I love flowers!

Okay - this time they aren't fresh, their fabulous fakes! Actually, they're just the cheap little sprays from Michaels, but stripped off the stems, with a button or brad added, they make darling little hair clippies. Now anyone that knows me will understand that I don't personally need any of these - they just aren't my style! But I saw someone's cute idea and made it my own and VOILA! An Enrichment project!

For some reason, the thought came to me the other day - what ever happened to housecoats? Maybe because it was noon, everyone was off to work and I was still in my jamies. I was trying to remember the last time I actually saw someone in one. My mother-in-law was my first personal experience with one. I think it may have been in the "mid-life" time of never being able to get cool...or maybe it was just summer. I think that I adopted the idea sometime when the kids were little and I needed a little more than a nightie to sit around in...like I ever did much sitting! I think that was more like when I sat to feed a baby. But anyway, I haven't had or seen a housecoat in ages. So when my daughter Megan called me from her cell phone while shopping at Big Lots to tell me that they had a great deal on this nightie thing that snapped up the front (I don't remember if she knew what they were called) and asked if I thought that Grandma might like one, I perked right up and said, "What about me?" She paused, as though to think on whether it was something that I was seriously inquiring about, and I quickly let her know that I had just been reminiscing about them recently and was definitely interested. "Isn't that a little to Grandma-ish?", she inquired but I assured her that even though I don't have any grandchildren...yet...that I was certainly old enough. She has brought me home two!

So, here is my dilemma - am I too young for a housecoat? Should I avoid them like I would support hose, ladies suits, sensible shoes and long hair that needs to be put up in a bun? Or should I embrace them as part of the "getting older" experience? I have, after all, been looking forward to getting older...

Warning
by Jenny Joseph
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickles for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

I don't own much of anything purple but I'll keep my eye out for it in the future!

I guess it's time to announce what all this "frugal scrapping" is all about. I was cleaning my office before Christmas and I opened a drawer that had dozens of cards that I had created for various projects for BHG Scrapbooks, etc. and Pinecone Press. They were just sitting there in this drawer taking up space. I was tempted to just toss them, but that nagging "no wasting" training of my youth forced me to come up with a more creative solution. Use them? I'm not much for that volume of correspondence and sometimes the themes are a little "random". But who did I know that was always sending letters to family and friends? I didn't have to look far - my Mom! It was a bit of work, mostly because not all the cards I had created were a standard size, so finding envelopes was a bit of a trick. But just in time for Christmas, I had a darling little chartreuse suitcase full of all occasion cards, some new pens and stamps (both for standard and over-sized envelopes) in the mail to my Mom with two stipulations...use them, but don't return them to my house.

Then a few weeks ago, I was working on some projects for a new Pinecone Press book. When I was done and had mailed them off, I went back to my workspace and looked at all the leftover scraps...then at the giant bin on wheels next to my table (full of older leftover scraps)...then back to the fresh scraps, and I thought, "If I tuck those new scraps away, I'll never see them again. The pile is just too big. If I just sit down and use them up, I'll be happier and know that I'm not wasting any of this really pretty paper." Then my mind wandered and took me back to my childhood and memories of Grandma.

If my memory serves me correctly, Grandma Heath had been a young woman during the Great Depression and their family was hit hard. She didn't waste anything. An old wool blanket would get an extended life as the lining of coat when it could no longer serve as a blanket. I remember one occasion when a leftover morning bowl of shredded wheat ended up in a batch of cookies...which I remember as being quite tasty. I think this is part of her Scotch upbringing.

Which brings me back to being frugal. I don't currently need to be frugal with my scrapbooking supplies - I have enough to last me three lifetimes, even if I share generously with my children and friends. The only thing that I would ever have to buy again is probably adhesives. I am set with every imaginable shade of cardstock, patterned paper to rival any store (although not all of it is in the same quantities that a store might start off with), ribbon, buttons, flowers, felt, fabric, pens (well those black .005's and .01's MIGHT run out), paint, watercolors, stamps and inkpads(and I already have the re-inkers), paper punches, sandpaper, rhinestones, foam, brads, rickrack, lace, threads and floss, twine, wire...I know that I must be forgetting something because the list isn't long enough, but you get the idea. I even have an extra Tonic 12" paper cutter (guillotine-type) in case my main one gets dull. I don't need to buy anything new, I just love to. But here is my personal challenge - limit the saving of scraps...just use them. That can become a great mental and creative exercise.

The other day when I had this epiphany? I lost count at 50 cards made in a couple of days...all sorts of themes and colors. I did start digging into my big bin of scraps and I barely made a dent, but I started at least another 50 base cards before I stopped myself. I have these cute little cardboard suitcases in chartreuse, orange, blue, purple, pale pink and red that I bought at the New York Stationery show that have been sitting empty on my shelf and they house them nicely. Yesterday, I was cleaning my room again (dangerous, obviously!) and came across this kit of Martha Stewart Thank You cards (EK Success). There were 6 "thank you" cards included in the kit, but 4 sheets of stickers. I decorate the cards that were included right away, but was then faced with the dilemma of what to do with the leftover stickers...dozens of them! My current answer to all questions like that seems to be "Make cards!" At first this was relatively easy, but it got tougher the less I had to choose from, especially the sheet of dots. but I accomplished my goal and now those partially used sheet don't bother me any more...they have been emptied and sent to the trash can! So, what, you ask, am I going to do with all these cards? Not quite sure yet, but I'll think of something. Here are just a few samples!