Good Morning---it is still morning as I type this.
I woke up extra early to have a garage sale but found that it was raining. I wanted to go back to bed but instead I decided I should get to work on my online business stuff.
I went and added more items to my zibbet store. It's slowly growing. As a free member I can have up to 50 items listed. I'm still debating on the paid membership, but that will come after I close in on the 50 items listed and see if I get sales as well. While I was there I found some cool banners to help promote (like the one below). I put the banner in reallysmartdeals and in easyhits4u.
Speaking of reallysmartdeals---all of my sites in rotation had ended so I spent a lot of time putting in products. I put all of my zibbet, all of my etsy, all of mu zazzle and some of my blujay store items. With my $1.99 a month membership I can have up to 125 items in rotation. I got up to 91 put in today. Reallysmartdeals offers something cool---a rotator link. This link will randomly put up one of the items I have listed. You can check it out here: http://reallysmartdeals.com/rotator/59846
Now, where can I rotate this? Most traffic exchanges don't allow the rotators since it does rotate urls and any of them could be a virus. I have it rotating at easyhits4u. I don't really do any other traffic exchanges anymore other than reallysmartdeals. Any ideas?
I have work to do in blujay. They are requiring that you now put in isbn numbers for books you have for sale. For the books that I didn't put that in the description I will have to drag out the milk crates of books from the middle closet to get those.
I'm trying to decide what to do about homeschoolbuy. Seems for whatever reason, there are over 1000 members but for the longest time I've been the only one listing anything. I'm thinking of moving the books over to blujay. That way they don't expire so I don't have to remember to go in and update them before they expire. Good idea, just will take a lot of time.
That's my report for this week. Click the button below and hop along with abitosunshine!
Good Friday to all.
I must get myself more in to the frugal mode. I'm still pondering and trying to work on the whole simple living concept.
I purchased binder pages for my coupons. Included in the package was a bonus of 22 past Sunday coupon inserts. I was able to pull coupons out of there that I will be using right away to almost cover the cost of the package. I'm heavily in the process of getting my coupon binder put together. It's going to take some time to get all my coupon organized in it, but it's moving along nicely.
Speaking of coupons, I did a few small coupon trips this past week. The post will be in the linky below. I can't wait to get paid some more paypal from other websites so that I can go do more shopping! I have a whole stack of coupons just waiting for Wal Mart.
I'm also linking up a post about one of my granddaughter's birthday gifts that I made. It's better to make home made gifts anyway. These gifts are what I came up with on the fly when it was birthday time and no money to go out and buy gifts. I have 2 more posts to get in on the 2 other girls' gifts. They are the same things, but different.
Here are the tips to share for today from the 99 Cent Solutions book. We are still on baking soda. Who knew that baking soda had so many useful uses?
1. Clean a glass front fireplace. If the glass in front of your fireplace or woodstove is blackened with soot and smoke, it's time for baking soda. Crumple a sheet of newspaper, wet it in water, and dip it in baking soda. Scrub the glass, the black stuff will come right off. Wipe with a damp cloth. You can use the same technique to get soot off the glazed bricks lining the fireplace.
2. Stop a mosquito bite in its tracks. Pour a tablespoon of baking soda in your palm, wet it with a few drops of water to make a paste, then smear it on the bite area. Let it dry and flake off. If you treat the mark this was as soon as you can, there will be no red welt from the bite, and the itching will subside almost instantly. The same treatment works for bee stings, assuming you have carefully removed any sign of the stinger.
3. Control cradle cap. The flaky scalp on infants knows as cradle cap is harmless and will usually go away on its own, but most moms can't stand to look at it on the baby's head without trying to rub it away. Make a paste in your palm of a couple tablespoons baking soda and a teaspoon of water. Rub gently on the affected area, being careful not to get near the eyes, and then wipe off with a damp washcloth, using no soap or baby shampoo. Repeat for 2 or 3 days until the flakiness lessens. (if the baking soda causes the baby's head to become red, the soda may be too abrasive, so try baby oil instead.)(I wish I had known about this. I would have tried it before the baby oil that is so hard to get washed back out of their hair.)
Until next week, I hope to see lots of inspiration linked up for the week. Remember, the linky remains open for the entire week so you don't have to link up just on Friday.
Happy Thursday. I'm a bit late this morning posting as we had somewhere to be as soon as I got out of bed this morning.
I've not accomplished a thing again with Squidoo over this past week! I'm having a hard time adjusting to a new schedule. We started in with our homeschooling this week. That reminds me that I need to finish up my lens on our journey last school year as well as start a new one for this year. I'm thinking of doing it differently and still thinking on just how I want to do it.
I apologize to Ruthi who sent me some great suggestions last week on improving the lenses that I shared. I printed out her suggestions but haven't followed through yet on the changes.
I only have 2 lenses in the pink this week, which is good. One of them is Our Garden 2010, which needs an update on what we took out of the garden that year. Unfortunately in the move I somehow managed to lose my little notebook that I had kept notes in. I need to wing it and estimate.
The other is
This is one of my early book review lenses, and also one of the first books I had rec'd from gather to read and review.
Wish me luck that I get my act together on a good schedule all the way around and find the time I need to "do it all"
P.S. I am a squidoo angel in the area of books. I can, however, also bless other lenses, but I am to mainly focus on book lenses.
Armed with a little money I was able to do some coupon shopping this week.
First stop was Wal Mart. I only bought 2 items, and used 2 coupons. I used my free coupon for Jif on The Go and a $1 coupon off U by Kotex pantyliners (this made them .24). I went with .52 change in my wallet and spent .51 of it.
Next I was off to Walgreen's. I had $7 in RR's from a previous trip that I didn't post about to use before they expired.
I bought:
Revlon Nail polish for $3.99--rec'd back $3 in RR's
2-Sure deoderants, on sale for 2 for $3 with Walgreen's coupon and I used 2-$1 coupons making them .50 each.
Pert Plus 24.5 oz shampoo on sale for $3.99--used $1 coupon and got back $3 in RR's.
2-Brach's Mellowcreme candy on sale 2 for $3--I had one .50 coupon to use and got back $1 in RR's making them $1.25 per bag
I used my 2 previous RR's since I didn't have a coupon for the 2nd bag of Brach's or the nail polish.
I paid $4.61 OOP with $1.13 of that being sales tax. I walked out with $7 in RR's to spend later. I saved a total of $12.50 with coupons and Walgreen's coupon.
Please note: I do not count what I get back in RR's off the price since I use them as coupons on future purchases.
Next I was off to the grocery store (Dillon's) for a few items.
I bought:
3 boxes of Hamburger Helper on sale for $1 each. I used .75/3 coupon (doubled to $1) making them 3 boxes for $2.
2- Suave deoderant at $1.06 each. I used 2- .50 coupons (doubled) making them .06 each.
1-Idahoan boxed potatoes--used free coupon that had previously printed out at the register.
I spent $2.51 including .39 sales tax. I saved $4 with coupons for a savings of 75% including sales.
I also want to mention a previous trip to Wal Mart as well. I've sent my receipt off in a refund but want to talk about my good deals.
I used my free Pantene coupon for a full size conditioner.
I used 2-$2/2 any Pantane coupons to get 2 shampoo and 2 conditioner in the travel sizes. This left me with .12 total in overage.
I bought my Carnation Instant Breakfast with a $1 coupon making it $3.96
I bought 3 canisters of Scotch Brite Botanical disenfecting wipes at $1.62 each. I used 3-.50 coupons making them just $1.12 each. I then sent for the buy 3 get 1 free refund check. Taking away the .44 spent on the stamp I will net $1.18 (assuming they send the $1.62 price pre-coupon). This makes each one of them just over .72 each!
Pull-Ups Flushable wipes using $1 coupon making them .64
This is where my memory fails me and I am kicking myself for not making notes before sending off the receipt. I only wrote down that I saved $15.28 with coupons. The above items total $11.28 in coupons so I'm not recalling $4 in coupons somewhere.
Anyway, I spent $25.22 and saved $15.28 in coupons so I was quite happy with my shopping. I bought things like cat food without any coupons at all.
I plan on getting right in to my coupon shopping. In fact, I got in 60 coupon binder pages with a bonus of 22 coupon inserts today that I bought from http://www.momsaves.com I'm currently going through the inserts --they are older and many of the coupons have already expired--but I'm excited to start putting my binder together.
This week I did work on some things at home. Mostly birthday gifts for my 3 granddaughters that all have birthday's this month. Today I made the last of the jewelry for Araya. I still have her doll blanket to put together.
I did a post with pics of Ariel's gifts if you are interested, you can check it out here:
Otherwise, it's still working for church. I didn't take a photo this week, but I did get started on putting the gingham strips together for a jelly roll quilt.
We met for a second time this month yesterday. We are working on a quilt that will go to Global Missions. It's a group effort.
Here is the jelly roll top that I made and showed in a previous WIP post. The gal on the right put on the edging and added the happy face to it. The gal on the left and a couple of the other gals will now put the middle and backing on.
This is the quilt we are working on for Global Missions. This is also a group effort on the cutting, ironing, sewing together of squares. I will have another picture when we complete it. After we got this far we decided we needed another row on the bottom. I've brought it home along with strips. My homework is to finish this part of the top by Sunday.
Here is Marilyn sewing on the edging of the strip quilt top that I made. I like to do the tops and let the others do the finishing....which why it might explain why I don't do the greatest job finishing. A couple other gals usually do the pinning and tieing. Below that is the finished product. The brown backing and brown ties look great with it. It's now ready to be donated to the Domestic Violence Center.
Until next week---please click the buttons below and follow along with the blogs that I link up with.
This is a quick giveaway given by UPrinting.com.
Winner will receive:
250 Personalized Stickers for One (1) Winner
2" x 3.5"
70lb Label Matte, Front Only Printing, 4 Business Days Turnaround
Only open to residents of the United States 18 years old and older.
Uprinting offers FREE PRINTING TEMPLATES
Choose your own PERSONALIZED STICKERS
To enter to win a set of personalized stickers, leave me a comment letting me know what you will choose to have on your stickers.
For additional entries, leave a comment for each of these:
Like/follow UPrinting on facebook
Follow UPrinting on twitter
Join Giveawayblogs.com
Subscribe to my blog by email.
Like Marsha's Spot on facebook
This giveaway ends at 10:30 pm CST TONIGHT August 15, 2011. Winner must be available to respond as soon as chosen so that I can forward the information to UPrinting. Good Luck!!
Disclaimer: Required as per FTC Ruling This giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting, no monetary compensation was given and I will receive stickers from http://www.uprinting.com/sticker-printing.html for hosting. Check out product templates http://www.uprinting.com/print-templates/labels/ on UPrinting.com.
Seems it was a fairly good week in the mailbox.
Magazines: Sports Illustrated, People, Time, Businessweek, Ok!, Martha Stewart Living
Yep...that's a whole bag of Coke product caps and a few 12 pack codes sent to me by an online friend!
Mott's for Tots coupons from Vocalpoint
Free coupon for Touch of Gray or Just For Men
3 more Wedding cards---we are loved :)
Idea Book from History Channel
Wild Rice Cookbook and Bag of Minnesota Wild Rice (this wasn't really free as it was a state exchange through a blog and I sent out a package of Kansas items)
Several other pieces of hausernet mail (I got some at my mom's too but I can no longer log in to that account so they must have finally closed it down)
I'm excited about what came in my email this past week:
$7.35 paypal from squidoo
$80 paypal from gather and
a craft order from my etsy shop!
I am linking up with afrugalfriend.net
