250 FREE Business Cards at Overnight Prints

I was just about to place my order with Overnight Prints for business cards, when I realized I had not done a search to see if they had any specials running that I may have missed. Boy am I glad I looked! http://www.anycoupons.com/overnightprints.html Just scroll down a bit to find the 250 free biz card coupon. Click on their link and you will be credited the /$24.95 at check out. I only paid the less than $10 for standard shipping.

Found a FREE Webstore Builder!

I found a cool site yesterday offering FREE web store building! It's called eCrater.com I just finished setting up my store. http://lauralynn.ecrater.com/ The set up is a lot like an Etsy shop.

So far I've got one ePattern listed, but I got almost everything set up: The Home, About, Terms, Contact and FAQ pages. I still need to fill in the shipping costs which is why I only have a ePattern listed in there at the moment (no shipping on those!)

There is NO cost to set up a store, NO fee to list anything and NO fees when you sell. I believe they make money somehow with Google, but that works fine for me! I do that as well with my free patterns site ;)

Now as for teddy bear exposure - I don't think this site will help with that. I still use eBay and Bearpile as a form of advertising. But, if you have a simple website - heck, even a blog - you can then put a link on it to your eCrater store for your available bears!

HUGE Web Domain Name Price Increase!

I'm posting this as a business tip - or word warning....

You may have noticed that one of my hobbies - and source of extra income - are other websites. I have almost a dozen different domain names. Some are personal (like our family site and a few I got for my hubby's hobbies) and some are professional and bring in income. (besides my primary website for my bears)

It was fun and no trouble really... about $12 a year for a domain name.

Imagine my SHOCK when I got my domain renewal registration from Yahoo - and the cost went up by 170% !!!!!!



Guess I now have more work to do.... finding another place with which to register my website domain names..... ggrrrrrr.....

Another Money Saving Tip!!

Do you have a Hobby Lobby near you? If you don't, please don't throw things at me... (you know who you are LOL!!) I know I'm lucky :)

But if you DO - did you know that Hobby Lobby often has a 40% off coupon available to print out online? You can just go to their home page (link up above) or here's a link directly to their Weekly Specials Page. You can also sign up to have them emailed to you so you don't forget!

Money Saving Tips - Buy in Bulk

I'm back! Sorry for the long absence. Taxes are done and life is getting a little more orderly.

As I was getting my life into some type of order, I was going through my bear making supplies. I noticed that I was getting a bit low on some necessities.... namely joint discs.

As I was going to place my order for another hundred of the 3 sizes I needed... I took a good look at the pricing and realized I was throwing money away here.

Although I use 3 different suppliers, I get most of my joint discs from Edinburgh Imports.

Edinburgh has discounts on disc quantity purchases. I realized that I would save not only $2.40 per pack of 100 1 1/4" discs -- if I bought them 1000 at a time -- I'd also save on shipping as I would have them shipped all at once instead of many times during the year. (They also have quantity pricing on eyes too)

You can also save money for the year if you order supplies now... from anywhere really. I know UPS prices are going up, I've heard the post office prices are going up... and that some bear making suppliers also need to increase their prices. Not sure if Edinburgh is one of those suppliers... but I wouldn't be surprised.