Did you know there are only THREE shopping weeks after Thanksgiving until Christmas?!? My family celebrates Yule however, but we also gather with my hubby's family on Christmas.

For the past few years, my sister and I have been making our gifts for each other and our parents. This year, due to lack of money on both our ends, we are taking it one step farther and making our gifts for our hubbies and kids as well. My sister crochets and knits. I can quilt, sew, and cross stitch.

I know what I am getting from my sister (a beautiful shawl) and my mom (arm length fingerless gloves, for those long nights of playing computer games LOL). They asked what I wanted and showed me patterns. My sister had already thought of a shawl for me, so she is happy that I asked for one.

For my sister, I am making her some cross-stitch ornaments for her tree and some cloth pads. She loves the ones I made for myself, so she asked for some. She just wants me to make them with removable liners so if she needs more or less, she can adjust it. I am also making her some cookies and snacks.

For my brother-in-law, I am making him some salsa in mild and medium flavors.

For my sister's kids, I am getting the youngest a cement truck, just like my hubby drives, the middle one some Spider-Man finds from the dollar section of Target, and the oldest I have no idea just yet. Something princess-ish and girly.

For my brother and his new wife, I am making them some cross-stich ornaments as well. They just got married, so they have like nothing.

For my brothers kid (they had a baby a year before they got married), I am getting him a Little People tractor.

I honestly have no clue what to get for my hubby as of yet. Probably some hunting gear or something. I know he will get me some cookbooks on how to cook game, a pressure canner, and a dutch oven as I have been driving him nuts about wanting them. LOL.

For my daughter, she asked for a Nintendo DS and some cloth pads (she over herd me talking to my sister about them and asked for some). I will probably also get her a game to go with the DS as well.

For my son, I am working on a pirate blanket (I have put his orange quilt on the back burner for now) and already have some Transformers and cars from the Cars movie (the tiny ones as he has all of the other ones)

My son gets spoiled by my hubby's family as he is the only nephew and gradnson (when my inlaws were alivethat is), so we don't get him much gifts.

I have been working on the ornaments between calls while at work. It seems to be the only time I have to do them as I am so busy during the weekends with my family and with selling our house. Now that would be a great gift for my family. If someone would buy our house. hehe

After hearing many good things about cloth pads, I decided to try them. I couldn't bear paying the amount for only a few pads that some companies wanted, so I made my own. I made two of each color here and have many more cut out ready to sew.

This is the pantyliner pad found at Adahy's Cloth Pad Patterns. They also have an 11 inch pad pattern and a circle pad pattern. For those of you who like the Luna Pads, she has a multi layer pad pattern as well.

The panty liner one was plenty big for me. The 11 inch one looks way to huge, but might work for an overnight pad. I may have to make the multi layer pad. I made mine without  the PUL, as I couldn't find it in my fabric store locally. I did find a few places online to buy it, but at nearly 9.00 a yard + shipping, I figured it was too much.

I just made mine with two layers of terry and two layers of flannel. I leaked through only once, but my periods tend to be very light and with using these, I swear it was even lighter than normal. So silly to be excited about using these, but they are so nice and soft and I will never go back to disposables. I am so tired of the rashes the chemicals that the  disposables gave me.

Well, I planted our garden late this year due to the fact that our house went on the market June 1st. I didn't want to leave my veggies behind should we have sold before I could harvest them.

So, I planted all my veggies (and some edable sunflowers) in huge window boxes and large pots out near my grill and outside table.

From left to right I have Sunflowers (there are some inthe little pots ready to go in bigger ones), squash, squash, basil, pumpkins, parsley, green peppers, two different types of tomatoes, and more squash.

The last two in this picture I wasn't able to get in the above one and they are more squash (yes I love squash) and cuccumbers.

Pretty Cuccumer flower after it rained.

These grow wild in my yard. I am going to miss them when we move. My hubby calls them black raspberries, I call them blackberries. What are they? They are sweeter than raspberries.

All the plants have flowers growing like mad (you just can't tell from the pictures too well). As you can see from the pictures, some of my squash plants leaves have turned yellow. I asked my dad (he is the gardener inthe family) what was going on and he said because of all the rain we have been getting, the plants are not liking it. I may have to move them to my front porch so they don't get hit with so much rain or something.

Right now the sky is pitch black and it is pouring out yet again (12:57pm). We had severe thunder storms all night long (RI even had a tornado! Thankfully I live in north eastern MA).

I have been reading everywhere about making your own detergent. So I decided to give it a try. It took alittle time to find all the ingredients for the powder detergent, but I found them eventually. I have seen a ton for a liquid form of it, but it looks too lumpy and I have no place to store that much of it, so I opted for the powder form.

I got the Fels Naptha at Shaws grocery store, the washing soda at Stop & Shop grocery store and the Borxx at Walmart. Two of the stores are near my house, but Walmart is 25 minutes away. I haven't been able to find the Borox any closer.

Here is the recipe that I am using:

2 cups (almost one full bar) of Fels  Naptha finely grated

1 cup Wasing Soda

1 cup Borox

Mix all together

Use 2 tbs per load of wash

For a test load, I washed my sons and hubby's socks. My sons socks can get black very fast (he likes to run around outside in just socks). I use to use All and a ton of bleach and they never got very white. This is one reason why I wanted to try this home made soap. Another is the cost. Well, the cost is the number one reason.

Well, after the wash was done, I took them outside to dry (we don't own a dryer). The sun shinning on the clean socks make me blink. Thankfully I have transition lenses on my glasses because I needed sunglasses the socks were so clean. They even smelled clean.

Normally after air drying in the sun, the socks would get all hard and crusty with the All detergent. Not with this home made soap. The socks stayed soft even after drying.

I have some All detergent I will be using up on my sheets, blankets and towels, but all our clothes will be washed in this new home made soap. Then once the All is gone, it will be home made soap all the way.

Here are some websites to find home made detergent recipes:

The Family Homestead

Tip Nut ~This is where I got my recipe. It is #4 on the list~

The Frugal Shopper

Modern Cottage ~This site even has a nice fabric softener recipe. I may have to try this one out too~

Video on how to make your laundry soap on You Tube