Frugal Living 2: Return of the Cheap Gallery

[holistic knitter]

Glad you liked them ;0)

[dreadlocklove]

These photos are long overdue!  I received from morglanc last week.

Here is the package.  I also received a bundle of white sage but burned it already...



The round booklet at the top is to store coupons:



Most of the artisan paper for the books are made by Morgan herself.  The coupon book has a Grocery, Miscellaneous and Shopping section and as you can see by my finger separating the pages, I can just stick the coupon in the folder. 

The paper bag book is also very neat:





Morgan stuck a bunch of handmade artisan papers and because I feel so inspired to have a go at paper crafts and making my own paper (which I have been this past week!), I have a spot to keep it all until it gets too stuffed!  Thanks for the encouragement with this gift, Morgan!  I have a feeling I'm really going to love this type of craft now that I can actually put a more personal touch on projects with my own paper.  This was really a "inspire-a-woman-to-fish" gift and I see the "Save EVERYTHING because you might NEED it one day" Crafster quote holding true for me now!  It's both thrilling and terrifying at the same time!

The notebook is, as you guessed, very appreciated!  Here are some of the inside pages:







I love the style of the binding and detailing a lot!

The "Yoga of Herbs" book is a book about Ayurveda and proper usage of herbs in relation to body constitutions.  I actually already own a copy for my herbalism course and am reading it right now but I'm envious that Morgan found it at a yard sale for $.25!  I will be sure to pass this along to someone who will appreciate it!

Thank you, Morgan!  I'm so glad we were partners!

And thank you organizers for this swap!

[Mocka_moo]

Good Morning Craftsters! I received from Mrs. HotGlue and I must say I love the crafty goodies.
She made little hair clippies for my Phe & a little bag to hold them in. She made me some reusable pads in some awesome colors... and a soaking jug to keep them in... Knitted slipper socks that are too small for me but my DW loves & fit (Damn my BIG FEET!) She also purchased a cute little organizer for Phe and


Group shot

Goody Bag




Hair Clippies

Pads

Soak Jug


Slippers

And the tooo cuttteeee organizer for Phe

[Disco Queen Highness]

Wow, a couple of days of sunshine and me slaving away in the garden, and the gallery explodes.  Everything is amazing.  I had a bit of a doh! moment.  I've been wisting the flannel paper towels and never even thought to make them smaller dish/face cloths.  Brillliant idea.

The dryer balls are wonderful, I'm itching to try some of those.  Tanza, the clothes you received are amazing. I'm loving everyones packages.

[hngoodlett]

Finally have pictures!

An awesome library bag that I'll probably carry everywhere!


Lotion bar/cuticle cream that feels so so good. My hands have been dry for months.


Awesome wetbag, the lining is from an air mattress (isn't that genius?). I have a picture of the outside,but I think Photobucket ate it.


Seed packets and stickers to label the plants. I can't to plant these (And none of them are duplicates of the seeds I bought!)


Super cute menu planning sheets that were at the front of my frugal cookbook. It has some great recipes and instructions for making sun-dried tomatoes (Yum!) I can't wait to try some of them (sundried tomatoes are coming up as soon as I find a good sunny spot)


A huge supply of produce bags!


I love everything. Thanks so much StrawberryH!

[itchyfingers]

I received my package from Flower today!  So now I can have the baby.   We were hanging out in the backyard and I just made it to the front to catch the delivery as he was writing out the card to say he missed us.  Yay!  Otherwise I would have had to wait until tomorrow to pick it up at the post office.

Anyway, Flower sent me a great package with items from my wishlist and a few surprises.

A rupunzel scarf - it's soooo soft and the colours are very "me".  Five felted wool dryer balls - I can't wait to try these out and time my drying.  Right now it seems like my dryer takes forever.



The lighting is weird on the next two....but I was too lazy to try to fix it.   A wet bag for keeping my unpaper towels in until they get washed - I love this fabric (it's green..even though it doesn't look like it here) and it goes well with my kitchen, too!  Reusable snack bags - these will definitely be used in my purse or diaper bag for baby and kid snacks.  I always feel bad going through ziplocs like I do...for financial and environmental reasons.  I end up reusing them too long and they get holes in them.  So these will be terrific!  And again, I LOVE the fabric - the colours are great!



The rest of the package was an addition to my baby shower in a box (see my signature for a link to all the other stuff I got from a bunch of awesome Craftsters) and a few books for my kiddos.  Flower sent me a soother/pacifier clip, a felted wool rattle ball - SO cool - and a whole bunch of size 2 diapers that her baby outgrew.  She said awhile back that she would pad my package with them...I imagined four or five, but there are way more than that.  Thank you, Rose!!!!



This has been another great swap - like lots of others, I look at all the pictures and make a mental list of all the great ideas people have..and things I want in the next round.   I'm so happy with this package - the dryer balls especially are something I've really been wanting. Yay!

[yardenxanthe]

I just got mink_bikini's package, and WOW! She did an amazing job on the stuff she sent! I am so thrilled with everything.



I opened my package and found this cozy bundle.



Oh look! Cuteness!



Teeny leather bound book necklace. From my wists, as were a bunch of these goodies. Like this:



Cassette tape pouch! Soooo cute! Oh, look what's inside:



Eee! A teeny tiny granny square necklace (love!) and  some pretty poppy barrettes.



Pretty plaid covered-button bobby pins. Love 'em!



Emma made two of these gorgeous buttony throw pillow covers. Soooo pretty! I love them! Her workmanship is amazing, too!



And a super-cozy and soft crocheted pillow cover. Nice!



One of my frugal goals listed in this swap was to be better at planning meals and avoid eating out. Emma put together a wonderful meal planning notebook.



She also included a meals blackboard so everyone in the family will know what we're eating each day.

Thanks Emma! You were such an attentive, thoughtful, and high-quality swap partner. I really appreciate all the thought and work you put into each of these amazing items.

[Linnybelle]

Finally, here are pictures of my lovely package from angelofmusic.

I don't have a full set shot, so you'll have to bear with me. 

First up, a sandwich wrap.  She actually sent two, but one of them is in my lunch bag, waiting for tomorrow.  I used one today and it's fabulous.


Snack bags:

These will be very useful, I use a lot of little ziplock bags for my afternoon snacks.

Utensil wrap:

I had to pull this out of my lunch bag to take a picture.  I used it today and it was great to have real silverware instead of plastic.

Extra lunch bag/snack bag fabric:

These are going to be fun to use.  I'm planning on using the red roses fabric to make more snack bags and I might make a matching lunch bag for the utensil wrap and such.  She also sent extra bias tape made of the blue diamond fabric

Dryer ball and snap baskets:

There is only one dryer ball pictured, but there were originally two.  One is currently lost in my laundry.  They did help cut my dryer time down.  My landlords have an older model dryer and so it's always had to go for two cycles.  Last night, it only had one and was dry.   The snap baskets fascinated my boyfriend, I think he's plotting to steal them.  I might have to find him his own. 

Exercise bank:

I asked for something to help me motivate myself to exercise more, so she made me a bank to put my reward dollars in.  I give myself a dollar every day I exercise and now I have a lovely bank to store it all in. 

Confetti Bean Soup mix:

She sent enough for two recipes.  I'm excited to try it this week.

And the recipe book:

She sent all sorts of vegetarian recipes, which I have been wanting to try and the book is so cute.  It's all decorated and she even decorated the blank pages left for my own recipes.  I've been writing down recipes on scraps of paper, so it will be nice to have a place to write them all in.  There are some cute leaf themed recipe cards too.

We are both quilters, so we agreed to exchange some extra fabric and here's what she sent:

Tweety bird, jungle print, two florals,and some pink and yellow to make into napkins.  I've made a shirt out of the jungle print and plan to make one more, as my pattern didn't quite work.  The fabric was so fun that I got over my fear of patterns and made it up last night. 

I loved everything and I was excited to be able to use it all right away.  Thanks to angelofmusic and our organizers for making this a great swap!

[hngoodlett]

Those snap baskets are super neat! And I love the idea of an exercise bank. I might have to steal that.

[kaz814]

I'm loving these packages!  This is definitely one of the best swaps I've seen!  You all rock!