Last minute costume

My daughter had bought an Olaf the snowman costume for little JJ. It is a very cute costume but he doesn't like it at all, I think it limits his movement too much.  Since his sister will either be Elsa or Anna, JJ also needs to be a Frozen character.
She sent me this link and asked if I could sew this tunic.

Some online tutorials are good and some are not but I give this one a big thumbs up!
It had an easy to print free pattern and a list of exactly what to buy and where she bought it.

So yesterday, I spent $7.49 at Joann's and 80 minutes constructing this tunic from start to finish.

I also think this blogger, Neka at Thrive is genius! She and her 6 children made and modeled 100 costumes with mostly things in their wardrobes.

I must say that I don't like Halloween and I don't celebrate it  And    I'm not much of a Disney fan either.  I do help with costumes when asked by my children.

And I do pass out candy and compliments to children when they knock on our front door.  

And about the candy, I don't buy it early as we tend to eat it and then need to rebuy :) 

A jumbled up post about what I've been up to

Bargains 

I don't buy much at Walmart but I do seem to need to go there once a week or so for something we can't buy other places.  I always look at their clearance aisle when I do go. 

Last week, I found these children socks for $1 a package

And today, I found more little girl socks for 50 cents a package! These all have 6 pairs in each bundle

Aren't the owl ones so cute?

Cooking

My husband picked out this Butterball oven ready turkey breast a few weeks ago.

It sure came in handy when I needed to cook a meal for seven with not much notice.

In the package is a whole turkey breast on the bone wrapped in an oven bag and a bag of gravy mix.

It was so quick and easy to just put that turkey in the oven to bake.  It baked for about 3 hours while I cooked a few simple sides and played with my grandsons. 

I don't have a photo of the cooked turkey but it turned out great! It was moist and delicious and so easy.  I will be buying this again! 

Crafting

I helped my grandsons make these acorn inspired crafts. Their mother sent the photo above for inspiration and their other grandmother sent some tiny acorns.

So, we found some ribbon and Pom poms in the craft room and started crafting.

After separating the acorn caps from the we used fabric-tac glue to adhere the pompoms and ribbon to the acorn caps. 

Cute and fun! 

Here are the boys busy with crafts last week.

Sewing 

My son wears suits every weekday and he just got 3 new ones. One was mail ordered, one is from Nordstrom Rack and the other one, a Ralph Lauren pinstripe, is from a local salvage store and was just $40.  All the coats fit but the pants needed hemmed and I was happy to do that. 

Suits can cost a bundle and I think he ended up with 3 nice ones at much less than retail.

This is a terrible photo of 2 denim aprons I sewed for myself, the necks and pockets are finished with some vintage bias tape. One is blue polka dots and the other is red checks and yellow calico.

This little guy kept me busy most of today. Who needs toys when there is a big box to play in?

About the wipes, I have changed many diapers in the last 5 years and used many brands of wipes.  Huggies wipes are thick and moist and by far my favorite brand. 

I get them by subscription from Amazon- that big box comes every 2 months for about $9-$10. 

The shipping box is really fun too. 

CVS last week and this week

Actually, I am so behind in blog updates. These purchase are 2 weeks and 1 week ago. None of these items are currently in the CVS ads and I am showing them as examples. We all have different stores available to us. I think to get good deals on a sort of consistent basis, it is best to pick one store and be familiar with them. 

So, this is my CVS purchases when we took a quick trip to Texas to visit our parents. 

Everything was on sale and had manufacturer coupons, plus I had a CVS scanner coupon for the hair products and 2 CVS ECBs from the previous week. 

The cash total spent was about $9 and that Texas sales tax was a lot lower than it would of been in Oklahoma.  And I got $6 ECBs back. 

Last week, the deals were good but it didn't go quite like I planned. 

My local CVS had a shopping buggy full of assorted Dawn, 4/$1. This was not in the national ad. So, I got 8. Instead of ringing them up at .25 each, he said they scanned 1 for every 4 bought so they actually only cost 4/.99.

I had $2 coupons on all the Colgate products, plus a 25% off any oral care products and last weeks ECBs. 

The wrong part is, I thought I would get back a $10 ECB for buying $20 in Colgate but the twin packs were not included.

Even still, $11 for 6 tubes of toothpaste, 1 big mouthwash and 8 Dawn is a good deal to me. 

I thought about going back and purchasing more of the correct Colgate products to get that $10 ECB but I realized our home was stocked enough. 

I didn't see anything in this weeks CVS that we needed so I won't be going this week. 

That is the benefit of shopping this way- I spend less and we have extras on hand and I don't have to shop every week. 

2 product reviews

We took a quick trip to Texas and we wanted a snack on the drive back. We got this box of Pepperidge Farm cheese crisps at a travel stop. They taste very good but they sure don't look like the picture on the box.

Mess-free fingerpaint by Crayola is something my 4 year old granddaughter brought here. She had a day off from school so we happily spent the day together and did lots of crafty things.

The mess free paint squirts out of the tube as a beige looking substance. Then it gets smeared onto the special paper that goes with the paint. The paper has a hidden design that shows up when the paint touches it.

Elizabeth had a great time with this but I kept expecting the next sheet of paper to have a different  background design. All of her packet had rainbows. Rainbows are one of her favorite things and she likes them but I think the product would be more interesting with multiple design sheets.

After she did all these blob paintings, she started doing her handprints.

The paint really was mess free. It smells like play dough and I did have to help Elizabeth wash her hands as she had done a thorough job of covering her hands. 

2014 fall decorating

I didn't buy or make a single new thing- I just opened up the storage tub from previous years and put out the things that I still like and still look fresh. (Some stuff from the tub went in the trash)

Wreath on the front door

Dining room - oops, there are some the new things. The owl print vinyl tablecloths were purchased this month at Walmart. 

The patchwork pumpkins wall hanging was sewn by my mom. 

This is our first year to own the  hutch_we found it at our favorite thrift store this year and it was fun to decorate. 

I have a really nice Thankful banner made by Debby and will put it on the mantle when it gets closer to Thanksgiving. 

I like to have seasonal things out, I think they make a room look more cheerful. But I am just not going to do anything elaborate, I've decided everything for a holiday needs to be easy to put out and it all needs to store away in a single storage tub.