Listia and other free stuff

Hi everyone! I hope you had an amazing Fourth of July! Ours was wonderful. We somehow ended up front row for an REO Speedwagon concert at our county fair.

We have been busy this week looking for a new house to rent so we have a bit more room to breathe, and room for my jewelry making and crochet. So far we have only found a couple of houses that we like but I figure that as we head into August more will come into the market as people rush to move their kids before school starts.

I've been crafting. I finished the Sara Shawl and will be doing pictures tomorrow now that the dress dummy is dressed and the heat outside has subsided to a dull roar. The shawl is beaded with misc. gemstone beads all the way along the collar and down to the bottom edges where there are some fun lampworked frogs capering in the center of a spiral.  I have also made a few other things. Last night I made some swarovski pendant earrings with gemstone quality amethyst briolette drops in the center. I have not photo'd them yet, but when I do I will link. them so You can see them. I am waiting for a very cool photocube that I bought to arrive so the pictures will look better.

What I wanted to talk about today are a couple of the "free" trading apps out there that I have found recently which are very interesting.

1. Listia.com:  I have put  a click though link somewhere down at the bottom of this page.  You basically can take any item in your house, from old socks, to necklaces, to purses stuffed with misc items and people bid points on them. High bidder pays the shipping. There is no cost to post items in there at all. It's a very good, free way to get access to beads and yarn, virtually for free, and get rid of objects you could not get rid of on ebay. Your account also starts with around 500 free points to spend, so  you can shop right away.

2. Swagbucks.com   I use this app because it lets you earn points for every time you buy a groupon or other similar deal and use those points to buy gift cards, ipods, etc. It condenses all of the groupon type pages into one menu so you can see ALL of the daily deals for your area. Also if you use their search engine to search you get points. If you take the daily 1 question poll, you get points. If you print coupons and use them in any grocery store, you get points. They have trusted surveys, and if you complete those, you get points. If you watch their "swagbucks TV" you get points, and they have DIY network and food network, etc. on there. You can also get points by playing games they have on their site which are similar to Scrabble, Bejeweled, Tetris, etc. So anyway, it's not hard to get points and the site is fun. Getting free gift cards is also fun! They also have daily scavenger hunts for points that you follow through twitter, FB and the swagbucks site.

Anyway, check them out if you want to, and have fun earning. I was never much of a couponer, but swagbucks has encouraged me to save money!