Sunday 2 December 2012

Ruaidhri (Rory) McGonk! He's a bit like a Frugal Furby!

Having Furry Fun in Frugaldom

Ruaidhri (Rory) McGonk
Welcome to December! A little bit of the festive spirit has struck Thrift Cottage this week after making a positive start on the next frugal challenge, the 2013 Frugaleur Challenge. As you may have read previously, my plan is to design and make a family of recycled furry friends. Clan McGonk is my new frugal project.

A busy day was had by all, here in Frugaldom, as today saw the official opening of my daughter's new business! With no car and town 20 miles away, my friend 'Woo' collected me and we made a bit of a day of it, visiting both the charity shops, the supermarkets and the local shoe store, which had a sale on certain items.

We had a fabulous time, stocking up on things like UHT milk, pasta, porridge oats and rice - 40p per kilo (long grain) from Aldi, so my 5kg tub has been filled! In the shoe shop, I found a couple of pairs of shooting gloves at £2.99 per pair. (They're like fingerless gloves but have a flap attached that turns them into big mittens to keep your trigger finger warm.) Nobody here shoots, but we do get cold hands! Next up were the hats! Oh my! What fantastic furry hats they had, complete with ear flaps and all greatly reduced to such a tempting price that I had to have one! I opted for the full (mock) fur and 'Woo' went the whole hog and got the one with fluffy ears attached! Honestly, a couple of middle-aged ruralites set loose in a small market town can still get up to mischief and have plenty of fun! Poor daughter didn't know what to do or where to look when we popped back in to show off our new furry headgear! Having left home around 10am, we didn't get back until after 2pm and, even at that time, the roads were still frozen!

THANK YOU! (You know who you are.)

Postman had been by the time I got home and I had a super surprise awaiting me - a lovely selection of crafting items. I'm still over-awed by the generosity of others and cannot thank them enough, but rest assured I'll be spreading the love whenever I can, perpetuating the chain of giving and receiving. It's the aftershock of a love-bomb explosion, methinks! But this one kicked me into action!

Ruaidhri McGonk has arrived! I made him this evening from an off-cut of red fur fabric, stuffed with shredded remnants and his 'Tam 'o Shanter' hat is made from a scrap of tartan material received in today's box of goodies, along with the pom poms! (I love those!) Eyes, I bought as part of my initial investment for the challenge, feet are made from cardboard and we all had gooey, fluffy fun practicing with the glue gun, which has been stashed away in its box for the past 4 years! I'll need a bit more practice to get back up to speed with that, or else someone to pick googly eyes off my fingernails! :)

Ruaidhri ('Rory' in English) is the Gaelic word for 'Red King', which I feel is a very apt name for my first sample gonk. He's about 10cm tall and will be the first in a long line of Scottish frugal gonks, possibly with a few more little characters along the way. These McGonks aren't toys, oh no, these are very special little characters, each with their own story to tell. They even have their own Facebook page!

Stage one of this challenge
Has truly begun,
We're out for adventure,
We want to have fun!

Do you 'like' the Clan McGonk page? It can be found at www.facebook.com/ClanMcgonk

Clan McGonk is my entry into the 2013 Frugaleur Challenge, where we attept to create a small business from a minimum capital outlay, the object of the game being that we earn our initial investment back as soon as possible and, hopefully, turn a profit by the end of the annual challenge.

Have furry fun, frugaling!

Frugaldom.

4 comments:

  1. what great deals you got and love your lovely red furry friend!!

    Gill

    ReplyDelete
  2. forgot to say, thanks for adding my blog address to the blog links post on the forum, I really appreciate it.

    Gill

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rory! reminds me of when my son was born. I told the surgeon that if baby had red hair, I would name him Rufus, which also means 'red'. Needless to say, out popped a carrot-top. The surgeon just quietly said 'you're really NOT going to call him Rufus are you...' We didn't. We didn't call him Rory either.

    Love the first McGonk - hope he goes far!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Glad to add you, as they say, Gill. :)

    Carol, I actually do know someone named Rufus, but he doesn't have red hair. LOL

    Just preparing to make McGonk #2 and can't decide which colour to use. I have enough furry fabric bodies (kindly machine sewn by sis) to make a total of 8 to get me started. :)

    ReplyDelete

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