Fabulous Thriftiness

Look at this amazing staff of Lego found in my favourite charity shop, any parent who loves Lego knows that it's really expensive for anything other than a small Lego man. My children are mainly trapped inside the house during these holidays, so it's a great time to get the Lego out.  However it takes a huge amount of time and money to save enough pieces to get truly creative, but the above pile cost me £3.50 and mostly filled these two boxes.

They did have some already in them but having taken the bigger Duplo style Lego out(which I'm giving to a friends child) there wasn't a lot left. It's very exciting how full they are, and yes at the moment they are all mixed up together too.
When I was young I loved the huge box of Lego at my Grandmas house, and now I understand why Grandparents always have great Lego stashes;it takes that long to build them up.

 These two are my favourite characters that I came across in the boxes, the off course there was other things mixed in there too.You always should look in your Lego pile if you lose something small.              

What's your favourite Retro toy?
Love Amanda.x.

Barbie/Disney Doll holder.

As a Mum finding your Daughters collection of Disney/Barbies like this not uncommon. Which is a shame after spending all that money on them, you can't see them, also their hair goes crazy. After this picture was taken I spent 20 minutes combing Rapunzels hair and it's still all matted.

 So I came up with a plan, I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this but I bought a over the door shoe holder from Dunelm £3.99, and a fabric pen. I liked the plain colour but they did have bright blue and pink too.

 I wrote the names of the dolls Maisie already has, leaving gaps for future dolls, I kept them even at each side so the holder didn't lean. I used the last row for shoes, clothes and accessories.

 Then I got some glue, flowers and buttons out.

This a job your child could do themselves, and could be a great way to spend their day.

 Ta da, a completed doll holder.

 No tangle dolls, and you can see them all and know they're all safe.

A good way to help a 5 year learn how to look after her treasures.

Hope this was helpful

Amanda.x.

Food, Family & Frugality.

Lately I've been distracted, not by beautiful beads for a change, but by food & family life, I find myself thinking more about my growing children, our health as a family, standards of living, money(or lack of it, maternity leave takes a lot out of your budget), our impact on the environment & the example we, as parents are setting for our children.

These are some unpalatable facts for you, that stick in my mind.
* The average household throws away between £15,000-£24,000 in a lifetime about £610 per household each year, more if you have 4plus people in your home, but it's still the same if you're a single household due to supermarkets not taking into account single person portions.
* Food waste is increasing at a rate of 15% every decade.
* Of the 6.7tonnes of food thrown away every year in the UK 4.1 million tonnes is unopened & untouched. Of this, 340,000tonnes is still 'in date'.
This is largely due to a lack of meal planning, but also or over supply, 1.2 million tonnes of waste is just the leftovers on our plates.
* Around 20% of our climate change emissions are related to the production, processing, transportation and storage of food, but we are throwing away a third of all the food we buy.
* When disposed of in landfill, food waste releases Methane ,a relatively damaging greenhouse gas, and Leachate, a toxin capable of considerable groundwater pollution.

These leave me with an uneasy feeling that although the recession we've being trudging through has been horrible for some, it may be an eyeopener for other households about their consumption, & help them make better choices for their family's that would have otherwise never have occurred to them.

So my first decision was to make a bigger effort to plan out our meals, & therefore our weekly shop should be easier to budget & cut out wastage. I'd had these beautiful meal planner sheets designed by Futuregirl (and free to download) hanging around my kitchen for a while, but was stuck at the thought of organising meals to include a 3year old & 10 month, it didn't seem that easy to make food suitable for all, or to plan meals giving usable leftovers.

Then I was given the Complete Family Meal Planner by Annabel Karmel, now I'm not a bad meal mum but do get stuck in a rut for exciting food to feed my children that maybe Hubby & I would also enjoy. This book is full of ideas, and whats more they are quick, simple, healthy and inexpensive to make. Using this book & some old favorites such as The New English Kitchen(great for leftover planning) I now have my first plan of action. I'll be adding family/home hints and tips all week, feel free to add your own I'll be interested in reading them, and any recipes will be gratefully received I may even review them here.