Have you noticed the trend towards embracing everything handmade and home-grown? It makes plenty of sense – whether your concern is caring for the environment (the recycle/reuse mantra), saving pennies, or teaching your children to value the simple things in life.

• There are so many ways to use your creative talents to make something useful or beautiful to use and enjoy. Why not form a group with friends and set up weekly, fortnightly or monthly meetings devoted to working on a new project together, or creating individual crafty pieces? Here are some ideas:
• Get involved in a neighbourhood market garden organisation (contact your local council for groups near you), where you tend to homegrown vegies and herbs together and enjoy taking home some of the produce. Or if you have the space, get the vegie garden growing in your backyard (and if you’re really keen, how about ‘try before you buy’ chooks?).
• Save and get crafty at the same time by making your own simple gift tags and cards – a trip to your local haberdashery or discount store will set you up with pretty papers and decorative bits and pieces to make one-off creations.
• Allocate a weekly night where you meet in each other’s lounge rooms to gossip, knit, sew or even crochet (if you’re feeling super-retro!) simple items for you, your kids, or to give away to a charity. If you haven’t picked up a knitting or sewing needle since your high school sewing class days, start with something basic like a brightly coloured scarf, or an easy cushion cover pattern to brighten up your child’s bedroom.
• Form a ‘thrifty home’ club where everyone brings along their latest cost-saving tips to share with the group. From shunning commercial cleaning products in favour of using natural concoctions you mix yourself (check out cleaning and home hints guru Shannon Lush’s books for guidance or do a Google search), to your best recipes for using up fridge leftovers, there are so many ways you can be cost-conscious and have fun in the process – learn from each other!
• Get into scrapbooking or decorate a memento box for each of your children, into which you can place significant items from the time they were young (locks of hair, first pair of shoes, photos, hospital wrist bands, their favourite teddy etc). In years to come, they’ll love carefully looking at these things, and the items will trigger beautiful memories for you too. Sure, keep all your photos on disk or online, but there’s something lovely about a tangible form of memory too.