Here are some thing I plan on doing this year, and some things I've done in the past.  1. I saw some hand/wrist warmers in a catalog that are made with some modern material that's supposed to hold heat in and help people with arthritis. I have some alpaca wool left over from hats I'm making to sell, so I'm going to make up ...

If it's JUST to check e-mails, a Blackberry will do you.  I haven't looked to see what they cost, and I know they cost monthly, so you might want to add up 3-4 years of monthly service to see if it's any cheaper than a laptop.  I assume you already have an internet provider and that you can use it in conjunction with free ...

For cheap decorating, nothing beats Victorian tree decorations.  Pop corn and string it.  When Christmas is over, throw it out for the birds and then there's nothing to pack!  If you have a source of nuts and/or pine cones, spray paint them gold or silver and hot glue ribbons to them to hang them up on a tree, or do as I do and ...

I get generic store litter, but it's scented.  Now some cats are picky and won't have anything to do with that, but our beast has never been tidy or picky, so he doesn't care.  The difference between the smell of non-scented litter and the scented litter is several days at least! I also keep a cheap carpet doormat under his ...

I bought a mirror at Target a few weeks back.  Had a wonderfully decorative wooden frame, but it was painted in a high-gloss black.  Looked like something for a bordello!  I took it home and showed it to my husband and said, hey, I'm going to make this our new medieval tent mirror.  I think I will paint the flowers and ...

<<especially when those shredded holes showed too much backside cheeks! >> Something that, alas, was NOT common in the 80's.  People dressed like they had a mismatched thift store closet, but weren't too sexually provacative.  Even Madonna, starting out, wasn't dressed too racy.  Except for wearing ...

You should be able to get, at any fabric store, curtain lining.  Just ask someone where it is, should be on a roll in the drapery section.  It's white or off-white, heavy and kind of rubbery and you can't see through it.  You then sew it on like lining for clothing--sew it at the top and down the sides and hem separately at ...

Jeans were very washed--bleached even--and holes in the knees were common (holes anywhere, for that matter).  Thing is, jeans always looked clean.  There's something that they're doing to jeans now that puts a wash on them that's nothing other than dirt-colored.  Jeans did not have this dirty look in the 80's.  ...

My mother made me a couple of sundresses for school (one had a pair of matching shorts under it so I could play on the playground without showing my underwear).  This was when I was old enough they'd not let us wear shorts to school anymore--even though our school did not have air conditioning.  So these dresses were cooler than ...

We buy all sorts of stuff off Craigslist and sold our old couch on it.  I think we got our horse on it too.  Get hay off it all the time.  If there's something we need, we usually look there first because we want to avoid paying retail where possible.  But then, we also live in a rural area, so sometimes it takes less ...