The Farm Animal Sanctuary.
This month The Farm Animal Sanctuary is hosting their open Weekend on 8th and 9th May. Tickets are available online or at the gates on the day. In addition to meeting the farm animals, there will be food on sale – including Golden Glaze Doughnuts, and a few gift stalls, including my Bramley Buttons stall raising funds for the Sanctuary. There will be activities for children including a bouncy castle and face painting.
Later in the month they are also hosting their first Sheepover of the year. The Sheepover is on Saturday 30th May. More details on their website.
Link to Hope
The shoebox theme for May is toiletries. For the essential items such as toothbrushes and toothpaste and soap, the major supermarkets often have the best bargains. Tesco still have 2 toothbrushes for 25p and toothpaste 45p for 100ml. Their soap is slightly more expensive at the moment at 35p but still good value compared with named brands. Morrisons soap is currently 30p, and their own brand toothpaste is 45p but their 2 pack of toothbrushes is 30p. They do have some other reasonably priced options if you want to pay a bit more. Morrisons has a pack of 4 children’s toothbrushes for £1.00, 2 Aqua Fresh toothbrushes for 75p, 2 Colgate toothbrushes for £1.25, or 3 Colgate toothbrushes for £1.50.
Asda have their own brand 2 pack of toothbrushes for 25p, toothpaste for 45p, soap 33p. If you want to spend a bit more on toothbrushes, they have their own 4 pack for £1.63, 3 pack of Colgate toothbrushes for £1.50, a 5 pack of Wisdom toothbrushes for £2.00. Asda also have some 2 packs of flannels for 85p.
Hopefully if you follow my blog, you’ll have bought some face cloths from Dunelm at the start of the year that were 4 for 75p. Home Bargains sometimes have 4 face cloths for 99p but I haven’t been to a store for a while and their website doesn’t cover much of their stock.
Shampoo is great to include as one of the extra items, and if you are trying to reduce plastic then purchasing shampoo bars is a good option – they also take up less room and are lighter than liquid shampoo. One Beyond and Savers both have shampoo bars for £1.00 or less. In the elderly boxes I usually add Aldi’s 3 in 1 body, face, and hair wash. It’s currently 69p (it went up to 90p at the start of the year), and is a great all round option, but I add it as a shampoo. Despite being advertised as a men’s option, I think the scent is suitable for females as well. Remember the maximum size for shampoo is 400ml and secure the lid with Sellotape so it doesn’t leak in transit.
Razors are great option to add, especially as a gift for the dad in the family. B&M sometimes have a pack of 5 razors for 59p, but I often buy packs of 10 or 20 and divide them between shoeboxes – it’s worth shopping around the major supermarkets as well as B&M, Home Bargains etc.
Hand cream can be a lovely luxury item to add to a shoebox, and nailbrushes are also really useful to add.
Bargain Buys
My only bargains so far this month are some 30cm shatterproof rulers from Hobbycraft which were reduced to 25p each, and a colour in bag from The Works reduced to 79p. Don’t forget to keep an eye on your local Freegle and Freecycle sites for items that would be good to add to your shoeboxes.
Till next month.