Earn Free Gift Cards during the Swag Feast Team Challenge

In need of some extra spending power as we head into the holidays? Swagbucks is holding a Swag Feast Team Challenge to help you earn free gift cards! For those of you who don't know what Swagbucks is, it's a website where you can earn cash back on everyday tasks you do online like shopping, answering surveys, discovering deals, and watching videos. You can even earn for searching the web! 

If you've never tried Swagbucks before because you didn't know where to begin, their Team Challenges are a great way to learn the ropes and earn points towards free gift cards and PayPal cash! The challenge runs from Monday, November 13th until 12pm PT on Friday, November 17th.

Here's how you can join the challenge and the site:  

1. Click here to join the challenge and be assigned to a team.

2. In addition to earning SB, you'll contribute to your team's total as you complete different activities on Swagbucks.

3. Check back on the page often to see the scores and what you've contribute so far.   

All members who participate and contribute at least 600 points to their team’s total will receive a SB bonus in the form of a SB Swag Up Rebate on their next gift card! 

Not only that, but if you sign up under me this month and earn 300 SB before December 1st, you'll get a 300 SB bonus!

Members of the 1st place team will receive a 100 SB Swag Up Rebate, members of the 2nd place team will receive a 50 SB Swag Up Rebate, members of the 3rd place team will receive a 30 SB Swag Up Rebate, members of the 4th place team will receive a 15 SB Swag Up Rebate, Your SB Swag Up Rebate will be made available on Friday, November 17th at 2pm PT and will expire on Thursday, November 30th at 11:59pm PT

Frugal Friday With Marsha -- One Thing Leads To Another

Per my usual self, I am easily sidetracked when I see something of interest on the internet.
Yesterday it was a push notification from Six Dollar Family.  The post was about her and her daughter moving into an extended stay motel.

They went from a 3 bedroom house to a hotel room.  I have thoughts of downsizing all of the time.  I look around at all of the stuff surrounding us in our own 3 bedroom house.

Frugal living and simple living go hand in hand.  Too many times I've tried to start sorting and getting rid of excess (and it's a LOT!).  Well, I've started on it again just with all of the stuff that is piled around me here at my desk.....under my desk, on the printers, under and around my chair, under and on a TV tray that sits by me.

So far I'm only sorting all of these sewing projects and misc fabrics and such, but it is a start.  It also needs to be a very good start to actually getting all of these sewing projects done.  I guess I just say wish me luck at this point as I'm realizing I only have a few weeks now to even get all of my Christmas gifts sewn!

Here are some coupons and other goodies for you this week.  I hope you find something useful.  And, good luck if you enter any of the sweepstakes.


 

 

 

 




FREEBIES

Free Amazon Baby Welcome Box ($35 value)

Free Subscription to Town & Country Magazine

Free Subscription to Outdoor Photographer

Free Subscription to Seventeen Magazine

Free Guardians of the Galaxy & Avengers Comic Books


SWEEPSTAKES

Win up to $5000 in the Wilton Candy Melts for You Sweepstakes

Win an iPad Pro & the Ultimate Prize Pack worth over $2,500

New Amazon Giveaway 11/9

Win $1000 Marshalls Gift Cards in the Holiday Sweepstakes

Get more free gift cards during November Swago with Spin & Win

The digital rewards site Swagbucks is celebrating Thanksgiving early with another big "Swago" promotion starting Monday, November 6th at 9am PT and running until Monday, November 13th! Swago is just like bingo, but in this case you're filling out squares as you earn points on their site for doing things you already do online. If you're thinking of trying Swagbucks, this is a great chance to learn all about how the site works and earn bonus points while doing it, meaning you can get more gift cards faster. Here are a few tips: 

• Each square on your Swago Board will contain an action item to complete. They can be anything from getting a search win, completing a survey, or just visiting one of our popular stores!
   
• Once you complete the action item in a particular square the square will change color signifying the action item is complete.
   
• You have until 12pm PT/3pm ET on Monday, November 13th to mark off as many squares as possible so use your time wisely.
   
• Be mindful of the patterns and their corresponding bonuses located on the right of your Swago Board. The patterns will vary in difficulty and bonus value. Once you’ve achieved a pattern, the corresponding “Submit” button will light up. You can have multiple patterns available for submission, however, you can only submit ONE pattern so choose wisely.
• Each activity you successfully complete on your Swago Board will give you anywhere from 1-20 spins on the Spin & Win Wheel. PLUS, when you submit your board for a bonus you'll get additional spins. The number of spins will depend on the pattern you complete. The wheel has all sorts of great prizes that you can win, and each spin is a winner!

The Spin & Win Wheel will be available all throughout Swago and you have until 11:59pm PT on Monday, November 16th to use all your spins. 

Fill up your board and then submit your pattern to get even more points - if you can fill in the whole board, you get a 500 SB bonus, which is enough for a $5 gift card from the retailer of your choice.  

Click here right now and click "Join" to get started! If you don't already have a Swagbucks account, you'll be able to quickly sign up; PLUS, if you earn 300 SB before the first of next month, you'll get a bonus 300 SB!

The 2017 Swagbucks Holiday Sale!

Swagbucks is offering double cash back at dozens of different stores (like Macy's and Target) during their 2017 Holiday Sale. Just go to this page to see all of the deals available and get the jump on your holiday shopping. There are 

In order to take advantage of the cash back, just create your Swagbucks account when prompted (it takes less than 30 seconds) and then you're all set! Your cash back comes in the form of SB points, which you can redeem for gift cards to places like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, or get PayPal cash!

As a special bonus, if you sign up through me you get a 300 SB ($3) bonus when you earn your first 300 SB before December 1st! This site's a great way to extend your shopping budget, especially around the holidays!

Frugal Friday With Marsha -- Church Rummage Sale Finds

I went to a quilt retreat last Friday and Saturday that ended up being real frugal since she changed the place to host and then the retreat was free!!  Because of being there, I missed putting out my Frugal Friday post last week.

In my previous post I wrote about the few things I had bought early from that church rummage sale.  We went back on Saturday for the $2 a sack sale.  I ended up with the items in the picture in 2 sacks, so just $4.

I got several pieces of clothing and socks for Amelia, a few pieces of clothing for myself, a couple of t-shirts to cut up for rugs and rags, misc dishes, hair bands, and even several little things that are now in my gift stash tote.

It's another busy Friday with it being my mom's payday, but I can't leave you without at least a few coupons to print, freebies to send for and sweepstakes to enter!  Good Luck!!

Free 2-Year Subscription to Field & Stream Magazine

LEGO Mini Model Build - Free LEGO Dog

Free Subscription to Diabetic Living Magazine

Free Items with the Kroger 25 Merry Days - Starts 11/24


Sweeps to enter:

Win a Nintendo Prize Pack

Win a Canon EOS Rebel T6 Digital SLR Camera & Lense Kit

Win Holiday Must-Haves from Spanx, Blistex, and Glade worth $85

Win a Country Sampler Holiday Home Prize Pack worth $600

Get $3 when you sign up for Swagbucks during November's "Three for Fall"

If you haven't tried Swagbucks before, you can get a bonus $3 for signing up during November as part of their Three for Fall promotion. Swagbucks is a rewards site where you earn points (called SB) for things you're probably doing online already, like searching, watching videos, discovering deals, and taking surveys. Then you take those points and exchange them for gift cards to places like Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart, Target, or PayPal cash. 

When you sign up through me this month, you can earn a $3 bonus! Here's how: 

1. Sign up using this link 

2. Earn 300 SB total before 12/1/17. You'll get a $3 (300 SB) bonus for it! 

3. If you want even more bonuses, you'll get a $10 (1000 SB rebate) bonus for making your first shop purchase! That's in addition to the SB you earn for every dollar you spend. 

That's it. It's super easy, and Swagbucks is for real. I use it myself, and I've earned over $3,000!  I cash in for PayPal and amazon codes and occasionally choose another gift card such as WalMart.   I use the PayPal to help with bills and to be able to attend my quilt retreats.  I mostly use the amazon I cash in for to keep our many cats in food and litter, but I also have saved for bigger items such as tablets, lamps, shelving, and even a sewing machine!

If you aren't a member of Swagbucks, you really are missing out.

WIP Wednesday-- Quilt Retreat

You know what kind of past week I've had when you see that I've not done a blog post since last Wednesday!

Friday and Saturday was the annual October quilt retreat hosted by the local quilt shop, Cottonwood Quilts.
I swore to the owner of the shop, and to myself, that if I wasn't done with the yo-yo projects that I would work on nothing else at the retreat.

Well.........I couldn't do that.  I did jump back and forth between the yo-yo's and a couple other things.
I soon figured out once again that I didn't have enough yo-yo's made to finish the projects.  I stopped, but only had enough left in green Christmas fabric for 3 more yo-yo's.  This prompted me to stop on the table runner and get started on the 2nd valance.  I figured that way I would know what was left for the table runner, if anything.

Here is a picture of the one finished valance as well as what I have done on the 2nd valance and the table runner.  It's my hope to finish these by this weekend.

In between working on the yo-yo's I worked more on the microwave hotpads.  I do have my sewing machine out and plugged in to hopefully finish those up today so that I can get them listed for sale in my Etsy shop.
The other thing that I did in between was to get several fabrics cut for the composition notebook covers that I am making for gifts this year.

One lady that comes to the retreats always tries to bring things to give us gift giving ideas.  This time around she brought in what she said is originally called a LeCou towel.  I'm going to call it a double towel scarf.  I went home Friday night and got out towels left from when I did the crochet top towels, and I've had 5 yards of the other fabric in my stash forever.
I wanted to make sure that I understood how to make it while she would be there to help me.  I didn't end up needing her help, and I think they will make great gifts and possibly something else that I can make to sell in my Etsy shop.

I found 2 more sites to link up to each week.  I hope you will check out all of the blogs that I link to:



Jo's Country Junction:  http://www.joscountryjunction.com/

KatieMae Quilts for BOM weekly linky.  https://www.katiemaequilts.com/blog/

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WIP Wednesday-- Circles and Yo-Yo's

Sewing time has been much shorter than I like as usual.  I'm still trying to figure out how to remedy that.
I've been looking forward to the quilt shops quilt retreat this weekend, but as of right now I don't have the money to pay to go.  I'm still in hopes of getting the money by tomorrow, but it's not looking promising.  I keep trying to figure out how to have pretty much the same sewing time at home as I would at the retreat.  It's pretty impossible and why I feel the need to the retreats and the hours of time that is dedicated just to sewing!

I put more rows on the Christmas yo-yo table runner until once again I ran out of yo-yo's.  I'm still making more with the hope that this time I finally will have enough to finish the table runner and then move on to making the 2nd valance.  Wish me luck!

By my figures I still have 73 more yo-yo's to put on to finish the table runner.

I've had a few down times while waiting to get more circles put together for my penny rug.  I'm hoping the next picture I get to share with you is some of the circles actually sewn on to the blanket for the rug.

I link up with the following blogs, be sure to check them out also.



Jo's Country Junction:  http://www.joscountryjunction.com/

KatieMae Quilts for BOM weekly linky.  https://www.katiemaequilts.com/blog/

Learn the Secrets of Drawing Cats With Observational Drawing

In this Classic Sketchbook you will learn the secrets of observational drawing of cats.

The book starts with the usual tools and materials.
Each page that you turn you will see an image of an actual artists painting or drawing of cats.  A large majority of these were drawn or painted in the 1880's.
The author then takes these and writes step-by-step on drawing them.

Now, the book is set into sections of the cats body.  You can see this lay out on the Cats Basics page.
If you are looking specifically on how to observational draw any of the body, the pages where you will find the pages for those instructions listed.  For example:  Ears pages 30-35 and Graceful Spine pages 14 and 50.

I love cats, however, I am not an artist in the genre of drawing.  I've never done any more than just doodle.   I've enjoyed looking through this book over and over to look at the artists images as well as thinking that I would love to know how to draw cats---looking at our own cats and drawing them.

I do not see this book as a starting point for learning how to draw animals, but more of a book you would buy if you already have the drawing basics down.  You would then be able to take this book and take the basics to a whole new level. 

I will continue to look into this book over time and read about the observational drawing and keep giving this drawing a try.

So far I've only tried one of the heads.  A start of one anyway.  Yes, you will notice right away that I am truthful is saying I'm not an artist in drawing.  I did pretty well on the ears and one eye using the book, but need to keep trying the other eye and the mouth area. 

In conclusion I would like to include an excerpt from the back of the book: "Not everyone who wants to draw cats in all their poses has a museum filled with masterworks nearby, and that is the purpose of this book.  We'e brought the masterworks to you, and noted artist, illustrator, and author Patricia J Wynne will help you observe, learn a thing or two about paws and fur, and capture what you see."





You may also want to check out the Classic Sketchbook: Botanicals as well.  It's another secrets of observational drawing book.







Disclosure:  I rec'd a copy of the book for the purpose of review.  I was not compensated in any other way and any opinions are my own.  Post does contain affiliate links.

Frugal Friday With Marsha -- Rummage Sale, Freebies and More

This week has just flown by.  My apologies for not getting a Frugal Friday post up last week.  I was busy at an all day lap quilt day.  We made lap quilts for the Pleasantview Home in Inman, Kansas.  Right when that event was over I headed back to town for the monthly sit n' sew night at the church.

We were served lunch at the lap quilt event and I just ran into the store and bought a $1 Lunchable for my supper at the quilt shop.

I was so busy last Friday that I totally forgot to load up my Friday Freebie from Kroger stores!  Last week it was free m&m's too, so I'm sad missing out on free candy.  This week it's free Idahoan Potato Soup, so don't miss out!

Free Idahoan Potato Soup at Kroger & Affiliates

Yesterday I posted about Daily Break.  I already went in today and played a little.  I hope you all have given it a try.  It's now on my to do daily list.  I can't wait to get enough points to trade in for an amazon gift card.  There are other choices as well as what to do with the points you earn for having fun.  I'm posting the image again that you can click on if you didn't get a chance to check it out yet.



The church where we take the children on Wednesday evenings for classes and activities is having a rummage sale tomorrow.   I love church rummage sales.  There is always so much to choose from, and that sure is the case at this one! 
We got to rummage Wednesday night.  Sure, there were loads of things I would liked to have picked up, but no need to buy things that we really don't need.

I ended up with a pair of Nike's for $1, 4 bags of thread for 50 cents each, a bag of baby bottles for $1, a sippy cup and toddler snack cup and a Pampered Chef sandwich maker.    I think I did well for just $5 total.

We will be going back tomorrow at noon when the clothes go on a sack sale.  We seen plenty of nice clothes, but for us, the prices of $1 and more was just too much to pay.  I'm hoping to find a couple pairs of good jeans for myself and maybe some winter shirts as well as baby clothes.

If you've not signed up for the Dollar Tree email list, I hope you will do that as well.  It's free and you will have the heads up on special products, get recipes and fun ideas, as well as coupons.



Last, but not least, this is a really good coupon that I want to share!  Buy one, get one free on Tum-E Yummies.   Our kids love these and it's great to have the bottles to refill with other drinks later too!
Hurry!!  This expires October 30!