My Personal Christmas Club Bank - 2013

I got the bright idea to just sock away money every week this year for Christmas.  That way, come December, I have a pile of cash to just go crazy with.  I'm doing $10 a week.  Every week in 2013.  Since we're already in the 7th week of the New Year, I just threw in the money for the previous weeks.    That will give me about $500 for Christmas.  Which probably isn't enough for most people but should probably be close to enough for us.  We really don't go crazy with gifts.  

But I had to be creative with it.  If I just use a jar or envelope - I will dip into it.  And that defeats the purpose.  I need to give it meaning, so I got crafty:

I had an old shoe box and got some wrapping paper and the stuff to wrap it (have to give this a Christmassy theme).

I cut a small hole on top - big enough to get dollars through but hopefully small enough so I can't steal money out of it. 

    

I wrapped it, cut the hole out in the wrapping paper and wrote on it.  Giving it a subliminal message of a "Christmas Gift" will hopefully remind me of why I am doing this and will make me less prone to want to steal it.  The only real way to get the money out is to unwrap it.  

You probably can't see too well - but I will write the dates I contribute on the back of the box.  That way, if I fall behind, I'll know how much I need to catch up.  By December 1, I should have about 48 dates written on it.  

So sure - I could keep the money in the bank because I'm losing interest but honestly, interest rates suck now so it really won't break us losing out on the interest.  Plus - if it's just in the bank, I'll spend it.  I won't take it seriously.  Also - I'm getting my kids involved with it so they will see how much saving can add up.  

It's not too late for you or your children to do this yourself!  We have 42 more weeks until December 1st.  So how much could you or your kids save in this time?  Assuming you don't back date it and just start now, here is what you have the potential to save in your own personal Christmas Club:

$2 a week:  $84 (a great amount for kids to have!)

$5 a week:  $210

$10 a week:  $420

$15 a week:  $630

$20 a week:  $840

$25 a week:  $1,050

What a great & easy thing to teach your kids!  

Be a Fu-Fu Mom By Making Do with What You Have - Valentine's Day

The overachieving homemaker these days DOES NOT just buy a box of pre-printed Valentine's Day cards for their kids' class.  Oh no.  We're too good for that.  Really obnoxious moms make their kids bring in something to "wow" all the other moms...oops, I mean kids.

Here are some of the obnoxious and creative things that over-the-top homemakers are doing these days for Valentine's Day:

Picture with pop - more info on how to make this can be found at Design Mom.

Homemade Pops - From Family Kitchen

Ruler Cards - From Lil Sugar

Candy Robot Creations - From Prutsen

Melted Crayon Heart Cards - From PaperBlog

Well I want to be cool and hip!  However, I don't want to spend any money and I don't want more crap in my house (so I'm NOT buying any heart shape pan for anything).  My kids' schools don't allow food gifts - because obviously lollipops and conversation hearts make kids fat these days.  So I had to go with something non-food related.  In fact - I wanted to step up my game and get crap OUT OF MY HOUSE during this little project.  So I decided on a crayon project - because we own more crayons than the Crayola factory. 

First and foremost - do not believe the internet - you CAN NOT MELT CRAYONS IN THE MICROWAVE:

So my idea was to melt crayons down into multi-color crayons.  I have a heart candy mold - and some things that I did read on the internet said you can melt crayons in the microwave in candy molds, but nope.  You can't.  So I destroyed more crayons, cut them up in little pieces and used my mini cupcake pan to melt them.  I put them in a 200 degree oven for about 10 minutes.  Then they were melted and I let them cool on the counter top.  Used a knife to sort of pop them out of the pan.  This was relatively easy.  

I have a bunch of leftover cardstock that I had for a project way back when.  I used my large circular punch and punched out the number of circles I needed.  I had the 5 year-old sign the backs of all of them.

On the front with a Sharpie marker, I wrote "You Color My World, Valentine".  Isn't that all corny and wholesome?  

I had some leftover adhesive circles from a Christmas art project - so I used two on each mini crayon to attach them to the circles.  You can buy these if you really want to make these - they are much better than scotch tape.  

Voila!  Before long - we had our cards for 1 kids' class.  My handwriting isn't all that good - but whatever.  4 year-olds don't care.  

Not only did I not spend any money doing this project with the kids - but I used up some crap that was in my house.  Which is my ultimate goal in life - remove the crap from my life.  So sure - they aren't all heart-shaped or anything really festive - but I don't need a heart shaped pan or any other crap cluttering my already cluttered house.  

 Now I'm one of those cool, obnoxious, overachieving moms that everyone loves to hate.  I'm cool with that.  

My New Project: A Cheap Homemade Angry Bird Costume

The verdict is in for the 5 year-old.  He wants to be an Angry Piggy or whatever the pigs are called in Angry Birds.

I found THIS GREAT POST FROM "I'm the Crazy Lady with all the Babies" that I'll use as a reference.  She only spent $7 making it!  And it looks awesome!

Yahoo.  Well now I have a mission in life.  I like having missions.  I'm more productive in life that way.

Cheap Kid Craft: Marshmallows & Toothpicks

I gave my kids a bag of mini marshmallows and some toothpicks.  They went to town:

Absolutely amazing!  You can pick up cheap toothpicks at the Dollar Tree or Christmas Tree Shop.  This kept them busy for about 44 minutes.  That's pretty darn good.