free

I've scored a couple of free items at Target recently. Did you know that the Target website has printable coupons? Head down to the bottom, and under "Stores" click on "coupons". Lately they've had a bunch of Merona coupons.

They actually paid me to take these off their hands, lol. I had a $5 off purse coupon, and found this $5 purse. Then I had a $3 off sandals coupon, and these sandals were $2.48. They still credited me the full $3, so they paid me! Love it!


For those who use coupons, I joined two groups on facebook that alert me when there are new printable coupons and when to match them with sales. They are The Krazy Coupon Lady and The Frugal Girls. I find it saves me a lot of time, I don't have to constantly be checking for new coupons myself, I just wait for them to tell me.

Have you seen any of Target's Liberty of London line? I think some of it is really cute. The clothes seem to be marked down 75%, yes I managed to restrain myself until then. I got these two halter dresses, LOVE the print on them, that several sizes too big but that just means more to work with! The striped skirt I got at old Navy for $2.

Happy Birthday to me

I got a couple of Joann's giftcards for my birthday and got the chance to spend some of them last week. I get a little carried away with their clearance fabric, and wouldn't you know that it was an extra 50% off that week!

I'm always on the lookout for things with turtles on them for my daughter. It was one of the first animals that she identified by name (rather than sound) and she's been a little obsessed with them. I thought this fabric was SUPER cute and would look great with this pink polka dot I already had. Maybe I'll finally get around to trying this bubble dress tutorial.


I also found some dark denim for $2 per yard, and it was SUPER wide which is awesome! I'd love to make my daughter some cute little shorts for summer. I would love to find a tutorial for some flat front shorts, hmm.


I can rarely pass up a good knit, they may make me a little crazy trying to sew with them, but I LOVE that it doesn't fray and is a little more forgiving than some other fabrics. I found these two thick ribbed knits in a beautiful teal and bright pinky-purple (bummer, the color did not come through at all in the pic).


And this is technically the reason I went to Joann's in the first place. I wanted to restock this fabric in my shop and a friend who bought the last cape I made in this fabric had asked if I could custom make her a ring sling to match. After checking another store and not finding it online, I finally tracked it down!

A couple of friends turned me on to a great website for purchasing the rings and sling making information, if you are interested it is here.

bargain shopping

I had a rare departure from my bargain shopping at Target, lol. I was out, alone, with time to spare and a few bucks in my pocket. Not a normal occurrence for me. I popped into Wet Seal, not somewhere I normally shop. Not really the kind of things I usually wear, but I had time to kill, remember? Wouldn't you know they had a "last chance" clearance rack. The highest price I saw was $5. This is the type of thing my family teases me about, they swear things like this only happen to me.

I found some cute accessories, each for $0.50:
1 pink, light weight looped scarf and 2 white lacey, pompom scarves (totally made me think of Disney)

and since I've been meaning to try wearing wide belts: silver, stretch wide belt, bronze braided wide belt, and some crazy blue/white tights which are likely to be made into a headband


This black, sequence asymetrical tank was $2. Not necessarily my "style" (not entirely sure what that is), but I'll make it work - thank you Tim Gunn, lol.


They also had a number of semi-formal dresses for $3:
I LOVED the color of this skirt, hate the top but I can change that.


Ok, funny story with this last dress. The zipper was acting kind of funny. I got the dress on, but then the zipper got stuck halfway up. I couldn't get it all the way up or, more importantly, DOWN! This dress is what you would call a serious MINI, it would not cover my booty in a million years. I worked for several minutes trying to get the zipper down, trying to get the dress up over my head, or down over my hips. NOTHING! I really thought I was going to have to wear it up to the register. Then suddenly the zipper just worked. Phew. Anyhoo, I plan to hem this and add straps to make it into a cute summer top. I just love that pink on black print.


All of that for under $12.

love it

A blog I periodically read gave a new name to one of my favorite places to shop, Red Dot Boutique. Can you guess? It is Target. (= Lately they've had LOTS of long sleeve shirts on clearance, my kind of price range too, between $2-$2.50. I've already got some great ideas for how to transform them into spring/summer shirts!



Wahoo, can't wait for some WARM weather!

a refashion, new camera case and one less craft for me to tackle

Why do I buy things that don't fit me? Oh, that's right, because it was stinkin' cheap. Oh well, at least now I am able to do something about it. I think I bought this shirt postpartum because it was loose in the front. I do tend to buy long sleeve shirts a size too big because apparently I have longer arms than the normal people. There is not much I hate worse than having sleeves that are just a little too short. Anyhow, back to the refashion. I snipped up the front, cut the back panel straight across at my waist and then cut a deep angle to the front. I had some cotton in about the same shade of green, so I created this this tie in the front. I think it looks a lot cuter in person than it does in the picture. By the way, sorry for my crappy picture taking "skills".




At some point during our moving around this summer, our poor little digital camera lost it's case. I found an old zippered change purse that it (sort of) fits in. I'm not sure Billy appreciates that it is pink and flowered though. I had seen a tutorial for a tote to carry a portable DVD player and was able to use the concept (yay for quilter's batting in Joann's remnant bin) to make a little padded case for my camera. I think it turned out cute!

the front, with velcro

the back

I'm actually planning to do the same type of thing for my new TomTom GPS that I got for Christmas, it makes me nervous to just throw it in my purse. But first, I hope to get one made for our portable DVD player. I need to get on that so it is done by the time Jocie and I leave next week! Yikes!

I had planned on making Jocie an apron, I even had a couple old, but unused, dish cloths that I was going to use. She has her own little play kitchen, and she has really started to enjoy "helping" me in the kitchen. Then, on one of my (frequent) trips to Target I noticed a cute little apron, AND chef's hat, in their "one spot". It was marked 50% off, but when I got to the register it rang up at $0.25 each. I got both for a whopping 2 quarters! I can't beat that! She surprised me and was actually excited about wearing the hat!

just call me...The Bargain Finder

This was my "loot" today. I spent $11.92 at Target today, and I saved $64.21. Ahh, it was a good day.