Archiver's $3/$15 Coupon

Here is the newest Archiver's coupon. 

Click here to print your $3/$15 coupon. 

It expires 4/22/09.

Getting Ready for the 4th of July

My kids and I just finished our craft project for the 4th of July. To check it out click here to my other blog: Michael's in my Basement.

Above is the picture of how things turned out!

First Day of Summer Vacation...Now what?

It's official, my kids are on summer vacation.

We can't afford to go out of town this summer, and the gas prices are to high to even go on a weekend vacation, so I have come up with a list of some free & inexpensive things to help pass the summer months along. Some of the items are nationwide, and some are specific to the Twin Cities area. Be sure to do a search for local tours & events in your area too!

Take a tour of the Minnesota Capitol

Minnesota State Capitol

75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard

Saint Paul, MN 55155

Free guided tours of the beautiful State Capitol building are offered year-round. The last tour starts one hour before closing. No reservations are required; check for exceptions due to special events.

651.296.2881

http://www.mnhs.org/statecapitol

Occurs every day from 3/11/06 - 4/29/10

Time: Mon-Fri 9am-4pm; Sat 10am-3pm; Sun 1pm-4pm

Cost: Free

Target Center Tours

Target Center

600 First Avenue North

Minneapolis, MN 55403

Meet a guide in the main lobby for a free weekly tour. Groups of more than 20 people need to call ahead.

612.673.0900

http://www.targetcenter.com/

Occurs Thursdays

Time: 2pm

Cost: Free

Musical Storytime

Highland Park Library

1974 Ford Parkway

Saint Paul, MN 55116

Guitar Lady Kathleen leads kids and parents through fingerplays, stories, rhymes, and songs.

651.695.3700

http://www.sppl.org/

Occurs Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays

Ages: 1 to 6

Time: 10:30am

Cost: Free

Thursday Kids Hour

Tillie's Bean

2803 East 38th Street

Minneapolis, MN 55406

Stop in to this friendly neighborhood coffee house for stories, music games, or craft and other activities. Offerings change each week, but expect fun!

612.276.0100

http://www.tilliesbean.com/

Occurs Thursdays

Ages: 1 to 6

Time: 10:30am-11:30am

Cost: Free

Storytime

Borders Books and Music

Stop in for themed weekly storytimes about animals, holidays, and other kid-friendly topics.

http://www.borders.com/

Occurs Thursdays

Ages: 1 to 7

Time: 10:30am

Cost: Free

Preschool Storytime

Barnes & Noble

Stop by for stories, rhymes, and company.

http://www.bn.com/

Occurs Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays

Ages: 3 to 6

Time: 11am

Cost: Free

2008 Minneapolis Summer Walking Tours

Including:

Mill City Museum

City Hall & Courthouse

Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery

Northside Synagogues

Grain Belt Brewery

Minnesota Museum of American Art
Landmark Center
75 West Fifth St 2nd Floor
Saint Paul, Minnesota
(651) 292-4355
Admission: Free

Minneapolis Institute of Arts
free except during special exhibits
2400 3rd Ave
Minneapolis, Minnesota
612-870-3131
Admission: Free

County Fairs

July 1 - 5 - Cannon Valley Fair

July 9 - 13 - Pennington County Fair,

July 9 - 13 - Watonwan County Fair,

July 10 - 13 - Big Stone County Fair,

July 15 - 20 - Rice County Fair,

July 15 - 19 - Fillmore County Fair

July 16 - 19 - Cass County Fair,

July 17 - 20 - East Ottertail County Fair,

July 20 - 25 - Roseau County Fair,

July 23 - 27 - Isanti County Fair,

July 23 - 27 - Waseca County Free Fair,

July 24 - 27 - Redwood County Fair,

July 30 - August 3 - Washington County Fair,

Free Summer Activities

Very Complete list of Free or Inexpensive Movie Tickets

99 Different Outdoor Games for kids

Barns & Noble Summer Reading Program

Be sure to check your local library for reading programs too!

Kids Free Bowling

90 Low Cost Activities for Kids

Make your own scavenger hunt. My kids do this at least once a summer. I go around on Sunday and write down all the litter and toys that are not where they are supposed to be. I then turn that list into the scavenger hunt. So not only are the kids having fun, they are cleaning up the yard for me too.

Visit the library often. We tend to go every other week. The older kids pick out a chapter book and an easy or research book. The little one picks out pictures books. We normally get a movie and a few CDs while we are there too. Check to see when they have story time for your branch. Also be sure to sign up for their Summer Reading Club. My county library will give each child a free pass to the local water park after reading just 5 books!

Free Movies. Click the link above for the complete list of free or cheap movies for this summer. I already have three movie days written on the calender for this summer.

Go Camping. We go camping a couple of times every summer. Our Minnesota State Parks have tent camping starting at just $12 a site. We already have all the equipment, so all we need to buy is food. Check out your state parks website for special events that might be going on during the weekends for more free fun. Remember you can hop the boarder if you live close to the boarder of your state. My daughter wanted to go camping on her birthday a couple of years ago. We couldn't go do to it being the first day back to school, so we pitched a tent in the backyard. Only myself and one of the two kids made it through the night, but it was fun and free.

Gardening. Plant a kids garden. Be sure to plant fast growing seeds to help the waiting. Sunflowers, radishes, lettuce, and beans/peas seem to grow pretty fast. Have them weed and water their own garden. Maybe they can create their own labels for the seeds and a small scarecrow for their garden too.

Car Wash. My kids always love helping wash the cars. They also like to wash their bikes and scooters too. Just set them up in their bathing suits, buckets of soapy water and the hose. They will be completely soaked by the time they are done, but they will have fun.

Go fishing. We are not big on fishing, but my sons best friend and his Dad take him fishing at least once a month. They just go to the local lake not to far away and fish all day. They are not fishing to bring home dinner, but are learning about fishing more than anything. My kids do also fish every time they are up at Grandma & Grandpa's cabin. Here is a web site that breaks down by state the Free Fishing Days, so on those days you don't even need a license.

Visit a new park. We have been freezing all of our old bread crusts for our trip to the parks this summer. They work great for feeding the ducks & geese. We do not have a park within walking distance, so we try to hit a new park every time we go. Some are better than others, and we just try to remember which parks the kids really enjoy, and hit those more than once.

Swimming at the beach. I try to go to the beach early in the day for two reasons. One, the sun is not as hot in the morning, and two the teenagers are usually sleeping in still. We tend to leave when the teenagers show up, do to language issues. If you have to pay to enter the beach these issues are normally better and more family friendly. One of the funnest summer memories I have is a few years back when my whole cul-de-sac went to the beach together. A few had jet-skis and one had a boat for pulling tubers. We all BBQd and had the best day together.

Visit the Zoo. Every child in the Twin Cities has been to Como Zoo more than once. We are lucky enough to have one of the last 7 free zoos in the country. Como Zoo keeps upgrading every year, and is in the process of a new Polar Bear exhibit. Como Town is right next door for inexpensive amusement park rides, and there is the conservatory for learning about plants and flowers. Don't forget they have Camp Como Day Camp for the kids, a Japanese Garden and Sparky the Seal Show too. If you aren't lucky enough to have a free zoo, be sure to check out special event days or search out coupons on admission prices.

Cooking. Check out some kids cookbooks from the library, find all the ingredients, and let them go wild. My kids like to cook, when they want to. If I ask them to help it is a different story. They enjoy going through the book and picking out dinner and desserts. We also make alot of rice krispies and cookies over the summer.

County Fairs. Not only do we visit the county fair, but we enter alot of the stuff the kids have made over the summer in the county fair. There is little monetary prizes, but the kids normally make enough to cover the whole trip to the fair. Last year my daughter and her best friend even won second place in the talent show with their dance routine! They won $60 to split between them. I often enter a quilt or two and some baked goods. The kids do much better than me, but I just like to see how I am doing on my quilting progress. I did actually finally win a first place on a mini quilt a few years back. But that was the same year my daughter made her first quilt, and won first place too, she doesn't let me forget that. You can check out some of our projects at my other blog, Michael's in my Basement here.

What are your ideas for the summer? Do you have a freebie that you do every year? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

My Kids Teacher Gifts

It's that time of year again, Teacher gifts. My kids are on the 7 day count down now, and won't let me forget that they only have 7 days left of school.

On my other blog Michael's in my Basement, I have posted what my kids teachers are getting this year. They are lovely buckets filled with my deals from Bath & Body.

My good friend Michelle has posted on her blog Leaving Excess, about what she is doing for her kids teachers this year. Hers includes a recipe for bath salts that she has given in the past.

What are your kids giving their teachers this year? Do you give a gift card, or do you do something different? Leave a comment for others to get ideas too!

Eco-Friendly Tip-of-the-Week

School is almost out for the kids, and that makes me dread the last day of school. Not because I am not happy for my kids, but because they bring home all their half-used school supplies. There have been years where the school bag didn't get emptied out for a few weeks. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind when emptying out the school bags this year.

Bottles of glue: Take the nicest bottle of glue and empty all the other bottles into that one. You get rid of the extras, and have one good bottle to use for crafts over the summer. Throw the old screw tops into the garbage and rinse and recycle the bottles.

Crayons: Put all the good one that are still long into one crayon container, we use an old shoebox, save them to use for the summer. Take the smaller and broken ones and remove the papers from them. Use them for different craft projects, such as remelting them into ice cube trays for a block crayon. Or make shavings and put them in between wax paper and iron, cut them into window hangings. The possibilities are endless with little pieces of crayons.

Rulers, dictionaries, calculators, pencil sharpeners & watercolor paints: Put into a supply drawer in your office to use them again next year. They will be safe and ready for back-to-school time. Plus you will know where they are if you need them over the summer. Side note: my kids need to have a very hard to find watercolor paint for third grade. They use it about three times throughout the year. I got the paint from a neighbor who's two girls used it first, then two of my kids have used it, and we will be passing it back for her son next year. It is still barely used!

Scissors: I always take one pair for my coupon box, and put the rest into the school supply drawer. They are great to reuse the next year too.

Markers: We always have an abundance of markers somehow. We use an old child sized suitcase for these. Once a year, normally this time of year, we go through the markers with scrap paper and test every marker. Throw away the ones that don't work, or are pretty well done working. Make sure to check the ones coming home from school before adding them to the suitcase.

Pencils: We barely ever buy new pencils. My kids get them at every birthday party they go to, so we have tons of pencils. I keep them all in the school supply drawer, and they use them year after year until they are gone.

Folders: If they are still in good shape, we reuse them too. The kids use them to play with in the summer, store their stories they are writing, or their various research projects they do through the summer. My daughter has also cut apart the older ripped ones to use in craft projects. She used an old one last week to make a handmade birthday card for a friend. It worked great because it is stiff like card stock.

Notebooks: I love getting the kids old notebooks back. I rip out the used pages and recycle them, then the notebook is mine. I have one in the car, one by each phone and more than one in the office for random thoughts. There are always used for these.

Now about this school supply drawer. Mine is always stocked with the various things they need for school. I tend to buy them in bulk when they are on a great sale at back-to-school time. When they need something in the middle of the year, they can grab it before they head out the door. I can pay 10 cents for a notebook in September or pay $3.99 for the same notebook in March. It pays to stock up. I can always tell at work when the new quarter is starting due to the high school kids coming through my lane with all new notebooks and folders. They are paying almost $40 every quarter for these new supplies. And that is not to mention all the gas and time they are spending. Plus you know nobody leaves Target with just what they came for. So it really does save you money to have a school supply drawer. If you don't have a drawer, make it a box under your bed or a bag in the pantry.

So as an overview, look differently at the supplies that the kids will be bringing home from school in the next few months. Repurpose them or save them for next year. Just remember to recycle the old papers, and anything else that can be recycled.

Saving $$$ on Easter

My how the kids have grown since last Easter. With the budget being so tight this spring, the Easter Bunny is going to have to be a little more creative with what he brings. First of all our bunny like to play little tricks on the three kids. He ties a piece of yarn to each child's bedroom door. Everybody has there own color. Then the yarn is bounced through the house where only bunnies could hop to. They are all tangled together and sometime even go outside. The kids wind up their yarn and follow it's path, and at the end is their Easter basket filled with all the goodies. The older kids have harder yarn mazes while the toddlers is quite a bit easier. Our bunny has been doing this for a few years now, and the kids are already asking if it is going to happen again this year. With the weather turning warmer (finally!) it looks like the baskets could end up in the back yard this year.

The baskets themselves are going to be stuffed with my coupon finds. From M&M's to Valentine kisses, free make-up to a CD I won on the radio. I also bought some t-shirts and clothes at 75% off at Target after Christmas. Their baskets are Easter buckets that I picked up last year at 90% off at Target after easter. I think I paid $.19 for them. I got Easter grass for $.29 and need to still get three chocolate bunnies, but after that I think I am done. I will be buying more for next year after Easter this year. Always planning ahead, as long as I don't forget where I hide them!

Here are some deals that I found that you can take advantage of:

Free printable coupons to stick into the baskets. They are kind of hokey, but could be fun for older children.

Here are some other free coupons to print out for their baskets.

The Disney online store has up to 25% off on many Easter items. No coupon needed but use coupon code MARSITE10 for 10% off your order on top of that. Go to this site to get in on the deal quickly before it is to late.

Print some free coloring book pages for the little ones while they wait for the Easter ham to finish cooking. The older kids can work on mazes, crosswords and unscrambles that you print from here to keep them occupied.

If you don't know what to do with all the candy in their baskets, here at Hersheys there are lots of craft ideas to use up some of that candy.

And don't forget the real reason we celebrate Easter. Here is a printable Easter story for children. You can print it and read it to all the children. I am going to make my older kids read it this year, they need the extra reading time due to spring break anyway. There are even questions at the end to ask the kids to get a conversation going. Make sure that your kids know that Easter is about Jesus rising for our sins, and not about a bunny giving us candy.

Free Home-Made Food Labels

You can print your own food labels thanks to Land 'O Lakes, for your home-made food gifts. There are labels for Valentine's Day, Winter Scenes, and plain for everyday items. These would work great for the dry ingredient mix recipes in a jar. Those make great end-of-the-year teacher gifts that don't cost alot. There are lots of recipes out there, just find a recipe that you already have the ingredients for, and go to town. It is a great craft project for the littler kids due to it being pretty much goof-proof.

The labels also are great for bringing cookies to the new neighbors that moved in this winter, but it has been to cold to go over and meet them yet.