How I got $50 worth of FREE GROCERIES from Safeway delivered to my door

(these are my free groceries I got from Safeway...the Pepsi was full when it arrived. Joe got to it before I could take a picture)

I know what you're thinking. Too good to be true or sounds scammy (pop ups that say things like "Get a $1000 gift card to Walmart by clicking here!" run through my head when I hear outrageous claims on things like this.) But I saw it on the Hot Coupon Mamas blog, and I did it and it really works. Some of the coupons codes listed in the original post don't work anymore, and some amounts are wrong about the discounts, so I had a request to write up some simpler, updated directions.

Get 60 Free Photo Christmas Cards for Your Family!

I know a lot of you are way more on top of it than me, so you may have already ordered your Christmas cards for 2010, but if you haven't there is a sweet deal happening at See Here that you can combine with a rebate site called ebates to get 60 4x8 Christmas cards (or other photo cards...don't need to be for Christmas) for $4.90 or FREE including free overnight shipping but it ends on Sunday.

Fall Crafting

I'm such a bad blogger! I didn't realize how bad this blog has been neglected. In part because I've been blogging a bit...just not here. If you haven't checked it out yet, come visit my new blog: Not Really a Hippie which focuses more on parenting and family stuff. It's super new (I think I only have 3 posts) but will hopefully give me some space to write about mom stuff but leave this space free to talk about crafty things.

This fall I've been tackling some sewing projects. My mom is an A-mazing seamstress and has made all kind of fancy and beautiful dresses and projects. I sew mostly straight lines. BUT I have recently tackled some more advance projects. Wait. Who am I kidding? They are actually pretty non-advanced. They just involve some non-straight lines so I like to pretend. Ha!

Project #1: Baby Slings
I got an e-mail from a company I had previously bought a nursing cover from for a free baby sling on their new baby sling site. I've been wanting a baby sling so was more than thrilled to pay $12 shipping + handling to get a "free" sling. Bad news was that they didn't have any larger/taller sizes in and wouldn't until late November. Lame.

So...I got adventurous. I found a great tutorial on My Karma Baby about how to make a sling that looked simple enough. And even if I failed, I only lost 2 yards of fabric, right? I bought 2 yards of brown linen at Jo-Anns for about $8 and began.

Here's Joe wearing our son in his halloween costume (more on that in a minute):

The sling is a smidge big (I measured to the middle of my hip instead of the top of my hip) so we have to twist it to make it fit right when wearing him on our hip (Joe and I conveniently have the same shoulder-to-hip measurement).

I've since made 2 more: Once for my cousin Connie and her daughter and another for me that fits better. I just realized I don't really have good pictures of those, so I'll need to take some to put up later.


Project #2: Yoda Costume
We're on a tight Halloween budge this year, so we are making costumes. We already had some yoda feet socks (they are actually dinosaur socks) and brown clothes. We just needed a robe and a yoda hat.

The robe was pretty easy...fold a piece of cream flannel (1 yard on sale for $1.99) in half. Lay baby on the flannel, lining up shoulders with the fold. Trace around baby, leaving 2 inches or so of ease for the top and flaring out to a dress/robe shape at the bottom. Cut out around outline, adding additonal half-circle cut for neck and cutting a log slit of the front to make the robe. Hem sleeves and bottom. Sew 2 from cuff-to-bottom seams. Sew 1 inch strip folded in half all around robe opening to make a collar-type thing. Iron. Done.

For the hat, I traced around the outline of a hat he already has that fits well onto a paper bag to make a pattern. I used a 1/2 yard piece of green fleece to cut out the hat and make some big yoda ears to attach to the sides. Added some forehead wrinkles. Wha-la! Yoda costume for about $5.

EDITED TO ADD: In fact, I'm linking my yoda costume up over at the CSI project for their "$5 or less" project week



Project #3: Baby Pumpkin Hats
The third thing I did was make matching baby pumpkin hats for the babies coming to our family's annual fall party. I just realized I am short on pictures (and this post is getting pretty long as it is) so this will be a topic of a future post. If I get organized I might even be able to make a tutorial!

Here's a preview:



Better pics (and tutorial?) to come soon!

Crafts I want to make: Modified clothing edition

While browsing some fun crafty sites this week, I have found quite a few fun crafts that all have the same theme: Clothes! Check out these awesome crafts:

Anthropologie-Inspired Ruffled Shirt

Tatertots & Jello is a new blog to me but I'm definitely adding them to the blog roll. A tutorial for how to make this awesome shirt using a basic t-shirt and supplies from the Dollar Store can be found here.


Floral T-Shirt Refashion


Also from Tatertots & Jello is this fun t-shirt re-do. I think it might be fun to do with scraps of chiffon instead of (or in addition to) an identical shirt.


Ruffled Peasant Shirt from an Old T-shirt

This tutorial from the Brassy Apple upcycles a plain-old unisex t-shirt and turns it into something totally cute and fun.


Cute Little Girl Bandana Dress
This is another one from Tatertots & Jello (anyone else noticing a trend?). Her tutorials teaches you how to take a kid's tank top and a bandana and turn them into a cute farm-friendly dress. She also includes directions fro upcycling an adult top to make the top part of the dress. Check it out here.


Toddler Leg Warmers

I suppose you could make leg warmers for adults following the same directions if you had a large enough sweater. She even claims to have another project you can do with the rest of the sweater (I can't wait!). Check out her tutorial here.


Do you have any other fun clothing re-fashions you are excited about? Share your links or blog posts in the comments!

Crafty Project Want-To-Make Roundup

I've seen quite a few blog posts lately with some super fun crafts that I can't wait to make. Here are my three faves from this last week:

Repurpose a Tank Top to Make a Fun Bag

Do you have old tank tops that you're just not feeling anymore? Tired of your purses but don't have money to buy a new one? This project is so easy even the most non-crafty crafter wannabes will be able to pull it off. Check it out here.



Make Cool Jewelry From Sea Glass
Gail's tutorial on Can't Stop Making Things makes these fancy and intimidating-looking pendants look super easy to make. I think these would make great gifts. Get your Christmas crafting started now!



Stenciled Canvas Bag

This project uses a paper doily as a stencil. Stenciling normally makes me yawn, but I really thing this bag is super cool looking. I can think of several people who this would make the perfect gift for. Check out the tutorial on TidyMom's website here.


Do any of these appeal to you, too? Have you found any sweet craft ideas lately that you can't wait to try? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I'm back...I hope

As I posted on Facebook yesterday, I aspire to get back to blogging (I know, I know, I've said this before). Having a wee one has consumed most of my time, though, as I'm sure any parent can sympathize. I've also been a bit hesitant to blog because most of my blog ideas lately have been super baby related. And I'm supposed to be a "knitting, cupcake and misc. craftiness" blog. I'm not sure how many people want to hear rants about the 10 reasons I've recently been accused of being a hippie a parent.

The more I thought about it, though, I've realized that I've evolved as a person (I'm now a mom...and apparently a "weird hippie mom") and so my blog will need to evolve, too. I'm still crafty but I think about more than just knitting and cupcakes now. I hope you bear with me as I (attempt to) blog through my thought process and possibly even re-discover my blogging identity.

I'm so crafty, I make people!

I'd like to introduce you to:

Kaypha Joseph

He made his debut 3 weeks and 1 day early on Mother's Day, May 9th. Our "preemie" baby weighed in at a hefty 10 pounds, 5 ounces and measured 22.5 inches long.

Not only did Kaypha come on Mother's Day, but he shares his birthday (one year later) with my cousin's (and one of my best friends) baby girl. What does that make them to each other as the children of first cousins? Second cousins? Anybody know?

Babylegs!

I heart babylegs. Those cute little one size fits most leg/arm warmers for kids. When your baby is an infant, they are a pants substitute...keeping your baby's legs warm but allowing easy access for diaper changes. As your baby's legs get longer, you can wear them under a skirt of shorts to keep the lower parts of their legs warm. Or you can wear them like armwarmers.

Fun right? Unfortunately, they're usually a bit pricey - usually selling for between $10 and $12 a pair. So as much as a like them, our little person-in-progress doesn't have any...yet. Today, though, Babylegs decided to have a sale. They had a TGIF buy one, get one free sale on their baby legs that were already on sale. So I got all these:

for only $16 - shipped! Sweetness. If it's still Friday when you read this, you can get in on the sale, too.

Step 1: Become a fan of Babylegs on Facebook here

Step 2: Check out the Babylegs on this page and go crazy. I bought the four pairs above and got free shipping. I'm not sure if you have to buy a certain number before you get free shipping, or if it's standard.

Step 3: When you check out, enter coupon code "FANtastic" to get 50% off your order

Enjoy. :-)

Secrets of a Diapering Ninja (AKA how to save a lot of money on diapers)

Last week I did something I've never done before. I took some advice online about how to maximize some rebates to get diapers for a ridiculous bargain price. The blog I was reading specifically talked about a particular deal on Luv's (disposable) diapers but I was able to adapt it in order to buy the cloth diapers we want and I came away feeling like a bargain hunting ninja!

I am a diaper bargain ninja!

OR

How I got brand new BumGenius pocket diapers for less than $8 each

Here's how the math works:

I went to Diapers.com and put three BumGenius 3.0 Pocket diapers for $17.95 each in my cart (total: $53.85)

I had a referral code, so I got $10 off my order (plus was able to hook someone else up with a $5 credit for using their code). I also got free shipping for spending more than $49 pre-credit. (new total: $43.85)

Because I went to diapers.com via ebates.com (and as a new user, set up a brand new account with ebates), I will get a $5 new account sign up bonus plus a 1% rebate ($0.54) in May (new total: $38.31)

As a first time customer of diaper.com, I was offered a free subscription to a magazine called Parenting the Early Years. If you read the fine print at the bottom, though, you see that you can elect to get a $14.97 rebate in lieu of the subscription. I decided to get the rebate (new total: $23.34...although I lose $0.44 on a stamp to send it in, so $23.78)

So, in the end, once the rebates come back, we will have spent $23.78 on three brand new, top-of-the-line cloth diapers, which comes out to $7.93 per diaper. You can't even buy this kind of diaper second hand for that cheap!

What's that? You want to know if you can get diapers for super cheap, too? Well, you can! And not just cloth...you can get about $50 in disposable diapers for about half off if you follow these instructions below:

Step-By-Step Directions for How to Get Wicked Cheap Diapers

Step 1: Go to www.ebates.com and sign up for a new account. After you sign up for your account, make sure you go to your profile and enter your mailing address so they know where to send your rebate check on May 15. Let them know that carissamarie [at] gmail [dot] com sent you. (this is how you will get $5 plus a percentage back on the cost of the diapers)

Step 2: Still on the ebates.com site, use the search box at the top to look for "diapers." www.diapers.com should be the first result on the list. Click the button to go to diapers.com. It is important that you link to diapers.com through ebates.com in order to get a rebate on your purchase. DON'T just type "diapers.com" into your address bar or click the links on my blog.

Step 3: When you get to diapers.com, find your favorite kind of diaper and add $50 or more in diapers to your cart. Click the check out button at the top of the page. It will have you create a new diapers.com account before bringing you to the check out page.

Step 4 if you are buying disposable diapers: Once on the checkout page, enter the referral code "CARISSAB" to get a $10 credit (diapers.com will also hook me up with a credit when you use my code...so thanks in advance). Your order should also qualify for free shipping (which, let me tell you...it's FAST! I got my diapers the very next day after I ordered them with the free shipping...try to beat that, Amazon.com!).

Step 4a if you are buying cloth diapers: If you are buying cloth diapers, you unfortunately have an extra step due to a glitch in the checkout system that doesn't currently recognize cloth diapers as diapers. Once on the checkout page, enter the referral code "CARISSAB". It will probably tell you that you need to put $49 worth of diapers in your cart in order to qualify for that code. If this is what happens, go to step 4b below. If it works, please leave a comment and let me know they've fixed this glitch!

Step 4b if you are buying cloth diapers: In a new window or tab, open your e-mail account (be sure to use the same one you gave to diapers.com when you set up your diapers.com account) and compose a message to customerservice@diapers.com. Say something about like this:

I was referred to your website and told I could use a referral code (CARISSAB) to get $10 off my first purchase of diapers. Your checkout system isn't recognizing the cloth diapers I am trying to purchase as diapers. Please fix this glitch or let me know how you can get around it.Sincerely, (your name)

This worked great for me. Someone wrote me back, apologized and gave me a $10 account credit so I could go back and pick up at step 5 below. When someone else tried this step, though, they got an e-mail from diapers.com telling them that the code only works on disposables (duh...that's why I'm writing to you). I did find out, though, that two different customer service people addressed our e-mails, so it seems to depend on who is answering e-mail that day. I'm sad I can't guarantee that it will work, but it is worth trying.

If things go well and they give you a $10 credit, go back to ebates.com, log in. Get to diapers.com via e-bates. Log in to diapers.com and go to check out.

Step 5 (everyone): Finish the check out process. Once you pay and you get to your order confirmation/receipt page, print out a copy of that page. Then, if it doesn't pop up automatically (or if your pop up blocker is on) go to this page, print it, fill it out and mail it with your receipt to:

Parenting Early Years Magazine Liason

Palm Coast Data

PO Box 420235

Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235

Attn: Diapers.com

Step 6: Wait for your rebate checks to arrive (about mid-May if you order the last week of March/First week of April).

In the end, you will have paid about $40 out of pocket for $50 of diapers, however you will be getting two rebate checks: one for $14.97 and one for (about) $5.50...reducing your total cost to about $20 for $50 in diapers! Unbeatable!

Please leave me a comment and let me know if you decided to take advantage of this deal or if you find any hiccups in my directions.

Happy diaper shopping!

My niece trying to play with her (still-in-progress) cousin

My husband and I babysat our niece and nephew on Monday night. Our niece found some rocketship toys and she was calling them "baby rockets" and came over and was trying to "play with the baby" with the rockets.

I had my purse next to me on the couch with my camera so I started shooting what she was doing. My favorite is that In the end she sees the camera and says "cheese!"

It's interesting to me that our niece (who will be 2 next month) is super interested in my growing tummy and likes to talk to the baby and pat my belly to say hi to the baby. I'm not sure if she really understands what's going on but she talks about it a lot and likes to talk to and pat my tummy. Her older brother (almost 4), on the other hand really doesn't get it. Which is interesting to me because have been around for the growing of his little sister...you'd think the whole baby thing would make more sense to him. *shrug* Whatev. It may just be a "different kids, different personalities, different interests" thing. I'm sure he will care more once we can dress the baby up like Batman. :-D

Zebra Zebra

It's not too much of a secret that I really like zebra print things. When I was in high school and college I would paint my toenails white and then meticulously go back and add black zebra stripes to them. When I started making spindles, painting different zebra prints were my favorite:


So when the owners of www.simply-bags.com contacted me and asked if I'd do a blog review of their zebra print lunch tote, I was more than happy to say yes. :-)

This is what the tote looks like on their website:
Alright... honestly? I was a little worried it would look cheap once it arrived. I think the picture makes it look kind of shiny and plasticy. But once it got here, it was clear that the picture absolutely does not do it justice. It's actually a really nice, attractive lunch bag. The fabric is a nice zebra print canvas with high quality embroidery on it. Several of the women I work with were fawning over it after it arrived. It really is that nice.

See?

The embroidery, especially looks a lot nicer in real life.

Okay. So we've established that is a nice looking bag. But how does it work as a lunch sack? Glad you asked.

One thing I like about it is that it is especially roomy. There is plenty of room for a large sandwich, a soda, an apple, small bag of chips, 2 ice packs, with room to spare still. It's large enough to accommodate most sizes (all the ones I tried anyway) of personal frozen lunches, which is a little more than I can say for any of the other lunch sacks I've owned. So unless you eat enough food for three or own very large tupperware, your lunch should fit in this bag with no problem.

How about performance? The bag itself seems pretty sturdy. While I wouldn't recommend putting an unpadded glass container in here and then dropping it, the padding is sufficient to protect most lunchy things (like fruit) from getting banged up on the trip to and from your office. The seams are well constructed, so even with a heavier lunch, I wouldn't worry about it falling through or ripping the bottom.

The one thing I was dissapointed with, however, was the temperature control. It's supposed to be able to keep things both hot and cold and the inside and is lined in what looks like metallic bubble wrap that seems as if that's what it's supposed to do. While it did keep my frozen lunch colder longer than a re-usable grocery bag would, I definitely have had lunch carriers that out performed this one as far as ability to keep frozen things cold. After 3-5 hours, Non-frozen items I wanted to keep cold with ice packs (like yogurt and string cheese) were also colder than they would have been in an non-insulated pack, but not by much. I am curious if this has to do with the large volume of space inside the lunch sack. If I were able to fill the bag closer to it's maximum capacity, it's possible it would have maintained a colder temperature for longer.

Overall, I would give this lunch bag a B+. It's cute, fun, and has a large capacity. It's probably best for people who are simply carrying cold items to work which will be refrigerated or frozen until consumed or for people who carry items that still taste good when a bit warmer than they might be straight out of the fridge (like PB&J or whole fruit).

As a knitting bag or other tote that doesn't require keeping it's contents super cold, though, I would give it an A+. In fact, over the weekend, I frequently use it as a knitting project bag. It effortlessly carries four 50g balls of yarn, my smaller sock project bag, scissors, DPN holder and more.


If you are looking for fun, stylish, personalized bags, do check out www.simply-bags.com

In addition to the zebra lunch tote they sent to me, they have a slew of other fun lunch bags in plaids, animals prints and solids. They also have fun cosmetic bags, beach bags, diaper bags, and really just about any other kind of personalized bag you might be looking for.

A puppy for Ladybug

Ladybug is my mom's "dog". She's a 6 pound, chocolate brown chihuahua who gets carried everywhere like an accessory. I'm not really a big fan of Ladybug. Mostly because I think she is un-doglike, kind of mean, and also because she's convinced my mom that my dogs want to eat her (so untrue).

But last week my mom put this really pathetic status update on facebook saying that Ladybug is having a false pregnancy. Apparently dogs bodies can trick them into thinking they are pregnant when they aren't. My mom said Ladybug started lactating and was nesting in preparation for a puppy that she wasn't going to have.

As much as I dislike my mom's dog, this really did break my little heart. So I made her a surrogate puppy since she won't be getting a real one. I don't know if the fake puppy is really going to help much, but I figured it wouldn't hurt.

I found a pattern online here. I think the pattern assumes you know how to make amigurumis already and skips explanatory steps like stuffing, cutting yarn and sewing pieces together BUT it was free and I could figure it out between the directions and the pictures (made the head much smaller than the pattern called for, though).

Anyway, without further ado, here is "Firefly", Ladybug's surrogate puppy.

(the dog posing with Firefly isn't ladybug, but my 14 pound toy poodle / chihuahua mix, Jack)