My Year of Simplicity 2012

I haven't decided if I'm going to make a new blog or just use this one but my lifelong BFF and I have decided that 2012 will be our year of simplicity.  I'm going to work to get all my debts paid off (or as close as I can come) while decluttering my life, organizing, simplifying and generally just reducing my overall impact on the environment that comes from "stuff."

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going to all of a sudden go green ... the environmental comment was more from my friend Barbie who lives in California and is into the green movement but she does have a point ... I need to consider the impact of what I do.

For example, a trip to Hobby Lobby (now as everyone knows, I'm a Hobby Lobby addict so this is just a quick example but you could substitute Walmart or any other place you go regularly) would be broken down into the following:

• Paper/time to print out the 40% off coupon or figure out what's on sale that week (we do get a coupon in our Saturday newspaper but I never think to cut out the coupon and it's easier to print one out).
• Time to actually go there (15 miles 1 way).
• Gas to get there (15 miles 1 way).
• Time spent looking at all the stuff, finding what I want and then waiting to check out (our HL is quite slow and it usually takes more time to check out than it does to shop.)
• Emotional impact of having a bunch of craft stuff or decorative stuff that I really don't need.
• Money spent even with coupons on stuff to make more stuff.
• Time spent on pinterest to find more ideas and make the return trip to HL.

With a little creativity (and less pinterest), I probably could save a lot of time, money and frustration by just cutting out a trip or 2 to Hobby Lobby every week.  This of course would mean I'd have to actually PLAN my Christmas gifts next year which I've decided will be purchased at the Hy-Vee gift card kiosk and my entire Christmas shopping will take 5 minutes.

Looking forward to seeing how the year of simplifying goes ... who's with me?

Scrabble Art

So I caved into the lure of Scrabble tile art on pinterest and am making little framed sayings for stocking stuffer gifts.  I've done a love you, getting ready to do a best friend and might have to figure out something beer-related for my son who is getting big into home brewing.  There's a world of possibilities, I tell you!

I spent over an hour at Hobby Lobby with my little tiles trying to find the right frames, opening them up and making sure I could close them again with the tiles.  I found a 5 x 5 for the LOVE YOU, a 5 x 7 for the BEST FRIEND and lo and behold yesterday I found an 8 x 8 scrapbook frame that might work for the beer (or another one I'm trying to figure out).  A thrift store Scrabble game + 50% off scrapbook paper (not that I don't have enough around here anyway) + 50% frames = kind of a cool little extra gift.

Gotta love pinterest! 

PS:  Bella the Beagle was quite impressed!  :)

PSS:  On a roll here!  *lol*