I've been Tagged!

I’ve been tagged!

When I received my first tag from My Precious Pennies I was seriously giddy. Its so exciting to know people actually read this thing and maybe kind of like it.

Sadly though I don’t have anything awesome to share like My Precious Pennies (I am not a figure skater or coordinated in any fashion) so you’ll have to live with these seven little facts about me.

* I am currently growing out my hair so that I can donate it. Hopefully it reaches ten inches by Christmas or else I might go crazy and start pulling it out (Its way too long for my normal liking).

* People often ask if the blog name jirafaestrella has any meaning or if I just picked random letters. Jirafaestrella makes more sense if spelled Jirafa Estrella which translates to giraffe and star (respectively) in Spanish. My two favorite things… the profile picture makes more sense now huh?

* I have extreme arachnophobia. As in I see a spider five feet away and I start to hyperventilate. I also know the exact incident that created this fear, and no it wasn’t the movie.

* Surprisingly even with my hatred of spiders, I love other creepy crawly things like snakes, mice/rats, and even lizards. We used to have an albino gecko and I would love to own a snake, but they are difficult to take care of, Matt says no.

* I can’t count on one hand how many times I changed my major in college, maybe not even two hands. I started out in Psychology and finished with a Human Resource Degree. In a way they’re very similar; as in I listen to people complain all day. :)

* I sometimes worry my mailman secretly hates me because I get so many free samples and magazine subscriptions.

* And number 7 – I am now on Twitter! You can find me under id: OnOurWay
I’m still working on getting a profile up.


I have issues I know… and now for those I’m passing this tag on to

1. Blogging away Debt
2. Retirement a Fulltime Job
3. Leaving Excess
4. Mom is Broke
5. The Domestic Scientist
6. Joys of Home
7. Oh Fransson


A little bit of everything for your blogging pleasure.

Friday Find - House of Whimsy

Have some old place mats lying around? I know we do, in fact I just threw four of them in our upcycle bin.

What am I planning to do with them?
Honestly I had no idea, but then I found The House of Whimsy Blog.

Now I plan to turn them into some cute place mat purses. Check out her post HERE for a great tutorial to make your own. You can pick up the place mats and handles at Goodwill making it a cost effective project as well.

These would be a great Christmas or birthday gift for someone special.


She also has a great Halloween decoration post HERE you should check out while your there.

Another No Spend Weekend

Just a reminder, this weekend the 11th & 12th, Matt and I plan to celebrate a No Spend weekend. you can read more HERE. I would love to have others out there participate in this experiment with us, if you plan to have a no spend week(end) in the future let me know in the comments.

I think it would be great to share some ideas with other no spenders. I'm hoping this weekend will allow us some time to focus on cleaning our house before our big bathroom remodel next weekend!

Big savings by turning off the lap top

Matt and I have started saving money by simply turning off my laptop during the day when I’m not home. The idea is a simple one but until I read smallnotebook.com I didn’t even think about the fact it was on all day or how much it was costing us.

I used smallnotebook’s calculations to figure out our usage and cost.

Laptop uses 1.9 amps
1.9 x 120 = 228
/1000 = .228
x 1 = .228
x .08 = .02 an hour

It only cost 48 cents a day to run my laptop which doesn’t seem like a huge amount, but just by turning it off when I’m at work it will save us 38 cents a day, for a total savings of $138.70 a year! And all I have to do is turn off an appliance when not in use.


Total Energy Savings by making small changes: $246.34 a year
Clothesline: $107.64
Laptop: $138.70


What would your savings be?

Pumpkins revisited

Remember the not so adorable pumpkins from yesterday?


They look a lot cuter painted in silver right? Pumpkins like these run about $5 a piece at other stores like Wal-Mart and Target. I got these four for $1 a piece at the General Dollar and a can of spray paint for $1.12 at Wal-Mart.
Total cost for project: $5.12.

I saved a whopping $14 by making them myself rather than purchasing the set elsewhere. I used these great pumpkins as displays for the craft fair last month and am now using them for some fall decorations around the house.

Super simple to make and cost effective

Pumpkins

Aren’t these pumpkins cute?

Ok so maybe not.

But check back in tomorrow for a pumpkin update, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Chunky Crayons

This week’s upcycle craft projects are Chunky Crayons. I know these have been floating around the internet for a while, but I wanted to give them a shot. I used some of my old crayons ands a tote from my little sister. Here’s how the first few colors turned out. I really like them and they’re easy to make. Six easy steps actually



Step 1: Take paper off crayons
Step 2: Preheat oven to 265 degrees
Step 3: Break into small pieces no larger than one inch
Step 4: Put chunks in muffin pan
Step 5: Cook until melted (4-8 minutes)
Step 6: Cool on counter or in freezer

Color away!

I hope to get some packets listed on my etsy store - GreenCycle soon, so keep checking back.