oglitterkittyo

I'm in the process of using Google Checkout for the first time for a $10 item on Buy.com that is supposed to have free shipping. It keeps coming up that my total is $6.29 (for shipping I'm assuming). So I browsed a previous thread here and it said that if you choose the economical rate, then the shipping will be free like it's supposed to. Now my question is, how do I choose the economical rate instead of what it puts as default when I click on the Google Checkout from my cart on Buy.com? Sorry if this was a little confusing or is something that everyone in the world knows, but I'd hate to pay $6.29 for something that I could get free, especially when I actually need it. Any help is appreciated. :)

Google Checkout really needs to add a paypal feature so that I can take advantage of some of these things.

I've seen the code SANTA for 30% off regular-priced items or 10% off sale-priced items (until December 14th). Works for apparel, shoes, accessories, bedding, bath, window coverings, decorative accessories, and rugs.

It isn't worth it for me, as I have a better camera than that, and no use for another, but if you wanted one for your kids or knew someone that wasn't terribly concerned with the quality. Then again, it's always nice to have extra gifts like this put back, just in case you find you need an extra gift for someone.

I'm assuming that it's this camera: http://media.redcatsusa.com/is/image/chadwicks/mm/2154_33170_mm.jpg?wid=230&hei=331&qlt=95&op_sharpen=1 Camera Item #: 2154-33170-1058 An easy, fun new gift that captures all your favorite memories in a flash. # Convenient 2” x 3” size. # 300k pixels with CMOS sensor. # Digital video recording. # Self-timer. # USB interface; Windows compatible. Price:$29.00 Clearance $16.99 41% Off

My friend asked me to look up a few ideas for her a few days ago, and these were my two favorites. Put the gift card in the middle of a jar of pennies, feel free to glue it shut to make things harder for the recipient. Another one that I thought was cute, but would work easier with gift certificates rather than cards is to put it into a balloon. Then you make a balloon bouquet, putting the one with the gift certificate in the middle of them. Attach the balloons to a wrapped box (possibly use the nesting idea) and only include a straight sewing pin with a little note instructing them to pop the balloons. :) Also, since it's a gift card for Lowe's (my mom would be jealous), you could always get an inexpensive toolbox and put the gift card in it or maybe buy a luggage tag holder thing and put the gift card in it, then attach it to the handle of the toolbox. I really like the tool belt idea that LonghornMomma suggested. :) Random story that the nesting idea made me think of, and of course, I wanted to share: A few years back my uncle bought my aunt a very, very expensive bracelet for Christmas. He decided the nesting idea would be fun, but he decided to add a bit of a twist to it. Inside each box, he also included other random stuff, such as a piece of firewood, a rock, and the most hilarious one: a pair of "dirty" underwear. Of course, they were actually clean, and now I don't remember exactly what he did to them, but he made them look "stained." The entire time he was going on about how he couldn't find time to go shopping with his work schedule, but he wanted her to have something to open on Christmas, but would go out soon after and buy her something better. Until then though, he decided to get her practical things (firewood for their wood stove, a rock to help with the stepping stone sidewalk they were making, etc). She actually believed him at the time, at least until she got to the underwear. Everyone got a huge kick out of the entire thing though. Sorry for rambling, just thought I'd put it out there in case anyone was a little twisted and wanted to do the same.

I would have definitely had trouble getting to $50 if I wasn't ordering doubles of most things, since I have a friend that I always work on scrapbooks with and we tend to like a lot of the same types of embellishments. I just wish there had been more stickers and a little more variety with the tags, but for the price, you can't really do much better. Except for my deal at Dollar General with some of their stickers and scrap paper packs, but that's a different story of an awesome deal that I got.

*hugs* I'm sorry you won't be able to spend Christmas with your entire family, but sometimes a smaller gathering of just your close family can be extremely fun (not to mention less hectic) than having everyone over. As for easy holiday foods, we always make sausage balls. They've become sort of a tradition at our house and they're extremely yummy and easy to make. They could be something the kids could help with too, depending on their ages. Rather than trying to find my recipe for them, I just looked it up online and everything sounds about right in this one: 1 lb. hot sausage 2 c. grated sharp Cheddar cheese 3 c. Bisquick (biscuit mix) Allow cheese to come to room temperature. Combine all ingredients (easier done by hand). Shape into 1 inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Serve immediately or may be frozen for future use. Makes 40-50 balls. There are a lot of variations for it (different kinds of cheese, milder sausage, etc), but you can just pick which ever ones you think your family would enjoy the most. :) Oh, and that recipe says to serve immediately, but even if they've cooled down a bit and are used to snack on all day, they're not bad at all. :)

I noticed in the old thread that a lot of people talked about having way, way too much stuff to fit into a normal stocking. For the last few years, all of the local Dollar Tree stores have had giant stockings (42", to be exact). I decided to buy two of them this year for my boyfriend and I. We usually buy random fun stuff for each other that we find on clearance throughout the year. This year he wants a pack of Floam (yes, we're both kids at heart). It's not something that I'm likely to put with his regular gifts, but is too big for normal stockings, which is where the huge 42" stockings come in. I could also see them being useful/fun to use when hauling gifts to family gatherings on Christmas. Oh, and you can't beat $1 for them. I also tend to wrap most things that I buy for stockings, he doesn't... but he isn't very capable of wrapping Christmas presents in the first place.

I ended up getting just over $50 worth of stuff. I didn't get any of the larger items (like books), just mostly the die cuts, tags, stickers, etc. and my shipping was $6.50. My total was $31.76 after using the 50% off code and adding on shipping. Thought I'd post that just in case anyone was wondering about shipping. :)

Thank you for this! I'm going to have to look into what all they still have and possibly snag a few things. You can't ever have too much scrapbook stuff.