Swago: Back to School Shopping Edition

If you still haven't done your Mother's Day shopping, here's a way you can get paid for finding a great gift for the moms in your life. 

Swagbucks is hosting another round of Shopping Swago! What is SWAGO you ask? It's a bingo-inspired promotion run by Swagbucks, a website that rewards you with points (called SB) for completing everyday online activities. You can redeem those SB for free gift cards. If you've never used Swagbucks, participating in SWAGO is a great introduction to the site and an easy way to earn a good amount of points quickly.  

Click here to get started! 

Here’s what you need to know to get your 200 SB Bonus (and don’t worry, you don’t have to make a purchase to complete a pattern):

• Shop Swago will begin on Monday, August 7th at 9am PT/12pm ET, make sure you hit “Join” otherwise you won’t get credit for completing the action items. Each square on your Swago Board will contain an action item to complete.
• Once you complete the action item in a particular square the square will change color signifying the action item is complete.
• You have a limited amount of time 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.
• The game ends Thursday, August 10th at 12pm PDT/3pm EDT. So make sure to hit “Submit” on the pattern you wish to submit. If you don’t hit “Submit” before the game ends you won’t receive your SB bonus.
  
  Also, if you sign up through me this month, you'll get a $10 rebate when you make your first purchase via Swagbucks Shopping! You can activate it in the "Swag Ups" area of "My Account"

p.s.  While playing Swago, also do your searches and collected the Back To School Collector's Bills for another SB Bonus!!

Frugal Friday with Marsha -- Back to Savings

It's hard to get back into routines after almost 2 weeks of being totally out of my routines.   This week I am sharing printable coupons, freebies, sweepstakes etc again, but I hope next week to just mix them in with frugal things that I have done throughout the week.

There are lots of great printable coupons right now.  I've chosen several, but all you need to do is click one to see all of them!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




Deals, freebies and more:

Free Subscription to Taste of Home Magazine

Free Sample of O My! Goat Milk Soap

FREE Men's Grooming Sample Box after Amazon Credit, BACK AGAIN

Free Airheads Bites or Bars at Kroger & Affiliates

10 Free Recyclebank Points

Pinecone Reseach is OPEN for Enrollment, Earn $3 per Survey

Papa John's BOGO Pizza Deal


Here are some sweepstakes for you to enter--Good Luck!

Win a $1,000 Target Gift Card and an Overachiever Kit

Win 52 Meal Kits from Chef'd worth $1,560

Win 1 of 5 Dell Inspiron Laptops in the Rent-A-Center Dell Sweep

Win a $75 Grocery Gift Card, NutriBullet Blender & More

Win 1,000 Instant Win Prizes in the Butterfinger College Game

The August Referral Bonus!!

It may almost be the end of Summer, but you can still earn big bonuses at Swagbucks, 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 9/1/17. You'll get a $3 (300 SB) bonus for it! 

3. That's it. It's super easy, and Swagbucks is for real. I use it myself, and I've earned well over $2500 in PayPal, Walmart and Amazon gift cards since joining Swagbucks !!  Recently I use my Amazon earnings to keep our cats in cat food and cat litter, but I've also been able to buy things like tablets and a sewing machine as well.  PayPal earned is used for whatever needs there are at the moment.

I love Swagbucks!!  If you aren't already a member, do yourself a favor and click the sign up link  :)

WIP Wednesday -- Quilt Retreat Report

I sure do love the quilt retreats.  I love how I get more sewing done in 2 (or 3) days than what I usually get done in a month.
I always come home and just want to keep on sewing, but life just doesn't allow me that  LOL

What to start with----I worked on several things, but only finished one little thing.  I guess that's a good starting place.

I wanted to see just how easy it was to make the composition notebook cover as I want to make those my Christmas gifts this year.  It was really easy, and here is the one that I finished.

5 years ago I had my daughter buy me the Braid in a Day Pattern with template when Pat Knoechel (Eleanor Burns' sister) was at our guild.   I had won a Moda Sweet Roll pack in a blog giveaway, so put it in the project bag with the pattern.   I finally pulled that down and took it to the retreat as one lady in our guild is a certified Quilt In A Day teacher and told me she would help me if needed.

Now that I know how to do the braids, I really look forward to doing more.  These are with the 1.5 inch jelly rolls instead of the 2.5 inch, and I plan to make 2 into a baby blanket and the 3rd one into a table runner.

I didn't get around to getting out my blue scraps, but I did take along my green string blocks and finished those up.  I still need to get to the blue before I start putting these together.

I brought along my flannel pieces and cut what I could from them as well as sewed some of them together---together as the 2 together, ready to start sewing rows.  I still don't have enough of either for a full blanket of either size so I will be on the lookout for more flannel when I am out and about.

I worked on adding yo-yo's to the first valance.  I have just 3 more rows to put on to finish the first one.  I'm back to making the yo-yo's for now, and dividing them into bags to ensure that I have some of every fabric in all 3 items.  I really need to work daily on these if I expect to have them done in time.

I feel very blessed to have won so many things at the retreat.  In the silent auction I won 4 rolls of wrapping paper, and the 4 charm packs that were in the basket.  The other small things were in a basket for everyone to take something free.  I was sent home with everything that was left in the basket.   I never won a single game of Left Center Right that we played with the 2.5 inch strips, but I was sent home with all of the strips that were left after we were done playing the game. (oops!  The strips aren't in my picture either, but there is a very large stack of those that I plan to use most of making more braids)

I also won another door prize on Sunday that I forgot to take a picture of.  It's a roll of 100% cotton batting and a bag of supplies that include quilt pins, pencils, chalk lines and a chalk marker.  I'm super excited about the batting because it means I can get back to making the microwave hotpads again.

The next retreat I get to go to is at the end of October, and I can't wait!


I link up with the following blogs:


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

Get Creative with Cut & Create Paper Mosaics

I've been really enjoying doing other crafts than sewing with some wonderful books that I've gotten.

Cut & Create Paper Mosaics is one of those books.  I like to call the mosaics paper-by-number.

The book, or kit, comes with 9 projects.  There are 3 beginner, 3 intermediate, and 3 advanced.

The book tells you how to get started, then a picture of each project with the instructions on the opposite page.  Then you will see each of the pages with the numbers.  This is for reference that I will talk about later.

The pack includes cardboards of the mosaics that you actually work on, as well as all of the colored papers that you need to complete each project.  On the back of the papers are the shapes that you need to cut for each project.  They are also numbered.

Of course I started with the first project, which is called Frog in Summer.  I'm not quite done with it, but getting pretty close.

I found this to be a nice break away from my devices, and very relaxing to work on.  As I said at the start of my post, it's so nice to have other craft mediums to work on too.  It's a welcome change!

I wondered why there were the pictures of the project also in the book.  It didn't take me long to figure that out though.  As you put the paper tiles on to your project, you end up covering up some of the numbers.  You need those pictures from the book to refer to to know where all the numbers are once you have covered some up.
You might notice in my picture below that I chose to mark off the number as I pasted the tile on.  I found this made it much easier to find my next number.

I can't wait not to get this project finished and move on to the next one in the book.

These are the tools you will need to work the Cut & Paste Paper Mosaics:

Scissors and or an X-Acto Knife and a self healing cutting mat.
This is a good time of year to buy those small school scissors at a good price.  I find them to be sharp enough even for my cutting fabrics.  You may want the mat and x-acto knife for the smaller pieces.

Glue sticks.  Again, it's a great time of year to stock up on glue sticks!

Standard hole punch.  I've not gotten to that part of my Frog in Summer, but many of the projects have you cutting circles.

Tweezers.  These are handy for placing the smaller paper tiles on to your project.

Envelopes.   I chose to cut each tile as I used it, but many choose to cut them all at once.  You will want an envelope for each color and number set in this case.










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