Give-a-way Winner Announcement!

Update:  The give-a-way is now closed and the winner is...

Cortney J!  Cortney, I have emailed you already.

Thank you to everyone who entered the give-a-way!  If you didn't win, but would like a copy of Crystal's book, she's selling it for only $0.99 through tomorrow on Amazon. 

Can you tell that Crystal from Money Saving Mom is one of my favorite bloggers? Crystal is an expert a frugal and simple living - her stories are absolutely inspiring.

Crystal has written a new ebook called Celebraing & Savoring: a simple Christmas. It's being released today and she's selling it for only $0.99 through Thursday! I purchased my copy this morning - I can't wait to read it!

From Crystal:

In this book you'll learn to:

- Organize your Christmas list

- Make and stick with a Christmas budget

- Freezer cook for the holidays

- Make memorable family activities

- Simple and inexpensive homemade gifts

- Get your home in order

- Savor the meaning of the season

... and much more

Even more exciting is that Crystal has given me a copy of her ebook to give away to one of my readers!

To enter the give-a-way, please email me at holidaysforless@yahoo.com and let me know which of the following actions below you've taken. You will be entered in the give-a-way 1 time for each action you take (so up to 3 times):

1. Follow Holidays for Less (the blue button on the right hand side that says "Join this Site").

2. Like Holidays for Less on Facebook (if you already like Holidays for Less, that counts too!) - click the "F" at the top right of the blog to connect to our Facebook page.

3. Follow Holidays for Less on Twitter (if you already follow Holidays for Less, that counts too!). Just click the birdie in the circle at the top right of the blog (next to the F and P in circles) to follow on Twitter.

The give-a-way will close at 5pm Wednesday and the winner will be chosen at random and announced Wednesday night!

Oriental Trading: Free Shipping - No Minimum Purchase!

Oriental Trading is offering FREE shipping through November 16 on every order, no minimum purchase!  Just enter WCE3688 at check out.

Take a good look around their site, you'll find crafts, scrapbooking supplies, holiday costumes (elf, santa, snowman), and much, much more!

Check out their sale section as well.  You may be able to find some nice scrapbooking supplies for a scrapbook-er on your holiday list.  Or some craft supplies for your children.

Take a look around!

20 Personalized Gift Tags - Only $2.25 Shipped

Just a reminder about this deal.  I just received mine today and they are adorable!

Ink Garden is offering 20 FREE personalized gift tags to their new customers. You will just pay $2.25 in shipping. That works out to about $0.11 per gift tag!

I think these are adorable! I just ordered a set and I chose the above pattern.

What I love about these is that they have options that include a picture and others where you just customize your name. Also, you can customize what the tag says, so if you want to change "Warm Holiday Wishes" on this one to something else, you can do that!

What a nice, personal, touch these would be to your packages this holiday! And $2.25 for 20 is cheaper than what you can buy at the store for generic ones!

This offer runs through December 17th. You just need to enter FREETAGS at check out. Just a note - when I ordered mine, on the first page of check out, it looked like the promo was automatically applied. But then as I got further in to the check out, it no longer looked like the promo was applied. I was able to apply it on that page no problem. But my advice to you is to put the promo in on the first page, even though it may look like it was applied automatically.

Thanks, Hip 2 Save!

Vistaprint: 6 Free Items - Just Pay Shipping

Vistaprint is offering 6 FREE products right now, you just pay shipping.  I just ordered all 6 of the FREE items and my shipping was $11.83.  So for $11.83, I got:

- 250 Business Cards (pictured above)

- 10 Holiday Cards

- Personalized Photo Calendar

- Personalized Mug

- Personalized Tote Bag

- Personalized T-Shirt

You can pick one or all of the free items, that's up to you.  Here are a few tips for you:

- For some reason whenever I picked a photo card, it charged me $2.75 for photo upload.  So I ended up just picking a card without a photo.

- The mug and tote bag have "vistaprint" printed on them in small printing, so that would be up to you if you want to use it as a gift.  I opted not to use the mug as a gift, but I am using the tote bag as a gift bag.

- I've seen on other blogs that their shipping was less.  Maybe it was the part of the country I'm in, I have no idea.  But I would venture to guess that your shipping wouldn't be any higher than mine.

- Always pick the slowest method of delivery, in my experience the products always come faster than advertised.

- I found the best way to order all 6 items was to click here, order your first item, put it in your cart, then come back to the blog and click here again to go back in, order the next item and so forth. 

If you don't have a need for business cards, one cute idea I've seen is to make "mommy cards" with your contact information to give to other moms to set up for play dates, etc. 

Don't forget to order through Ebates (I totally forgot!  Bummer!) to get 5% back.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas - Free ebook

Right now, Amazon has 'Twas the Night Before Christmas in ebook format for free!  Download this for your Kindle, iPad, iPhone or Android phone. 

Amazon does change their prices frequently, so just make sure it still says $0.00 before you purchase.

Thanks, My Frugal Adventures!

GIVE-A-WAY - Celebrating & Savoring: a simple Christmas ebook

Can you tell that Crystal from Money Saving Mom is one of my favorite bloggers?  Crystal is an expert a frugal and simple living - her stories are absolutely inspiring.

Crystal has written a new ebook called Celebraing & Savoring:  a simple Christmas.  It's being released today and she's selling it for only $0.99 through Thursday!  I purchased my copy this morning - I can't wait to read it!

From Crystal:

In this book you'll learn to:

- Organize your  Christmas list

- Make and stick with a Christmas budget

- Freezer cook for the holidays

- Make memorable family activities

- Simple and inexpensive homemade gifts

- Get your home in order

- Savor the meaning of the season

... and much more

Even more exciting is that Crystal has given me a copy of her ebook to give away to one of my readers!

To enter the give-a-way, please email me at holidaysforless@yahoo.com and let me know which of the following actions below you've taken.  You will be entered in the give-a-way 1 time for each action you take (so up to 3 times):

1. Follow Holidays for Less (the blue button on the right hand side that says "Join this Site").

2. Like Holidays for Less on Facebook (if you already like Holidays for Less, that counts too!) - click the "F" at the top right of the blog to connect to our Facebook page.

3. Follow Holidays for Less on Twitter (if you already follow Holidays for Less, that counts too!). Just click the birdie in the circle at the top right of the blog (next to the F and P in circles) to follow on Twitter.

The give-a-way will close at 5pm Wednesday and the winner will be chosen at random and announced Wednesday night! 

Who Do You Send Holiday Cards To?

Holiday cards are expensive for three reasons:

1. The cards themselves are expensive
2. The postage is expensive
3. The sheer number of cards you send out makes this ritual really expensive!

Here's how you can cut down on those costs:

1. Take advantage of the deals I post here on the blog (maybe check out this Cardstore post)
2. Take advantage of the Cardstore deal and have them send your cards out for you - they pay your postage!
3. Now what to do about how many cards to send out... personally, I send to certain family and then to friends that sent to us last year.  Either keep your cards from last year and use that as your list as you're doing this year's cards.  Or as you're packing up your holiday decorations at the end of the year, make a quick list of everyone you received a card from this year.  This will be your holiday card list for the following year.  My mom taught me this trick years ago and it really does help to cut down on the number of cards you need to send.

Thank you, Staci, for reminding me of this great tip!