Happy New Year – preparations for this years Link to Hope Shoebox appeal and news from the Farm Animal Sanctuary.
Link to Hope
As with last year I haven’t been out to many shops so haven’t seen many bargains. I did notice some navy blue Harry Potter Christmas wrapping paper reduced to 20p a roll in Marks and Spencers but I didn’t buy any. Dunelm have had some candle pots on sale which are good value at 50p but last year the same size was on sale for 25p. They are still great value though, so I’ve bought about 18!
Their face cloths didn’t seem particularly cheap this year even those that were reduced and I still have some left from last year so I haven’t bought any yet. I’m hoping there may be some more reductions at the end of January!
Asda had a few Christmas toys reduced – I purchased 5 Christmas finger puppets for £1.00 and 3 Christmas bouncy balls for £1.00. They had some noughts and crosses games but they were still £2.00 and I might try to make my own.
This month on the Link to Hope calendar it’s Warm Items month. https://linktohope.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Shoebox-Appeal-Calendar.pdf I hadn’t realised it can get down to -25C in some of the areas they deliver to. I’ve already started knitting beanie hats and have finished my first one and have started today on my second. I just need to find some cheap sources of wool. One Below still have 100g balls for £1.00 but they have limited colours.
I’ve bought a couple of packs of 8 toothbrushes from One Below for £1.00 per pack, just in case I can’t get any double packs for 25p from Tesco, as they haven’t had any recently. I will probably divide up the 8 packs and put 4 per family box.
The Farm Animal Sanctuary
The Farm Animal Sanctuary have recently taken in some new sheep rescued from very poor living conditions. They were all malnourished, had the highest worm count the vet had ever seen in a living creature and had sheep scab. The farm they came from has been reported to DEFRA, and Trading Standards Animal Health several times, and the RSPCA haven’t returned any calls about the farm. They are hoping to get the owner banned from keeping animals so that the situation and cruelty to the animals doesn’t keep on recurring.
If you are able to donate towards their care, there is a link on The Farm Animal Sanctuary facebook page or you can donate via their normal website donation page. https://www.thefarmanimalsanctuary.co.uk/donate.
Link to Hope – shoe box shopping bargains.
I’ve found some late bargains in keeping with this months theme of warm items. I visited a Poundland store and they had some more of the hats I purchased for 50p in October, plus a couple of other designs. They had lots of ladies black and silver sparkle hats, and several different girls hats all for 50p each. (They didn’t have any mens or boys hats reduced to 50p.) (The photos of the ladies hats doesn’t show them accurately – they have silver lurex thread but the amount varies in each hat – but they are black and sparkly not black and grey as they appear in the photo.)
I also bought some girls gloves which were still the standard price, but at 2 pairs for £1.00 were still good value. I also bought some adult gloves from Primark also at their standard price of 2 pairs for £1.00, but 50p per pair isn’t bad.
Until next month 🙂