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“Fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Gordon B. Hinckley spoke on 10 things he believes. I really like his 7th believe:

Seven: I believe in the principle of thrift. We are witnessing in society tremendous business failures to a degree and an extent we have not seen in a long while. Many of these are the fruits of imprudent borrowing, of debts so large they cannot be paid. In America, we have seen billions upon billions lost in the failure of savings and loan institutions that have been forced to the wall because borrowers did not meet their obligations. We have seen strong banks shaken and brought to their knees because those to whom they loaned money could not pay their debts. I think of a great international airline whose assets were recently sold. It could not meet its obligations. Once it was looked upon as the leading commercial airline of the world. I have used its services to many far-flung areas where this once-mighty monarch was easily the best to be had. But it lost its sense of leadership, it borrowed beyond its ability to pay, and area by area, it has sold its routes and is now dead.

“American business now devotes 50 percent of its earnings to debt service, double the level 15 years ago.” (U.S. News and World Report, 15 October 1990, p. 136.)

But this problem is not confined to business institutions. It is shared by individuals in countless numbers. Within a period of one year, U.S. consumer nonmortgage debt increased 27 billion dollars. “The typical family now spends 30 percent on debt service, compared with 20 percent a year ago.” (Ibid.)

Our pioneer forebears lived by the adage “Fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Reasonable debt for the purchase of an affordable home and perhaps for a few other necessary things is acceptable. But from where I sit, I see in a very vivid way the terrible tragedies of many who have unwisely borrowed for things they really do not need.

President Heber J. Grant once said, “If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within [one’s] means. And if there is any one thing that is grinding and discouraging and disheartening, it is to have debts and obligations that one cannot meet.” (Gospel Standards, comp. G. Homer Durham, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1941, p. 111.)

I Believe. 1992 BY PRESIDENT GORDON B. HINCKLEY

When I first read this I thought it was written more recently. It stunned me that it was written back in 1992. It seems to me that it very well applies to recent years.  My husband was unemployed and/or underemployed for awhile a couple of years ago. It has helped me realize how important it is to be frugal and wise with all that we are blessed with. I do not profess to be all that great at it, but I thought I would share some simple things to...“Fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

RAG Curlers

1. Take scrap material and cut/tear them into six inch strips about 2 inches wide (some of mine are 1 inch wide).

2. Wet hair and wrap/roll hair with the material in it. I usually place the hair about 1/2 way along the 6 inch strip so there is room to tie.  I wrap hair under, I'm sure you could do it over, whatever feels comfortable. Tie strips of material making sure not to tie in hair. The smaller sections of hair you wrap the curlier your hair will turn out.   I think I used around 10-12 for the hair below.   Leave in overnight or until hair is completely dry.

3. Untie material and slowly unwrap hair from material. This may seem a bit tedious, but it takes 10 minutes for me to wrap at night and 5 to unwrap in the morning.

Voila...beautiful curly hair!

Note Cards

It is nice having a few extra note cards around. I love birds (as long as they live outside). The crafting world seems to love them also. I see all sorts of birds and owls on creative projects. You will probably see more from me also. For now, here is a cute pattern for cards. I sketched out some birds and found the ones I liked most.

I cut the pattern out and traced them onto some cute craft paper.

I choose two different papers for each bird. I think the two colors make the birds stand out a little more. I finished with gluing a button on for their eye/eyes. For the body and wings I used a glue stick. For the button eye, any craft glue.

Finish by adding a little swirly on top of the birds head and some legs on bottom. I borrowed my daughters grey marker for this!

Resin Flower Jewelry

I bought these Resin flowers from Pick You Plum a few months ago.  I figured I could make some great presents for my friends and daughters friends.  I bought all the jewelry making items at Hobby Lobby.  If you can catch these on sale, the total for the earrings, bobby pins, alligator clips (they are short ones, perfect for these flowers), pendants for a necklace were all less then $10.

I used E-6000 glue to put everything together. You don't need much of the glue at all. Just enough to cover the surface. Once you put the glue on and attach your resin flower, I move it around a little and make sure that everything looks even and symmetrical. I let mine dry overnight.

Check me out on this blog! The Dedicated House

Be Mine, Valentine ! DIY Triangle Banner

Simple and easy and hardly any sewing. What you need:

1. Material:felt and flannel. You probably could use any material but I like the thickness of these two materials. I used scrap material. Pink for the triangles, purple for the circle and purple pattern for the letters.

2. Scissors, rotary cutter, ruler and mat

3. Tacky glue

4. Ribbon or bias tape (or make your own)

5. Sewing machine

I cut out the triangles using my green mat as a template (it had some triangle shapes on it). I used the bottom of a bottle lid for the circles.

I had a alphabet template to trace already (if you don't you can always print them out on a computer, cut them out and then trace them).

I traced the letters on the back of the material so the pattern would show. I turned the alphabet template over to do this. I forgot on the "B" so there is an X over it. I also didn't like the way the template was, it would have been to difficult to cut out so I adjusted the letters after I traced them.

Cut the letters out and assemble everything. Use your tacky glue to glue the letters on the circles and then glue the circles on to the triangles.

This picture didn't turn out, and I had to change it to black and white to even look a bit decent. This is a picture with just gluing everything together. I have done it like this on other banners, but I decided to sew around the circles this time.

I used a zig zag stitch and sewed around each circle. I tried just a straight stitch and didn't like it.

I arranged them on the floor with the bias tape and pinned the triangles to the bias tape. You could use ribbon, just use a ribbon that is 1/2 inch wide so you can fold over and sew.

Once you have everything pinned start sewing. I used a straight stitch and went slow to make sure that the triangles stayed in place.

Happy Valentines Day!!

Love Birds, DIY Valentine Decoration

I needed more Valentine decorations and decided on this project. The great thing about this, you can make it as big or small as you need. Choosing the paper was fun. I used 5 different pages that had pink, purple and red. I sketched two birds, one small and one large (When cutting the birds out make sure you have birds going both directions. I turned the bird stencil over on half of them). I cut out hearts from the left over paper. I even had a frame from storage that I used on this. I think I would like to try a white frame and see what it looks like, or paint this frame white.???

BE MINE!

VALENTINES DAY. I have great memories of a kitchen table full of store bought valentines and bags of candy hearts. My brother, sisters and I would pick the card for our friend write on it and stuff it in the envelope with a handful of candy hearts. Ah, the memories. How things have changed.

I look on Pinterest and see all the fun and cute valentines for kids. How creative. Here is my go at a cute Valentines for my kids to hand out. I think they get enough candy these days, so I went for bubbles.

My picture taking needs some work but I bought a bunch of little tube bubbles and printed up sayings on address labels (Avery 8161)

Don't BURST my bubble valentine, be mine!

OR

You BLOW me away Valentine!

KIDS ART

I love encouraging my kids to be artistic. So far, I have one that LOVES to be creative and do anything crafty or artsy! My other one takes some encouraging. I like to help to encourage by framing some of their art around the house. The only thing with that, they may want to frame everything. (Instead I save it, scan or take a photo of it and then create a photo book for them).

The top piece is exactly how the art was done. The bottom piece I cut up and pasted to a card and then arranged on a page to fit the frame. You could do some very fun stuff with your kids art and it looks great in the house! Plus it is an inexpensive way to decorate!