Partying Frugal Style

 First, thank you all for your sweet birthday wishes for Emma. You guys are so thoughtful. One very sweet reader even totally surprised us by sending her a birthday gift that was so spot on! Thanks Yvonne!

I was under strict instructions from Emma not to go to a lot of effort for her party.  I don't know if it's because she is getting older or because she didn't want me working my tail off for it. That girl is very sensitive to my feelings and she hates it when I'm stressed.

As for me, I'm cheap, er, uh, frugal (my family hates it when I refer to myself as cheap) and I wanted to decorate with stuff I had on hand. That always means paper and fabric around here. I even used ripped fabric strips to decorate the goody bags.

And since we can apparently never get enough buntings...we had buntings-a-plenty! You can never have too many. I dare you to say differently.

Of course the chalkboard was wearing its party clothes too.

These paper ones were fun to make and quick. Cut and punch out circle shapes and start feeding them into the sewing machine. I seriously did this about 30 minutes before the party started.

And the best part is that I finally found a way to use up the little scraps of paper that my cheap, er, uh, frugal nature will not allow me to throw away! I turned them into tags for my class kits!

I couldn't be happier with them. I love that feeling you get when you make something from something that otherwise might have been wasted. It's the same feeling I get when I toast the bread heels and eat them for breakfast. Just a little insight into my psyche.

There is still time to sign up for the Gathered Finds Journal class. Email me at thecottagenest@gmail.com for more info and you could be the proud owner of one of my could-have-been-wasted-paper-bits class kit tags! I mean, that's probably worth the price of admission right there! No? Hmm.