The World According to Tricia

Hey, well to introduce myself, I am guest blogger number one. I grew up and continue to live on the great prairies of Saskatchewan. I live with my wonderful husband and beautiful 6 month old daughter. Now to start off, I have not always been very frugal, but seeing as my husband is the least most frugal person I know… I had to become one. I found writing this blog to be quite difficult as I kept asking myself these questions, therefore writing, and re-writing..… Should I be funny? Serious? What do guest bloggers even write about? Should I share my own views? Opinions?

I had lots of ideas but really did not know where to start. So I started to think about what I am good at and what others like and I came up with cooking and crafts. So I will share a couple of my favourite recipes and a couple ideas for sending cards.

~~

Surprise Dip
I make this dip with whatever I have in my fridge, so it is great for if people just pop by or a good way to use up some veggies.

You will need these 3 ‘staple’ items for the recipe
Cream cheese (softened)
Salsa (homemade or store bought)
Cheese (grated)

Spread your soften cream cheese on the bottom of a plate, then pour on the salsa and cover in grated cheese. That is the basic and easiest version but I like to add the following (depending on what is in the cupboard)

Chopped celery, diced tomatoes, chopped green/red or yellow pepper, green onion, carrot (grated or chopped). And if you are feeling really generous I like to add refried bean (between the salsa and cream cheese layer)

It is easy, always a favourite and quite healthy.

Another easy recipe that freezes really well

Monster Cookies
4 ½ cups rolled oats
½ cup butter/margarine
3 eggs
2 ¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup honey
1 cup peanut butter
2 tsp. baking soda
½ cup wheat germ
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup of sunflower seeds & coconut & raisins & chocolate Chips (add all or whichever ones you would like)

Mix all together and bake a 350’ for 8 min. (if they are not sticking together just add more peanut butter)

They freeze really well and taste fabulous – my favourite cookie.

~~

I find that I am constantly looking for birthdays, weddings, thank-you’s etc…. cards for people in my life. I have 3 suggestions for you to send cards cheaper, if not free.

1. Send an e-card. There are lots of great places if you just Google free e-cards. But one of my favourite sites to use is hallmark.com. You can go into e-cards and then look through the free ones; there are lots of great ones! You can also choose to pay a small fee to have access to hundreds of cards for a year, A lot cheaper than 5 dollars a card.

2. Make them yourself! Buy simple stamps or stickers that would apply to whatever card you buy/need the most of (Michael’s carries bins of these for $2-5 each), some card stock (dollar store) and voila you have the tools to be creative and make a one of a kind card. If you feel like you are not creative and need ideas, just search online and you will find lots of great ideas and templates. (you can also pick up little items for cheap and dress up your cards for cheap, for example: string a piece of ribbon through the top of a pop can, and now it to look like a buckle!)

2.5 Re-use, if you don’t mind recycling cards that you have been given. You can cut the back off and then ‘stitch’ a new piece of paper on. Or just fold a piece of card stock accordingly to size, and glue the cover, poem etc. to the card. It is more the thought that counts and you can be as creative as you like combining ideas, poems and items.

3. Check out the Dollar-stores. You can sometimes find really cute/nice cards for a dollar, or 50c.

If you are going to make your own cards and feel like you have no ideas, or lack the ambition to do it on your own (as I know I sometimes feel) here are my suggestions. Find other people that like to make cards or scrapbook and plan one day a month, or every so often, get together with them and make cards. Being around other people is sometimes all that I need to spark my creativity. Another good way to make cards within a group setting is for you to design one (or two) cards. You will then cut out enough supplies for each person in your group to re-create your same card. If everyone does this, then you get to leave an afternoon with numerous new cards and ideas.

Well those are my frugal ideas for now....until next time...

~Trisha

((Applause for our first guest blogger please!))