Tax Day Freebies and Deals

Arbys: The fast-food chain is offering a free value size order of curly fries. You will need to download the coupon from arbys.com

Boston Market: Two individual meals, each including a half rotisserie chicken with a choice of two home style sides and freshly baked corn bread, for $10.40. No coupon required.

Cinnabon: From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Cinnabon is offering two free Cinnabon bites to customers.

Chick-Fil-A: Buy anything at a participating location, keep your receipt and get the same order free in May (Very limited participation)

Great American Cookies: Get a free chocolate chip cookie from participating Great American Cookies locations. No coupon required.

Hard Rock Cafe: You can take the stage at Hard Rock Cafes across America and earn a free dinner entree by completing a whole song in front of the entire restaurant. The song is up to you!

McDonald's: Buy one Big Mac, get a second for just 1 cent. Valid at most McDonald's.

Office Depot:  Office Depot is letting customers shred upto 5 pounds for free through April 29th. Must have this coupon.

Olive Garden: Use this coupon to take $10 off purchases of $30 or more through April 20.

Sonic Drive-In: The chain's drinks and slushes will be half price al day. No limit, no coupon required. 

Steak 'n Shake: Get a free shake when you buy a $10 gift card. Good through 5/6.

Ice Cream Cookies

Ice Cream Cookies

What you need:

1 package of Nutter Butter Cookies
2 cups of candy melts (use whatever colors you want the “ice cream” to be)
30 small colored candies, such as mini jelly beans (we used m&m)
2 TBSP Sprinkles
Wax Paper

1.      Start by melting your candy melts as directed on the package. I picked white because I had white chocolate chips in the house already.

2.      Once melted, dip one end of the candy melt carefully.

3.      Add sprinkles (for me it was easier to just dip the cookie in the sprinkles bowl)

4.      Add candy piece to the top.

5.      Place on wax paper and let dry for 10-15 minutes, or until candy melt has hardened.

Planter Boxes

While walking around the garden section in Walmart, I realized why pay $6-$15 on a small planter when I can make one myself!  Nicole and I made it to Home Depot to buy everything we needed to make planter boxes. Nicole decided she wanted to plant veggies and since I'll be away for a couple weeks during the summer months I figured flowers would be the best way to go. 

Supply List for one flower box:

2- 2ft Ceder wood pieces

6- 3ft ceder wood pieces

4- 18-Gauge Framing Angles

32 wood nails

2 trash bags

Drill

Staple gun

Potting soil

flowers/veggies

Since we are girls with husbands deployed we had Home Depot cut the wood for us. The sign says they cut the first 2 cuts free and each cut after that is .25cents, not sure if its every Home Depot but I've never been charged for other cuts.

We did the outside of the box first, here is where we need two 3ft boards and two 2ft boards. On each side of the framing angle there are three holes. We put a screw in each one to make sure its sturdy.

After the four boards are connected, it was time to screw the bottom ones on. These will be the extra four 3ft pieces. Screw the wood into the frame, one nail on each end works just fine. There is about a half inch gap between each board for water to drain.

There are few ways to do the next step. The guy at Home Depot told us that we can use garden paper, rocks, trash bags or Styrofoam to line the bottom but warned us that garden paper could get moldy with the amount of rain we get here in Washington. We chose to use trash bags because we had them at home already. We used a staple gun & then poked holes in the bottom of the bags so the water can drain.

Now its time to put the garden bed where you want it because the next step is filling it with dirt. I used miracle grow potting soil.

If you are planting flowers this is the fun part on how you want your flower garden to look. I chose red, white and blue flowers. We are a Navy family and my husband is coming home soon so its part of the decorations!! 

Deployment Redecorating

If your a military spouse who has gone through long periods of being away from your spouse, you will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about!

My husband left in July for a 9 month-ish deployment. On day two of his deployment I wrote out a "goals" list for myself so I had something to look forward to doing while he was gone. The first couple months went great, I was checking things off like crazy! The holidays came around and I realized that all my ideas and projects were either not getting done or I wasn't finishing what I started! About Mid September I started painting the inside of our home. The first two days were great and then I got lazy. I kept on telling myself that as long as I got it done before Roy (my husband) got home I was good. Two weeks before Christmas I realized that I invited a few families over for Christmas Eve dinner & I had a very noticeable half painted house. Just days before Christmas Eve, I rushed through Home Depot got everything I needed and quickly painted the rest of the house.  I couldn't believe that it took me almost 4 months to finish 8 walls AND 2 walls in the kitchen aren't even finished!
I knew after the painting situation I needed to re-think some of my goals. The holidays are always a busy time for Created On 86th because everyone wants their orders before Christmas. The new year came around and I decided that the only things on my goal that I was going to finish were those that didn't include much thought or work.
With homecoming just around the corner, I have ran a business, painted the inside of my house, moved furniture around, bought new furniture, move THAT furniture around and so much more!

Today  Drugstore Divas posted a great deal from Walgreens. I got 10 picture prints for FREE! I took them on the offer ALONG with the 20% off discount for military (Thursdays in WA state)  for the extras that I purchased. I headed over to Walmart afterwards and grabbed some simple white frames.
I'm by no means a photographer but I finally finished our bedroom.

This is the last wall that had to have something on it :) 

What did you redecorate while your spouse was gone?

About Me

My name is Mallory Panchelli. I'm small business owner, house keeper and most of all a supportive Navy wife. My husband has been in the Navy for five years now and just re-enlisted for another six years, at this point he plans on making it career. We are currently living in Oak Harbor, Washington (about two hours North of Seattle).

I decided to start this blog to add on to the crazy amount of things I already do :) My husband is just getting home from a nine month deployment BUT we are gearing up for another nine month deployment here shortly.

On this blog you will find the daily grind that I do to keep myself busy while my husband is gone. There will be information about my small business; Created On 86^th, recipes, giveaways, information from my favorite blogs, pictures that I take and more!