Shopping & Finds About the House ~ OCC Shoebox Stockpile Saturday ~ 1/9/2016

I am trying to learn to keep my eyes open for things around the house that would be perfect for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.  We have a lot of new or like new items that we an pass on thru a shoebox gift.

 This was my CVS clearance-the box was 75% off Christmas.  The rest was 50% select Dollar Deals $0.50 each.  The coloring books are nice ones and I got one little dust pan-I'd seen that in one once and thought it was a cute practical idea, so I got one.  I was able to use a $5 Beauty Club ECB & $1 Quarterly Spending ECB, so spend less than $2 of the gift card I won.  

(If you'd like to know more about shopping at CVS to save money, check out my other blog SimplyCVS ; click this link if you'd like to know more about 
entering blog giveaways to win gift cards)

We found these little wrist purses we didn't need any more that were new or like new, so thought they'd be good to throw in the older girls' shoeboxes.

 I got this on clearance at two different Dollar Generals.  UPDATE 2017--candy is no longer allowed.

I decided to split the dinosaurs up into 10 sets of 10, here's an example of one set they worked out to a quarter a set-so fun!

Thanks to the suggestion from reader Teresa Ross, I tried putting the sets in large Easter eggs, they fit great and are supper cute!

When I went looking in my spring decorations for the Easter eggs I found all these eggs I decided to put in the shoebox stash for making this and other little kits.  Also a bear I had to decorate for St. Patrick's Day, but I haven't been having time to decorate of late,  so I decided to give it...maybe even keep an eye open for clearance St. Patrick's items, for a themed Operation Christmas Child shoebox.

I found these pails I didn't think I needed anymore.  The big ones were from an Awana banquet centerpiece and I kept in case I could use it in the future, but I thought they'd be great for kids to carry toys around in, and the smaller one for an older girl to decorate with or something.

We had these puzzles, we only made one, decided the pieces were too small for us to all do with our back/shoulder health issues in our family, so we're donating them.

My grandmother got a PJ set for Christmas with these socks, since she can't use socks without grips, these will be going into shoeboxes.

Went through some of our craft supplies, found these beading supplies we didn't need anymore, so we thought we'd make kits to put in the girl's shoeboxes for them to have fun creating with.

And finally my mom and sister crocheted some more hats.

Spent from shoebox packing budget: $10.70 

Spent from gift cards that I earned or won online: $1.94 

Added to stockpile:

• 14 coloring books
• 1 small decorative box
• 1 small dust pan
• 2 small purses
• 1 nice sized stuffed animal
• 1 small stuffed animals
• 1 100 piece dino toy set
• 4 bags of Smarties
• 10 tins
• 2 shaped plastic cases
• 2 bags
• 1 pen & paper pad
• 2 jumbo pencils
• 1 pad plain paper
• 18 Easter eggs
• 4 puzzles
• 1 pair socks
• 4 hats
• 3 pails
• Numerous beading supplies

Shoebox packing can be expensive but it doesn't have to be, as you can see from our finds around the house.  You may want to check out all the ways we Find Extra Money for Packing Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes to see if there are any more ideas you may not have thought of.