Santas challenge 2017

chanie · 30 March 2018 at 10:01PM

£5 saved in a dress up costume for my niece in the Sainsburys sale. I wont be buying much in April, as it is DS birthday and we are buying him an expensive present.

Happy_Kitties · 1 April 2018 at 8:47AM

Picked up 2 scarves in the Miss Sekfridge sale down to £4 each. Wouldn't have paid full price for them of £16 but they are really nice.

A friend set me a challenge of a total spend of £500 for this Christmas but adding Christmas monies in for niece and DD keeps taking me over so finding ways to be creative. Still set to have saved nearly £100 on 2017 total. He couldn't believe that being careful and being a bargain hunter I had saved almost £500 on Christmas 2017
Instead of buying main presents I have decided to stick with the buying of bits they need and Christmas money esp as DD is worried about keeping her car on the road.every time I think they are finished I see bits that they use and pick them up.

chanie you can't beat a dressing up costume as a present, picked up a couple in the Argos sale last year. Went down so well.

Just about to set DDs Easter eggs out which is basically a glorified food parcel for a starving uni student!!

Have a great Easter everyone

crazy-cat-lady_2 · 2 April 2018 at 9:41AM

Did some wrapping for Christmas and got it all put away. I saw an idea I love for my daughter on a Facebook bargains group. Advent books. You get 24 books (pound shop, £10 for ten from the works..) wrap them all up individually and let the child pick one each night for a bedtime story from Dec 1st. So spent an hour wrapping 24 little books last night. A mix of Christmas and non Christmas books.

Happy_Kitties · 2 April 2018 at 12:21PM

C-C-L I am so jealous. I hate wrapping with a passion but by this time last year I was wrapping as I went along but couldn't face it this year.
Have a couple of birthday presents to wrap so I might be brave and wrap some Christmas presents aswell.

The advent books is a brilliant idea. DD had this favourite book(we've still got it) but reading it every night for 24 days did become very tedious and when I tried to change it DD would have an extra book but then her favourite one. Could never get rid of the book, stashed safely away

Anglea · 8 April 2018 at 4:09PM

Hi everyone,

What is the next occasion you are getting ready for now Easter is out of the way?

I had a rather stressful Easter weekend, not sure if it was the horrendous weather or that DS1 arrived by train with his bike but didn't tell me what day so I only discovered when he sent a message from the train, I can laugh about it now but it gets tiresome as it happens so often. He went on an all day ride the next day in what he termed as the deepest mud ever and he also went out the following morning cycling so I didn't get the type of weekend I was expecting when he first mentioned the week before he was planning to come down.

Apart from some cards to send off in May the next gifts to make/buy will be June.

Happy Kitties - in reply to your question, I've done all sorts of crafts over the years since I was young eg macrame, metal embossing, painting, drawing, embroidery, xstitch, canvas, dolls house, railway, ship and aircraft modelling, cardboard, jewellery, crochet, knitting, wooden pictures, window hangings from beads, batik, horseshoe painting, scrapbooking, cardmaking, glass painting and probably lots more that I've forgotten about.

Like you I'm also planning on decorating my living room this year, last weekend whilst I had two strong men in the house I had ex and DS1 to move the piano away from the wall so I can start to plan ideas of paint colour and maybe a totally new theme. At the moment it's 'cluttered antique shop' as I took in furniture from MIL's home when she moved to a care home. Plus now with the piano out of position the room is even more cluttered but it'll have to stay that way until I've decorated that wall, I'm not in any hurry.

A new hobby, painted rocks was started last year. Although I've hidden about a dozen or more I've only found one so far.

Reading about the advent books I was reminded of the 'open when' cards I made for my friend - she opened the last one a couple of weeks ago and said it was a brilliant present - if any of you fancy making a set as gifts yourself.

Happy_Kitties · 8 April 2018 at 9:33PM

This is the first Easter that I've actually really enjoyed.
Despite streaming with cold, DD was home and we just did what we wanted, it was great with a good selection of Easter eggs, many still haven't been eaten, DD has some to take back to uni with her.

Apart from some birthday presents to send out......which I am being rubbish about-esp as I have them in it is all very quiet.
I've got a busy April ahead but like Anglea my living room is cluttered and has become a dumping ground of the next round of things to go to the tip or CS. Need to get paint testers to try out. Really hoping once the living room is sorted I can settle down into crafting again. I've not done so many crafts, papercrafts are definitely my favourite, really need to keep going on them.
Plus start wrapping some presents at some point!

chanie · 8 April 2018 at 10:27PM

Me and OH are just coming to the end of our own refurbishment project at home. We decorated and furnished the childrens bedrooms and bought some furniture for our bedroom. We started in the autumn and it!!!8217;s tsken us along time as we have done all the work ourselves(decorating) and had to save up for various things we needed.

April is DS birthday, so we need to plan for that. We will probably let him have a party at home, with his friends, but we havent decided yet. I am normally much more organised than this and in previous years, had everything sorted by now.

We also have DS first holy communion and will have to have the family over afterwards for lunch. That will be 12 adults and 8 children. I am going to start preparations now.

Happy_Kitties · 18 April 2018 at 10:56AM

Chanie that sounds lovely with DS first holy communion and I hope preparations are/went well with DS birthday.

Have had to change part of my Dniece birthday present. I had got her a big box of her favourite expensive chocolates that she really loves but due to serious medical problems can no longer have them. She was also saying how everyone has been buying her bucket loads of smellies like 'soap and glory' which she isn't keen on and dries her skin out but everyone is really struggling present wise for her.
I know the shower gel she likes, very expensive but lasts forever and I got her one for Easter instead of an egg.
It has taken a while to think of an alternative but my Dd's bestie had bought DD a really nice nomination bracelet. Had a mooch yesterday on internet, found one for Dniece, ordered through quidco for cashback aswell but that is Dniece sorted now. I think she will like what I have chosen.
Her birthday isn't until August but I don't know when i will be out of action.
Really need to start wrapping but it is a chore I really hate. Need to dig out the next birthday present and get it ready for sending out
I hope everyone is doing well with their prep

chanie · 26 April 2018 at 8:25PM

I bought DN part of her present today and I managed to save a couple of pounds in the process. I bought the items from a shop called Smiggle which is a stationery shop that is popular with tweens. You dont get much for your money, but I found some items that were on offer, making it more reasonable.

Other then that, I havent bought anything else.

mum2one · 27 April 2018 at 1:12AM

Hope everyone ok, sorry not been around it has been madness...

Took Miss Hoodie, mum and the dog to Wales for weekend b4 easter, we avoided the snow, took miss H to see blood brothers, it was brilliant, she!!!8217;s studying it in drama and English, there going with the school but not to October, at least she said it makes sense now.

Comes home...the stairlift breaks down, luckily we had got mum downstairs... we had 2 1/2 weeks of her sleeping downstairs... positive I gutted her bedroom,,,3 x triple wardrobes, 3 x Chester draws and the tops... 2 bin bags of rubbish, 2 bin bags for charity.. still got couple junk corners to do...get there eventually.

Plzed to say we have a new chairlift, ...

Back to the theatre...took miss h to see Elvira, it was amazing, one of the best I!!!8217;ve seen in a long time.

With all the saga of mum everything has just been sidelined, slowly trying to get everything back together, still managing the gym, small fry compared to 99% of the rest of the punters, but for me it!!!8217;s 100% extra compared to 12 mths ago..

Challenge wise.. i!!!8217;ll Sort a min one out for the weekend xx

Santas challenge 2017

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