Sweet Walgreen's Shopping

This was from 1 trip Andrew and I did today. We did it in 7 transactions to have it all work out. I got a couple things out of order and I ended up with $2 in register rewards instead of $2 less out of pocket that I would have liked, but that's fine :) This shop costs about $38.50 before taxes. We ended up paying $9.66 after taxes. I've also turned in a $6 rebate and like I said, I got a $2 register reward so essentially I got all this loot for $1.66 :)

We loved the deals so much and I got an extra Belvita coupon from a co-worker from the paper (they're very yummy with yogurt!) so we went back after I took this picture. We got another box of Belvita with the remaining $2 register reward and that kicked us out 1 more $2 register reward that we used for a 5th Burt's Bees (and then got another $2 register reward still for next time. So in our technical 8th and 9th transactions we spent .41 and got a box of breakfast cookies, throat drops, and a blow pop sucker. Not bad ($5.25 value before taxes)! It's my good friend's birthday today and she has some family in the house that was sick so I gave her the last cough drops we got ;)

DIY Wedding: Hand-Carved Stamp Embellishments

Due to way our religious ceremonies go for weddings, the actual wedding is a fairly small group. We still wanted a larger reception however for other friends and family that couldn't make it for the wedding ceremony. We had a general reception invite in all of our envelopes and a wedding ceremony ("sealing") invite in the envelopes of those that we invited the smaller ceremony.

The stamp that I carved is that of the temple we were married in. I'm not good at all with trying to draw buildings so I paid someone $5 on fiverr.com to do a line-drawing for me by looking at some pictures of the structure. Then I traced it with a pencil and transferred the lead onto the rubber stamp material by rubbing the paper against the material. With my linoleum cutter I carefully carved it out. We took some simple cardstock paper and stamped with gold ink. We then printed the text we came up with on our home printer then cut them out and rounded the corner with a corner rounding punch.

It took some time but was well worth the hand-made touch! Stamp carving supplies can be pricy but I always make sure to take a coupon to Hobby Lobby or Michael's. If you are looking into getting into rubber stamp carving, a linoleum carving tool is a must but you could start with cheaper material such as school rubber erasers.

Good News

I'm lacking inspiration and energy for much of a guided post tonight but I thought I'd share that I've made it to round 2/2 of interviews for a promotion at work :) That will be nice when my husband starts his further education-keep up the coupon savings and make a little more cash :) Something fun to look forward to-I plan to do a giveaway on my blog soon so keep tuned!

DIY Wedding: French Beaded Flowers

This is definitely not a project for the weak at heart but besides my husband, family, and friends, this was the favorite part of my wedding! We only had a 2.5 month engagement so this was a ridiculous feat, but with so much help from friends and family, we accomplished my goal :)

Finding techniques on places like Youtube are limited (my go-to resource for learning new craft talents and techniques) but between that and a few extra sites and books, we were able to make the beauties you see here. Each rose took about 2 hours, my bouquet alone we're estimating took maybe 35 hours to make! All of the wedding party had a bouquet or corsage that they got to keep and we made a few mini bouquets for some tables too. If this isn't your thing, there are still so many options available to you for completely unique or inexpensive bouquets. You can make beautiful flowers origami style or even out of coffee filters! I found my original inspiration on etsy.com where I am offering custom flowers-you can check out more pictures and look into purchasing a hand-beaded beauty of your own here.

Freebies at Target!

The hubby and I just went to Target and got some nice purchases. Our purchase as a whole wasn't free but we either used 2 coupons per item (1 store, 1 manufacturer), purchased on clearance, or got items for free!

Here were the freebies:
up & up Make Up Remover (travel size)-$0.99-Print a $1 off coupon at Target.com
UP2U Gum x2-$1.29 each-Print off 2-$0.55 coupons from Target.com ad use 2-$1 off manufacturer coupons (These were in the Sunday paper a week or two ago).
20 photo prints-$0.10 each (good through 2/25)-Printed off 2-$1 off of 10 prints coupons from Target.com

So make up remover cloths, 2 packs of gum, and 20 pictures....all-for-free!

Good Deeds Can Be Easy!

When I talk about couponing a lot of people just say it's not their sort of thing, takes too much time or perhaps there's just not coupons for the sorts of things they want. Here are 2 fool-proof acts of service available to a mid-day fuzzy feeling from couponing.

1) Coupon Sneak Attack
I take my coupon binder with me shopping in case there's an amazing un-advertized special that I can sweeten with coupons I hadn't planned to use. Occasionally while in line, I'll see someone that has something that I have a coupon for and I'm not likely to use it before its expiration. I'll approach them randomly and just offer it to them. I think it's a fun surprise for people. Similarly, when I plan to go to a craft store I always print off a couple extra 40% off coupons and give them to random strangers.

2) Good Deed for a Great Deal
My husband and I don't have any kids or pets right now. But when we got baby formula for .49 each (instead of $6+) and dog food (only had to pay some taxes)....we couldn't resist the small fees and donate them to co-workers and the local food bank. Why not?! Also, I've been saving all of my unused expired manufacturer coupons to send to groups that ship them overseas to military familes. Military families that are living overseas can use coupons up to 6 months after expiration! What better to do that with something that would normally go in the trash...why not help someone that's looking out for our freedoms!?

Any tips on how you give service through couponing? Please share in the comments!

DIY Wedding:Reception Programs

My first project I wanted to present from my DIY Wedding was the programs we made for the reception. We printed off a schedule for the evening and our thank you to each of our guests as we were not able to speak with them all. We used clear scrapbooking corner stickers and added a card about families. The cards are good for a free dvd from our church about families being eternal. We wanted to give them as part of our thank you gifts and for take homes to remember our wedding. These could have been a tad more fancy, but they were cute. We closed them up with little heart stickers.

Fantastic Coupon Deals!

The first deal that I wanted to share this week from couponing is my Walmart smashbars deal. I have found some amazing deals at Walmart when they have clearance on the clearance. You'll see signs around the store that say to take an additional 50% off of red (clearance) tagged items. The only catch is you have to make sure and remind the cashiers because they have to manually enter it in, it will not ring up right. My husband and I eat a lot of granola/snack bars and we couldn't pass up this deal. Smashbars usually range around $3.50 each but they were on the clearance rack for $2.18. Not a bad price...but then take another 50% off! To add to it all, I had 3 manufacturer coupons for .75 off of 2 boxes. This makes each one only .72! That's almost 80% savings!



The next deal I want to tell you about is my 93% savings on baby formula! I know baby formula is pricey. My husband and I don't have any kids yet nor are we expecting, but when I spotted these deals, I couldn't pass them up! Safeway is running a deal on these Enfamil for fussiness/gasiness cans. If you buy 3, they are only $5.49 each. We then printed off 3 coupons from coupons.com and mommysavesbig.com each for $5 off 1 Enfamil brand item (no restrictions on sizes, etc). They were .49 each! I don't think you can go wrong there! I gave one to a co-worker and we'll probably just donate the other 2 to the local foodbank unless we can think of anyone else with youngsters that age.