from one of my friends dad's 10 years ago, and I NEED them for a collage idea I have.  I might just stop dead in my painted tracks.  Or, an unfortunate example, the Hello Kitty cradle I worked on so diligently... something went wrong and I have all but abandoned that project.  Maddy still asks about it though, so I know I will finish it eventually.  I think I feel stifled sometimes, by my kids and my lack of contact with the adult world.  Working made me feel productive in a way that having a clean house just doesn't.  But last night, I think I busted down another self created restriction in my quest to regain my artistic side.

I found my old portfolio from highschool!  I was in "AP" art, which was sweet because when my smart friends would talk about the rigors of their advanced placement chemistry and math classes, I would just shrug and smile and say 'I KNOW what you mean, AP classes are tough!'.  It wasn't tough.  It was great.  It was fun and inspiring to work with a class of creative people.  We messed around, we did what we wanted.  We ditched class and went to taco bell and our all knowing teacher would just shake his head and ask us how our latest project was coming along.  Anyways, this mini trip down memory lane helped me return to the creative mind set I once held.  My stuff wasn't great... but it was decent, and I am still proud of most of the pieces. I found old sketch pads (lots of pages left for my current creative self) with old ideas, pencil sketches of old friends and rough sketches of projects I was working on.  To say the least, I felt INSPIRED!  In addition to sketch pads, I found a canvass to paint over and use, and a pad of paper to PAINT on.  PAINT?  unheard of!

It's so neat how much I remember about the models who posed for my class, just by by looking at the old sketches.
I remember this woman was really funny and super fun to draw.  

This was supposed to be a color study, I just liked it so much that its been hanging in my kitchen since we moved here.
 I will never finish it, the paint I used was at least ten years old and the canvass was an old one I found and gesso-ed over.  

I am aching to have an art day with the kids.  I feel anxious; if I don't use this little burst of creativity then I am afraid it will fade.  I started (ANOTHER) notebook of ideas and what nots.  Hopefully my current restrictions, the lack of a camera (thanks ebay seller eforcity-select for screwing me over and trying to scam me, you will NOT get away with this!!) my lack of internet, my lack of TIME, always... hopefully they are still not enough to weigh me down!

hard at work