Now in Lovina - Bali

We are in Lovina in the North or Bali. The sand is black as it's volcanic.  We swim, walk and eat. I also pay for the service of local ladies for $5 massages. I could bargain down but this would be too exploitative in my eyes.

We spent 2 nights with our couchsurfing hosts in the mountains. But it was cold and I was scared of the dogs and the serious cases and deaths of Rabies at the moment in Bali. The government has shot many dogs but I am still highly concerned for our safety when there are dogs and monkeys around.

Our baggage is halved now as we have given away about half of our belongings, clothing, toys, books and toiletries. This was intentional as we packed for Bali with tropical clothing and The Rambling Expat arrives today with our winter gear. All of our stuff was second items from op-shop 1$ days. We are travelling with 30 kilos for the 3 of us and that includes gifts for family and friends.

Now In Kuta - Bali

On arrival at the airport I purchased our visa's and exited the airport and started to look for a person who works as a middle man for accommodation. I was spotted quickly and he started with high end hotels. I explained I was traveling on a tight budget and was looking for somewhere cheap, clean, quiet and safe for me and my daughter. So he offered a room with bathroom and breakfast at 200, 000 rupiahs (25$AUS) per night.

We ate a gorgeous dinner at a small restaurant in our alley and made friends with the cooks and waiters who spoilt Dolly with 2 bananas and 1 mandarin to take home. The cost of the dinner came to $5 for both of us, including drinks. We left a novel behind that I had finished reading on the table.

We are now about to head to Singarja where we would like to stay with a poor traditional family and share floor space in their home in exchange for a learning experience for myself and Dolly. They do not use a computer so it's a task trying to contact them.

Here's a link for a Bali Map. My budget is $40 maximum a day and this is living the rich life.

Right now Dolly and I are about to head off. We are currently sitting in the internet cafe with 1 bag each About $10 kilo's in total, all stuff we can leave here when we head to France next week.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask... By the way, I tried to buy a second hand Lonely Planet but ended up having to purchase it new :-(

Repurposed Gifts Ready To Give

Hello Friends,

My daughter (Dolly) and I were super lucky this afternoon. We found a handful of various glass beads in the garden. When our lovely Thai Lady neighbour saw us digging around in the dirt and weeds she promptly told us she had dropped them when taking items to the op-shop as they are leaving the country soon and had a few more that we could have. And so she gave us a good handful.

I then spent an hour cutting jewellery and blinged clothing that I had purchased from op shops for very little money and placed all the beads in a bowl. So pretty :)

I gave Dolly 3 plastic containers and assisted her in dividing her beads equally into the three. Two for friends and one for herself. She concentrated hard counting and sorting with lovely results. I added some fishing line and jewellery wire that I had at home into each container. These are now beading kits ready to be gifted.

Then we started on another project with crayons that weren't being used as Dolly has long ago graduated to textas.

These were "cooked" by Dolly who melted them down in delicious looking colour groups.

Dolly said it looked like chocolate and asked to lick the spoon. I refused explaining that it was toxic and wouldn't taste good. I saw her secretly with her back turned on me having a lick when it had hardened. The cheeky monkey was obviously disappointed as she didn't go for seconds.

We poured the melted crayons into christmas chocolate moulds I had purchased in an op shop long ago and never used.

This is the result... Christmas crayons for a baby's first masterpiece creations. Nice and chunky for a little hand to clutch.

And now three upcycled gifts made by repurposing stuff.

Three year old Dolly has put a lot of time and heart into her gifts and is very proud of herself while I saved a few more dollars.

The total spending was $7.00

5$ for 2 re-useable screw top plastic containers and $2 for beaded op-shop tops. Every thing else was already owned 2nd hand items. Crayons and chocolate moulds from op-shops, ribbons from presents of past years, beads from op-shop junk jewellery and neighbours de-cluttering, fishing line from The Rambling Expats fishing gear. (Metal wire was purchased new 2 years ago).

We were heavily inspired by these talented young girls: CLICK HERE.

I love the thrill of creating gifts with repurposed items and in doing so minimising my families impact on our planet and saving money in the process. I know I could have avoided the plastic containers and used some from home (would have been more eco and thrifty) - but I really wanted screw lids to prevent bead spillage.

Are you upcycling or repurposing too?

Think Outside the Box When Sourcing Beads.

Dolly (3yrs old) is really into beading at the moment. She will spend a good 30 minutes concentrating on her own, with a beading project.

Here is what she made last week from beads that came from birthday gifts, op-shops, a broken handbag and broken junk jewellery.

Because this is a rare chance that we have that she sits quietly and gives us a small break from her non stop chatter I thought it wise to gather more beads.

Here are my beads and their sources.

I saved junk jewellery destined for the op-shop and cut them for their pretty beads. Included is a small red beaded handbag that once contained lollies. Cute but just to small to be useful.

I found in an op-shop a $1 D&G T-shirt covered in great quality glass beads. No way would I wear this T-Shirt, but I will re-purpose it without hesitation. Does it say Sexy?

Then I found this elegant stained white 80's top for only $1. Its collar was covered in fake pearls - these once again were of superior quality and had me snatching it up to recoup the beads.

And this what I have ended up with!!!

4 large handfuls of glorious beads!!! Dolly will have enough to have a wonderful crafting time and lots left over to share with friends.

Do you repurpose stuff too?

Preparing for Bali and France

I am spending the weekend cleaning, de-cluttering, listing on Ebay and sorting in preparation for our 6 week holiday. It's been a slow process as I procrastinate and get side tracked by all the stuff, books and photos I find. But I even sold some old stamps from my teenage years for $4.99. I was going to toss them out but decided to take a chance and listed them last week. I'm glad I did.

I want our home tidier for our House-sitters/pet-sitters and in case there is a cyclone. Our housesitters were Help Exchangers over a year ago and we have stayed in contact. Frugalistas like us, they have been living in a caravan for free in exchange for the care of horses. So they welcomed the chance to spend 5 weeks in a city flat in exchange for the care of our cat. This is cheaper for us then putting our cat in a cattery and gives us peace of mind and it gives them a "holiday" home.

I am also sending emails to Couchsurfing hosts In Bali as I would like to find a family to stay with. If unsuccessful I would like to find a cheap Lostman for Dolly and I that is not full of party animals. Maybe I will need to purchase a Lonely Planet...

Are you going away anywhere?
How are you making it a frugal trip?

We Love Those Hand Me Downs.-

A friend of mine is leaving town to work in a remote area. As she packed her family's life into boxes, she kept aside items her own daughter has out grown. My lucky Dolly has been given all of the below items and has been over the moon by the gifts for days now.

Wooden Toy Box, Chairs, Electronic Toy, Bowls and Lots of French Books.

Toys and Dress Ups - Dolly has been in Fairytale Heaven.

Wooden Chairs (Replacing our Plastic Chairs), Shoe Rack and a Big Girl Car Seat. Coffee for Grandma and School Hat for Dolly.

This got me thinking a great deal about posts where people discuss re-gifting at Christmas time. I personally would have no issue with someone giving me a second hand gift. In fact I would prefer it as I know it prevents the giver from unnecessary spending and it's a excellent eco way of giving.

Last week I read a website discussion, where a person was criticising another person who was thinking of giving some of her children's out grown toys in good condition to her young nephews. The person criticising saw the other person as being overly cheap at Christmas and believed she should purchase new gifts to not disappoint the children. I know for a fact Dolly loves hand me downs from friends she loves. They have so much more meaning to her than a new toy or dress. The fact that the above toys were played with by a child she admires greatly has brought a whole lot of happiness and excitement to her.

The Rambling Expat, Dolly and myself share a giant king size bed but at present we are struggling to all fit in as many of these gifts have also been sharing the bed. Dolls and hard plastic toys have been jabbing me in the back and sneaking under the sheets. This to me is proof of Dolly's happiness of the hand me downs. If they had been wrapped up and given as Christmas gifts Dolly would not have been disappointed.

I think the best gifts to give are pre-loved, local, crafted, cooked and will be used or eaten and not add to clutter or financial hardship.

How do you feel about re-gifting and re-purposing? Do you aim for Frugal or Eco gifts? Do you splurge out because it is the time of "Giving"? What does "Giving" mean to you? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Have a great day  :-)

De-cluttering the Crafting Area.

Dolly and I have a low makeshift table for drawing, cutting, pasting and creating together. In the past couple of months our special area became a disorganised chaos that was an eyesore and un-useable.

Chaos - where is the glue??

It needed a good sorting and purging so when everyone was fast asleep I re-organised the area and now it's workable again. It feels fantastic to clear up. The process of looking at all the useful stuff has given me the motivation to work on one of our pending projects.

Supreme.

Dolly and I are making a couple of winter scarves for her Grandpere (Grandad) and Parrain (God father) in France. We are using old and damaged wool jumpers and cardigans I have picked up in op-shops in the past 6 months for 1 dollar each. We live in the tropics so these have not been easy to find. We now have 6 in total so we can get on with our repurposing project. Yeah!

Being inspired by the book "Felt It, Stitch It, Fabulous" we are felting (shrinking) jumpers by washing them in hot water. We are then cutting rectangles of various colours (postcard template) which we will sew together to make a couple of warm handmade scarves. The pink is a very light baby pink in reality but may still be excluded from the man scarves. We have cream, grey, black and dark green jumpers still to felt. Combined together they should look great.

Our project allows us quality time together at the end of the day. I also teach Dolly the value of being eco through recycling/repurposing of damaged items. And frugality by crafting our gifts.

Have you been making anything? Please tell  :-)