Swagbucks

I love Swagbucks! I actually just signed up a few weeks ago, but I love the concept. And I like how a little page pops up like you've won the lottery when you win Swagbucks. It's really a great way to earn gift cards; I know of people who have bought all of their Christmas presents with Swagbucks.

Is the search bar as good as Google? The only thing I've found about it that isn't as good as Google is that it doesn't give you suggestions when you're searching. But I can deal with that for some free gift cards (or other items of my choosing). I literally search everything there. Even if I know the address, I still go to the search page and type in "www.google.com" or something like that. That way, you maximize your Swagbucks.

Anyway, if you're interested in trying it (and you really should try it), you can read a little more about it here. And if you do decide to use it, please go through the link here and enter my email address as the one who referred you: kellynpoole(at)gmail(dot)com.

Goodwill Finds

After making my weekly trip to Goodwill, I wanted to share my finds. Let me preface this by saying that I have recently discovered how badly I needed two things (among others): new coasters, and a holder for my fire wood.

Goodwill to the rescue!



Shut the front door (as one of my fave people on the planet, Stacey London, would say)! These coasters are incredible! Of course I have my doubts about them being real silver, but they sure do look elegant either way. And how much were they? Two measly dollars. You can't get coasters for two dollars if you buy cloth ones at Wal-Mart. So I was pretty pleased. And then...



I found this beaut. It's a little scratched, but for $5, I couldn't say no! A little polish will fix that, but even if not, who cares? It's just going to be holding wood.

As a little bonus (because I'm in a sharing mood today), I'll let you in on the real prize of the weekend. This picture of my doggies loving on my nephew. And him having no clue what to do.



He's so precious, I know. And so are my sweet puppies.

Goodwill and Estate Sale Finds

Since I had a long weekend (thank you, Christopher Columbus!), I decided to pay a visit to the Goodwill to see what kind of goodies I could find. One thing I know about going to Goodwill is that it is hit or miss. Sometimes I go in there and find tons of inexpensive treasures; at other times, I spend 45 minutes to an hour and come out empty-handed. I was hoping today would be one of the former times. Well, I didn't find "tons" of things, but I did find a few. Like this precious little teapot. Its color doesn't exactly fit in with the warm tones I have in my kitchen, but I figure a paint job can fix that, especially when it was only $2.



I also happened upon this little vase, which is nothing super-special, but it was only 88 cents, and I needed something to put my candy corn in.



I tied some raffia around it and filled it up to add a little more fall color to our kitchen. I thought it would be purely decoration, since I don't like candy corn and my DH said he didn't like it. But approximately an inch or two of candy corn has disappeared since this afternoon, and since our dogs can't reach the counter, I know it to be JC's doing. We'll see how long it is before I have to buy some more.

I also love Christmas, so I was quite pleased to find this little red sled. I am sure I would have paid at least $8-$10 for it at Kirkland's or Hobby Lobby, but this little gem was only $2.40! How exciting! I may end up giving it a paint job also, because I'm not sure about the holly leaves on it, but we'll see. Updates to follow if so.



One last find from this weekend came from an estate sale. I love estate sales because they usually contain lots of older items, which I always fall in love with (but usually can't afford). These regular old apothecary jars, however, were pretty cheap--under $10 for the set--so I snatched them up and filled them with a few autumn-looking things around the house. I know lemons are more summery than autumn-y, but that was all I had around the house. Perhaps I'll change it out later.