So today was the day! I heard about this great money maker at Walgreens and I decided to go for it. If you aren't familiar with Walgreens coupon policy, it's a tricky one. There are all of these rules and tricks and you really have to be prepared when you go it. I made a few little beginner mistakes, but all-in-all, it was really successful.
I started with a $25 Walgreens gift card that I got for transferring prescription from Target. The coupon for those is on the back of the weekly ad. I used the gift card to cover the tax on my purchases.
I'm not going to break down every transaction, because I went to about 5 Walgreens to find the Fit Smart boxes that had $10 coupons on them, but here is the break down of the 2 money making transactions.
Transaction #1:
1 Fit Smart Simply Slim Supplements $10
-$10 Peelie Manufacturer Coupon
= $0.00 + $0.88 tax = $0.88 on gift card
Received $10 Register Reward for Fit Smart
**$10 MONEY MAKER!**
Transaction #2:
1 BrainSmart Prenatal Vitamins $10
-$4 Manufacturer coupon (found in the Walgreens Vitamins & Supplements book)
1 Redline Energy $2.99
1 Dawn Hand Renewal $0.99
-$0.50 off Dawn Hand Renewal (P&G insert 12/20)
1 Dawn Antibacterial Dish Soap
-$0.25 off Dawn Dish Soap (P&G instert 12/20)
=$10.22 + tax $1.32 = $11.54
-$10 Register Reward from Fit Smart transaction
=$1.54 on gift card
Received $10 Register Reward for BrainSmart
Received $3 Register Reward for Redline Energy
**$13 MONEY MAKER!**
I did a whole bunch of these transactions and when I ran out of Dawn coupons/thought I had enough dish soap (lol), I added different itemsand "fillers" to get me above that $10 so I could use a Register Reward to pay for the transaction.
Once I had $114 in Register rewards built up, I did a few transactions of sale items to build my stock pile. I walked out with $94 left in Register Rewards.
Here are all of the items that I purchased today and the coupons I used for them. Again, I'm not going to break down each transaction, but it will give you a good idea. All together today I had 22 transactions. lol!
11 Fit Smart Simply Slim
-$10 Peelie from Box
11 BrainStrong Prenatal Vitamins $10 each
-$4 coupon from Walgreens Vitamins and Suppliments Book
11 Redline Energy $2.99
2 Bounty Papertowel 6 packs $4.99 each
-used (2) $0.25 off coupons (P&G 12/30)
4 Purina Cat Chows $6.49 each
-(4) $0.75 off manufacturer coupon
2 Lysol Wipes $2.49 each
-$2/2 Lysol Products from the Walgreens Cold and Flu Booklet
2 Lysterine $6.79 each
-$2 off in-ad coupon
-$2 off Manufacturer coupon
2 Glad Trash bags on sale for $7.49
-(2) $1.50 off in-ad coupons
-(2) $1 off manufacturer coupons
4 Right Guard TD5 Deodorant on clearance for $2.29
-(2) $2/2 Right Guard manufacturer coupons
1 Wexford Tape on sale for $0.39
5 Holiday Pencils on clearance for $0.25
5 Dawn Hand Renewal Dish Soap on sale for $0.99
-(5) $0.50 off Dawn Hand Renewal manufacturer coupon
5 Dawn Dish Soap on sale for $0.99
-(5) $0.25 off Dawn Dish Soap manufacturer coupon
4 Soft Soap Hand Soap on sale for $0.99 each with in-ad coupon
1 Skittles $0.99
4 Butterfingers @ 2/$1.79
According to my calculations, I got $645.78 worth of products
I spent $27.08, $25 of which was on my free gift card and only $2.08 out of pocket!!!!!!
I also came home with $94 left in Register rewards. $24 of those can be used on the BrainSmart deal and turned into $40. :)
I'm loving this. <3
Thanks for reading! xoxo
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
About that party....
So, my last post was late at night/early in the morning on August 30th/31st. On the morning of the 31st I had an appointment with my midwife and everything looked well. I got up to leave and felt a gush of something between my legs and was sure that my water broke. I went to the bathroom and there was blood everywhere. I was scared to death. My midwife, Jamie, and her mentor, Shell, sent me to the hospital. I had a partial placental abruption and they kept me for 3 or 4 days and sent me home to be on bed rest for another few week, so i had to put all party planning and the party on the back burner. As soon as they thought every thing was clear, I was told to take it easy.
I played around with doing the party a few different times and each time something would happen to lead me to believe thy I was going to go into labor. Then, one Sunday night, I text all of our guests and asked if they could make it the following day. All but 1 family said yes, so I pulled all of the party supplies and with my mom and Ryan's help, it was a success. The final amount spent was around $67 and all of kids had a blast. :)
I'm sorry I didn't post all of the other crafts, but here are some photos of the party. :)
I played around with doing the party a few different times and each time something would happen to lead me to believe thy I was going to go into labor. Then, one Sunday night, I text all of our guests and asked if they could make it the following day. All but 1 family said yes, so I pulled all of the party supplies and with my mom and Ryan's help, it was a success. The final amount spent was around $67 and all of kids had a blast. :)
I'm sorry I didn't post all of the other crafts, but here are some photos of the party. :)
Friday, August 31, 2012
Pirate Party Thirst Quenchers
I took Dax shopping today and decided that he could pick the drink that we would be serving at the party. Now, he drinks about 60% water and 30% green smoothie and is occasionally allowed to have juice when we are out or a small cup at home during the day, but when we do purchase juice, it's never from concentrate and is usually organic or all natural. So, to my surprise, when we got to the beverage isle and he went straight for the BLUE Hawaiian Punch! I had so many thoughts running through my head...."but it has high fructose corn syrup in it!"...."thats not even juice!"....."what are the other parents going to think when i serve their kids sugary blue stuff?"...."he's going to be bouncing off the walls!" At first, my reaction was to try and sway him in other directions. I pointed out the Simply Lemonade and even the Simply Raspberry Lemonade, which at least had a small amount of real fruit juice in it. He kept going back to the blue drink and I realized something. This is his 3rd birthday and it's his first birthday where he can clearly communicate to me what he would like. This is a party. A once a year event. I don't care what the other parents think. I don't care that it's not healthy. It's what he wants and I told him to pick what he wants. So here I am...decorating a bottle of Blue Hawaiian Punch. :)
Oh and it didn't hurt that it was only $2.08 and helps keep my party budget low. A lot lower than what I would've chosen to serve. ;)
I also picked up a case of water for $2.98 and decorated those as well with some paper, twine and some stickers that I got from the dollar tree.
If you missed how I made the weathered paper on the punch, I wrote all about it in my post bout the treasure maps.
Drink expenses: $6.06
Remaining Party Budget $62.71
Oh and it didn't hurt that it was only $2.08 and helps keep my party budget low. A lot lower than what I would've chosen to serve. ;)
I also picked up a case of water for $2.98 and decorated those as well with some paper, twine and some stickers that I got from the dollar tree.
If you missed how I made the weathered paper on the punch, I wrote all about it in my post bout the treasure maps.
Drink expenses: $6.06
Remaining Party Budget $62.71
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Pirate Party Gift Bags
I've been having so much fun crafting and making stuff for this party! I worked on the gift bags for a few days and they ended up costing me about $0.87 a piece. All of the photos are at the bottom of the page because I am posting from the blogger app from my phone and I don't think I can post them as I go.
I started with the treasure maps, which I shared in my last post. I just love how they turned out!
Then I decided to make telescopes, because Dax has been asking me for one for months. I started with empty wrapping paper rolls and cut them down to be similar in size. Then I wrapped them in back paper and put a piece of yellow ("gold") around the tip. I quickly cut out some skull shapes from white computer paper and drew faces on them. I immediately gave Dax one to play with and he shredded the paper off of it in minutes, so I ended up going back and modpodging them all to seal them in hopes that they would last longer.
Next came the felt mustaches and eye patches. I had some black felt laying around, so I drew up a quick mustache shape and then cut them freehand. They got sloppier and sloppier as I went on, so I went back and traced a few of my faves to make them more constant. With the extra felt, I decided to cut out eyepatch shapes (which I'll get to in a minute). When all of the staches were cut, I found some wooden dowels that we're pretty long and decided to cut them in half, sand the rough edge and paint them black. I used the hot glut gun to attach them and voila!
The eye patches were by far the quickest, but it took me a while to decide what to use as the elastic. I searched through all of my craft supplies and up and down the craft isle at Walmart and couldn't come up with anything, so I put it aside. The next day I was collecting stuff for my birth supply kit and came across an elastic headband and thought it would be perfect, so I headed out and grabbed a small pack of them. I used friendship bracelet string that I have and a big needle to sew the felt onto them with a few stitches. I didn't have much string, so I decided to do blue for boys and pink for girls.
It took me a while to decide o
How to make the pirate hats, but they ended up coming together well. I made a stencil of the shape and cut a front and back for each hat. I painted around the edges, used pink and blue puff paint to add skulls to the front and each child's name on the back, then glued the sides together and stuck a fetcher in them. I've considered modpodging them as well, but modpodge tends to stick to itself and I was afraid they would stick to the telescopes in the bag and one of them wouldn't make it until the party.
Originally I had planned on brown bags, but the blue bags were on clearance at target for $2.76 for 6 bags, so I went with those and stuffed them with red tissue that I had at home.
I felt like they still needed something, so I added little sacks of coins that I had purchased for one of the activities for the party. The pink coins I had laying around from another project a few years ago and thought they'd be a nice touch for the girls bags. I also added a few sets of stickers that i cut from a pack of 300 pirate stickers that i bought at the dollar store for another project for this party. So those 2 items prices are distributed into other parts of this party and will be tallied later.
The last thing I did was glue together some name tags that I drew up and then they were complete!
Amount spent on gift bags: $5.23
Remaining party budget: $68.77
I started with the treasure maps, which I shared in my last post. I just love how they turned out!
Then I decided to make telescopes, because Dax has been asking me for one for months. I started with empty wrapping paper rolls and cut them down to be similar in size. Then I wrapped them in back paper and put a piece of yellow ("gold") around the tip. I quickly cut out some skull shapes from white computer paper and drew faces on them. I immediately gave Dax one to play with and he shredded the paper off of it in minutes, so I ended up going back and modpodging them all to seal them in hopes that they would last longer.
Next came the felt mustaches and eye patches. I had some black felt laying around, so I drew up a quick mustache shape and then cut them freehand. They got sloppier and sloppier as I went on, so I went back and traced a few of my faves to make them more constant. With the extra felt, I decided to cut out eyepatch shapes (which I'll get to in a minute). When all of the staches were cut, I found some wooden dowels that we're pretty long and decided to cut them in half, sand the rough edge and paint them black. I used the hot glut gun to attach them and voila!
The eye patches were by far the quickest, but it took me a while to decide what to use as the elastic. I searched through all of my craft supplies and up and down the craft isle at Walmart and couldn't come up with anything, so I put it aside. The next day I was collecting stuff for my birth supply kit and came across an elastic headband and thought it would be perfect, so I headed out and grabbed a small pack of them. I used friendship bracelet string that I have and a big needle to sew the felt onto them with a few stitches. I didn't have much string, so I decided to do blue for boys and pink for girls.
It took me a while to decide o
How to make the pirate hats, but they ended up coming together well. I made a stencil of the shape and cut a front and back for each hat. I painted around the edges, used pink and blue puff paint to add skulls to the front and each child's name on the back, then glued the sides together and stuck a fetcher in them. I've considered modpodging them as well, but modpodge tends to stick to itself and I was afraid they would stick to the telescopes in the bag and one of them wouldn't make it until the party.
Originally I had planned on brown bags, but the blue bags were on clearance at target for $2.76 for 6 bags, so I went with those and stuffed them with red tissue that I had at home.
I felt like they still needed something, so I added little sacks of coins that I had purchased for one of the activities for the party. The pink coins I had laying around from another project a few years ago and thought they'd be a nice touch for the girls bags. I also added a few sets of stickers that i cut from a pack of 300 pirate stickers that i bought at the dollar store for another project for this party. So those 2 items prices are distributed into other parts of this party and will be tallied later.
The last thing I did was glue together some name tags that I drew up and then they were complete!
Amount spent on gift bags: $5.23
Remaining party budget: $68.77
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Pirate Treasure Maps
I decided to attempt to make treasure maps for the goodie bags and although it was time consuming, I had a lot of fun and it was super easy.
First I started with a piece of 8-1/2x11 white card stock. I tore the edges off to make them look rough and crumpled the paper into tight balls a few times. I made a cup of tea and soaked 3 or 4 bags of black tea in it do that it was really dark and concentrated. I used the tea to stain the paper by painting it on. It took about 2 coats per size. A cookie sheet worked really well to paint on because I didn't have to worry about spilling or dripping anywhere. When I was done painting, I put each piece of wet paper on tinfoil lined cookie sheets to dry. I I had to do it again, I would use wax paper rather than tinfoil, because when they dried, they stuck to the foil and it was a bitch to peel up without ripping them. When I had all of them done, I set them on the porch to dry. One benefit to living in the dry desert- everything dried quickly.
After they were completely dry, I was left with a thick, leathery paper that turned out just perfect! It seems very durable and great for toddlers. :)
I'm no artist, so I just did my best at drawing a quick and easy map that I could replicate a handful of times and then I drew a dotted line leading to an "X", colored each one with colored pencils, rolled them up and tied them with some twine. Simple as that!
I think they turned out SO cute and have way more personality than a store bought map. Of course, in the hands of 3 year olds, they probably won't last long, but I knew that going into it. ;)
Pirate Treasure Maps: 5 hours and $0!
Remaining party budget: $74.
First I started with a piece of 8-1/2x11 white card stock. I tore the edges off to make them look rough and crumpled the paper into tight balls a few times. I made a cup of tea and soaked 3 or 4 bags of black tea in it do that it was really dark and concentrated. I used the tea to stain the paper by painting it on. It took about 2 coats per size. A cookie sheet worked really well to paint on because I didn't have to worry about spilling or dripping anywhere. When I was done painting, I put each piece of wet paper on tinfoil lined cookie sheets to dry. I I had to do it again, I would use wax paper rather than tinfoil, because when they dried, they stuck to the foil and it was a bitch to peel up without ripping them. When I had all of them done, I set them on the porch to dry. One benefit to living in the dry desert- everything dried quickly.
After they were completely dry, I was left with a thick, leathery paper that turned out just perfect! It seems very durable and great for toddlers. :)
I'm no artist, so I just did my best at drawing a quick and easy map that I could replicate a handful of times and then I drew a dotted line leading to an "X", colored each one with colored pencils, rolled them up and tied them with some twine. Simple as that!
I think they turned out SO cute and have way more personality than a store bought map. Of course, in the hands of 3 year olds, they probably won't last long, but I knew that going into it. ;)
Pirate Treasure Maps: 5 hours and $0!
Remaining party budget: $74.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
A $75 Pirate Party Challenge
If you know me, you know that I love to craft and there's no better reason to craft then holidays and birthday parties.
Dax is going to turn 3 in 2 short weeks and I have promised him a pirate party. We have flirted with all kinds of ideas from our favorite indoor play area, to splash pads, community centers and more, but with just moving and the expenses of a new baby an a homebirth, money is tight. So I've decided to challenge myself.
I'm going to work from scratch on everything and use as much stuff as I can from around the house to make the decor, games, etc. I've given myself a $75 budget ad I will post my progress and spending as I go. :)
Our original guest list was 16 kids, which means about the same amount of parents, and there is no way I can host that many people on such a small budget, so last night I told Dax that since he's turning 3, he may invite 3 girls and 3 boys. It took him a good amount of time and a lot of thinking to pick out the 6 kids he wanted most, but we are both pleased with his choices.
So, I started to get to work. My first thought for invitations was a message in a bottle, but with the party only being 2 weeks from today, I need to get these invites in the mail and can't wait until I see people around town to give them their invites. So I pulled out the pirate invitations that I bought in the dollar bins at target months ago, with the intention of return them when is started crafting and had a better plan.
I spent a couple of hours hand writing them and drawing on them to give them lots of character. There's a photo below.
Starting budget....$75
Invites....$1
Remaining budget....$74
Dax is going to turn 3 in 2 short weeks and I have promised him a pirate party. We have flirted with all kinds of ideas from our favorite indoor play area, to splash pads, community centers and more, but with just moving and the expenses of a new baby an a homebirth, money is tight. So I've decided to challenge myself.
I'm going to work from scratch on everything and use as much stuff as I can from around the house to make the decor, games, etc. I've given myself a $75 budget ad I will post my progress and spending as I go. :)
Our original guest list was 16 kids, which means about the same amount of parents, and there is no way I can host that many people on such a small budget, so last night I told Dax that since he's turning 3, he may invite 3 girls and 3 boys. It took him a good amount of time and a lot of thinking to pick out the 6 kids he wanted most, but we are both pleased with his choices.
So, I started to get to work. My first thought for invitations was a message in a bottle, but with the party only being 2 weeks from today, I need to get these invites in the mail and can't wait until I see people around town to give them their invites. So I pulled out the pirate invitations that I bought in the dollar bins at target months ago, with the intention of return them when is started crafting and had a better plan.
I spent a couple of hours hand writing them and drawing on them to give them lots of character. There's a photo below.
Starting budget....$75
Invites....$1
Remaining budget....$74
Monday, October 25, 2010
Honeymoon Gift Basket
When my husband's sister got married in March, I wanted to make them a Honeymoon Gift Basket. I found a breakfast tray and I tediously lined it in purple 
(one of their wedding colors) chocolates. I filled it with a beautiful picture from their engagement shoot, a wrapped box of pregnancy tests, a bottle of 'Mad Housewife' wine, a travel-themed photo album and 9 different colored candles with custom poem labels. The labels read things like "Pink candles set the mood and pave the way for your first married Valentine’s Day." and "The blue candle is for after your first fight, use this to burn while making up all night."
I have some other great ideas for wedding and bridal shower gifts. Contact me for more info! MissChrissyCupcake@gmail.com
(one of their wedding colors) chocolates. I filled it with a beautiful picture from their engagement shoot, a wrapped box of pregnancy tests, a bottle of 'Mad Housewife' wine, a travel-themed photo album and 9 different colored candles with custom poem labels. The labels read things like "Pink candles set the mood and pave the way for your first married Valentine’s Day." and "The blue candle is for after your first fight, use this to burn while making up all night."
I have some other great ideas for wedding and bridal shower gifts. Contact me for more info! MissChrissyCupcake@gmail.com
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