I love going to the 99 cent store and finding sweet deals for my boxes. Like in one of my earlier posts, I absolutely love to find the WOW items and placing those in my boxes and I think I found some at the store today. For those of you packers out here in California, these were found at the 99 Cent Store off Douglas next to the Goodwill and Staples. So, without further explanation; here are some of my awesome finds!
My goodness! I am so glad I went to the 99 Cent Store today to see that their Halloween products were Buy One Get One. When we look at the pictures of boys and girls opening up their gifts, I always see one child with a Princess crown on or some funny/animal head band on with a big smile on their faces. With that being said, finding sets on sale for pretty much $0.50 each, I just couldn't pass these wonderful things up. These were the only types they had that were acceptable as there were Devil and Witch sets there but those aren't exactly the most appropriate attires for shoe boxes.
Along with the costume sets, they had Halloween socks on sale too. I mean EVERY one of their Halloween products was BOGO. So, of course, I bought some too! Thankfully I know how these socks feel as I bought three pairs of them for myself two years ago and still wear them to this day, even to work where I stand for 8 hours on end. They are great socks and if you guys get the chance, you should buy a few pairs. I bought the sizes 6-10 which are the sizes I bought myself, a size 6 shoe size, and they are great.
I found these Little People carry and go coloring pads for the young kiddies and I fell in love! They come with 6 coloring markers for the kiddies and then tons of white pages for them to color and enjoy! I love this concept and am a little upset I didn't buy more (I only bought 2) but how cool is that? I loved Little People when I was a kid so seeing them and being able to include them in my boxes for the kiddies is a great blessing.
Socks! Socks! Socks! I cannot express how important a good pair of socks is for a child. I, myself, hate going out on the hot California cement without some sort of protection. Imagine that but on rough terrain for miles. A story that made a great impact in my shoe box packing was a story about how there was one boy in an African village that got nothing but white socks in his shoe box. The distributors felt bad because he only got white socks but the boy was overjoyed. He told them that he had burnt his feet so badly that he could only walk so far and was praying that God would send him socks to protect his feet so they could heal. It really helps add to the importance of including nice socks in their boxes. The Kenneth Jones brand is a brand I own myself and wear to the gym, they are soft and thicker than the other options they have there and I've owned mine for about a year now and they have yet to fall apart. I don't know too much about Elite Collection, however I feel the difference between these socks and the other small brand socks they have there and these ones have the best brightness, thickness and quality out of all of them. Be careful when you are buying these though, because there were a few marks on a pair from the shipment.
When it comes to pens, I consider myself to be a great critic because before Operation Christmas Child, I wrote constantly in my notebooks and so forth: buying pens and checking out which ones write well, which ones don't and which ones are just a complete waste of money. I tend to prefer Bic when it comes to buying bulk pens but Office Pro holds its own in the Pen world. I've owned a few of their products (calculators, staplers, erasers, paper clips, thumb tacks) and they are quite the pen for being at the 99 cent store.
As for soap, I've also used Palmolive before. I'm not too fond of the scent because it reminds me just a bit too much of a nursing home, but that could just be me. Something I love about Palmolive is that they have their soaps in a three pack nicely set up in boxes for us to put in a plastic bag or container and bam, done with the soap. They have other soaps in three packs there but I read that when it comes to soaps, we should try to get the mild soaps because we don't know about the skin conditions that these kids might have and most likely they'll share it with their families so a good ol' mild family soap is a best bet for those soaps out there.
Now isn't that a familiar brand that all of us girls know all too well from our time of youth? Lip Smacker has existed in all of our Christmas stockings, goodie bags from Birthday parties and we'd all be super hyped up by the new Root beer flavored Chap Stick that we'd no doubt get our parents to buy us. Seeing this hit a burst of nostalgia and I knew that these flavors would be a nice get away for the girls out there. These are flavored as Cheese Cake and Birthday Cake. Chap Sticks are a great addition to your boxes, you can find some pictures out there that have girls and boys using their chap sticks with smiles on their faces. If you guys are going to include chap sticks, try to find those plastic bags, the small ones that we usually see holding earrings and such at craft shows so that if your box is sent to a warm climate, if the chap stick melts, it won't melt on to the rest of their gifts.
Alright packers, I know that this is a post about the 99 cent store but I got a deal that I couldn't not post about. I found Fruit of the Loom t-shirts for my boys boxes for $1 each at the Clearance section of Walmart and then these adorable Zebra purses for $1 each as well. Seriously packers, if you are out at Walmart, take some time to look at the Clearance sections. They have such great deals and although it does require some searching and diving, we can find some really awesome things.
See Packers? We can find some wonderful things if we look. I hope your packing and shoe box shopping is going well! 3 weeks until National Collection Week!
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