It seems like the internet has gone on vacation, doesn’t it?

I’m not much of a sweepstakes person, but Freebies 4 Mom pointed out a Coinstar one that is super easy to enter and has a lot of gift card prizes:

Coinstar is Free. There are over 1,000 prizes with the most numerous being gift cards: $5 Starbucks, $10 iTunes, and $10 Amazon.com. This is a promotion to spread the word that you can count coins for free on Coinstar machines. This sweeps ends December 31, 2008.

I *heart* Coinstar as it is. It’s the #1 clutter-buster: pocket change into iTunes giftcards. I always have an iTunes balance and never worry about downloading a song or an album on a whim.

From a local Attachment Parenting YahooGroup I belong to, a timely code for the awesome site reusablebags.com

Just thought I’d share this discount code good for 20% your entire order at reusablebags.com:

f70838

It’s good until 04/02/2009.

In addition to having some of the best green school lunch options including bento boxes and cloth bags, right now, Kleen Kanteen sippy cups are $16.40 before this discount, and I think $13.12 is by far the lowest price you are ever going to see on these!

And these gorgeous Envirosax are $19.95, on sale as well. $15.96 for a set of amazing reusable bags is a fantastic price point (and an awesome holiday gift, if you’re thinking ahead).

What I covet (and it is almost my birthday…) is the Market Basket in Flora to bring to the farmers market each week:

A request: I’m slowly figuring out that I need to be digital scrapbooking or my little boys will never have baby books of any sort. Can anyone point me towards some good sites???

Love, love, loving the recipes, sewing patterns and more at finnyknits.

A drug that halts preterm labor may be linked to increased suceptbility to environmental toxins? As if moms of multiples didn’t have enough to worry about!

I still digging the Martha Stewart Living craft-of-the-day emails, mostly because they remind me of favorite projects I have seen in the magazine throughout the years. I would prefer to bookmark my favorite projects now (and know I can search all of them at the redesigned site) than to continue to hold onto little magazine scraps indefinitely.

In addition to Walgreens, there is a good Babies R Us coupon out there (PDF via My Priceless Pennies). BRU sells Seventh Generation diapers and wipes, Earths Best multipacks of organic baby food, and some of the newer organic cotton baby goods like sheets and portable cribs. In fact, they have a whole natural and organic section of their website. Who knew?

My Priceless Pennies also has a great post up about a current photobook deal from Shutterfly I’m going to try. We have a lot of birthdays in September, I think this might be a good choice for my mom.

The Walgreens end-of-the-month coupon is here, it’s a $5/$20 and it’s good for 2 days. There are also some school supply coupons on the same page. I wonder if I could use some of those erasers for my rubber stamping ideas. At $0.39, might as well buy some and try!

I had forgotten about this Martha Stewart Living family tree idea until reading this at Leaving Excess today. Red is the accent color in our kitchen/family room (yes, the aqua walls that show up in my pictures, and actually they look great together) so I was really inspired by her color choices. I have a big empty spot above our sectional that has been waiting for the right framed object and this might just be it!

How is it that I am just discovering craftzine now?

Book rack from a wire clothes hanger? Play kitchen from cardboard boxes? Ohdeeoh! You could keep me busy for years!

Green Mom Finds has a code for 10% off (ECO10) the new eco-friendly line at The Company Store. Good through the end of the month. If you’re in the market for sheets or towels, the prices are reasonable for organic and the colors look really nice.

Try any of the Notebook Experiments at Mom Advice by Tuesday, Aug 26, post about it, and you could be in the running for a Flip Ultra camcorder.

The coupon preview is up for this week with no organic deals to speak of. I’ll be buying the paper this week because I’m participating in a survey through the CVS advisor panel that will net me $10 ECB. I’m challenging myself to read most of the paper and reuse as much of it as I can before recycling. Maybe the newspaper party hats as featured in the Amy’s Notebook to serve as my contest entry?

The food bankruptcy experiment is going well. I’ll post a wrap-up at the end of a week, but all I have to say is: rogue can of 7-Up yields remarkably tasty chicken…

simple sparrow showcases rubber stamped dish towels. When I get my new sewing machine (which I promise to stop mentioning until I actually get one), my first plan is to make cloth napkins out of my copious vintage linen collection and embelish them with homemade stamps. Lots of tips and ideas here!

Oh, if I only had $98 to spend on sheets for our 3 year old!

More school supplies talk at Mama Speaks. I need to find our list for pre-K ASAP… Just 2 weeks to go.

Today is the last day to join freepeats for free! There is no site yet for our city, but I signed up anyway just to have a membership for the future.

Free books? When you’re done you can donate these to your library or send them out for someone else to love through PaperBackSwap.

Have a Caribou Coffee near you? Register a Caribou Card and get $4 loaded onto it. I have a weakness for their berry & white chocolate scones. Yum!

It’s rice cereal time tonight, so I was at the conventional grocery store to see what they had in terms of organic baby food. They don’t have rice cereal, but they have a fair amount of organic jars and tubs, including the Roundy’s store brand organic baby food, stages 1 & 2. What I also found was $10/10 of the plastic tubs of Gerber 2nd foods, which comes in packs of 2. There were a half-dozen varieties at the very reasonable price of $0.50/unit. I’m going to stock up, and if you’re near a Pick ‘N Save and need baby food, the sale runs through the 24th. Anyone know about any printable Gerber coupons floating out there?

It’s been awhile since I visited Trader Joe’s Fan, but I’m glad I did because they post PDFs of their “Fearless Flyer” which shows all of the current specials. And of course, they review things you might be hesitant to try and post great recipes. When I’m done getting rid of food, I know I’ll be hitting TJs to restock.

The Crafty Crow shares a link for homemade water colors! I can’t wait for the fall (and the help of a part time nanny) when I can undertake more of these types of projects with our older son.

Another fun activity comes to us from plum pudding: rice play! I didn’t think about my food bankruptcy plan possibly including this, but why not? The Crafty Crow also featured dying pasta last week. What a great idea for all of those pesky 1/7 pounds of pasta I have in the pantry cabinet!

not martha has more sewing machine purchasing resources. Stop tempting me, internet!

Living Cheap and Green has sources for recycling juice and cookie pouches. Who knew?

And lastly, Ohdeeoh invades my psyche once again with something we *must* do in our house soon:

the closet into mudroom! Instructions can be found at the Shabby Nest. I will be doing this to our coat closet as soon as possible!