Frugal birthday cakes -- 7-minute frosting, and our own birthday celebration this week

Butter cream frosting is fantastic for piping designs and messages on cakes. But when I'm in a hurry, or short on powdered sugar and butter, 7-minute frosting is my choice.

I practically always have the ingredients for 7-minute frosting -- granulated sugar, egg whites, vanilla, and either corn syrup, cream of tartar, vinegar or lemon juice (these ingredients allow the egg whites to beat up nice and fluffy). Bonus, these ingredients are very economical, too! One batch of 7-minute frosting cost me about 35 cents. The same amount of butter cream frosting would have cost me about $1.75.

Today is my son's birthday, although we celebrated on Saturday. I had baked the layers on Friday and wrapped them in plastic. Then late Saturday afternoon, one of my daughters helped me make the 7-minute frosting, and place the M&Ms (leftovers from Hallowe'en) on top. The whole frosting/decorating took about 15 minutes, which is really pretty fast, for me.

Some years, my cakes look almost professional. Other years, colorful and cheerful are words that best describe my cakes. What matters most, I think, is that the cake tastes delicious, and everyone enjoys the celebration.


One of the gifts

a winter car emergency kit

One of my son's gifts was inspired from comments by Katie @ Life lived intentionally, on an earlier blog post about gifts on a small budget -- the car repair/emergency kit.

With winter on the horizon, a winter car emergency kit seemed appropriate for my son's birthday. The total cost for this "kit" was under $20.

In the basket, I put a bag of kitty litter (for traction when stuck in the snow), a snow and ice scraper, a road-side triangle reflector, a flashlight (with batteries), an emergency rations food bar, and an emergency blanket. I found the basket, flashlight, batteries, kitty litter, and snow/ice scraper at Dollar Tree. Finding so many items for just a dollar each was a great help to my budget.

Anyway, my son put the whole basket in the back of his car right away, and seemed very appreciative of the gift.

For the rest of the celebration, the 5 of us went out for Chinese food, then came home for cake and gifts. It was a fun evening, and I think the birthday guy had a great time!

More homemade gifts for a small budget (for tween to teen girls)

Jingle bell earrings -- super-duper easy!

I was able to put the finishing touches on a few gifts this past week. If you're struggling to find an inexpensive gift or two for tween to teen girls, either gift may work for you.

In my sewing box I came across these tiny red bells. Cute, huh? I had intended to sew them onto the face of a Christmas pillow several years ago, but came up with something else, instead. When I saw the jingle bells the other day, I instantly thought what fun earrings they would make for one of my daughters. She's the jingle bell type, all the way! I rummaged through my jewelry box for earring pieces that I could hang them on and found these stainless ones. Perfect. It took me all of 5 minutes to put the bells on the earrings, and pinch the loop closed enough so the bells don't slide off (I used tweezers to pinch the tiny loop). Total cost of this gift -- absolutely nothing! Jingle bells come in many sizes and colors at craft and fabric stores. These would be a very quick and fun gift to make for any "girl" on your list! (If only my piercings hadn't closed up -- I'd be saving these for myself!)

Next up, for my other daughter, more the "pearls and lace" sort, I had picked up some basic long underwear that I had intended to embellish in some way.

In going through sewing scraps, I found this piece of lace that I salvaged from toddler girl clothing. (When I was sewing a quilt from baby clothing, I set aside pieces of lace, cute buttons and ribbon flowers.)

I hand-sewed the lace to the neckline of the long undies.

Then, I added a few pearl beads to the lace (leftovers from another sewing project). It was quick and easy hand-sewing, taking about 1 hour total. I think the top turned out nicely -- just a way to make something plain a little more special. I'll be adding a bit of lace to the cuffs of the long undie pants, too. (Photo when that's done.) These will definitely suit my "pearls and lace" daughter. My only cost was for the long underwear itself (WalMart, about $8 for top and bottom combined).

easy bangle bracelets -- I'll post a step-by-step when I'm done

I'm working on bracelets for each daughter this week, as well, using plastic rings that scarves came on from the store last year (I really do save a lot of stuff), strips of fabric, and some beads and charms. When I finish these both up, I'll show you how they turned out. The same idea would work for a small girl, using shower curtain rings as the bracelet base, or for an older girl, using plain plastic bangles. Here's how the denim one is looking, so far.

How are your Christmas gifts coming along? I've found that by just doing a little bit every day, I am making progress.