Farm Girl Studio

This post is about your crafty money, but I will be posting about spending in general later on. So how do you decide to spend you crafty dollar? Whether you are buying supplies or someone's handmade craft how do you do it. With online store such as Etsy's it is so easy to buy from all over the world. Do you look to see where a store is located or not? Are you shopping locally for handmade items, do you buy supplies online or from Hobby Lobby and Micheal's. Let me just start by saying that the internet allows me to buy things that I could not get locally easily. Love that! and while I do shop at Hobby Lobby and Micheal's for supplies I really do try to buy from small local stores first. A lot of smaller stores will order items that they don't carry for you if you ask. The 3/50 project is a great way to support local stores. Check out the link to read how you can support local business. I consign jewelry in two local stores, they also have many other p...

So if you are like me this is something you ask yourself at least a couple of times a week? I ask Brian and he says ,, I don't know. No help at all lol . So I look in the pantry to see what we have on hand. Just so you know, along with the buy nothing program and the weight loss program I am trying to use up all of the "odd" things I have in my pantry. Doing this is also helping me spend less at the grocery store. Come spring we will be rocking :) As I come across the strange items I wonder WHY did I buy this ?? And what am I going to make with it lol . I have alot of great cook books at hand and the Internet is wonderful for finding new recipes, but you can't really look by ingredient. Then I found Supercook you just search by the ingredient you want to use up. Check it out - clean out the odd food you have on hand.

I have a cabinet full of things to make soap, lip balm and lotions so since we are in Buy Nothing and Use what you've got challenge I made body butter yesterday. Citrus Mango body butter

January and Febuary are really tight months financially, so for the next two months I am putting us on the Buy Nothing but Necessities Challenge .

One of our goals this year to pay of our debt and finally be debt free. My income has changed quite a bit in the past year, due mostly to the economey. This has made us more aware of our financial situation. I ran out of dishwasher soap yesterday, the washer was already loaded. I was hoping that I could us the laundry soap I had made as it's low suds, we all know what happens when you put dish soap in the washer right lol. So I was searching the web for a solution. I found a great blog in the process. Budgets are the New Black Here is the receipe for dishwasher soap Powder Dishwasher Detergent: 2 Tablespoons/load, divided 1 cup Borax 1 cup Baking Soda 1 Tablespoon Lemi Shine I did not have Lemi Shine so I put the juice of 1/3 of a lemon in the bottom of the washer along with the rest of the ingredeants. I also put vinegar in the rinse compartment. Then I ran it on normal. The dishes are clean and there is no residue at all on them. I am going to use this from now on. Not ...