Spring: Art of Frugality (one)

Spring: Art of Frugality

I mended two small holes in an expensive pair of black cotton leggings that Zoey (our kitty) had accidentally torn when trying to climb onto my lap. I did this by using a long, fine embroidery needle and one strand of black cotton embroidery thread. The trick to making these look somewhat smooth was to put them on inside-out and then carefully mend the holes while wearing them. As a result, the repairs are hardly visible, barring very close scrutiny, and now they are perfect to wear around the house and running errands.  I was so pleased with the results that I took two other favorite leggings of mine, with much larger tears, and did the same thing! The mends are more noticeable on these but perfect for working in the garden, or messy projects around the house, or even as pajama bottoms!

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While in the mend and rescue mode, I transformed an old and much worn at the knees pair of yoga pants into bike shorts by simply cutting off the legs.  I now have a cute pair of shorts to wear under a tunic or dress.  Because of the type of fabric, no hemming was necessary. These will be comfy to wear in the warmer weather.

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Mike and I stopped by a yard sale and the ladies there gave us, free, a wireless printer that currently sells for $700 on Amazon!  Mike noticed it and asked about it, as it wasn't marked for sale?  We suggested that they might get some good money for it but they were not interested...they had already bought and set up a new one.  As well, they didn't trust this one as it made a lot of noise when printing. In fact, they didn't even want to sell it, they were just going to discard it because they didn't want to sell a defective product.  I told them that our daughter has a similar model printer and it makes all kinds of noise (and even sometimes shakes, haha) when printing so that may be normal. They still insisted that we take it for free if we wanted it.  We gratefully accepted and took it home.  It was a gamble, still, as we needed to buy $65 worth of ink to even test it. Our logic was that if we couldn't get it working we could give the ink to Rosie as her printer uses the same cartridges.  Well...two hours later it was working like a champ and easily synced with all our computers and devices!!! This was such a blessing as Rosie is getting married in two months and will be taking her printer with her!

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Our favorite rose bush was looking sparse and hadn't yet bloomed so I used my kitchen scissors to cut up two banana peels very finely...then buried them in a shallow hole (3-4 inches) about 12-18 inches away from the bottom of the rose bush.  Because Id cut the pieces so finely they started breaking down right away and within less than a week we saw the bush revive with new green and then our first rose buds of spring  (late for where we live). The potassium and other minerals are evidently beloved by rose bushes!

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I have long saved the hard rinds from Parmesan cheese in the freezer to add extra flavor.  When making a minestrone soup (based on left over Swiss steak gravy) I popped one of the Parmesan rinds into it and it actually added that much needed pop it was missing.

How are you practicing the art of frugality this week?