A Totally FREE Christmas 2025

Dizzycap

@ Soontobeoap - Those are absolutely fabulous!  I'm sure they'll love them!  I do love a good stash sort out & a good make for a new home session  It's never too early to start making Christmas cards 

weenancyinAmerica

Was able to buy yarn at 90% off when one of our yarn store chains went out of business. Used one of the skeins to make a tote bag for my sister for her birthday for under $1. Will be making a couple of more for this Christmas for a couple of other family members for the same price. Gave one to my niece last year for Christmas and everyone liked them. I also was able to get a glass heart box for her at my book sale for 10 cents. I have found that here the Church run sales and library sales have the best prices. Even cheaper than the boot sales and yard sales which come next. Then the charity shops. By the time I have checked all of these out, I usually have everything I need for any gift giving this year and a few presents already for next year. I will be giving some of the family treasures that I will be passing along also (I'll be 78 next month - need to keep these moving out of my house and into theirs). 

When I was traveling to the British isles, I was able to get a lot of presents attached to magazines and to give the magazine as part of the present. I wish the magazines came that way here - nothing attached here at all. 

daisy_1571

I've never noticed that weenancyinAmerica, we've bought a fair number of magazines when we've been in the states.  (Did notice they were really expensive when we were last over in 2019.)  Over here we get loads of bits especially in the craft mags.  I recently bought a magazine for the patchworking device freebie, which of course is their whole purpose 😀 

Dxx

weenancyinAmerica

It has never been a practice over here. When I got to England and discovered the wonderful things attached to the magazines, I started making that my first stop on my trips. When I would get to Paddington Station, I would immediately check the book store. Since I was collecting the homemaking magazines anyway, I would check for those. Found some wonderful things that way, including the best daily planner. I wish it was sold over here. Usually on my trips, I was tracing several people's families - but for me, I was collecting homemaking hints. So in my free time, I would go to the public library to sit and copy household hints. And it didn't matter where I had to go to locate their families, almost everywhere I went had a library I could sit and read in for awhile. I also bought a lot of used magazines and spent my evenings going through those. 

Dizzycap

@ weenancyinAmerica - Great to see you here once again & you did make me smile wth your gifts attached to magazines. I used to buy the first edition of any new art, craft, bears, coins etc magazine which were priced at 99p and took off all the free gifts to use as Christmas stocking fillers for the kids. Those freebies saved me an absolute fortune & kept everyone enteratined for hours, so it was a win win all round  I'd actually forgotten about magazine freebies only because I don't bother looking any more, but it's well worth a mention here, so thanks for sharing xxx