Family Fun for Free

We're all about having some family fun - and if it's free...well that's just even better! We love to craft, color and create...decorate and design. Just yesterday we made Christmas tree "cones" out of poster board and scrap booking paper...just things we had stashed around the house. My oh-so-creative 6 year old made ONE rockin' tree with pirate and rock and roll paper and it DID turn out cute if I do say so myself. I took it a step further and hot glued a few miniature ornaments to mine...and we love them! We'll definitely be making more when we have time - the possibilities are endless!! Brush on a little glue and glitter to the tips, roll the ends by wrapping the paper around a pencil, add some stickers...whatever your heart desires. Just have fun, be creative and remember...it's all about time together as a family!

Scholastic Dollar Deals!

Scholastic has some FABULOUS dollar deals going on right now for teachers and homeschoolers. These are teacher/student resources...great for homeschooling, summer learning, homework help, teacher gifts, etc. Most of these retail for $6.95 - $19.95...so some great stuff. Be advised...these are PDF files, so you'll have to download and print, but hey...can't beat it for $1!! Have fun browsing and feel free to share the love...but please use a link to this post to do so. Thanks and happy learning!!

Go here to start browsing through the $1 books!

Offer good through May 31st

Free Coupon Book for Mother's Day

Balancing Beauty and Bedlam has created an absolutely PRECIOUS coupon book for Mother's Day. It has some fun coupons as well as some blank coupons for you to personalize. This would be a great book to print on cardstock and tie together with some ribbon. Stick it in a basket of candy or a coffee cup and you have one CUTE Mother's Day gift! I know I would love to receive one of these!!



You can download and print your coupon book here.

So cute...

Thanks, Balancing Beauty and Bedlam!!

Vintage Couture - Cute Clothes for Little Angels! Future Giveaway!!

Okay...so I am LOVING Vintage Couture!! Vintage Couture is a line of PRECIOUS clothing and accessories for children and moms. Most of their clothing is for the little ones, but they do offer some GREAT clothes for mom occasionally as well. They have hair bows, blankets, diaper bags, etc. It's SUPER fun, SUPER fashionable and SUPER unique! This is a fairly new line, so you won't see many people wearing it - dress your little one in it and you're sure to be a hit!!

I LOVE that they have super stylish clothing for boys AS WELL as for girls. It's easy to find fun things for my daughter, but not so easy when it comes to my son.

Go to Vintage Couture, scroll to the bottom left-hand corner and click to browse the catalog. For every $100 spent (not necessarily from one person, just any sales that add up to $100), I will be hosting a Vintage Couture giveaway!! This offer will go through the end of May, so pass along to your friends and at the end of May be sure to follow along and look for the giveaway postings. Have fun shopping!!

Free Children's Books Online

Barnes and Noble is offering a great selection of books online - there are 10 in all. They include Strega Nona, The Polar Express, Pinkalicious, Green Eggs and Ham (read by Rachel Ray) and several others. You can go here to check out the selection. Be sure to click on the "scale video" button to make them full screen.

5 FREE Fun Things for a Snow Day!

They're free, they're fun...I know...I did them today. ;)

Have an unexpected snow day? Need some fun ideas for the kiddos? Here's what we did - all for free!!

Make a snowman!

Make and eat Snow Cream!

Watch Frosty the Snowman! We own it, but you can watch it for free on YouTube if you don't...the link above is Part 1. Do a search on YouTube for parts 2 and 3 and you'll have the entire show!

Make a cotton ball snowman INSIDE by the fire...when the real snow is just too cold to handle anymore!!

Print Frosty the Snowman Coloring Pages.

America's Biggest Bedtime Story

Join Pizza Hut as they host America's largest bedtime story with John Lithgow. The reading will go live as a webcast on February 18th, but the good news is - it will be archived and available any time AFTER February 18th. Here's a blurb from their website:


America's Biggest Bedtime Story
February 18, 2010

On February 18, 2010 the Pizza Hut BOOK IT!® Program will celebrate the love of reading with a special bedtime webcast of Carnival of the Animals by John Lithgow. Mr. Lithgow himself will be reading the story and it can be viewed any time that day after 9:00 a.m. CST, right here on bookitprogram.com/bedtimestory.

Mark your calendar to join us and make this the biggest
bedtime story ever!

You can find great bedtime story tips and tools for parents, printables for teachers and homeschoolers, a chance to win a PJ party for your child's class and the Bedtime Story itself (on or after 2/18) here. Enjoy!

Today I...and I Did It All for Free!

Here are a few things I did today...and I did them all for free!
Remember...while I'm a fan of several money saving sites, I find most of my free offers via Today's Freebies Forums.

Requested a free Uni Ball Pen - the form will only be available if you're one of the first 10,000. Be one of the first 10,000 each day between now and April 30, starts each day at noon central time. Do what I did...request yours!

Sent a text message to get $2 in coupons from Gain Laundry Detergent (remember your normal text rates will apply. I had to send 3 texts for this.)
Text GAIN13 to 599-99

Printed 2 $2 off coupons for 8th Continent Soy Milk: Just become a fan of their celebrity spokesperson, Sara Lopez. Then visit the "Discussions" tab for the link to the coupon. Do what I did...print yours!

Made construction paper heart garland with The Short One and decorated our mantle for Valentine's Day. You can do it too:
Make your own garland!
Be sure your heart overlaps on BOTH sides. This website doesn't make that clear - if you only leave one side connected - it will fall apart!! I cut a piece of construction paper in half, length wise, tape the two pieces together side by side and then make my garland. It usually takes me three sheets of construction paper to get mine the length I want!

Printed Valentine's Day coloring pages to color with The Short One...
I just thought everyone knew to use Google for images, but I've found that many people don't! If you're looking for pictures, whether it be coloring book pictures, clip art or actual photos...use Google for quick, easy and free images. Just watch the copyright! A few rules I go by:

1. Go to Google Images (www.google.com, then the "Images" link in the top left corner of the page.
2. If you're looking for coloring pages to print, always type in "coloring page" after what you're looking for...for example, "heart coloring page" or "Spiderman coloring page". I always copy the image, past it into Word and enlarge it to fill the page and make it larger.
3. If you're looking for clip art to use on birthday cards, slide shows, etc...just type in "clip art" - this is also a good way to safe guard when children are using the Internet to work on projects - type in "clip art" whenever they're searching. For example, "puppies clip art" or "ocean clip art". That way your search will pull up mostly clip art and not REAL images, which can be dangerous when young eyes are searching the web.

Google Images is great - and free!

Get FREE Autographed Photos!

I'm all about inexpensive gifts...but I still want them to be meaningful. I have a GREAT idea for free, VERY cool gifts - perfect for kids, teens and any movie/music fan. Have you heard of Movie Eye? Movie Eye is a site you can go to in order to find celebrity addresses and request personalized, autographed pictures - for free! I LOVE it! I've been using it for two years now and it's very legit. I've had GREAT success with it. The theme in our elementary school library is Reading Rocks...so I request autographed photos from various celebrities each summer to hang on our school's reading wall. Some celebrities sent a signed photo with just their name, some signed it specifically to the students and others wrote personalized letters and notes!

The great thing about the site is - you can see photos obtained by others AND details about each address. For example, you can see how many were successful, how many have not gotten anything yet, how many are still waiting and if there were any "return to sender" - which is always a chance you take. When sending off for autographed pictures, I always send a letter with my request along with a SASE for the picture.

This would make for a GREAT birthday, Valentine, Christmas gift for fans of celebrities!! All you'd have to do is frame it in a nice frame and you have an instant, one of a kind gift!

I don't suggest this for Valentine's Day this year only because most of these take MUCH longer to come in. Some have come in the next week, others I've waited for months and still others never came. But it's worth a try, right?

So far, here are a few I have received:

Smokey Robinson - Check out the letter Smokey sent with his pic...Just made me love him more!
Jeff Foxworthy (personalized letter)
Nick Saban
Martina McBride
Dierks Bentley
Kelly Clarkson
Taylor Swift
David Cook
Tim McGraw
Santana
Rascal Flatts

...and others, I just can't remember them all! I usually stick with singers and bands because of our theme, but the site includes TV actors, movie stars, artists, authors...a little of everything!

When you go to the site, you'll have to create an account to see the addresses, but it's all free and I have NEVER received any spam from them.

Movie Eye: Get Celebrity Autographs!
You should check it out...you might make someone you know VERY happy!!

Put Your Photo on a Valentine Plate!

I found the cutest site today! You can go to the Hallmark Party Site to personalize paper plates for your next party - whether it be a birthday party or holiday party...like Valentine's Day! These are SUPER cute! I'm thinking these would be precious with a class picture to use for a school party - or to use when giving away homemade goodies. I just love them!

Family Fun Magazine is currently offering a 50% off promo code to use on your order of paper plates. Just use FamilyFun50 at checkout and get 10 plates for $5!

From one mommy to another...just spreading the love...

Lowe's Build and Grow Clinics - Free Fun!

My family is a BIG fan of Lowe's Build and Grow Clinics. What's better than FREE family fun?? If you haven't attended one of these clinics, it is DEFINITELY worth a trip! We've been to many of these and they just keep getting better! We've made a school bus, fire truck, snowman gift card holder, boat, treasure chest, gingerbread house, ball toss game and the list goes on. Today we made a bank - and it has been one of my favorite things yet!! The bank has different slots for each coin, a see through wall in front and lines with various amounts listed so children can see their money add up as they save! These clinics are a great way to spend quality time with your kids. My son has built with his dad, with me and with my dad (granddaddy). They receive a free apron, safety goggles, crafting kit and a patch for each event to add to their Lowe's apron. The instructions have always been precise and clear, easy enough for a mom (like myself) with no construction skills to follow - ha! The kind employees at Lowe's even have kiddie sized hammers for the little guys. The website says for ages 5 and up, but we've been going since my son was 3 and trust me, there are always little guys there, younger than 5. As long as you're there to assist, there shouldn't be a problem.

Want a suggestion? GET THERE EARLY! We were told by an employee that they only receive a specified number of kits - 25 at our location. So, if you get there too late, it's a possibility the kits will be gone! We have never experienced this personally, but I've seen a child get turned away because the 25 kits had been taken.

Lowe's typically offers Build and Grow Clinics every other week. You can go here to see the upcoming clinics - you can even preregister online!

Home Depot and Bass Pro Shops offer events similar to these. The nearest Home Depot is 45 minutes away from us, so we typically go to Lowe's, but Home Depot's events often offer snacks for the kids. However, they usually only have one per month. You can call your local Home Depot for more information. Bass pro Shops? Haven't ever attended one of theirs, but heard they were good. You may want to check into that one as well.

A special thank you to Lowe's for offering high quality, family fun that families can look forward to without having to worry about the cost! We Love Lowe's!