Armed Forces Appreciation Collector's Bills from Swagbucks!

Swagbucks has been my favorite way to earn extra money online, and now they're also helping us commemorate the armed forces. Swagbucks just released the Armed Forces Appreciation Collector's Bills, just in time for the Memorial Day weekend. They're live now until Sunday, June 1st at 11:59pm PT, so you have until then to collect all 5 Bills. Each Collector's Bill celebrates a different branch of the armed forces, and if you collect all 5, you'll automatically receive a 15 SB bonus!

So how do you collect them? It's easy, just use Swagbucks Search as your normal search engine, and you'll randomly win different Collector's Bills - plus Swag Bucks each time you get a Bill! Why not get a little extra towards a free gift card for just searching online? If you haven't gotten free gift cards from Swagbucks yet, sign up here to get started and collect all the Armed forces Appreciation Collector's Bills!

I found the Marines today for 12 Swagbucks!!

Frugal Friday With Marsha 5/23/14

It's raining, it's pouring....it really is pouring rain outside and has been for well over an hour.
Of course it's stormy and rainy, it's Memorial Day weekend when most people are planning bbq's and camping trips......sigh.

Actually, I am perfectly fine with the rain.  It's very good for my gardens.  It also saves me money on the water bill from having to go out and water.

I'm sure glad that I chose to keep doing laundry yesterday since I dry it on the line.  I don't have anything in the laundry room to wash, but I do have 4 loads on the table to get put away.
That darn laundry, just like dishes, seems to be a never ending task.

How have you been doing on frugal living, saving money and such this past week. 
We've had to learn to make due in a lot of areas due to just not having money to spend.
Meals this week have been split in 2 and eaten 2 nights.

My hubby did make a big purchase at the day old bread store.  They have chosen to close it to everything is 25% off plus he got his normal 15% discount on top of that too.  What he brought was $43 before discounts and $26 after.
He got jellies, honey, lots of spices, condiments, salad dressings and crackers.   At least if nothing else, we are now stocked up on those things.  (I do wish he had come home and got me and let me shop with him-----he bought one of every one of their large spices, but half of them I've never used before so I doubt I will)

Let's see some links!  Encourage me as well as others to save save save.
Thanks!

An InLinkz Link-up

Squidoo Hopping 5/22/14

Let's get this party started!
School is out for summer here.  For me this means more time at home since I won't have the worry of picking up the grandkids from school for a few months.  Woot!
Hopefully for me this means that I can finally start making my goal of working in squidoo daily.

I received 2 books in for review this week.  Both will make great review lenses.  I still have the one book that been on hold to get done first. 
There's always updating that I can do to my lenses.
I've not updated my latest 10 lens and I've built like 15 lenses since my last update on that one!
Maybe I can make my goal to change out just one per day until I get caught up.

Speaking of that.....I had been using a website to get coding instead of using the featured lens module.
It seems that we can't use that site now without paying?   That may only be right since that person does put a lot of work in fixing up the coding and such.
Should I just go back to featured lens modules then??   Or, do they even still exist??


Let's get to sharing.   I think I will share my 2 bottom lenses this week.

An InLinkz Link-up

WIP Wednesday 5/21/14

Whoa!  Life is spinning out of control crazy!

I only have one photo to show today.  It's my scrappy log cabin table runner.  I now have the binding sewn around and ready to hand sew down.

I did finish up the quilt for church as well as my scrappy log cabin wall hanging.
One of these days I will get a post up with all of my finishes for the year so far.....some day.

I didn't find time to get in any more work on my Goodnight Irene quilt.  Cross your fingers for me that I can relax and have some down time to concentrate on that this week!

I didn't get a picture of the wall hanging.  I had to push to get it done before Monday morning as it will hang in our museum until the end of July.

So, here are my lists---  Will I ever even start on my NewFO's to be able to move them to the UFO's list?

UFO's:
(finished) Log Cabin quilt
(finished) Log Cabin wall hanging
Log cabin table runner
Rectangle quilt
2 rectangle table runners (one done)
challenge wall hanging
GoodNight Irene quilt/wall hanging
(finished) Quilt for sewing club at church
 (Finished) Applique Bunnies quilt
 (Finished) Penny Patch Quilt
Yo-Yo Table runner
Hexagon table topper
(Finished) Spoolin' Around
Emerald Island Fusique table runner

NewFO's
Sunflower table runner and matching placemats
Spiderweb quilt
Easter wall hanging
Cat wall hanging
Christmas bags (total of at least 25)
Braid table runner
Sunflower pillow
Christmas wall hanging
Five and Dime quilt
Chevron quilt


I am linking up with the following blogs:

Frugal Friday with Marsha 5/16/14

This week has been spending a lot of time in the garage attempting to prepare for a garage sale that starts tonight then goes tomorrow.
A task that I should have been working on for a month!
I have had 2 aunts die in the last year and we put my mother-in-law into a home. This means that I brought stuff home from both my Aunt Donna's and my Aunt Thersea's and hubby has busily been bringing stuff home from his mom's house since her house is now sold.
What a mess!!

I really feel the need to put an ad in the newspaper to advertise our sale. I don't feel the need to pay the $26.25 that they want to only say Multi-family garage sale, our address and the day and time! That is highway robbery, as my mom says.
We don't have high ticket items to sell and usually I would be lucky to make $20 at a sale, if even that!

I've put the ad on craigslist. I've posted it to my status in facebook as well as to the local garage sale group. We also have a local buy, sell and trade facebook group. They co-own a website called BST Exchange. I've put the ad on the exchange and then posted the ad to that group too.
My mom is calling in to the local radio talk show this morning to advertise.
We then have a few signs made up to hang on some corners. Will it be enough? I can only hope and pray that it will.

Garage sales are so much work for such little turn over, at least for us they are.
I need to look through what is left of my couponing stash....I know I have some toothpaste and shave gel in excess and that generally will sell.


Last week I bought groceries at Walmart and spent $40 ($39.19 to be exact) on what seems like so little.
I bought:
16 lb bag of cat food
bagels
whipped cream cheese
8 pack of frozen burritos
sour cream
bag of salad
taco sauce
2 cup bag of shredded cheese
Carnation Instant Breakfast
.98 box of mini chewy sweetarts
gallon of milk

I've found myself wishing I had shopped at Aldi instead. In fact, when I get $40 again to spend I'm going to go to Aldi and experiment.
I know I can't get the sweetarts, but I can find some other sort of candy. They also don't sell my breakfast drink so I will have to know to take off $5 for that. I will be sure to post my results once I do.

Groceries are horribly priced these days! I'm working towards catching up with cutting and sorting my coupons once again. It's a must that I start paying attention to what is on sale and price matching and matching coupons as well. $40 a week for groceries is about my limit on what I can spend. As you can see from my list that $40 only really covered 1 meal and breakfasts, plus feeding the cats.
I could only do that last week because of the meats I got on markdown the week before.
It all works out in the end, but I'm missing my bargain coupon shopping.

How has your frugal week been?

An InLinkz Link-up

Squidoo Hopping 5/15/14

Shouldn't it be squidoo payday today?  Maybe that just comes later in the day.   I don't expect much, but I did have a couple of sales recently.

This past week I read a post on bubblews by another lensmaster.  She wrote that another lensmaster had been prompting her to update her profile.  Mostly to add in a link to her bubblews profile.
This motivated me to get in to squidoo and update my own profile.

I changed it up just a bit and then did add a link to my bubblews profile page. (although I sure with bubblews would be up more than it's down).
While there I also switched up the 5 lenses of mine that you see down the side as well as add my google+ link and changed a couple of those other website links too.

This week, if you don't mind, let's do something different in the linky.  For one of the links that you share, please make it your profile page.  I'm interested in what others have for their profiles.

When I'm returning comments, I also open the person's profile page in another tab before approving the comment.

Thanks gang!

An InLinkz Link-up

WIP Wednesday 5/14/13

Life is so crazy right now!  My daughter took on a full time babysitting job.  This on top of finishing up her schoolwork to be graduated this year.
We've had one yard sale and really must have another one this Saturday.
Always the usual things that I do, but add in the extra taking Jasmine to the babysitting jobs and picking up grandkids at school.
It's surprising that I've gotten anything done and home and I have to be thankful for my times away from home to sew.

Friday was sit n' sew at the quilt shop.   It's from 6-10 pm.   I took my hexagons.
I learned my lesson that you don't work on them that long in a stretch.  I thought my thumb and my thumbnail were both going to fall off from holding down to get them stitched.
I didn't get any pieces put together, but I have 4 sets of flowers ready to put together.  They are in the bag.
Otherwise you can just look at my box and know this truly is a forever project.

Here are all of my 4 patches that will eventually be 16 patch squares for the Goodnight Irene quilt.
I'm to the point of squaring these up.   I still hope to get the 2 rows of blocks together and sewn on to catch up to what I should have done by this month.

A couple of evenings in front of the tv and computer I cut up 4 extra large t-shirts and got the middle braid started on a rug to make with them.  I'm thinking the 4 extra large shirts will make a rug all their own.   I still have another rug started in another bag as well that didn't get worked on.
I did pick up some more fabric strips to add to that bag yesterday.
Oh, that cute sewing/craft basket I picked up at a yard sale for $5.  I really bought it for the $8 cone of cotton yarn that was inside it.  I decided that cute basket is a lot better than the usual bag I have sitting by my desk while I work....decorative too.
It was also filled with other yarn and knitting supplies.  I won't use those so they are packed into a bag to put out for sale at the yard sale.

Yesterday was sewing club day at church.  After months and months of working on this quilt, I am finally to hand sewing the binding down.

Finally we are down to my current lists.  Hopefully I can check off a couple more by next Wednesday.  This is only sewing and not my rug making or other crochet and such projects.

UFO's:
(finished) Log Cabin quilt
Log Cabin wall hanging
Log cabin table runner
Rectangle quilt
2 rectangle table runners (one done)
challenge wall hanging
GoodNight Irene quilt/wall hanging
Quilt for sewing club at church
 (Finished) Applique Bunnies quilt
 (Finished) Penny Patch Quilt
Yo-Yo Table runner
Hexagon table topper
(Finished) Spoolin' Around
Emerald Island Fusique table runner

NewFO's
Sunflower table runner and matching placemats
Spiderweb quilt
Easter wall hanging
Cat wall hanging
Christmas bags (total of at least 25)
Braid table runner
Sunflower pillow
Christmas wall hanging
Five and Dime quilt
Chevron quilt

I am linking up with the following blogs:

Frugal Friday With Marsha 5/9/14

We are back to Spring like weather here in Kansas after a 4 day heat wave.  For myself, I really enjoyed the 97-100 degree temperatures.
It goes from that back to a high of 80 yesterday and a high of 75 today.....and me putting my sweater and jacket back on.
We did get rain last night which was nice.  I don't have to run up our water bills to water the gardens today.

The flower gardens are looking nice.   Usually I only have about 8 or 9 Irises to bloom.  This year I have over 50!
Here is a picture of what is bloomed in the garden out by the front curb:

The food gardens are coming along.  The peas are growing nicely and I put in more seeds this week.
The tomato plants are thriving and starting to flower.
I finally got the cucumber, lettuce, and spinach seeds planted this week.  They are all starting to pop up.
The strawberry plants look good and I hope soon will start having fruit.
I planted too early and then we had a frost and it killed the 4 small bell pepper plants I had bought.  However, 2 of those are greening and leafing up from the bottom, so maybe all isn't lost.  It's just that they are so small that it will be end of summer before they will produce.
The onions are huge.  I used one in goulash the other night, freezing what I didn't use.  I need to get out and pick and freeze the rest of the onions.  The tops are out to replant.
I will try to remember and get food garden pictures for next week and give another report.

How has your frugal week been?

An InLinkz Link-up

Squidoo Hopping 5/8/14

Another Thursday is upon us.  The days sure pass by quickly for me anymore!

I did get to updating 2 of my lenses yesterday that needed the amazon links taken care of.  Both are some of my This Day in History series. (Some day I really do want to complete the series with all 366 days of the year!)
One was easy, it only had 22, so choosing 2 amazon to remove wasn't hard at all.
The other one had 32 amazon links, so choosing 12 to remove was a little more tricky.

How is your spring?  We just had a heatwave for 4 days here in Kansas with temps between 97 and 100!  We thought we had gone from winter straight into summer, but it's cooler now.  The next week or so highs are to be in the 70's and 80's.
I do admit to loving the heat, but now looking forward to the break from it for a bit.   100 degrees sure beats being cold for me.

I look forward to what you will share with us this week.

An InLinkz Link-up

WIP Wednesday 5/7/14

Since last Wednesday my WIP mostly has been getting ready for the yard sale that we had on Saturday.

Saturday during the sale I did get a new rug going:

Since then I have cut up more t-shirts and fabric strips for future rugs.  I love making these.

Last night I took the time out to get the borders on my log cabin wall hanging and table runner.

Notice baby kitty laying on top of the couch?  Too sweet  hehe
We only have 2 more kittens to find homes for now.  Now I wish I knew how to find homes for the older ones as well.

No finishes this week and I didn't add any more new projects to my list either  :)

UFO's:
(finished) Log Cabin quilt
Log Cabin wall hanging
Log cabin table runner
Rectangle quilt
2 rectangle table runners (one done)
challenge wall hanging
GoodNight Irene quilt/wall hanging
Quilt for sewing club at church
 (Finished) Applique Bunnies quilt
 (Finished) Penny Patch Quilt
Yo-Yo Table runner
Hexagon table topper
(Finished) Spoolin' Around
Emerald Island Fusique table runner

NewFO's
Sunflower table runner and matching placemats
Spiderweb quilt
Easter wall hanging
Cat wall hanging
Christmas bags (total of at least 25)
Braid table runner
Sunflower pillow
Christmas wall hanging
Five and Dime quilt
Chevron quilt

I am linking up with the following blogs: