August 2023 – Animal Freedom Festival at the Farm Animal Sanctuary and Stationery month for Link to Hope Shoeboxes.
The Farm Animal Sanctuary
This month is the Animal Freedom Festival at the Farm Animal Sanctuary on the 19th & 20th August. There is a full programme for each day including talks, music, and lots of stalls. There is also the option of camping to make a real weekend of the event.
This is an important fund-raising event for the Sanctuary to raise funds. They need to purchase the site but also raise more money to pay for the increased cost of feed for the animals and many of the animals arrive in poor condition and need a lot of medical treatment.
Tickets are available online on their website, but you can also pay on the gates on the day.
www.thefarmanimalsanctuary.co.uk
I’m due to have a stall at the event to raise funds for them, but due to a bereavement I don’t know if I’ll be able to attend.
They still have their crisis appeal so if you are able to donate to them that would be fantastic.
Link to Hope
This month the shoebox calendar focusses on Stationery. A gift for everyone – young and old. Pencils, crayons, rulers, notepads, calculators, notelets.
If you are putting pencils or pencil crayons in a shoebox remember to add a pencil sharpener! Poundstretcher sometimes have Lego shaped pencil sharpeners 6 for £1.00, Wilko have a single metal pencil sharpener for 40p, or an enclosed sharpener and eraser for 75p, Asda have an enclosed pencil sharpener for 60p, The Range have a double metal sharpener for 49p or a pack of 4 sharpeners and 5 erasers for 99p, and Tesco have a double plastic sharpener for 40p. If a group are combing to make up shoeboxes then you can purchase 100 single sharpeners for £6.99 so roughly 7p each 😊.
If you weren’t able to get any of the bargain buys from Morrisons last month for colouring pencils or felt pens, then Asda have packs of 24 felt pens for £1.00. (In my local store there are some felt pens and biros in the stationery section but these tend to be more expensive – the cheaper ones are located in the toy aisle with some other craft items). Long pencil crayons have gone up and are now £1.50 for 24 or 12 pastel coloured crayons for £1.00. Tesco have long pencil crayons in their Go Create range at 75p for 12, but 12 long pencil crayons in their Home Office range are £2.00!! The Range sell a tube of 12 colouring pencils with a sharpener for £1.00.
Asda are good value for reporter’s pads – 3 for £1.00. Tesco seem to be the best value for Biros with 10 for 50p and Poundland seem to be the cheapest for HB pencils with 24 for £1.25. (On their website it says you get 30 for £1.25 but the last pack I bought only contained 24.)
My independent online go to is a store called Ditzy Doll. If you spend £15.00 postage is free. They do a pack of 8 felt pens, 8 pencil crayons and 8 wax crayons for 99p. The pack can be cut up so you could divide them between boxes.
They have pencil sharpeners for 29p, various packs of 20 long colouring pencils for 99p, 8 felt pens for 49p, or various packs of felt pens ranging from 12 – 24 for 99p. They also sometimes have a pack of 6 exercise books for 99p and 6 small erasers for 49p. For some reason the exercise books don’t appear under the Notebooks section, but if you do a search for “6 pack” they should appear if they are in stock. They sell a few home and garden accessories such as gardening gloves £1.49, sewing kit 99p, ladies gripper gloves £1.29, and several other items that would be suitable for shoeboxes.
The Works sometimes have deals on packs of notelets with 2 packs for £2.00, which can be divided between a few shoeboxes. I always add a notebook and biros to all my boxes both family and elderly as they are such a useful item.
This months bargain buys.
Hobbycraft have some mini cross stitch kits for 50p – they were Easter stock but some aren’t obviously Easter pictures.
Thank you to Mags for the tip off about Wilko. In her local store there were 80 page A5 exercise books with 80 pages for 15p, 160 page hard back A4 £1.00 couple of designs, and 160 page A4 Spiral bound organiser 50p. My local store had A5 Exercise books for 50p but not the other items in Mags local store however, they had a pack of 3 A5 exercise books for £1.25, revision cards for 25p, 1 boxed gel pen for 10p and even better value than Morrisons 10 long pencil crayons in a tube for 5p!! The last 3 items were in the main stationery area and didn’t have anything to draw attention to the reduced price, I just happened to notice the 5p and 10p labels on the shelf. It looked like they’d had pencil cases for 30p but they didn’t have any left on the shelf.
Till next month…