Has anyone else out there gotten into couponing? I'm not talking the tv style, hoarding, buying 100 of the same item cause you got it for pennies sorta couponing. I'm talking about looking for good deals and buying items you know you will use in the next 6 months. Well I have! A friend and I took our first big shopping trip last Friday night. We live in a itty bitty town with very little shopping. Rite-Aid and a local grocery stores are the only one that have rewards program or double coupons.

Going with a friend is so much more fun! We were able to pitch in together to get better deals. Plus, two sets of eyes are better than one when it comes to spotting deals and making sure it rings up right.

So what did I get? This is what I came home with:

Any guesses on how much it cost? Here is the run down of items:

3 loaves of the fancy bread

3 boxes Capri Suns

2 boxes Cheezits

1 box Triscuits

1 box Wheat Thins

2 gallon jugs of Lipton Ice Tea

1 liter of Pepsi

6 pack of Snapple

2 half gallons of milk

2 v-8 Splash juices

Go Lean Crunch Cereal

4 bottles Suave body wash

2 containers Clorox wipes

5 apples

1 mini watermelon

3 jars Pace Salsa

2 packages Ballpark Angus hotdogs

1 Hormel Half ham

4 Big cup o Noodles

2 bags shredded cheese

5 lb bag of sugar

3 containers Noodle thing (its really good, Yakisobi or something like that)

2 tubes Nestle Choc. Chip Cookie Dough
2 bags Safeway Granola

$78.93! I estimated us saving 56%. Not bad for beginners. And not bad for buying a handful of things that weren't killer deals but that I needed. The grand total for the night was $357.15 in food and products, but we only paid $157.99!

It was a lot of fun. I won't lie, it does take time. But it is worth it once you start seeing the savings.

Thanks for stopping by! My time lately has been consumed by sick kiddos and getting sick myself! I'm hoping we are done with the bugs for a while and life can get back to normal so I can get back to my crafting and scrapbooking!

The Team Layout

My photo system is quite a disaster. Between my thumb drive breaking, getting a new camera, then getting a new SD card for the camera, I have photos scattered everywhere. The thought of how much time it will take to get it all organized and backed up has me scared so I have continued to ignore it.

A while back I created this layout for a challenge at the Birds Of A Feather Kit. Co crop.

This line by Fancy Pants is quite old, but I still really like it. These pictures are from Chris's work. They had a decorating competition amongst all the branches for the Civil War (Oregon State vs Oregon). The girls did a fantastic job decorating up the branch and they all decked out in their favorite teams gear. We even brought the littles in all dressed up for a picture!
I love using pennants. I also created a 3-d star by cutting a star shape and scoring the back of it to pop up a bit.
Part of the challenge was to use a quote. This is the quote I chose. Chris has such a great team of girls. They really work well together and for that I am grateful!
Another 3-d star!

Thanks for stopping by!

Couponing and Before & Afters

Hello all! I hope you all have sunny warm weather and are healthy! That is what I wish I had right now! It has tried to snow the last couple of days here. We've had a few flakes and cold cold temps.

At the beginning of the year I decided to attempt couponing a bit more vigorously than I had been doing. I ended up hosting a couponing class and learned a handful of VERY helpful tips. Recently a friend decided to get into couponing also and we have been bouncing ideas off of each other and going in on special deals together. Last week we were going to attempt a 'couponing' trip together. That didn't work out, but we split it up and did one store each. She went to Albertson's and I went to Safeway. This is what I ended up with:

4 All detergents, 8 bags of Doritos, 2 large jugs of Brisk Ice Tea, Snyder Pretzels, a tube of Crest toothpaste and a bag of Tyson Chicken fries. All of this for a grand total of $28.70! I saved over $55! Not too shabby for a beginner! Now half of the chips went to my friend and I stored all of mine up on top of the cupboards, out of the kids view. I don't buy chips very often, but they are a staple for our camping. Camping season is coming up quickly!

I have spent quite a bit of time cutting coupons and studying ads. Last night, Peyton wanted to join me. He asked for a pen and sat down and circled all the things he thought we needed. :-) So darn cute! You can't really see it, but he circled the crackers, raisins and Craisins. I elected NOT to show you the page with the candy! haha!
Poor Peyton and Maddy caught a tummy bug this weekend. :-( I felt so bad for them. So helpless, week and miserable. We were in the car headed out of town before we realized they had it. But thankfully we were headed to my moms. She was a lifesaver. She watched the kids so we were still able to go out for our traditional green bombers (green beers) at our favorite restaurant. She was up at 2, 3, 4 and in between helping Chris take care of Maddy. Where was I you might ask? Well, I was afraid of Peyton waking up and puking so I went back to lay with him. Apparently I sacked out hard and didn't hear the commotion going on all through the night.

Aren't these faces just sad?


Last weekend we tackled a home project. Chris finished it up yesterday and we both are LOVING the make-over. It isn't quite done yet, but here is what we have done so far.

The before, beige walls, NOTHING up for decor.
This is the after:
A pretty greyish blue on 3 of the walls and a deep blue on the back wall. It is VERY hard to get a good picture in a inside bathroom where there is NO, absolutely NO natural light. Notice the mirror. I found the idea to do this on Pinterest, here. We went to Lowe's and bought a couple 12x12 sheets of smaller tiles, cut them apart, and glued them on! All the items on the counter were picked up on vacations over the past 10 years. I plan on putting them up on the wall, just need to figure out placement.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cosmo Cricket Challenge and Catch Up

Hello all! I've been busy busy! I can't believe a week has passed!

Last week was Classified Appreciation week. I had good intentions of making something for wonderful staff at Peyton's school. But with the kids recovering from the sickies and me fighting whatever they had, I just could not get it done. I thought I'd make some brownies for the staff. Better late than never, right? So I swung by the Dollar Tree and picked up some little containers for the brownies. I saw the Cosmo Cricket's challenge for this week and thought flowers would make the containers so much prettier. Here is what I came up with:

I apologize for the bad pictures. At some point, I will find time to play with my camera and figure out how to take better pictures. My life will slow down, right?
And a close up. I cut the flower pieces out with my Cricut using the Flower Shoppe cartridge.

I doodled a line around the edge of the flowers to help them stand out a bit and glued a button for the flower center.

Here is a picture of the yummy brownies I made. Want the recipe? I'll share it soon! It is SUPER easy! I mean...SUPER easy! :-)

I have very little Easter and Spring decor. I was hoping to making something fun and new this year. But so far haven't had time. I saw an idea on Pinterest and figured it would do for now. The container was leftover from my Christmas Bazaar. It was a candlestick spray painted black with a vase glued on top.

Easy peasy and fun!

I was going through Peyton's backpack the other day and was looking at the work he had done. This is what I found:

Notice in the upper middle of the page and down the right side he wrote: I like my sister and mom becus tha cum to my sckool'. How sweet is that? It just melted my heart. I want to frame it! I have been going into Peyton's kindergarten classroom quite a bit lately. After my first couple times in the room I asked him if he was okay with me volunteering in his classroom. He said he wished I could go in there every day. He also enjoys it when Maddy comes with me. Maddy loves it and has no fear walking right into the middle of all the kids and plopping herself down right next to the other kiddos.

I have been wanting to do more crafts and projects with Peyton. I saw this idea on Pinterest and Peyton wanted to try it. We made one for each of the Grandmas and Great Grandmas.

Peyton did good for a while but lost interest fast. I think it will be little while before we attempt another project.

Looking for a new recipe? How about this one. I found it on Pinterest and tried it for the first time tonight. It was yummy! A definite keeper! If you follow me on Pinterest, I have a folder for Recipes and a different ones for recipes I have tried and liked.

I hope y'all had a great week and that your weekend is even better! Anyone have fun St. Patricks Day plans?

Cosmo Cricket Gift Bag

Wow...two days of posting in a row! I'm on a roll! Haha!

Cosmo Cricket posted a challenge on their blog to create a gift. For every project linked up, they will be donating $5 to an organization called KIVA. To see the challenge or find out more about KIVA, go to the Cosmo Cricket blog post here.

I have been seeing lots of Teacher appreciation ideas on Pinterest in the recent weeks. I have decided to send a little something with Peyton to give to his teacher every day of Teacher Appreciation week. I figured now would be a great time to get started on that! So I made a fun little bag. I'm not sure what will go inside, but there are plenty of ideas out there.
A closer up view. I used the DeLovely line from Cosmo Cricket. I should have taken a closer up as I zig zag stitched on both the top and bottom of the green piece. I cut a lot of slits and used my paper quilling tool to curl the little pieces. Up above I cut a piece from the strip tease paper. I then punched a circle and a couple butterflies to cluster up at the top. The ribbon is from the Cosmo Cricket Jack's World line.

I was visiting Izzy's blog the other day (if you haven't check it out, you really should. She is super talented). She announced she had joined the Paper Issues DT. Congrats Izzy! She also posted their current challenge and it just so happens I was able to combine it with the Cosmo Cricket Challenge! I just love it when that happens, especially when I am short on time! So I'm linking this project up to both!

The sickies have somewhat left our house I think. 3 out of 4 of us still have a nasty nose and cough. But for the most part are better. We may even venture out of the house for a while tomorrow and I CANNOT wait! I hope y'all have a great weekend! Thank you for stopping by!

So Kissable Layout

I'm back today to share another layout! I found this layout over at Pinterest and knew I wanted to lift it.

This is my adorable nephew. Every time I get to see him I just smother his cute little cheekies with kisses. I wonder how long he will let me do that?

Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Variety Challenge

It has been a while since I have been able to play along with The Paper Variety challenges. I have been home with sick kiddos since Sunday. After a couple days I was needing some 'me' time so I sat down and played with paper a bit. TPV's current challenge is a Bingo one. I love those kind of challenges! My bingo line was stitching, create a layout and use a die cut (the snowflakes are die cuts).

I have been struggling scrapping my Christmas (from 2010) photos. My mojo wasn't flowing so I went and browsed my Paper Play folder at Pinterest. This is the layout I used for inspiration, and this is my layout:
I used some of my Cosmo Cricket stash.

My poor kiddos have been hit by the sickies. It started with Peyton last week. He had a high temp, sore throat and nasty cough. It finally went away on Wednesday afternoon and he was able to make it back to school on Thursday. Unfortunately it hit Maddy on Wednesday and she is still struggling. :-( I caught her napping half in the recliner, half off.

Thanks for stopping by!

Homemade Kindle Cover

Hello! I posted this Kindle cover I made in the last post. I wanted to link it up to The Weekend Wrap Up Party over at Tatertots & Jello. Instead of editing the last post, I decided to repost.

Here it is:

I live in a small town. The shopping is very limited. I often have to get creative when working on projects. This is one of those projects. I saw a tutorial on making your own Kindle cover, but lacked access to the supplies it required. So I got creative and did my own thing! I found a hardback book at the thrift store as well as some felt like batting. I happened to have some beautiful Cosmo Cricket fabric already on hand.

First I cut the pages out of the book. I then hot glued the batting to the cover, followed by the yellow fabric. I cut a piece of chipboard to fit inside and covered it with fabric also.

Before hot gluing it to the book, I punched holes using my Big Bite and put eyelets in those holes. I strung some elastic through those holes to create the straps that hold the Kindle in place. I found the elastic at a garage sale over the summer.

I then hot glued the inside of the Kindle cover to the outside.

I wanted to make some sort of closure for it. So I grabbed one of my daughters hairbands and sewed it onto the back. I found a couple buttons and sewed them on the front to give the band something to wrap around.

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!