Easy Crafts

 Made a bracelet with matching necklace for the 5 to 7 girls age group.  My favorite elastic string for making these is the Stretch Magic brand which I found at Michaels.  I used the .7mm.  Found the beads new in package at my favorite local thrift shop.  I used clear nail polish to cover the overhand knot used to join the pieces.

Also made some hair elastics / bracelets from decorative elastic by Dritz.  Was lucky enough to find these 3 colors new at the same thrift shop.  I used clear nail polish to seal the edges of the elastic.

Red & Green

Found these two guys recently at a Tuesday Morning in their clearance section.

  They were $1.19 each. 

Hamster Dance

Yesterday at my workplace's garage sale I found these cute little stuffed hamsters.  There were 4 in a bag for $1.00 and I got about 100 of them total.  Now I have this incredible urge to find a trampoline, dump them out and jump around so I can see them fly all over the place.

  How old am I?

Target Toothbrushes - Janelle's Surgery & Walgreens

Ok, so sorry this post is about a week later than it should be and I doubt these toothbrushes will still be available.  However, any that are left may be marked down further :)  Target clearance had 10 OralB toothbrushes for 4.98 which is around 50 cents each.  Last year I got the marjority of my toothbrushes free or for 25 cents each but this year I am just not having the same experience with couponing and clearances so I have settled for the 50 cents per toothbrush hoping to find additional deals that may be better during the year of course :)

Well, one of the reasons I did not post the toothbrush deal sooner was my daughter Janelle's shoulder surgery last week.  She is doing great by the way.  Well, when I was waiting during her surgery they placed me in a room with a woman who saw me crocheting and asked what I was making.  I explained how I had been using my mom's leftover yarn to make small purses for the OCC boxes.  She had heard of the boxes through Samaritan's Purse and thought what I was doing was great so we struck up a conversation.  I assumed she also filled boxes due to her interest but in reality she herself doesn't fill any but was quite aware of what small things like that can mean to an child who has very little to nothing to call their own.  She had lived in small rural areas in China for 4 years and mentioned how valuable a zip closure bag is to the people there because of the humidity.  I guess they store what is valuable to them inside to protect them from moisture.  So I thought I would include at least one in each box.  I purchased a large box of the gallon size at Sam's club.  She mentioned that the plain zip ones hold up the best because the ones with the little red sliding thing don't hold up as well because the red thing tends to break off after many many uses.  I really enjoyed talking with her because she was involved in marketing items that women in those small communities made so that they could receive some income for their families.  Too bad I didn't ask her name :(

Finally, this week I stopped at a few Walgreens stores in hopes of finding great clearance selections.  I found one lone doll for a little girls box.  She was around $ 3.50 which I can't afford for each box but grabbed this one hoping it would find her way to just the right little girl.  I won't be including the bottle because it contains liquid.



What I found at JcPenney's Today

These sets of bracelets were "Best Price" $1.00 each.  I got them free because I was purchasing other things for $ 8.00 and had a $10.00 credit card monthly reward certificate - I love those things now that they have prices that end with no cents.  Paid nothing - not even sales tax for any of it :)

Love to put plastic bracelets like these in the 2-4 year old little girl age group.

Meijers & Dollar General Finds

These combs are my very favorite to send in boxes because they have one end that has larger spaces between the teeth and one end that has smaller spaces and you never know what type of hair the child who receives your box will have.  They were on clearance at Meijers last week and I grabbed the last 7 which was nice but I am afraid since they are clearing them out I may have to find a new favorite comb.  I needed to anyway because even on clearance these are still $1.51 each.  Still - if I stop at any other Meijer stores I'll pick up whatever I can. 

The handkerchiefs were $1.00 for 2 in the Dollar General clearance aisle but their quality was not as good as last years there.  Still I love to give one in each hygiene kit.  There were Valentine items also on clearance for 50% off so there were packs of these heart shaped pencil sharpeners for 50 cents.  I always send pencil sharpeners in small plastic bags so it is easier for the kids to keep the parts together - especially in a case like these heart shapes because the clear lid didn't fit snug enough to always stay on if it was tumbling around with the other stuff in their box.

Michaels $5.00 Coupon Find

Thanks to my friend Kathy's facebook post I realized Michael's had a great $ 5.00 coupon off of a $ 5.00 purchase!  The coupons were only good for this past weekend but wanted to show what I found.  Ended up paying $ 2.12 for these four items with two transactions (roped Bill into helping).  I have never sent watercolors in a box before but had read on someone's blog that the kids like to receive them so I gave them a whirl :)  Hopefully I can find some extra paint brushes to include - Maybe I'll check out our new and improved Dollar Tree.