Mama's 1k Sale Giveaway!!!!

Well I cannot believe it, I hit 1,000 sales in Badge Reels!! I am very thankful to everyone who has supported me and my little businesses over the past 4 years. I've changed shops a time or two, but found my passion in making these badge reels. It makes me happy to know my button obsession can bring a smile to patients, teachers, coaches, medical staff, students and more!

As a thank you to everyone who's supported me I'm hosting a huge giveaway. Some very fabulous artisans have donated some great prizes for your winning pleasure also!!! I consider these artisans great friends as well as respecting their work. Please give them some love! I own something from nearly all of these stores and I love them all!

Let's get started!!

***It would be awesome if you would go like my fan pages Mama's Little Monkeys and Badge Reels. When you like the vendor fan pages, you can tag mine and tell them Mama/BadgeReels sent you!! :)***

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*****PRIZE PACK ONE--You Win ALL Three Prizes!*******

$10.00 Shop Credit from Holly Craft Originals !! Adorable appliques, cards, and ready to ship items! Hand sewn!!

Check out her Facebook Page and tell her Mama's Little Monkeys/Badge Reels sent you!


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Any TWO Knitting/Crochet Patterns from Crazy Socks Crochet. Easy to understand for a variety of levels, popular patterns, and you get two!!

Check out her Facebook Page and tell her Mama's Little Monkeys/Badge Reels sent you!

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ONE Hand Carved Rubber Stamp--Yarn Ball with Your Choice of Knitting Needles OR Crochet Hook from Hoffee and a Nuffin. 
Shipping Included!
Find fabulous traditional sock monkeys, hand carved stamps, and polymer clay in this shop!

Check out her Facebook Page and tell her Mama's Little Monkeys/Badge Reels sent you!

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*****Prize Pack TWO--You Win ALL Three Items*****

$25.00 Shop Credit to Unravel Me!! Patterns, Headbands, Accessories!! Whether you crochet or not, you can find what you want here!!

Check out her Facebook Page and tell her Mama's Little Monkeys/Badge Reels sent you!

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$15.00 Shop Credit to Tiny Tops. Adorable Newborn Hats and Photography Props.
Winner is responsible for any difference in price over 15.00. 

Check out her Facebook Page and tell her Mama's Little Monkeys/Badge Reels sent you!

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$15.00 Shop Credit to JillianTDesigns. Sweet hats, washcloths and cozies!
US SHIPPING ONLY.

Check out her Facebook Page and tell her Mama's Little Monkeys/Badge Reels sent you!

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***********Prize Pack Three--You Win ALL Three Items****************

$20.00 Shop Credit to Crysallis Creations. Custom, unique, high quality gems and jewelry.
Winner to pay International Shipping.
Winner to mention Mama's Little Monkey through Etsy conversation prior to placing order, so proper price adjustment will be made with a RESERVE listing.

Check out her Facebook Page and tell her Mama's Little Monkeys/Badge Reels sent you!

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$15.00 Shop Credit to my shop, Badge Reels. Fabric and Mylar Badge Reel ID Holders, buttons, and more!

 Hop over to my new facebook fan page!! I need some likes! :)

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$25.00 Shop Credit to my other shop, Seaux Comfy. Crochet items, fun ruffly scarves and body pillow covers!

 Check out my original fan page, Mama's Little Monkeys.

*****THE RULES*****

1. You MUST comment on THIS blog post for your comment to count. Facebook doesn't allow giveaways and contests based on facebook likes/shares/tags, so although that would be SUPER awesome if you shared on facebook, the only comments I will count for entries will be here on THIS post.

2. You MUST leave a way for the vendors to contact you. Email, facebook, etsy shop, blogger profile, etc. Once giveaway ends, I will choose winners with random.org and the vendors will inform you of your winnings. You are then responsible for paying any extra cost/shipping/taxes/duties and making sure the vendor has your correct information. If you do not respond to the vendor within 72 hours, I will choose another winner.

3. You earn ONE Entry by simply commenting on this post. You can say hi, tell us which vendor is your fave, or just share a funny joke. Whatever floats your boat. :)

4. You can earn EXTRA ENTRIES by pinning items from vendors shops on Pinterest. If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest, you can see my tutorials on the left side for a how to. If the shop has a Pin It button, you simply pin the item that way. You MUST come back here and put the Pinterest link for your entry to count.

5. PLEASE read all info about each prize pack, some vendors have different rules.

6. I will draw THREE winners, one for each Prize Pack, you could win any of the three.

7. If you have any questions, please message me via my Etsy Shop.

*****Giveaway Ends May 30th******

Thanks for participating!!! Remember it's good karma for you to like and share this giveaway, everyone's fan pages, etc!! Every vendor here is a small business owner, a real handmade artisan!! You won't find these items in mass retailers!!

THANK YOU!!!

Weekend Freebie

I go to a lot of potlucks at church. I usually make 1-2 Gluten Free dishes since I am Gluten Free, and there are a couple of others who eat GF also. Every time, I stick a notecard on there saying the dish is GF. Well, I decided to class it up a bit :)

So here, with some graphics from Shabby Blogs, I gift to you, Allergen Tags! Save it, print it, use it as you wish (not for commerical use, however!) and enjoy! Save the blank ones as an image, upload in your photo editing program (Paint, paint.net, photoshop, picnik, etc) and add your own label, maybe your family name so you get your dish back!! Print them on cardstock and laminate them for longer use!

Let me know if you can't get the images to print right, I'll upload it as a PDF! :)

Enjoy!
~~Amy

A Y ear of Living Frugally--Be Entertained....

Ahh, we continue the year of living frugally. I've been diligently cutting coupons, scouring the net for deals and tricks. I have to say I think it's going fairly well. I am now stockpiled with enough meats to get through our family dinners for several weeks or more!


So carrying on with my little experiment....how shall we entertain ourselves on the cheap?

Entertainment
This is one area where we don’t need much help because we rarely do anything! We are the family that has no problem using a TV we got for free until it literally falls apart, we rarely go to the movies, we take walks, play games, read books....we're rather low key.

Here’s what we’ve done so far that helps:

MUSIC:
Pandora.com: This is a free music service you can use on your PC (and I’m guessing it has other mobile apps, but that’s obviously something I don’t waste money on). You create custom radio stations based on your fave artists, songs, music genres and viola---free music! I believe you are only allowed 30 free hours a month, so use it wisely. It took some time but I have trained myself: I pause the music or turn it off when I’ll be out of the room for any length of time. It automatically stops the music for you in some time if you are not ‘active’ on the site for some time. It has nifty features like song lyrics, the ability to buy a song, and social networking connections. You have to listen to a few ads every so often, but who cares? I buy CD’s only for the artists I REALLLLLLLY love.

Movies/DVD’s: Okay seriously, we RARELY buy or even go see movies. We don’t even belong to anything like Netflix. But if we did, it would probably be Netflix where you can stream videos on your computer or with your Wii! We just aren’t huge movie people. We buy the ones we REALLY love that we want to keep forever, and the few that the kids want (and we do so on sale or with discounts!). With as much is on television these days, we don’t have time or need for buying/watching movies.




Redbox is also a great way to get movies. There are tons located around the country and for 1.00 you can check out a movie. Return it the next day and you have spent 1.00 and tax (and a little gas) for a movie! You can use Redbox.com to pay, hold movies and if you sign up for the emails, they usually send freebie coupons every so often!

Television: We currently use Dish Network. It was cheaper than DirectTV and WAY cheaper than our local cable company.  We have the 2nd cheapest plan meaning, for us, we get the channels we want for the most part and a DVR for under 50 a month. Your plan will vary for your families needs. For us, the DVR is priceless, because instead of buying my kids movies, I simply record their fave tv shows and viola…30 minutes of peace. Dish Network also regularly previews other channels not included in your package so if you see a show you like on that preview channel…just DVR a whole mess of them. That is how I have my stash of Golden Girls episodes. Don’t be hatin…you know you love the girls.
Dish even showed a marathon of all the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episodes that were off air when Dish and Fox had their little spat over money and airing their Fox shows. I find their customer service to be superb over DirecTV.

Hulu.com is also a great resource for FREE television. You can also watch many of your fave shows on the website for their network, for example, you can watch ABC Primetime shows on www.abc.com.

Books: Seriously, do I even NEED to spout the benefits of going to the library???? REALLY? Books for free. DUH. Videos too! If you simply MUST purchase books and you do it on a regularly basis try your local bookstore chains rewards program. Some cost, some don’t. But if you buy books enough, the cost of the program should be far less than the savings you’ll receive. If you do NOT save more than you spend on the program, um, duh, drop it. Amazon and Ebay are great places to get good priced books as well. There are also various swap websites and trading websites for books, but I don't have experience with them. For that you shall google.

And get your behind to the aforementioned library.

Black Friday and this time of year is the time to stock up on family board games also! One Black Friday (when my oldest was a newborn and I was up before dawn ANYWAYS) I stocked up on several of the traditional kids games (Candy Land, etc) for 5.00 each a game!

Memberships for Local Activities: These things will vary based on your area. Generally speaking, if you are even a small family and you visit your local museum, zoo, aquarium, etc more than a few times a year....joining the membership is worth it. For us, we also go more since we are members. We may still only go to the zoo 6x a year or so...but if we even go 3x we have paid for our membership. We are blessed to have access to the Audubon Institute were we can go to the zoo, aquarium and get discounts at the IMAX and the Insectarium. Keep an eye out and scope around for deals on local activity memberships on the cheap!

I hope these were helpful tips and saves you some moola! Do you have any tips you can share with us!!??
~~~Amy

Freebie Shop Banners

Hey gang. I'm no expert banner maker here, but I thought I'd share a few I had done. Again, I'm super easy peasy, made from free digital scrapbooking images, feel free to use, share (for free!) or save for another day! :)

All banners are 760x100.
To add your shop name/url to any banner open it up in a paint program (like Paint.net) and after choosing a font from Dafont, you can add your text as a layer on top of the banner.

Enjoy! :)