Creamed Eggs on Toast
Here is one of our favorite (fairly cheap) recipes, used for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
1. Hard-boil several eggs.
2. In a medium sauce pan, melt several Tablespoons of butter.
3. Add several Tablespoons of flour and stir to make a paste.
4. Add about a cup of milk and stir.
5. Stir in the hard-boiled eggs (chopped) and any extras (minced onion, garlic salt, salt, pepper).
6. Serve over toast and enjoy!
This recipe is great because it can be varied in so many ways. Throw in some left over chopped ham or ground turkey (in addition to or without the eggs). Stir in some chopped, cooked veggies. We generally have eggs and bread on hand, so this is a tasty, last minute, easy meal to prepare. If your eggs are already hard-boiled, the preparation takes ten minutes or less.
Must Have Toys From Yesterday
If you are burned out on all the latest gadgets, fear not! Here is a great list of must have toys from the 1950’s and beyond!
Re-live all your favorite toys and maybe get some holiday shopping ideas!
Gift Giving, Revisited
We have written about inexpensive gift-giving before, but this seems like the right time of year to revisit the subject.
This is a great time of year to bake cookies, breads or other treats for gifts. The oven will help to heat your house and you won’t have to run the heater as much! Wrap up a nice loaf of bread or plate of cookies for your workplace, or your spouse’s. Give treats to your neighbors and friends. Wrap a paper plate with saran wrap, tie a festive bow around it and, voila!, you have a lovely homemade, inexpensive gift.
Break out those craft scissors and some tape to create homemade cards or other crafts. Use old magazines or calendars to do collages. Four greeting cards can be made from just 3 or 4 pieces of 8 1/2 by 11 paper. Visit websites or a local craft store for ideas.
Buy an inexpensive photo frame and paint it or embellish it in some way. Glue on beads or shells. This could be a lovely gift for a grandparent, especially if your kids helped with the frame.
Cross-stitch or embroider on fabric to make a bread cloth, table cloth or napkins. Knitted and crocheted gifts are treasured keepsakes in our home. Keep checking garage sales and rummage sales for unused cross-stitching sets.
Offer to babysit or pet-sit as a Christmas gift. Give another Mom a day to do her Christmas shopping by herself. You know I’d love a gift of time like that!
Your kids can help with most of these projects. This is a great time to teach them about creative giving. Maybe they will even have some gift ideas of their own.
Gifts that Matter
Instead of giving useless knick-knacks to relatives this year, why not make a charitable donation in their name.
There are plenty of worthy causes out there. Charity Navigator is one website devoted to helping you determine what charity is best for your own giving.
Our personal favorite charity is Heifer Project International. HPI has over 800 projects in 50 countries. They offer livestock, education and other resources to families facing hunger throughout the world. With each gift comes the requirement of ‘passing of the gift.’ For example, a family may be given a gift of a pregnant goat along with the education of how to care for the animal. This family, would, in turn, be required to give the next female goat born to another family, creating a positive ripple effect. The goat will provide milk and manure to be used as fertilizer. HPI focuses on sustainable agriculture development education for all gift recipients. There is a donation level for everyone. From a $10 donation toward a ’share of rabbits’ to a $500 Heifer, you can help make someone’s life better. For each $10 donation you may receive an honor card to give to your relative or friend if the donation is a gift in their name.
There are many worthy charities out there. Find one that works for you. Here are some more ideas: Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, Toys for Tots, Cancer Research, Wildlife Conservation.
Or keep your donation local. Donate to your local Zoo, Animal Shelter, Library or School.
Holiday Paper Crafts
Handprint crafts are my favorite this season. Here are two that we did that were really successful.
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Handprint Wreath
1. Draw half a wreath on two pieces of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Preferably green. Cut out the halves and staple together to form the whole wreath.
2. Trace your child’s hand onto some green paper. I used several different printed papers from a Christmas Paper Stack along with plain green. Cut out handprints.
3. Let your kids glue or tape (double-stick is the best) the hands to the wreath.
4. Make paper embellishments. Cut a ‘ribbon’ out of red paper. Or glue actual ribbon to the wreath. Cut out ‘berries’ out of red paper.
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Handprint Christmas Tree
1. Cut a tree shape out of heavy card stock. It doesn’t have to be green, as the handprints will cover the card stock.
2. Cut a ‘trunk’ out of brown paper and staple to the bottom of the tree.
3. Trace your child’s hand onto green paper. Like the wreath, you could use plain green or several different shades/prints in green. Cut out handprints.
4. Let your kids glue or tape (again, double-stick) hands to the tree. It looks best if you attach the hands facing down and start at the bottom so they are layered to the top. Of course, I just let The Boy attach his willy-nilly, but it still looks good!
5. Cut out a star or angel and tape to the top of the tree.
6. Add ‘ornaments.’ We used stickers, lots of ‘em!
Be sure you write your child’s name and the date on the back of the crafts. In ten years it might be hard to remember which child/year it is from.
Finding Polycarbonate Plastic Free Bottles
Check out Green to Grow a new company that is producing baby bottles that don’t contain polycarbonate plastic which is under fire recently for not being that great for you or your infants.
Reuse Those Old Toys
Wisebread has some tips on reviving those old toys to save some money and get some more life out of your children’s toys. You usually end up with piles of toys with the stuff at the bottom perfectly usable but forgotten under all the new stuff. If you go through all your old toys you can find some of the favorite ones that can last for a few more months!
How to Entertain Your Child for Cheap
No Imapact Man was asked how he entertains his daughter without television and electricity. Well, he rattled off a ton of ideas, most of them easy and free!
Read his entire blog to get some more great ideas about leaving a light footprint on the world.
Cheap, Easy and Fun Toy
The Boy loves to pretend to cook and serve us food. At Grandma’s house, he has a whole collection of empty containers that he uses. However, we don’t really have a good place to store all kinds of empties at our own house. So, I’ve recently started cutting the pictures of food off of cardboard containers. They all fit quite nicely into a ziploc bag. He can use our regular (non-breakable) dishes to play with the ‘food.’
I found this cheap, easy toy idea at Instructables.
Thomas the Tank Engine Website
The Boy is a big fan of Thomas and Friends. We have found some fun coloring pages and computer games at the Thomas and Friends website. He still needs a grown-up to help him with the games.
A save the environment and save some money hint is to print the pictures back to back, or print on recycled paper that still has one side blank.
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