My 50th Shoe Box!!!!! 3/14/16

Hello Packers!

     Well, if you have been following my blog since the beginning then you would know that my shoe box goal for this year is to fill 50 shoe boxes and to have a lot of boy shoe boxes because they aren't supported as much as girls. Today marks the day I filled my fiftieth shoe box and in celebration of that, I wanted to show you all the process and what went into the shoe box. It was truly a wonderful blessing to be able to fill these shoe boxes and write individual letters for each and every one of them. Without further ado, here is my fiftieth shoe box!

WHAT WENT INSIDE:

This was an exciting find for any of us out there that have been raised off of Gerber baby food and products knows that Gerber is the go-to for baby-toddler products. I ended up finding this wonderful sippy cup the Dollar Tree in Roseville. If those of you in California need a Dollar Tree to go to where there are great opportunities for crafting materials and school supplies, sometimes they have more than other Dollar Trees so I recommend that one for your Shoe Box needs.

I included a lot of fun-oriented items for his box: three sticker pages, a set of crayons, a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse coloring book, a World Beanie Baby, Stacking Cups, that red Valentine's Light up wand and a stencil stick. Like always, along with go-to necessities, remember these are children that could have had their childhood stripped from them: fun things are a must.

School Supplies is a must in any box for any age group so I included: a Dodgers notepad with a matching pen, five Avengers pencils, five black pens, five pencil eraser toppers, a Dr. Seuss eraser, a heart pencil sharpener and a duct tape pencil holder. 

So, if you guys have ever looked at some of the Facebook Operation Christmas Child pages then you would know about the multiple Instagram accounts that are available to give out OCC deals. One of them that I follow told us about a set of crayons that were wrongly priced at Walgreens and were coming out to 20 cents each. Of course, I was excited and went. Alas, they were all gone but as you can see there, there were Gildan sweatshirts that were originally 4 dollars that were 75% off! This was such a blessing to get sweatshirts on sale for only $1. So I included a sweatshirt, a set of socks and a wash cloth. 

Lastly, hygienic items are always a top item in our boxes because we don't know their living situations and some might only get that much toothpaste in their entire year or have never had toothpaste before. I recommend getting the largest tube no matter what. Along with that I included: a toothbrush, a bar of hypoallergenic soap, facial tissue, a comb and a Fantastic Four tote bag for him to hold all his goodies.

PROCESS:

So, the first thing I do is put the stickers at the bottom so that they won't bend or fall from the page when in the box and I also put the coloring book upward in the back of the box because it fills up the entire length of the shoe box and I can bend it over the rest of the goodies to ensure everything fits.

Every water bottle should be used to hold other objects so I used the sippy cup as a holder for his erasers, pencil sharpener, wash cloth and the set of socks.

After I filled the sippy cup, I placed it in first along with the other large item, the sweatshirt, because those are the ones that you want to be able to fit no matter what. 

At the bottom I placed the comb and stencil because they are thin and don't take up much space, after that I placed the pens and pencils down between the sweatshirt and coloring book. Over those, the toothpaste and the tooth brush fit absolutely perfectly.

After that, I added the pencil pouch, the notepad and the beanie baby. It might not look like it from here but there is still a lot of space in this box.

I'll admit that I forgot about the stacking cups so this became a bit more difficult. I placed the cups at the base of the beanie baby and after some maneuvering, I was able to get it to stick between the beanie baby and the soap.  The light up wand fit in as well but was too thick for the box to close on top so fingers crossed.

I placed the tote bag behind the coloring book and placed the tissue right next to the Beanie Baby. What isn't shown in the picture is a small box of Sweet Hearts that I put underneath the light up wand. Like I said, it doesn't appear that way from the image but there was quite a bit of space in the shoe box left.

After writing out a kind letter and surrounding the box with nothing but prayer and rubber bands, I finished my 2016 goal of fifty shoe boxes. I don't plan on stopping here as God has blessed me with countless resources to make many more boxes. I want to say that this was truly a great feeling to reach fifty shoe boxes so early in the year and I look forward to what the rest of the year will bring to the table. For my fifty box stash, I have at the moment:

Girl 2-4: 7

Boy 2-4: 10

Boy 5-9: 3

Girl 10-14: 6

Boy 10-14: 24

     This has been a great experience and I hope you all are having just a great a time as I am as you pack up your shoe boxes all year round. God Bless!

Happy Packing!

OCC DEAL FIND: Free Coloring Books and Stickers

Hello Packers!

     This is your friend, Sweet Tea, here and I want you all to know about a great website that promotes healthy eating...mainly watermelon and they have them available for free! Again, I must recommend going to Clip With Purpose as they have such great deals all around the United States and they are willing to answer any of your questions. Anyway, here is the link for the Watermelon site: http://www.watermelon.org/Freebies

This is my box that I got just this morning. My mother picked it up and thought it was a set of textbooks but it was actually my wonderful coloring book order! To think, I was telling my mother about my coloring book order just a few hours ago and then they arrive at my doorstep.

So this is one of the two coloring books I ordered. This one is obviously targeted toward kids to stop eating junk food and that is OK as long as the inside of the coloring book is mostly coloring pages and not activity. (I know that seems silly but most of the countries these go to are countries that aren't strongest in English so crossword puzzles and word scrambles might not be the best for children overseas.) I ended up with 55 Lazee coloring books.

This is the second one and I just think this is so adorable. It is, again, directed toward healthy eating choices and there is nothing but coloring pages, no overly English-directed activities. I ended up with 55 of these coloring books.

I didn't know about these stickers but I think they'll be nice to add a few to the shoe boxes for the stickers, an easy staple for shoe boxes. I ordered 150 of the J-Slice stickers on the left and 50 of the red stickers on the right.

     I hope you guys all check out the site and order some free coloring books and stickers because they are a lot thicker than they look and have a great amount of multi-age coloring pages. 

Happy Packing!

OCC DEAL FIND: Target Clearance Pencils 3/3

Hello Packers!

     As my 3 hour break between my morning classes and my afternoon classes would have, I spent my time at Noodles Company and then Target to find a deal that I wasn't planning on finding. Something that we should all keep in mind when we are going into Target are the inner parts of the aisles where their glorious clearance items are available for the OCC Deal finders like ourselves. 

     In their clearance section of the stationery section, I found these awesome pen packs for only 27 cents each! I did the math and each of these pens comes out to about 3 cents each! Compared to the 16 pencil pack for 1 dollar which makes the pencils 6 cents each. I was as giddy as a school girl at this discovery.

     I don't know if there is truly any difference between the two pencils but these were the two types that they had available. I've never had any difference between pencil brands so I guess that is just up for discussion. 

     Although they had so many packs of pencils that I wish I could have stowed away in my basket, I could only afford to purchase 30 packs. The purchase came out to about $8.40 and with what I spent I discovered that at the dollar tree for the largest amount of pencils in a box which is 16 pencils, I would have only gotten 128 pencils, however for the deal I found, I made a purchase of 240 pencils! It is a great difference from the regular purchase from the dollar tree. 

     Happy Packing!

OCC DEAL FIND: Pens on Sale at Office Max/Depot

Hello Packers!

     Well, the days have been dwindling down to March and April is just a few weeks away. Before the meaning of Easter fills our hearts once more and gives us that extra boost of love for the world that guides us to possibly filling more boxes for those beautiful children overseas, we are left to find more wonderful deals that are prior to Easter. One of those deals that I discovered from Clip With Purpose (Check her website out and make her posts priority on Facebook: You'll get a lot of good deal suggestions) that Office Max/Depot has the Office Depot brand pens on sale after their "Back to School" sales from earlier this year. Let me show you just what type of deals I was able to find.

     So, not all stores are the same. Some have them on sale for 10 cents and some have them on sale for 14 cents but mine had them on sale for 5 cents each! Strictly the black pens but yes, I was able to find these packs for 5 cents each. Unfortunately, not all the employees at Office Depot are all that kind and accepting of those going around in sweat pants but thankfully there was an employee in the pens aisle and helped me over to the area of the discounted pens. I bought every pack they had available. (My stock of pens has been limited as the pens over here in California almost never go on sale.)

     Just to show how great of a deal this is, here is my receipt. I bought 119 packs of pens and only spent $6. Originally these pens are $1.59!!!!! Isn't that just disgusting? One pack of 10 pens brings the pens to be about 16 cents each! But with the pack for 5 cents each pen comes to just 1/2 a cent!!! Isn't that amazing?! Truly everyone, go off to Office Depot and ask them if they have the pens on sale.

     Considering that I had little to any boxes to hold the pens, I had to use old Birthday bags to hold all the pens and my sweet little brother helped cut off all the tops of the pen packages to put the pens away. I've noticed that with some packers and this is solely based on opinion, but they will put the entire  pack of pens in the containers and wait until packing time to unload. I just think that takes up a lot of time during packing time, but again, that is just my opinion. (That's my dog Molly by the way, she was supervising the entire time)

     My brother and I calculated it out and we have exactly 1190 pens. I put about 5 pens in each box and I've calculated it out that I would be able to fill 238 boxes with just the pens I bought from Office Depot. I wish I could have been able to find all of my shoe box gift items at such great deals but oh well, I'll take what I can get.

So, no matter what, I would recommend going to any Office Depot/Office Max and asking them if they have the pens on sale. It's a really good deal and you never know, you might be able to find the greatest of deals if you just check.

Happy Packing!

9 for 99 Cents Finds 2/19/16

Hello Packers!

     One of my favorite deals is finding the clearance section or holiday section at 99 cent stores on sale for a price that makes your head turn. The 9 for 99 cents deal that goes about at the 99 cent stores is one of my favorites. You find things that should obviously be there, like webkins figurines and floss picks that no one is going to use/buy but still, they push to find some way to make little to any profit off their products. Some things, however, make you wonder just why no one has bought the items or why you are the only one to be stashing them into your shopping cart because you think a stampede of people is going to crash your finding as soon as you find it. My mother happened to have that sense when she was shopping and found a great amount of things for my boxes as have I. Here they are:

This was definitely an exciting find for my mother as she went about her Valentine's Day shopping run. Most 99 cents stores have a clearance section now where "EVERYTHING MUST GO". This section can range from hair ties, stamps to clothing if you're lucky. My mother went to one off of Pleasant Grove and squealed in joy as she found these Webkins stuffed dogs for only 11 cents each! She grabbed my brother as they pulled the dogs off the shelves and placed them in her cart. She did mention that everyone was looking at her like she was a little off her rocker but isn't that the greatest feeling ever when you know you're doing this for the good of others? 

My mother also found some great deals on stacking cups from Sesame Street and I must admit, Sesame Street cups/sippy cups/bibs and pretty much all their baby supplies is the best thing that could have ever come into the 99 cent stores/Dollar Trees. So, each set comes with about 4 cups and they will be going into our 2-4 year old boxes. Next are two color in wood planes and those will be good in any 10-14 year old box so that is an exciting find. Then there are the five lunch bags that my mother found in the same section. I made sure to write down who these wonderful bags came from because for such a great find, she deserves to be mentioned in our notes to the kids. 

Last, but surely not least, is my glorious find of more Lakers notebook + Pen sets that also went into the LA Dodgers notebooks as well. By the way, didn't I say that I wanted to make some sports shoe boxes? These are going to look pretty awesome in those boxes don't you think? Then in the top left, we have a notebook and a pen/notepad set for CARS. After I bought this great find, I couldn't help but wonder if this would make a good themed box or not. Then, of course, my shoe box packing mind got reeling and there is without a doubt going to be a CARS themed shoe box in my boxes this year, it will just take a while until I find out what type of stuff I'm going to include.

So, with all that being shown, I just want to send a reminder that it doesn't matter what store you buy it from or how much it actually cost, what matters is that those kids came to mind when you found those items. Seriously, don't compare yourself to other packers: the main object of this organization is the kids and God's grace; it isn't a popularity contest among packers.

Happy Packing!

70% Off Clearance at Target 2/19/16

Hello packers!

     A while ago I came across the 70% off Clearance section of Target and fell in love with $0.30 pencil pouches and a few other sweet items. The time has come again when Target shoved all of their 70% off deals into the back of the store with the holiday items and my mother and I took to it like flies to honey. Seriously, everyone, go to the 70% off sale because getting items on sale for $0.30 is really just an awesome feeling. Clip With Purpose mentioned that the Target near them has marked it down to 90 % off. I don't know if that is true for all areas but it sure would be worth the look. I'm going to check again on Tuesday. Anyway, here's a little peak at what you can get at your neighborhood Target. 

So what we have here are a: headband, necklace, bracelet, hair ties, eraser and journal set all set at 70% off at Target. So, every little thing on the floor there came out to only $0.30 which is a wonderful deal. Then I got a journal set which came out to only $0.90!!!!!!!!!!!

If anyone has any information on where I can get some really great Trolls merchandise, I would be incredibly grateful.

Another journal set was bought for $0.90 so that was really the greatest steal I got at the place other than the dollar deals that they have here. I got another set of puzzles for the 2-4 year old boxes, superhero figurines, a sport eraser set that I hope I can put into my Sports Theme box. (all the small stuff was 30 cents.)

So, speaking of Sports Theme boxes, something that most would say needs to be included in a box for any gender would be a ball of some sort. I am going to be trying my hardest to find some great sport themed stuff to be putting in my boxes especially for the Sports Themed one that will be finished in a week or so. (pics will be available for inspiration). The packs of balls and the large blue one were 90 cents and the pink was 30 cents.

 Do you remember me mentioning the hopeful dinosaur box that I'm making for a 5-9 year old? Well, I've decided to make three dinosaur themed boxes. Granted, the other two might be along the lines of 2-4 but stay tuned, we don't know the results quite yet. The coloring packs came out to be 90 cents each and the pencils were 30 cents each. They have Jurassic World print on them so this will be really cool for the boys' boxes.

With that being shown, I hope you guys are searching for some good deals because it is usually around the holidays when they start shoving their excess products into the Clearance bins.

Happy Packing!

Valentine's Day 2016 After Sales Part 4

Hello Packers!

     I've saved the best for last as my favorite store has finally gone on their 4 for 99 cent sale: one of my favorite parts to the holidays. The 99 cent stores didn't immediately go on sale in my neck of the woods but thankfully on the 16th they went on sale. I squealed like a little girl and ran through the Valentine's Day section, throwing anything to everything in my shopping cart. Thankfully there wasn't much competition because it was in the middle of the day but booyah! I only ended up spending about $25 dollars between two 99 cent stores but it was so worth it.

     By the way, did I mention that my mom got into the spirit of giving recently? With her wallet tucked tightly into her purse, she ran from 99 cent store to 99 cent store with my brother to find anything to everything that would look good in the boxes. I'll show you her other additions in another post but I only grabbed eight of those pens so she pretty much bought all of them. They look quite familiar to the pen and notebook sets from the Christmas sales don't they? Well, it's because they are: it's the same set up and they are going to look freaking awesome in a box. 

     All of these I bought myself and I'm wishing I bought more of those clappers when I had the chance. Just like in Halloween, these clappers are in sets of two and totally perfect to fill in some spaces in those boxes. The headband was nice and the only one that didn't have "text me" on the hearts so off into my shoe box it went. I have seen many pictures of kiddies in funny headbands and enjoying the day away so I hope that this brings some girl some fun. Then I got three packs of stickers and I looked through them all and they are actually made of some good quality sticker material which is a rarity at discount stores like that. 

     I ended up buying most of these but my mom also found about four that weren't totally destroyed. 

     Do you remember that post I made about how jewelry just gives someone confidence? Well, my great grandmother had the same mindset and that has passed down (although not as strongly) down to my mother then to me. Obviously, my mother loves the concept of jewelry more than me. :) I bought only one pack of bracelets and my mom took off with all the rest. 

     Again, jewelry really is the key factor of my mom's shopping expedition. Each pack comes with three heart necklaces and she ended up buying 10 packs. Hehe. 

     My mom truly is a beautiful woman. She was able to find all of the color-in tote bags at a 99 cent store. Think about what a blessing that will be to have not only a bag of your own but also to make it yours with markers?! Seriously, what a wonderful blessing that is. I also ended up buying four packs of notepads of 6 pads each. There were some there that were not well put together so when you are out there shopping, make sure the notepads are well kept. 

     Before the holiday sales go through, I tend to check my nearby stores and scout out what will be worth it after the sales and what won't. I do this with Hobby Lobby, 99 cent stores and Wal-mart for the most part. These notebooks were at the top of my list when it came to my sales at the 99 cent store. I went there the day after Valentine's Day and no luck: they weren't budging and wouldn't put their products on sale yet. So, then on the 16th, I hit a 99 cent store and what luck! Everything is 4 for 99 cents as it should have been. I then messaged my mom that they were on sale again and to my surprise, she asked me which ones I've already been to and then took off on her own to three other stores, storing up on as many notebooks as she could possibly find. This picture is a collaboration of our efforts. 

     Last but certainly not least, we have these beautiful spin wands! I know they don't look like much from this view but what luck and what a scare for all those around me when I picked one up, pressed the button and screamed with joy that these would be the best addition to a box if I'd ever seen one. The 99 cent store really does have a way in surprising you with their products and these took the cake.

     This is what the spin wands look like when I push the button. I seriously love the fact that it doubles as a flashlight as well as a play thing. I'm keeping the plastic pieces in the wands to preserve battery but man, what a great find at the 99 cent store of all places.

Now, this is just a little side note that I want to bring to attention. Here at Shoe Box Loving, we don't really get donations and if we do, it is a rarity, but I just want to honorably mention my mother who had gone way above expectations when it came down to finding gifts for my shoe boxes. All of these items are just a small portion of what she had bought for the boxes and it really warms the heart to see a family member back you up in your charitable endeavors. With that being said, I hope you all look to friends and family to partake in your OCC Journey: more likely than not, they will surprise you.

Happy Packing Everyone!