Frugal Finds and Fixes: Paisley and Pantry Edition

Recent frugal finds:

A set of three vanilla candles and two fancy rings, half-price at Michael's. They're sitting in a yard-saled pie dish. I liked this set especially because the holiday rings can go away, but the candles can be used anytime.

I also got a frosty-berries pick for half price, and cut it up to put in Mr. Fixit's grandma's goblets. I was looking for some bagged greenery at the thrift store but didn't find any, so new-but-cheap was second best. The most frugal and ecological would be real dried plants, but we have to be careful around allergies.

Mr. Fixit's grandma made the cloth with crocheted trim, about fifty years ago.

A frugal find for Mama Squirrel: this paisley shawl from the thrift store. It can also be worn as a blanket scarf.

 Another frugal find that became a fix: a pair of grey bootcut jeans for a dollar, but they were too long for me, and I think somebody else short wore them first, because the hems were scuffed. I decided to invest a few dollars in getting them hemmed nicely at my favourite local cleaner/fixer shop. (Places like that are disappearing too fast these days.)

I've already posted about the hat, which goes with the shawl, which goes with the jeans (and almost everything else except bright red).

The storage room in our apartment is part tools, part storage, part pantry. The pantry part has been pretty random; things went wherever they fit. Adding Christmas baking ingredients and other holiday things was sending it into overload.

This week I did a KonMari-inspired cleanout, just on the pantry section. I sorted the food and other supplies into large boxes and bins that would fit on the shelves. Because the containers were so random, I covered the fronts of them with flowery giftwrap. It won't last forever, but it's a good-enough fix for now.

This was frugal for more than one reason! Besides using the boxes and paper on hand, getting more organized helps us make better use of our small space, and keeps us from re-buying things we didn't notice we already had.

Plus it makes me happier when I walk in there and see all the colour and flower power.