New Year's Resolutions

As the end of the year and the beginning of a new decade approach, I think about what I would like to accomplish this next year and decade. I like to get a weekly engagement calendar and divide up my goals into reachable bite-sized portions, then write them into my calendar as 'to do this week" reminders. In this way I have written several books, dozens of craft and children's stories for children's magazines, along with illustrations. This year I want to create more puzzles for the children's magazines, as well as, illustrations and stories. I have several personal goals as well, such as loosing weight and exercising more, and reading through the Bible in a year (again). The engagement calendar costs me $14.99 but is well worth the expense to keep me on track.

Knitting Fair Isle

How many times have you seen yarn and knitting needles at the thrift store for a song? If you are a knitter like me, you always have pieces of yarn left over after a project... half a skein here, three-quarters there. Too little to make anything nice but too much to just throw away. Try Fair Isle style.

Fair Isle is a style where you knit using two or more strands of yarn at the same time. Knit with one color while dropping the other(s) behind according to a repeating pattern. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Try something small at first like a hat or scarf, before working your way up to sweaters and vests. It is a great way to use small pieces of nice yarn in a large project.

One of the sweaters in the picture was sold for $200 and the other for $150. I have also made a number of these for gifts for the girls in my family. My husband wants a hat done this way.

Amazon.com

I love books. Lots of books. All kinds of books. I must have hundreds (someday I'll count them). When these economic times hit us hard (my husband was laid off in May) I began looking for ways to save money and earn money. I found, quite by accident, that Amazon allows you to sell your used books and DVDs on their web site for a small percentage of each book price. Amazon treats you like a book store. You set up a name and load the names of books you want to sell. You rate each book according to condition; new, like new, good, acceptable, poor,-- and price it accordingly. The Amazon store has a price listing for new and used books to help with your pricing decisions too. For each book Amazon adds a $3.99 shipping for the purchasers to pay.

When a book sells, they send you an email notification. You then have two days to box it up , print a packing slip and mail it. Amazon pays you through Paypal or direct deposit once a month. I earned $150 the first month selling my used books back on Amazon.com and $125 the second month. I know some people who look over prices on Amazon and actually go to thrift stores looking for those most wanted, highest paying books, like Dr Seuss books. I have found some of my paperback are not worth selling as the used price has gone down to one penny each, with $3.99 shipping. If I sold those for one penny and mail it for $2.25 media mail, and Amazon takes their percentage, I only make about 20 cents. Not worth it.

I am still selling back books. My earnings aren't as good as the first two months, of course, but I can make from $25 to $50 a month just going through my old books and DVDs. Not too bad.

Thrift Store Bargains

You are already getting a bargain at most thrift stores but try this. If you find a shirt or Tee shirt at the thrift store with obvious spots (like bleach spots) or stains that won't come out, try to talk the price down and buy it. With shirts of only 50 cents or less, I took some acrylic paint (even liquid latex house paint will do if it's not too thinned) and painted over the spots. The acrylic not only covers the spot, it also reinforces it should it become a hole later.

Place cardboard inside the shirt so the paint won't bleed through to the other side. Draw some design with white (on dark Tees) or blue (on white Tees) colored pencil. You could use a stencil or trace some embroidery design. Paint over the pencil marks (they will wash out in the first wash). Surprise --- a decorative cheep NEW shirt. Great for gifts or for yourself.