Last Minute Find!

 American Girl fans!  We went online Saturday and bought these three books.  They are AWESOME!  If you are interested in a gift that encourages creative play, these are it  

AND

They are on sale!

We went to the AG store at the Mall of America on Saturday and I noticed these books were NOT on sale in the store.  Guess what?  They have made new covers for them, so these three are half price online.  After spending like an hour in the store looking through the book and reading all the printed "toys" inside each kit, we knew we had to buy them.

I went online at like 7pm Saturday and ordered them.  Each book was either $11 or $12, shipping was $5 and something cents.  These arrived TODAY!  I was totally shocked.

Anyway, this is not a sponsored post, just wanted to give a shout out to any American Girl loving moms or Grandmas out there.  Buy these before they are gone!  My girls just spent 3 hours playing and they have only just begun ;0}

Doll Star  

Doll School

Doll Travel

The books are full of play ideas, patterns, suggestions of how to make other props and more.  I am seriously impressed.

Just wanted to let you know!

Walmart's Food Pantry Holiday Makeover

Want to make a difference this holiday season???

Don't have a ton of time or money to donate???

I just learned about the perfect opportunity for you.  Walmart has teamed up with TheMotherhood.com to spread the word about their Food Pantry Holiday Makeover campaign. Check it out...

Walmart's Food Pantry Holiday Makeover campaign is a nationwide campaign calling on the public to help support their local food pantries this holiday season. The campaign will provide $1.5 million in grants to winning food pantries for facility makeovers. They can use the grants to purchase items like new kitchen and storage equipment, furniture, paint, or other supplies that are needed to support food pantry operations and, in turn, the families they serve.

So I clicked on over to Walmart's Food Pantry Holiday Makeover page and found it SO EASY to vote.
I went to www.walmart.com/holidaymakeover and it looked something like this:

Now all you need to do is click on the bubble at the bottom of the page, the one in the green box, and add your state or location.  

I put my little MN for Minnesota in the box, hit enter, and my options appeared before my eyes.

To tell you the truth, I don't know much about any of the food pantries, so I just picked one that was close to me and clicked "vote".  You can see they have some videos you can watch down below the voting boxes.  

Don't forget!  You can come back and vote once in each 24 hour period until December 12th!!!

Serving in your community doesn't get much easier than that.

Don't forget to share all about it!  The more voters the merrier ;0} 

Feel free to use the hashtag #HolidayMakeover

The campaign will run online from Monday, December 2 (12:01 a.m. EST) to Friday, December 12 (11:59 p.m. EST). The 75 food pantries with the most votes at the end of the voting period will each receive a $20,000 grant. The winning food pantries will be announced on December 15.

Thank you Walmart and TheMotherhood.com for enlisting me to spread the word about your Food Pantry Holiday Makeover. It is so awesome to see large corporations taking the time to serve in our communities and making it so easy for us to join along!

***This was a sponsored post.  While I was compensated for my time and efforts to properly review the information presented, the opinions of the product expressed here were my own.

Window Shopping: Heartfelt Scrapbooks and Fabric

I might have left Utah, but I still have a couple stores to show you.  I got to go to Heartfelt for the first time, and I got to go with my friend Sharon.  She moved from Eagan, MN to Utah back in April so a day out shopping and chatting was more than awesome.  

If you like sewing, paper crafting, or both at the same time, Heartfelt is your kind of store!

They have rows and rows of paper crafting supplies.  Here is one of the stamping isles.

Awe!  I love pink.  They really have a great selection of just about any color or theme you might be looking for.  

See...

Mind b.l.o.w.n.

Yep, for reals.

This picture was for my sister Kira.  They even had burlap in bright, vibrant colors.  I haven't had too much luck finding it for her.  Here you go Kira.  Try Heartfelt ;0}

K, this might look a little goofy, but I totally loved the little egg carton all dressed up in sweet paper and bows.  It just shows how everyday items can be made into absolutely amazingly unique gifts.  Basically I wanted to remember that idea.  You will probably see it again!

And check out this cupcake stand!!!  They made it even better with a castle around the bottom layer.  That is adorable.  Most pieces are just paper, so it won't hold up in storage probably, but the castle cup cake stand would make an awesome addition to any Pretty Princess party.  We have done our fair share of those in the SewCakeMaker household.

Don't let me forget to tell you about the clearance room.  Everything from paper, to stickers and dies, fabric and patterns.  This whole room is 50% off.  Wish you were here, don't ya?

So that is only part of the store.  

If you were standing in the threshold of the clearance room, you would turn around 180 degrees to see this.  The maze of fabric.  I got lost in there for a good long time.  I am pretty sure Sharon was wondering if she needed to send a search party in for me.

I am just a sucker for cute displays.  These little birdhouse fabric holders were too cute.

So here are my favorite racks...

They have the woodland animals fabric by Riley Blake!!!!  I can't even believe it!

I have some of this Apple of My Eye fabric just sitting here waiting for me to put it to work.

As all fabulous quilt stores, Heartfelt had samples or patterns made up all over the place.  

Eli wants this cougar big time!

Long story short, Heartfelt is a great place to grab goodies for a couple of your favorite hobbies.  Just give me a call before you go.  I need you to pick up a couple yards of fabric for me ;0}

A Little Window Shopping: Regional, Vinyl Retailer

Officially my MOST VISITED STORE this entire trip...

Regional Supply Inc.

3571 S. 300 W. 

Salt Lake City, UT  84115

{801}262-6451

They sell vinyl, cutting machines, blades and mats and plastics and basically heaven on earth as far as this color-obsessed crafter is concerned.  Come inside and let me explain...

Walk in the door, turn left, and BAM!  Take in the rainbow of vinyl sold by the 12x24" sheets.  I have been buying  my vinyl on Amazon for a couple years now, but NEVER before have I seen a sight like this place, isles splashed with colorful vinyl you can touch and hold and carry all over the store until you finally decide you are going to have to put some back because you now have 675 sheets in your hands and you cannot possibly buy that many in one shopping trip!   Make sense?  

Here you have your sparkly sheets.  They are on sale for $1.60 a sheet.  Yep.  A steel of a deal.  I haven't even been able to find this type of vinyl for sale, let alone in a cute little 12x24" Sheet.

Then you have your standard rainbow of matte vinyl, around $2.60 a sheet {going off of memory here so please do forgive me if I am off by a couple cents!!!}.  There are so many shades of each color I simply can't decide in one trip...or four, which sheets to take back to Minnesota with me.  

For my fellow tight-wad's out there, I found this rack on my most recent trip to Regional.  The Damaged Sheets tray is stacked with just about every color of vinyl and includes sheets that have rips or wrinkles in them.  For my particular purposes, this find was like striking gold.  I usually only need a tiny smidge of a variety of different colors for designs I am doing.  These sheets are only $.66. Heck, I can work around a couple smudges and rips to save myself $2 a sheet, or $1 a foot!!!  I left with 17 of these in my hot little hands that day ;0}  I used 6 of them than night too!

So now we have talked about the first two rows, there are all these and many more to stare at and try to come up with projects to use the rest of these for.

Check out this selection!  Stencil sheets, Glow in the dark vinyl, chalkboard and dry erase vinyl, gold and silver, textured and holographic, what???

Regional has sold 24 and 36" wide rolls for years, but these 12" rolls of Oracal 631 and 651 are a recent addition.  They are sold in 10 and 30 feet amounts, the 30 foot rolls for around $24 if I remember correctly.  If I have estimated this correctly, these rolls are around $10 less than what I pay on Amazon for the same amount of vinyl.

Each day I have come in the color selection of the rolls has multiplied.  I may be a little obsessed.  Good thing we only have two more days in town of I might have to form an vinyl lover's support group.

These would be the same colors as the other rows, but sold in gloss finish instead of matte.

Whaz that you say?  Do they have iron-on vinyl???

YES!!!

Several varieties.  I think, next time I go I should grab some iron-on to try when I get home...then I walk into the store and end up in the color induced trance again and end up unable to remember what I went to the store to buy.  Word to the wise, write down what you need before you go ;0}

Sparkly iron-on

Standard iron-on....in all it's fabulousness.

Then specialty iron, like mirror and flocked...

I need to step out for a minute to let my brain recover.

So, I had a little chat with my favorite cashier and he took me in here to see the big machines.  I should first mention that they sell the Silhouette Cameo here.  I almost cried when he told me they sell it for $225, complete with the blade and mat, etc.  I bought mine, as a refurbished machine, on Amazon for $250.  Thinking about buying a Cameo???  Give these guys a call.  Regional also sells the big guys. 

 A couple of these machines actually print on the vinyl 

{and yes, they sell the printable vinyl in the store ;-}

The big signs on the wall are examples of printed vinyl they made up on the machines.  They look amazing and he says they hold up really well to weather and UV rays.

I asked him what the next step would be from my Silhouette, and he said these guys.  They both hang out in the $2500 range, so it will be a while before I move up,but it is super nice to know where to go when I am ready to buy.

Regional also has about every tool and accessory you might need for your machine and cutting agenda.  They sell Silhouette mats here for around $11 and the blades for around $9.  Silhouette can be hard to find in the stores, at least in Minnesota, so it is great to know you can get them here if you are a local.  Regional also takes phone orders or you can order from their website.  My Regional friend told me they have free shipping to Minnesota on all orders over $125.  Fabulous!

Note the rolls of transfer tape.  How could I forget to tell you that they sell a great transfer tape here? The masking version is way more transparent than the last roll I bought online.  It is an important attribute when working with clear ornament inserts!!!

You can take a seat here when waiting for your will-call orders...

Enjoy a little fresh popped {Emmalee's favorite part of the store...now she wants a popcorn machine for Christmas.  Oh brother!}

Then, just when you thought you were ready to leave, there are racks of end bolts of vinyl for sale at a discount...

As well as a bin of Acrylic scraps for sale by the pound.  I grabbed one piece, about 12x32 for $2.50.

Awesome.  I may need to go back one more time before we leave ;0}  It is so much nicer to shop for this kind of thing in a store where you can touch and carry around, to stack and thin your real shopping cart rather than a virtual cart!  Love it.  

Live too far away to order from them in person???

You can check them out online at regionalsupply.com.

I even like their website.  It is clean and easy to navigate.  

I love you Regional Supply!