My Talented Niece....

This post is strictly a brag! My niece has had some time on her hands as she has been unable to go to school for awhile now. She has been keeping herself entertained by creating nail designs. She gets some of her inspiration from instagram. I call her art, "Nails by Faith!"

Christmasy designs. Don't you love the tree?

                                         Can you see the little snowflakes?I need all of these designs! I love them!

Look at these fun ones! I bet my niece, Karlee, wishes she could have Faith do these on her nails! Which ones are your favorite Karlee?
Below are grandma's nails. Faith did them for her when she was here for a visit. Mom confided that she wore rubber gloves to protect her beautiful nails, even in the shower! :)

Christmas nails! 

This is such a cool way to do nails! First, I had to choose the colors I wanted. Then in a  cup of water she dropped nail polish. You just keep adding nail polish colors until it no longer expands.Then you wrap your finger edges with masking tape. She says don't try other tapes, you will fail! In the cup you put a toothpick to swirl the nail polish and make a cool design.

This is an action shot as you can see the the blurry hand Faith has! Next, I dip my  taped finger into the middle of the  nail polish. While my fingers in there she gets in with a toothpick to pull the polish away from my finger.

Now you can see why the tape is necessary! Peel off the tape, carefully, and then drop on some Flash dry.

I felt so special with my "Nails by Faith" design!

Wow! Look what she did to her mom's nails!

Last night she did Marissa's nails. Aren't they beautiful!
 You are amazing Faith!
  I think you should pick a great Christmas design for me next!

Spend Your Points Event At Shoppers

This weekend, Dec 1 and 2, at Shoppers they are having a spend your points event. Last year the points were worth more, but here's the levels for this year.
 95000 points = $210 
50000 points = $105 
38000 points = $70 
What are you buying? I am going to get lots of groceries!

Ready, Set, Ski! 50% off

Big White is opening on Thursday, Nov 29th starting at 8:45am. They are offering 50% off lift tickets and and rentals for Nov 29th and Nov 30th only.  From their website it seems that a full day adult ticket would be $77 $38.50, an afternoon ticket would be $59 $29.50 and a night ticket would be $25$12.50.
The lifts set to be open are:
The Ridge Rocket High Speed Quad Chair
The Plaza Quad Chair
Lara's Gondola
The runs expected to be open are:
Easy Out
Highway 33
Easy street
Hummingbird
Lower Perfection
So if you are dying to hit the slopes(or if you have spent far to much time on Big White's web cam checking out the snowfall,not that I know anyone like that!) it might be a good time to hit the slopes!

New Email Exclusive From Shutterfly for Cyber Monday

Still want to do a calendar? Or maybe you didn't order all the ones you would have liked? Well, I just got an  email exclusive email from Shutterfly! It's for anything you order off their site. Enter the code EXTRA20 and you will save 50% plus and 20%. Calendars are buy one get the second 50% off.  So, for 2 calendars to Canada you would pay $38.36 or $19.18 per calendar. I sure hope you can take advantage of this! Offer ends Wed, Nov 28th. I will be watching for Cyber Monday next year! 

Shutterfly 10 Free Cards

Did you finish your Shutterfly calendar? I did.(If you didn't finish today is the last day to get the free calendar).
 It was lots of work, but I think I will finally keep the promise I make to myself and work on my calendar all year long.(I've been promising myself this for years,so I'll let you know how it goes). 

My shipping was $5.99 to Canada. I usually order my calendars this week of November and expect to end up paying $20 all taxes and shipping in per calendar. This year I got 5 calendars and paid $16.54/calendar. They also threw in 30 free prints. Like I said I always order from them every year because they have high quality calendars that I can be proud to give as gifts.
This year I learned several new things that I thought I would share with you in case it's helpful. I made calendars for my husband's side of the family as well as mine.I knew they were going to be somewhat similar so I wondered how I could keep all the pictures(mostly) and not have to start from scratch. Our calendars usually have the kids' birthday months devoted to pictures of them. I called customer service and she patiently walked me through the process!
 All you do is press the save button and save it as say, "The Smith Family calendar". Once saved you can go in and edit that calendar, press save and save it as "The Brown Family calendar!" It saved me hours(more) of work!
 Also, I learned I could go into My account and the under Plans and Offers click on Enter special Offer Code. Once there I entered CALENDAR 2013, as well as CAL40(40% off 2 or more calendars). I also put in the free 30 4X6s code.
Then at checkout time it was automatically added! 
Today they sent me an email for 10 free cards(flat or folded). You can use it too. If I am understanding the shipping page correctly it looks like it would cost $15.99 to have these cards shipped to you. Just enter BLACKFRIDAY as your promo code! Offer ends Sunday. 
My Goals for 2013!
1.This year I plan to right away download phone photos family members send me all year long, and put them in a folder.
2. I plan to use the Shutterfly quick uploader once a month to add my pictures so it isn't such a huge job Nov 20!!!
3. I plan to encourage my friend to join me(she's been dying to make one but Nov is just too busy a time at work for her).
4. Next year I will be ready to order by Nov 1st and so when the sales pop up I can do it without putting my life on hold for days! :) What about you?

Rising Food Prices and How to Beat Them

Below is a guest blog by one of my daughters. She is taking Journalism and needed to post an article online. I think she did a great job! Enjoy!



The price for food in Canada is rising steadily. This is because of the hot summer and drought which caused many of the crops to dry up. At a first glance it may not seem too bad, there were only problems with the grain, rice and corn. But then if you think about it these affect a lot of our foods. For example: meat prices will go up because grain and corn are big part of an animal’s diet as well. This also means that bread, cereal, milk, eggs and such will all go up as well. These are all important staple foods in our diets. Some people expect food prices to jump 3-4% higher.

There are ways to beat the rising food costs though. Careful, strategic, planning of what you’re going to eat and what you need to buy will help you save money and waste less. Eating home cooked meals and staying away from processed foods will also help you save money! Not only that but it’s much healthier for you. Then of course my mother’s blog here will be a big help! The great deals she finds and recipes for delicious food will help with your budget and keep you healthily during these harder times.



~M~

Free Shutterfly Calendar..Hurry!

Every year we make a Shutterfly calendar. They are beautiful high quality calendars. Today, I got an email from them saying you could get a free calendar. The catch? You need to have it ready to order by Friday! And you pay the shipping! They make great gifts! Enter the code CALENDAR2013. Enjoy! 

This Week's Sales

This Week's Sales

Safeway's
Friday Sat Sun Deals
8lb mandarins $5 limit 2
Eggs Large $2 limit 2
Deli Ham .79/100g
Garlic Bread 3/$5($1.66)

Superstore
Stayfree pads $2($2 off coupon here) FREE(Extra Foods also)
NN Pasta 900g .98 limit 2(Extra Foods also)
Campbell's soups 6/$3(.50)(Extra Foods also)
Grape Tomatoes 2/$3(Extra Foods also)
Vine Tomatoes .98/lb(Extra Foods also)
Extra Foods has Cook's Ham $1.68/lb

Walmart
3lbs carrots or onions $1
Celery .97

Save On
Fri Sat Sun only Armstrong Cheese 700g $6.99(.75 off coupons our there)$6.24 limit 2

WF Frozen Vegetables 2Kg $3.99

 

2 MIRs and Grocery Deals

If you want in on this deal you'll have to shop today or tomorrow! Until Nov 16 spend  $20  on selected products at Safeway and get a $10 Safeway card. We needed chips. :)
Update: Finally received this February 6, 2013. Came with a letter from Dare saying here is your $15 gift card!?

This is the form you will need(click on it to enlarge it). You need to get it from customer service.

This was my Safeway shop. (not pictured here is the large pizza that was a Facebook offer from Safeway).Almost all the items on the bench were 50% off. The Oasis juice was  $3.50, I had a coupon for .75 as well as Checkout 51 has a $2 off, so it's .75. The drops were buy one get one free and there are $2 off coupons out there. There is an airmiles promo on the chips so I got a total of 41 airmiles. The total for everything here was $40.69-$10(Pepsico MIR)=$30.69.

This is another fun MIR! Try Healthy Harvest Pasta Sauce Free! Look for these sauces with the tags TRY ME FREE, on them. I found them at Safeway. There is a limit of 3 redemptions per household. Products must be purchased between Nov 1 and June 30, 2013.  I mailed this in Nov 15 and received the full $11.49 on Dec 27.

Costco has a few good deals. Miracle whip is $3.69 for 1.77L.
Chipit chocolate chips are $9.89 for 2.4Kg!
3 packs of sausages, 1.5Kg are $10.99.

Save On Foods has Kraft coupons for buy 5 get $5 off. Their crackers are 2/$5(you can buy just  one for $2.50). So 5 boxes for $7.50!
You have to get the coupons from customer service and I think it ends this weekend with the end of the flyer.

At Walmart they have these Cheerios with a coupon for free yogurt. There are $1 off coupons out there.

Saving Money On Batteries

Do you need batteries for your camera? How about your phone?  It seems these batteries, when they die, cost an arm and leg! Right now The Source is offering 30% off your entire online purchase. Simply enter the promo code 038754 and shop between Nov 9-11. Our small digital camera battery just happened to die this week! I saw this deal on Smart Canucks so I was excited to try it out. First, I tried locally at our Battery World. My battery would be $39.95 plus tax. When I went to The Source's online site I couldn't figure out how to find the right battery. They say they have replacement batteries guaranteed. So, I contacted them via email and they got right back to me with the part number I would need. I went online to find it would be $29.95 less 30% or $20.97 plus tax! (Shipping to any The Source store is free and takes 3-5 days.) So, an almost $20 savings!
Just a note if you sign up for their email newsletter you get free shipping on your first order, however, you can't combine that with the 30% off. Hope you can find your battery!
P.S. The 30% off doesn't just apply to batteries click here to see all the products that apply.    

Costco Cereal Deal

This week at Costco get one box, 890 g of mini wheats cereal for only $2.79. Making it .31/100g! Inside are two 445 g boxes of two different kinds of mini wheats.  Thanks Lynn for passing on this deal! Let me know if it's the same at your Costco. I hear sometimes in store specials aren't the same in all Costcos.

Pumpkin Cookies

 Do you have a pumpkin? You can make some yummy things with pumpkin. I did a blogpost here. My daughter was looking for this recipe. Here it is! 

Pumpkin cookies
 1 cup butter
 1 cup sugar
 1 cup cooked pumpkin 
one egg
 1 teaspoon vanilla
 2 cups flour
 1 teaspoon cinnamon
 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon salt
 1 cup nuts
 1 cup raisins

Cream butter and sugar add the pumpkin and mix well. Add the egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl stir together the dry ingredients. Add to the wet. Stir in nuts and Craisins. Drop on a well greased cookie sheet bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

These are yummy moist cookies.

I used Craisins instead of raisins thanks to my oldest daughter!