Hallmark Store $10 off $10 purchase coupon for moms or expectant moms!

Wow! This is a great deal. Register to receive emails from Hallmark stores here, and you will get a coupon to print for $10 off a $10 or more purchase. Many Hallmark stores carry popular gift items like Willow Tree figurines, Vera Bradley, jewelry, etc. Not to mention you could score free Christmas cards, wrapping paper, or an ornament for your tree. The coupon states that you can use it on sale items too.

By the way, I want to mention again that if you are signing up for email lists like these, I recommend you create an email specifically for receiving coupons and deals. That way your normal email won't be bombarded with emails from theses stores, but you can still get the great coupons and deals when you sign up for them.

I already signed up and printed the coupon out. It expires 12/24/10. Yay! I will definitely put this in my coupon holder for my next trip to the mall.

Thanks to moneysavingmom for the heads up on this great coupon.

Merry Christmas (35 days early)!

Help me get closer to a new camera!

Good morning, folks! I am going to try to post a deal or two later today, but this post is somewhat self-seeking. If I can get 15 friends to sign up under my referral link below for this web site hosting a contest, I will get a $25 Amazon gift card. I have been saving up my Amazon gift cards earned through Swagbucks to hopefully put towards a nice camera before this baby comes in February. So...cha ching! An extra $25 gift card in the pot would be awesome. If you don't mind, would you sign up under my link here?

http://www.itsthoughtful.com/christmas-gift-contest/4709/ln/

The site is a community site where subscribers can post their creative gift ideas. It's actually a pretty neat site, but, let's be honest, I'm in it for the perks. Once you sign up, you can turn around and try to get 15 referrals yourself. Need a free Christmas gift, anyone? This Amazon gift card would be perfect. Just FYI...if you try to get 15 referrals, I want to let you know that the site has been clear that they will limit the promotion to 400 free gift cards. So...if more than 400 people qualify, they will randomly select the winners of the gift cards. So it's not a sure thing...but we all know 15 people, so it's worth a try!

Thanks again for reading my blog. I'll have some Black Friday ideas up before the end of the weekend. Have a great Saturday!

Thanks also to moneysavingmom and Hip2Save for the heads up on this offer.

Creative and afforable Christmas wreath

I am sure there are lots of "how tos" out there on making your own Christmas wreath, but I saw this post this morning on moneysavingmom, and I fell in love. If you like boutique looking things without spending a lot of money (or too much time) this is for you.

Please read this post here from Dittle Dattle for instructions on making this monogram Christmas wreath.

Although her blog post involves power tools and wood (which I'm sure are great), here's my plan:

• Get free tree trimmings from Lowe's when we go buy our Christmas tree. They will usually let you gather any trimmings that fall from the trees as they cut the stumps off. So take a bag with you if you want to keep needles from getting all over your car.
  
• Use cardboard or some other heavy board that I can find, cut an "F" with Donny's box cutter, and have at it with the trimmings and some wire.
• Dig through my Christmas decor and see if I have any spare ribbon to hang it. I think I do, but if I don't, I'll take a 40% off coupon to a craft store and buy just what I need (which shouldn't cost much more than $1). BUT...I bet most of us could find some ribbon around somewhere (or hang it some other way...think out of the box!).

Now, for those of you who know where I live, you can check in a few weeks to see if I actually did it. I really do love this idea, and I need a new wreath. Check out my door on Dec. 1 and see if I followed through.

I would love to hear from you. What are your favorite frugal holiday tips? Feel free to comment on this post. Really, I would love to hear.

Merry Christmas! (38 days early)

A plug for Shutterfly...and a way to get free holiday cards

I love Shutterfly more than Snapfish. There, I said it. I have enjoyed Shutterfly's photo quality in their photo cards and calendars so much more. I also think their styles are amazing. You can use 1 picture or multiple pics in your photo card. I love those options. Check out their holiday photo cards here.

My favorite Shutterfly Christmas card was from two years ago (2008) when Hunter was 4 and Millie was 1 1/2. I was able to put three of my favorite pics on it - one of our family with Santa, one of the kids together, and one more formal family pic. That's what is so great about getting to choose multiple photos...you can put just about whatever you want on your card. I also loved the fun colors the card offered. The green on it was more of a lime green which matched well with some of the bright colors my kids were wearing. It was still red and green for Christmas...with a fun twist. I also love Shutterfly, because there are always coupon codes out there to get discounted cards. You can read about Shutterfly's current special offers here.

I also used Shutterfly to do Millie's birth announcement. I think I put 8 or 9 pics on it. Again, I LOVE the option of multiple photos. Take a look at their birth announcements here.

A favorite gift for Christmas is a photo calendar. I think someone in our family will be getting one this year, and I plan to go here to do it. Shutterfly really has a lot of options to make a calendar your own.

This year I am excited to get our Christmas card going...although I have no idea yet what picture I am going to use. Right now all we have are Halloween photos...so I guess I need to get that camera out. We'll see. At 29 weeks pregnant, I'm not too inspired for a photo shoot...but I know I need to get it done.

I honestly do prefer Shutterfly...so much so that I am blogging about them to get some free holiday cards. If you have a blog, you can get 50 free cards too! Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… learn more: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Ah ha! Now you know why I really wrote this post...free stuff. If you blog, you should do the same...and send one to me!

Merry Christmas (39 days early!)

Christmas Thoughts, Michaels, and Inexpensive Personalized Ornaments

I asked Donny the other day if I could turn on some Christmas music, and he promptly replied: "No. It's too early." Not too early for me, though. :) I get flutters every time I think about Christmas approaching...for many reasons. I love the lights, the decorations, the music...the spectacle. I know that many would blame all the spectacle on the commercialization of Christmas, but it still stirs my heart. Thankfully, it stirs my heart to worship Jesus, the babe and Savior of the world who was born on Christmas. He didn't get a lot of earthly spectacle when he was born. The heavenly spectacle...wow. Anyway, I figure if the earthly spectacle of Christmas stirs my heart to the Lord, then BRING IT ON!!!

Honestly, one of the other things that stirs my heart is a good deal...and there are plenty to be found this time of year. I am going to try to post more over the next few months (before my own babe comes) to keep you up with what I think the best deals are. This pregnancy has made me more picky about what a good deal is, so when I post you can know that it is a good deal...cause I just don't have the time and energy to post everything that comes along the way these days.

Anyway...back to why I am posting this morning. I LOVE personalized ornaments. My mom got my sister and I one every year from when we were three through our elementary school years. As a kid I loved hanging "my ornaments" up every year and finding just the right spot for them. Mom passed them on to me after I got married. Most of the ornaments have the year on them, but they are all different. Most of them have our names on them (except for the one that has our picture on it). BTW, remember that I am a twin, so I rarely talk about anything in my childhood (especially holidays) without referring to "us" or "our," because we did everything together.

Can you tell my kids are playing well together this morning? That's why I have the time to go all over the place in this post.

Back to the point...I have continued the ornament tradition with my kids. With each year that we had a new baby, I got a new family ornament at the mall personalized to show our new family with our new addition. I also did a personalized ornament at the mall one year for Hunter. When I went to pick it up, there was a mistake on it. I asked them to redo it. The lady asked me to wait for just a minute. I watched her scrape off the mistake and take a sharpie to fix it. "What???!!! You mean you just write the name on there with a sharpie? That's all???!!!" I don't know what I thought I was getting, but for $7-$10 per ornament, I thought it was something more than a lady with a Sharpie. If you have 2 or more kids that you are getting an ornament for, it becomes a very expensive endeavor to have them personalized.

After my "all you need is a Sharpie or a paint pen" realization, my ornament strategy changed. The next year, I went to Target and bought a Cars ornament for Hunter (age 3) and a Princess ornament for Millie (age 8 months), bought a white paint pen at Michaels, and I personalized their own little ornaments just how I wanted them. When I made a mistake guess what I did? I scraped it off and started over. AND...now my kids have a personalized ornament in Mommy's handwriting. I like that.

The next year I bought an ornament in which I could put a recent picture of them. I still took a Sharpie and put the year on the ornament. Last year, we bought ornaments for them at Disney, because it was our last year to have annual passes. So no personalization last year, but they each got an ornament, and I will always remember those ornaments from our last Disney year (2009).

Well, this year I haven't quite decided what I am going to do, but I saw something in Michaels yesterday that totally sparked my interest. They had "ready to personalize" ornaments that are just like the ones at the mall for $1.99!!! AND...you could totally use one of the 40% off coupons that comes in the paper or email (You can sign up for coupons on michaels.com).

Random - Did you know you can also use Joann's or AC Moore coupons at Michaels too? Michaels and Joann's will take one of each type of coupon in a single transaction, so in one transaction you could use:

• one Michaels newspaper coupon
• one Joann's newspaper coupon
• one Michaels email/printable coupon
• one Joann's email/printable coupon
• any other different form of coupon (receipts sometimes print coupons or if you have a coupon from AC Moore, etc).
  

It's another way to make your dollar stretch further at those stores. Sometimes those stores sell Crayola sets or Melissa and Doug, Thomas the train, or other things that are expensive at most toy or book stores. Check at your local craft store and see if you can use your 40% off coupon on those items. Remember that those coupons often have exclusions and are almost always on regular price items only.

Soooo...if you bought one of those $1.99 ready-to-personalize ornaments with a 40% off coupons, you could get an ornament for your child for $1.20! All you would need is a paint pen or Sharpie. Let me confess - I don't have good handwriting, and I am a perfectionist when it comes to stuff like this, but I still like doing it for them.

One other idea - Michaels also had nice 2"x3" photo frame ornaments that have "2010" on them for $3.99 (regular price). These ornaments with a family photo or a photo of all the kids in it would be a great way to do a personalized family ornament for your own family or for grandparents or other family members.

Wow...I wrote a lot longer than I thought...and my kids are getting restless. I was inspired yesterday by the ornaments at Michaels and wanted to pass along the idea.

Merry Christmas!!! (42 days early)

$50 of Coldwater Creek merchandise for $25! Today on Groupon!

Wow! If you are looking for a fun Christmas gift for that mom, sister, or other special woman in your life (or if you are just a Coldwater Creek fan), then the Phoenix Groupon deal today is just right for you!

I am still new to Groupon, but here's how it works:

1. Sign up for Groupon HERE.
2. Look for "Visit more cities" on the top of the page, and search under "Phoenix" deals. (It's ok to buy Groupons out of your city if they are national deals...which this one is.)
3. Click on "Buy" or "Buy for a friend" depending on what you want to do.
4. Once you have purchased the Groupon, it will appear in your account under "My Stuff" under "My Groupons" in a few days.
5. Print and enjoy!

This deal is active today, Friday, November 12 and tomorrow, Saturday, November 13. How fun to get something checked off the Christmas list!

Fine print: Expires Feb 14, 2011. Limit 1 per person. Valid in-store and online. Valid toward merchandise only. Not valid toward previous purchases. Value of the purchase must be greater than or equal to the value of the Groupon. Must use in 1 visit. Not valid with other offers.

Even if you are not interested in Coldwater Creek, Groupon still offers some neat daily deals at deep discounts. Go ahead and sign-up and request the daily Groupon for your city, and you will get an email with what is being offered locally. If you read any bigger money saving blogs, they will periodically post national deals like this that you can buy anywhere.

Thanks to Hip2Save for the heads up on this deal.

Things I've seen

Went to Aldi (Altamonte Springs) today for a massive trip to stock up on nearly everything I need for meals for November (with the exception of Thanksgiving).

I was amazed to find the following deals that you might want to be aware of:

Milk - $1.99 per gallon - What in the world?!!! I haven't seen it under $2.19 in a really long time.

Potatoes - $1.69 for a 10 lb. bag - Ok, this pregnant gal has not cooked potatoes in years (really, is there much nutritional value at all?)...until I tried this recipe from moneysavingmom. It is really good (and I add garlic to make it better). Let's just say that my favorite lunch last week was a PB & J with a side of mashed potatoes...YUM!

Nothing else that exciting...but those two things were exciting to me. There will be more deals as Thanksgiving approaches, but I still hold that Aldi is the best if you just want to get most of your groceries at one place and still get a competitive price even without coupons. Aldi's prices do vary sometimes by store, but it's worth a try if you have one close and need to pick up a gallon of milk!

Now to Publix...that was my other grocery stop today. The best thing going at Publix right now is Target printable coupons. Ask your customer service rep (even call ahead and ask) if they will take Target coupons. When I talked to a rep. at our Publix (Hollieanna), he said that Publix managers across Orlando were told to start taking any coupons they could. My Oviedo Publix never took Target coupons, but my new one does...and it is awesome.

Check out these Target printable coupons.
Here are my favorites:
$1 off any produce item
$1 off any bakery item
$1 off Market Pantry ice cream (don't think this one is available anymore)
$1 off two Kraft cheese
$1 off two Nabisco crackers

Paired with a BOGO and a manufacturer's coupon, the Kraft and Nabisco coupons should make for a good deal. The produce and bakery item coupons are great to get free or really cheap products. If you are trying to find ways to eat organic, use these produce coupons to cut down on the price of organic. You can usually print 2 coupons per computer. Target usually reloads their coupons 2-3 times/month, so check it out periodically.

Ok, that's what I saw at the stores today. Let me know if you see anything interesting or worth noting. I'll try to post more frequently as the holiday deals get better and better. Happy shopping and holiday planning!