• Banana Republic Factory Store - 10% off $100 purchase Exp 5/27
• Barnes & Noble - 15% off one item Exp 6/30
• Bath & Body Works - Free New Fine Fragrance Mist with $10 purchase Exp 5/17
• Build-a-Bear - 10% off Birthday Party of $200+ Exp 5/31
• Cacique - $25 off $75 Exp 5/28
• Carter’s – Facebook Exclusive 25% off $40+ purchase Exp 5/23
• Children’s Place - 15% off purchase Exp 5/20
• Dressbarn - 30% off regular priced purchase Exp 5/20
• DSW Shoes - Free tote with $29 purchase for DSW Rewards Members
• Express - $15 off $30 Exp 5/20
• Fashion Bug – iTunes/Smart Phone App Exclusive $15 off $40
• Fashion Bug – Facebook Exclusive - Flutterbuy Coupon Game
• Gap Outlet - 10% off $75 purchase Exp 5/20
• Goody’s - 20% – 25% off Exp 5/28
• Gordman’s - 15% off purchase Exp 5/22
• Hobby Lobby - 40% off regular priced item Exp 5/19
• Lane Bryant - $25 off $75 Exp 5/28
• Lord & Taylor - 15% – 20% off purchase Exp 5/21
• Macy’s - 25% off $100+ Men’s Store purchase Exp 5/21
• Michael’s - 40% off regular price item Exp 5/19
• Michael’s - $5 off $25 purchase Exp 5/19
• New York & Co - $30 off $75 Exp 5/17
• Old Navy – “Reveal-A-Deal” Facebook Exclusive $5 off $25 Exp 5/24
• Party City - $10 off $65 Exp 5/31
• Sears – Facebook Exclusive $50 off $300 Valid 5/18 – 5/19
• Tanger - Get Coupons for your Tanger Outlet Mall
• Target - Various Coupons
• Ulta - 20% off single item Exp 5/26
• Walgreens – Various Coupons in the May Coupon Book (found in-store)
• Yankee Candle - $10 off $25 Exp 5/24

Picnic Season is here! Memorial Day will be here in a little over a week and that officially is the start of the summer picnic season. Hosting a picnic is a lot of fun but it can be a huge expense, too. Here are some tips for saving while still throwing a great party!

1. Hit the dollar store for things like Plastic Wear, Plastic Table Cloths, Party Decorating Supplies. I have seen plastic table cloths as much as $6 at a party store, but only $1 at the dollar store. It’s also a great place to pick up things like kids prizes, bubbles, pool toys, citronella candles, and more! Hit the dollar store first for the party items that you would regularly buy at the party supply store

2. Have the picnic be covered dish – Most guests always ask if they can bring something anyways. Have your list of what you need by the phone and when someone calls to RSVP and asks what they can bring, you can check it off the list. You can provide the grilling items and party supplies, but if everyone else brings all the little things, it will ease the cost of your contribution.

3. Switch it up and have a “You Bring It We Grill It”. Have your guests bring their favorite item to grill. Just make sure that if you aren’t making it right away, you label it or else problems could arise:) Meat is usually the most expensive part of putting on a picnic. If you provide all the sides like Macaroni Salad, Potato Salad, Chips and Dips, it will cut down on the costs and that way your guests have a variety of what they get, where you may have only had a choice of Hot Dogs or Frozen Burger Patties. If they want Lobster or Clams – so be it! They can bring whatever they want.

4. Plan ahead and Be Organized! Make your list ahead of time and look for sales and coupon matchups each week. Is there a amazing deal on hamburger meat this week? Buy it now and make it up into patties and freeze for the picnic later. Can you get mustard for free with coupons and a sale? Get it now. Don’t run out the day before and do your trip in one shot. You will spend double what you would have. In the winter and spring, if I see picnic items like relish, mustard, ketchup free or seriously cheap with coupons and sales, I grab them. This year, I won’t need to be buying any condiments or salad dressing for picnics this year and all of what I have I got for pennies.

5. Don’t spend money to send out invitations. Personally call your friends and family to invite them and if you want, follow up with an email to remind them, too. Invitations can be expensive and postage can add up!

I started a Summer Picnic Board on Pinterest to share some cool picnic ideas that I have been seeing around, like the picture above:)

For the last few weeks I have been test driving the LG Lucid Verizon Wireless Smart Phone. They contacted me and asked me to try it out and I was intrigued. I was wondering how they got all of the features of the higher priced phones on the market into a phone that only costs $79.99… but they did! In my time with the Lucid, I put it through the paces. I wasn’t really sure how fast the 4G LTE would be and in this phone it was lightening fast. I would surf the internet and upload/download pics and documents in seconds. I thought what a great way to try this out but using it in my every day life as well as using it when blogging.

To start, I downloaded the following apps from the Google “Play Store”:

beFunky photo editor, Smug Mug, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress,  Instagram (my newest obsession), Google Reader

The 5 Mega Pixel camera was amazingly fast and took great quality photos (and you can even have the camera face front for those buddy pics). A problem that I have encountered with phones in the past is the cameras were extremely slow when you tried to snap the picture. This would make a wiggly little man like mine look like a blur in photos. When I clicked on the screen to take the picture, it snapped it immediately. Check this picture out….

I was sick over Mothers Day weekend, so hubs aunt, who I love, brought us a full on ham dinner with all the fixins. Of course she will never take any home with her so we have a nice big ham for leftovers this week… and considering she is a culinary goddess you can rest assured it was the best ham I have ever tasted.

When she was here her and hubs were talking about making “ham and noodles” with the leftovers and I was intrigued. All it took was a bag of egg noodles, bite size cubes of the leftover ham, a small carton of sour cream and two eggs. What I got was the above. It congealed a little and looks a little funky but actually tasted OK…. So have any of you ever made this? Did yours get all curdled like this?

I still haven’t decided if this will be something I’ll add to my recipe file or not. P.S. I still have another half of a ham left… Ham Sandwiches anyone?

This is a cool freebie for all you crafters out there:) You can get a Free Craftsy Sewing Machine 911 e-course with Claudia Miller (their usual courses are anywhere from $9.95 – $59.95 each). There are 5 lessons to help you with everything from Sewing Machine Troubleshooting to online resources. All you have to do is sign up for Craftsy HERE (free) and find the Sewing 911 Course.. I am signing up now!

P.S. I am an affiliate of Craftsy but I also love them, too:) Thanks for supporting the site:)

Pic Monkey hasn’t officially added the collage feature to it’s lineup of cool tricks, however, I found a way around it. They now let you upload your own shape, so why can’t that shape be a picture, and then another, and then another… until you make a collage! Here is the one I made of Little Man and his daddy’s fishing adventure…

It was actually easy… The neat thing is you can actually set up templates and save them to use for later, so you can save a couple steps.

To start, you will need to go to www.picmonkey.com and upload a picture. You want to upload as large of a picture as you can so that you can get the size collage you want. At 150 dpi, an 8″ x 10″ collage is equivalent to 1200 px x 1500 px. so that’s where I started. I will always do a test print on my printer before sending it to a print lab. That way you make sure that the dimensions are correct. If you want to find another size like 4×6 or 5×7 you can go to this calculator http://mystic-nights.com/poser/tools/pixels-to-inches.html. If you are just making this for a blog or to share online, you probably won’t have too worry about the pixel size.

Next you want to fill in the canvas with the color background of your choice

Stretch the shape to fill the entire canvas

Now you can start adding your photos… Just use the “Your Own” Button to grab images from your computer

Once all of your pictures are added, you can stretch them, move them around and figure out how you want your layout to look like…

Now you can add text, shapes, and overlay… whatever floats your boat:)

Don’t forget to save when your done! So what do you think? Do you have any more tutorial requests for Pic Monkey that you would like to see here on Lehigh Valley Momma? Leave me a comment below!

I shared this at the following parties:

For Shoprite, Stop and Shop, CVS, Walgreens, RiteAid Coupon Matchups: Visit www.livingrichwithcoupons.com

For Giant, Redners, Weis you can find those stores on www.forthemommas.com

For Target visit www.totallytarget.com

Each Site has a “Find My Store” option. You can click on the store to go to the matchups. Remember not all coupons will match what you got in your paper. Different papers may have different coupons in their insert. You can always order the coupons you need from a coupon clipping service.

Are you outside of the Lehigh Valley? Head to my Store Matchup list HERE where there are links to 60 different stores that go directly to the blogger that features that store…

Want to read more tips about how to save money on groceries???? Here are some interesting articles for you from my archives:

10 Steps to becoming a Coupon Diva

Where to find Organic Coupons

Save Money on Diapers

Saving Money on Snacks

a Rafflecopter giveaway

P.S. Don’t forget to enter the other giveaways on the blog right now – for $100 Emeril’s Italian Table Gift Certificate and for the T-Fal Actifry

The event was seperated into two venues. In the Mall Events Court there was 300 shopping bags with mall coupons/samples like Ten Thousand Villages, Master Cuts, Bath & Body Works, and Cesy’s Cupcakery. In the Elevator Court there was hair and makeup, you could take your picture in front of the Style photo wall, LV Little Ones had a booth set up with resources, and Blood Pressure Screenings provided by Patient First.

Please make sure to keep me in the loop when your organization has an community event. Email it to lehighvalleymomma (at) yahoo (dot) com.