The Farm Animal Sanctuary
The great news is that they’ve managed to raise the funds to purchase the land they’ve been based on, which helps secure the future of all the animals. Now they need to continue fund raising for the food and medical bills for the animals. Due to the weather this year they’ve had to start feeding the winter hay to the animals a lot earlier, and hay yields were down everywhere pushing the costs up. They’ll also need to do repairs to the barns etc on the site.
https://thefarmanimalsanctuary.co.uk/
The Festive Fair was a lovely event with nearly 350 people attending. There was a mixture of stalls including Golden Glaze Doughnuts, Chappers Cheesecakes and Plantuguese, plus of course my fund raising stall. I was able to donate over £100 to the sanctuary. I need to think of some new things to make for any events they hold next year.
Link to Hope
The shoeboxes have all been picked up and some are already on their way to Eastern Europe. 25,281 shoeboxes have been packed with gifts from all over the UK, and sent with love and prayers, which ties in with the calendar theme for December which is think and pray. I pray that the items in the shoeboxes I packed are what the family or elderly couple need as well as containing items that bring them joy and happiness.
(Shoeboxes packed into the Link to Hope Van)
Now it’s time to check what items I’ve got left to go towards next year’s shoeboxes, and keep an eye on the sales and free sites like Freegle and Freecycle to keep costs down next year and still pack bumper shoeboxes.
If you missed my article on filling a shoebox for free (or nearly) check out my previous post. https://bramleybuttons.co.uk/shoebox-challenge-2025
Bargain Buys
Dunelm still have the pumpkin spice candles in glass votives with a 20 hour burn time for 50p and 3 tea towels for £1.00. Poundland have 12 long pencil crayons reduced to 50p a pack.
Update 24th, 25th December – Dunelm have started their sale and have Christmas candles in glass votives reduced to 50p, some 3 metre wrapping paper reduced to £1.00 but there will probably be other places with cheaper options, though they do have some 12 metre rolls reduced to £1.50 but when I went to check out on line some suddenly said they weren’t available for click and collect and would cost over £3.00 to deliver so they were removed from my shopping basket. The hot water bottles didn’t seem particularly good value, so I haven’t bought any this year.
For the elderly boxes I’ve bought some cutlery sets – £2.50 for 4 place setting which will get divided between shoeboxes and sets of 3 pairs of scissors for £1.25.
Further update 30 December – These aren’t listed online, but in store, my local Dunelm has Egyptian cotton face cloths in dark brown reduced to 40p, but my real bargains were packs of 4 popcorn textured face cloths – which said they were £1.50 but they only cost 75p at the check-out. They had navy blue, sage green and mid grey. These are even cheaper than the Home Bargains face cloths which are 4 for 99p. I will be going back tomorrow to purchase more 😊.
The Works have a few Christmas items reduced, but the only item I’ve purchased is a pack of 5 fashion dolls reduced to £6.00. They seem reasonable quality, (I bought one a few years ago where the plastic was very thin and the legs were hollow so could easily be squashed) – the legs and arms on these seem quite sturdy , but the hair will need trimming so it’s even. Hopefully I’ll get around to making some extra clothes for them to add to the shoeboxes. I’ll divide the dolls between boxes.
The Range have a few Elf on the shelf items reduced but aren’t that cheap, but I decided to buy one pack of Elf jumbo snap cards, but they were still 84p so more expensive than standard playing cards.
Sainsbury’s have Christmas stickers reduced from £1.00 per sheet to 10p so I’ve bought over 20 packs!
Till next time