WEEKEND GIVEAWAY!! Hello Kitty Hair Bow & More!

Welcome to HOT SUMMER GIVEAWAYS! I will be hosting 5 days full of great giveaways from various crafters around the internet!

Missed the other giveaway posts? There's still time to enter! The date next to them is the last date to enter that particular giveaway!

Day 1- Hot Summer Hair Bows, Bowtique Critique - 6/5

Day 1- Pretty Heart & Flower Hair Clips, Wild Sisters Bowtique - 6/5

Day 2- Embroidered 4th of July T-Shirt, Bass BowsandSews - 6/6

Day 2- Magnetic Bottle Cap Necklaces, Crafty Cousins - 6/6

Day 3 - Winners Choice of 2 pairs of Earrings & Matching Ring, or ECO Tote, Mama Lucso - 6/7

Day 4 - 4th of July Cake Topper Download, PickleMama Designs - 6/8

Day 4- Metal & Glass Bronze Pendant, Stina's Stuff - 6/8

Today's 1st giveaway comes from Bowards on Facebook. Bowards creates hair bow boards (get it?) to help keep the bows taken care of!

The Prize: 

1 Winner will receive both a $5.00 gift certificate towards a purchase from Bowards, and an adorable Hello Kitty bow!

Nitty Gritty Details:

• Check out Bowards on Facebook and LIKE the page.
• Post on her wall that My Frugal Family sent you!
• Leave a comment letting me know you liked her page, and include your EMAIL address. If there is no email address, I can't contact you!!

Additional Entries - To enter additional entries, please leave a new comment, otherwise, your entry only counts as 1 entry.

• Stop by Bowtique Critique on Facebook, and click LIKE, then post on the wall that My Frugal Family sent you!

There will be 1 winner drawn on Thur, June 9th from all the comments. 

Good luck!!!

Win It: FREE Recycled Glass Pendant!

Welcome to HOT SUMMER GIVEAWAYS! I will be hosting 5 days full of great giveaways from various crafters around the internet!

Missed the other giveaway posts? There's still time to enter! The date next to them is the last date to enter that particular giveaway!

Day 1- Hot Summer Hair Bows, Bowtique Critique - 6/5

Day 1- Pretty Heart & Flower Hair Clips, Wild Sisters Bowtique - 6/5

Day 2- Embroidered 4th of July T-Shirt, Bass BowsandSews - 6/6

Day 2- Magnetic Bottle Cap Necklaces, Crafty Cousins - 6/6

Day 3 - Winners Choice of 2 pairs of Earrings & Matching Ring, or ECO Tote, Mama Lucso - 6/7

Day 4 - 4th of July Cake Topper Download, PickleMama Designs - 6/8

Today's 2nd giveaway comes from Stina Jimerson, a metal working student! How cool is that? 

Stina is an MFA metalsmithing student, and there are basically three types of items she sells in her shop. The first type are the enameled pendants. She cuts copper sheet metal and form it into whichever shape she wants. 

She's a big fan of the domed rectangles she has in her shop. She feels like the shape looks very proud, like a figure with it's shoulder's back and chest out. Then she enamels them in a kiln, layering colors and patterns for a one-of-a-kind look. No two pendants could ever be the same, even if she did the exact same steps again. They always turn out slightly different. 

The second thing she sells are my glitter portraits. She takes pictures of people and animals (animals are her favorite to make!) and turn them into 8x10 portraits done entirely in glitter and glue (no paint). They are so fun to make and definitely make a statement! 

Lastly, and closest to her heart, is the line of recycled glass jewelry that she makes. She volunteers with an organization in her hometown, C&R Kuttbottle (crkuttbottle.blogspot.com), that functions as the only way we have to recycle glass. Its a very small group of people working to make a difference in our community. They collect glass bottles of all types from the community (mainly wine bottles) and repurpose them into sets of drinking glasses, windchimes, tea lights, and several other things. They sell these items at the farmers market and all the money goes to Habitat for Humanity. 

When the bottles break, which happens a LOT, the glass gets tumbled and broken into tiny, smooth chunks that are kind of like sea glass. This is the glass she uses in my jewelry. Since she can get it from there, she makes a donation to Habitat for every piece she sells. What started as a small idea has grown a lot in the last two and a half years. They calculated that they've saved thousands of bottles from the landfill and raised about $6000 for Habitat so far!

The Prize!

She will be giving away a small (slightly larger than a nickel) brass pendant filled with brown recycled glass. The picture is front view and back view.

Nitty Gritty Details:

• Check out Stina's Stuff on Etsy and sort through her items for sale.
• Leave a comment letting me know what items you like best, and include your EMAIL address. If there is no email address, I can't contact you!!

Additional Entries - To enter additional entries, please leave a new comment, otherwise, your entry only counts as 1 entry.

• Visit Stina Jimerson's Blog and and follow it!
• Stop by Bowtique Critique on Facebook, and click LIKE, then post on the wall that My Frugal Family sent you!

There will be 1 winner drawn on Wed, June 8th from all the comments. 

Good luck!!!

Hot Summer Giveaway - Day 2!

Welcome to HOT SUMMER GIVEAWAYS! I will be hosting 5 days full of great giveaways from various crafters around the internet!

Do you have something you would like to giveaway? See my full post here, and email me at Herberkids3(at)yahoo.com to participate!

Missed the other giveaway posts? There's still time to enter! The date next to them is the last date to enter that particular giveaway!

Day 1- Hot Summer Hair Bows, Bowtique Critique - 6/5

Day 1- Pretty Heart & Flower Hair Clips, Wild Sisters Bowtique - 6/5

Today's first giveaway comes from Bass BowsandSews! 

Start the summer off right with new hair accessories in hot Summer colors!

This prize is for a rocking 4th of July embroidered shirt that reads, "I ROCK the Red, White, and Blue!" in the winner's choice of size from Bass BowsandSews.

Check out Bass BowsandSews on Etsy and Facebook!

Nitty Gritty Details:

• Check out Bass BowsandSews on Facebook and LIKE it.
• Write on her wall that you were sent by My Frugal Family
• Leave a comment letting me know you LIKED it, and include your EMAIL address. If there is no email address, I can't contact you!!

Additional Entries - To enter additional entries, please leave a new comment, otherwise, your entry only counts as 1 entry.

• Visit Bass BowsandSews on Etsy, and let me know what your favorite item in her shop is!
• Stop by Bowtique Critique on Facebook, and click LIKE, then post on the wall that My Frugal Family sent you!

There will be 1 winner drawn on Monday, June 6th from all the comments. 

Good luck!!!

Free Flower Clip Giveaway

Lately, one of the things I've been doing in a crafty capacity, is making hairbows, flower clips, and headbands.

Well, once I get started, I just keep churning them out. So, to get rid of some of my excess, I'm hosting a contest through my Facebook page- refer 10 people, and get a free hair clip. Limit of 2 free clips per person. The clips are all hand done- I don't order premade clips, then sell them at a markup. I find flowers, take them apart, layer them, add buttons or gems to the center, line the alligator clip, and put them all together.

To sign up, simply refer people to the My Frugal Family facebook page, here.

To have your referral qualify, they must:

1. Be a NEW member to the Facebook group, not an existing member!
2. Post to my page WHO referred them- with your FACEBOOK name! You must also be a member of my facebook page!

The referral contest will run through Friday,  July 23rd. At the end, I'll count up every referral post, and ANYONE who has referred 10 people will earn a FREE Flower clip of their choice from my page. If you refer 20, you'll earn 2 free clips.

Shipping is free in the continental US.

Organizing and Cleaning

While I want nothing more than to sit back, watch a movie, and make something, I'm going to be disciplined today. No, I don't mean I'm in trouble. I mean, I'm going to MAKE myself start on my resolution of cleaning and organizing better.

On today's list is the easiest room to start with- my bathroom, which is also, incidently, the smallest room in the house. And probably one of the most cluttered. I have no more counter space. I have stuff filling all available spaces. Time to toss the almost empty bottles of stuff I've been saving for 2 years. Time to get the dirty clothing out of there.

Once my bathroom is done, I'm planning to start organizing my craft area. Pack away the Christmas crafts that never got done (Christmas themed, and while, yes, I could keep it out and work on it, frankly, I'm sick of Christmas crafts), and try to make space in there.

A side effect of doing this- I need to sort out books on my book shelf. I have a lot of specific books I keep, because I re-read a lot of stuff. However, there are a lot I don't plan to re-read at all. There is a used book shop in town, so I'll start sorting them out to take in to the shop. That will feed my book addiction nicely, because then I can pick books out for just $.99, instead of $1.99 or $2.99, or even $3.99 for some of them.

So, to recap:

1. Clean & organize bathroom. Put wire shelf in below the sink. Sort & discard half of the magazines (there must be over 100, they take up an entire shelf in my bathroom).
2. Sort & organize crafts by what they are. Pack away Christmas ornaments, and Christmas crafts. 
3. Sort the book shelves. Set aside all books I no longer want, for the book store. Relocate the books on my craft shelf (it used to be a book shelf, but I need the space, darnit!) to the new space on the other shelves.

Will I ever get it done? I hope so. I have a reward in mind. Tonight, the theater in Lansing is showing "The Christmas Carol" on IMAX for FREE to facebook fans. I'm a fan! I am! Mostly, because they do 1 movie every WED for free to fans.

I wanted to go during the day, but the only showing is just a smidge too close to allow me to arrive home before the kids get home from school. Nick said I can go tonight, though. But, I want some serious work done first.

Wish me luck! And no- you will not get photo updates, cause it IS -that- messy.

Frugal Find

Yesterday, Nick called me while I was out and about, and wanted to meet for lunch. We don't often meet up for lunch, as he works 35 minutes away from where we live, so I agreed, but first I had to stop for gas.

It's not often you find a great deal at the gas station, but boy did I luck out! When I first went in, I saw a coupon sitting on top of some candy bars for $1 off any 1 tab bag or theater sized box of Wonka candy. I glanced around, found no candy, but grabbed the coupon. I figured I could use it somewhere else for a good deal.

Luckily, as I went to pay, I glanced to the side, and found tab bags (the larger sized bags of candy that hang from a rack- apparently Wonka calls them Tab Bags) for the new Puckerooms (mushroom shaped sour gummy candy) and Sluggles (slug & bug shaped gummy candy), and a hang tab with more coupons for $1 off 1.

But it gets better. While the bags are marked $1.58 each, there was a sign- Wonka Candy 2/$2. I picked up 2 bags for free, and went out to the car, where I thought about stopping by later, so I could get more. Well, then I started thinking- if I wait, the candy or coupons or both will be gone, right? Ok, that was enough to convince me. I went back in and picked up 4 more bags.

These are pretty big bags, so I won't give them to the kids outright, way too big! But, I think I could easily separate 1 bag into 3 smaller baggies for the kids stockings. I'll do that with both of the types, so I'll use 2 bags. The other 4 bags will be used for Family Game Night & Family Movie Night.

All in all, not a bad deal, though- 6 bags of candy for the bargain price of $0.00!

Santa Buddies = Free?!?!?

This week, Santa Buddies comes out on DVD & Blu Ray. Target has the Blu-ray combo pack (which comes with the DVD version) on sale for $19.99. Additionally, there is a Disney coupon good for $10 off, making it $9.99 out the door.

To make the deal even sweeter, there are 2 rebates available, each worth $5 back. The first rebate requires the purchase of a Butterball Turkey, and the movie Santa Buddies. To qualify for this rebate, you need to send in a COPY of your receipts. It does NOT require the actual receipts. The purchases can be made at two different stores, they do not both have to be purchased at the same time, on the same receipt.

The second rebate is from Kernel popcorn seasonings. Buy any 2 Kernel Seasonings, and the movie Santa Buddies (or one of 3 others), and receive $5 back by mail. This rebate requires the proof of purchase tab from the movie, as well as from the seasonings, in addition to the actual receipts for the products purchased.

If you get the movie for $19.99, and are able to do both rebates, this is a FREE movie! This is good ONLY on the BLU-RAY version of the movie, which DOES come with the DVD as well. That means anyone can use it!

Frugal Fun Day

Yesterday, my insurance company hosted a free entry day to a local hands on science museum. I've been wanting to take Gilly, so we called up one of Nick's co-workers, and met her and her daughters at the museum. I was surprised at how few people were there.

While we were there, there were two parties. One was a birthday party with probably 20 kids. The other was some sort of after school group. When both groups were called to their party rooms, the museum basically emptied out, leaving just the 5 of us, and a few other people.

It was a fun little trip, and frugal as well, but it wasn't all that interesting. I love museums, especially hands on ones, and I was bored out of my mind. Gillian kept asking to leave, too, so I know she was also bored. I'm glad we didn't pay to go in. It was boring, but still fun to have gone, if that makes sense.

I had woken up yesterday with a horrid head cold, so that didn't help matters for me. I had a wretched sinus headache, and bright light hurt my eyes. The drive home was painful. While I was in Lansing, I stopped by Michael's Crafts to look for some new ideas. When we walked in, there were two booths set up, doing sort of a "How-To" booth. The first was "How-To" decorate cookies.

Here's this woman sitting, with probably 4 dozen undecorated cookies next to her, and probably 2 dozen decorated ones in front of her. Gilly, of course, was intrigued, and asked if she could have a cookie. No, the woman replied, she was not allowed to give them out.

I can understand why she isn't allowed to give them out- but then, why have so many? And why sit there, on a Saturday, in a store packed with mom's & kids, decorating cookies she can't give out? Why not decorate cardboard cutout's to show how to decorate cookies? Why use real cookies?

It just seemed odd to me that she would sit there all day decorating dozens of cookies, and not give them out.