Recent Bargains

Another quiet week here so I thought I'd share a few of our recent bargains.

 I picked this up today for £2 from a Facebook selling page. Bear loves the one at a group we go to, so now he has his own.

This was £1 from a nearly new sale...

As was this!

These skittles still have the label, and seem brand new. They were £3 from a charity shop.

The stroller was £10 from a Facebook selling page and makes Bear look as though he is in an armchair. (He's into clips at the moment so I couldn't get a picture without him in the way!)

I keep an eye out all the time for things we might need or toys I think Bear might like. For example, we have already bought a toddler bed with mattress, duvet, pillow, and duvet cover set from John Lewis for £25. The bed frame alone from Ikea would cost more than this! 

Have you picked up any bargains lately? 

Lunchtime Lethargy

Up until recently, Little Bear would have sandwichey bits for lunch - bread, cheese, ham, cucumber, sometimes avocado,  and some fruit for afters. However, over the last few weeks, he has stopped eating most of these things including cheese which was his favourite! So I have had to come up with some other ideas, which are quick and easy to prepare as we are often out in the mornings and rush home to get lunch. Cost is a factor, obviously, and to be honest, I don't want to spend my whole day cooking; making a main evening meal is enough.

Eggs have been a hit generally. Scrambled, omelette and eggy bread go down well.

I want to become better at planning for leftovers. We had pasta bake a couple of nights ago but there was none left.

I thought I'd try some soups, seeing as Bear is getting really good with a spoon. Today I made vegetable (1 carrot, 1 leek and 2 small potatoes, and a stock cube). It cost way under £1 for a pan full that will feed both of us for 2 days. Well, that was the plan anyway. Little Bear wouldn't eat it :( So for his lunch he had some crackers, a rice cake and a satsuma. A really balanced meal.

I liked it anyway. 

What do you do for lunch?

Wonderful Water Wall

Having tried loooaaads of messy play ideas with little bear, none of which he has been particularly interested in, I thought I should indulge his interest in water. I can't remember where I first saw water walls but decided to make one - my husband's reaction was 'Oh, great, something else for you to obsess over until you've done it'.

I asked on our local Facebook selling group but no one has any spare trellis I could have, so bought a 6x3ft piece of expandable trellis from our local hardware shop for £4.99. Bear was very helpful in getting it home!

I also got a pack of 50 cable ties for £1.80 but we only used about 15. As I mentioned before, my husband is a teacher. Each year, a class wins a prize for most commendations; £25 to spend how they wish. Last year, they ordered pizzas for lunch but this year, they wanted party food. This slight ramble means that most of the bottles were completely free, as they were left over from the party. Husband was under strict instructions to bring the empties home!

So it was just a question of arranging the bottles, punching holes in to tie them, and adding some cable tidy tubing we had in the shed. We made funnels, troughs and roses.

We used some tacks from the shed to nail it to the fence. We live in a rented house so wanted to be able to move it easily; you could build it on your fence if you wanted to.

He liked it but can't quite reach the taller ones - something to grow into. 

5 a day

To go with the kitchen, little bear needed some play food. I googled 'crochet play food' or something similar and found this directory. All of the these are from patterns on this website.

There's an apple, orange, banana, strawberry, pear, leek, potato, carrot, mushroom, egg, bacon and slice of bread.

I have a rather extensive yarn stash so these were all made with scraps. I also have stuffing in the cupboard as I used to make amigurumis and have been knitting some animals. This means that all this food was FREEEEE!

Facebook Finds

In the town where we live, there are 2 very good selling groups on Facebook; one for general items, and one specifically for baby and children's things. I've picked up some real bargains - not necessarily age appropriate for bear yet but it's sometimes too good an offer to turn down.

This massive bag of megabloks, including the bag was £5 (small child for reference!)

This big bag of brio (or a compatible brand) was £20 and will be saved for Christmas or a birthday, whenever bear takes an interest in the set he was given for his first Christmas.

 Just picked up this little tikes car for £5. I think I'm going to spray it like the door of the play house. 

Play Kitchen Project

Today, little bear and I went to a play centre so Daddy could clean the house (double winning in my book!) They have play kitchens with food, pots and pans. Bear had a great time opening and closing the doors, putting things in and taking them out, bringing things to me in the process. I've been thinking for a while about making him a kitchen from a tv cabinet or similar. Kinda like this


From http://www.hillebrandphotographyblog.com
/2013/04/selahs-play-kitchen/

I've spent the last hour or so trawling ebay, gumtree and local Facebook selling groups to find the most appropriate piece of furniture with little success. I will keep looking and hopefully something will come up.

I have primer and white gloss in the shed but might get some tester pots to paint it. I'll need to get a silver bowl for the sink and I saw somewhere to use a 'J' decoupage letter upside down as the taps. I might get some cork coasters/ mats for the hobs, painted black.

I've also just been searching felt and crochet food to make sure Bear's kitchen is fully stocked. I have measuring cups that might work as pans, depending on the scale.

I'm getting really excited about this, even though it might not end up being very frugal!

Giant Fuzzy Felt

I think this is another Imagination Tree idea. I went to a knitting and stitching show back in March and a large piece of felt for the board was part of my 'to buy' list. Abakhan had a stall and were selling polyester felt for £2 / meter. I bought one meter and stapled it to a cardboard box that my sister got me from her work. There was a bit leftover so I glued on a small rectangle to keep the shapes in.

I cut the random selection of shapes out of left over bits of felt I had in my stash so I only spent the £2 on the meter of felt!

Felt stash kept neatly... in a plastic bag

 Still mainly into just pulling the shapes off

The pieces get wrinkled in little bear's sweaty hands!

Painting

I've been meaning to try painting with little bear for a while and finally did it. It wasn't a huge success but, as with every activity, I need to offer it a few times before he becomes interested.

The recipe I have is 2 cups of cornflour, mixed with 1 cup of cold water and then 4.5 cups of boiling water added one at a time and stirred in between. It looked like it would make a lot of paint so I halved the recipe, which was plenty. It is quite thick, good for finger painting.

I used the gel colours I got from amazon and took great pleasure in matching the colour to the bowls! I calculated how much this cost and it is approximately 32p (30p for the cornflour and pennies of food colouring).

Little bear didn't want to put his hands in the paint but did with a little 'encouragement' from me. In the last week, he has really got the hang of eating with a spoon so enjoyed using the paintbrush and the spoon I'd brought out to put the left over paint into jars.

I'm hoping that the paint will keep in these jars (that I got free off Facebook) as it would be a waste to just throw it away. It went a bit solid while it was out, the texture of set custard, but with a good stir, it was liquid again albeit with some extra lumps.

Update: it's 3 days since I made the paint. It separated in the jar but was a fine texture after being shaken. However, it does smell a bit so I probably wouldn't recommend keeping it more than a few days. Today's session was a bit more successful as I provided more spoons, and little bear put his hand in the orange, which means there are orange smears on everything (which is why I did this outside!)

Let's play outside

This is the best frugal find ever! There is a little boy at the school where my mother in law works who is very kind and generous indeed. He had outgrown his play house so GAVE IT to us because he 'just wanted other children to play with it'. Aww.

The log cabin's current RRP is £379. And we were given it. For free.

We did have to pay a man with a van £50 to bring it to our house as it wouldn't fit in anyone's car though. Also because the red is faded, I bought a tin of plastic spray paint for £8.99 so it now looks like this:

I had paint left so sprayed 2 little chairs we were also given to match.

The table is an old Lack from Ikea which I painted with blackboard paint (given a leftover tin by a friend) and bought a piece of oilcloth for £5 off eBay so it is wipe clean for messy play. I stuck some velcro dots (99p for 10, free delivery from eBay) to the table and the cloth so that little bear can't just whip the tablecloth off.

Lovely.