These are a part of our Freebies series of Printable Gifts and Accessories. These Miniature Gingham Gift Boxes match the Miniature Gingham Carrier Bags we posted a few days ago.

These images are provided for personal non-commercial use and may not be published elsewhere. If you want to share this with your friends, please link to this page.

If you enjoy our free printable templates, please consider making a donation to help us produce more.

Gingham Gift Boxes

For gift boxes, print on cardstock or heavy paper.

1. Print colored top and one plain bottom template.
2. Cut on dark lines
3. Fold on lighter lines.
4. Glue tabs to sides.

Yellow Gingham Gift Box	Pink Gingham Gift Box
Green Gingham Gift Box	Blue Gingham Gift Box
Print one of the following Gift Box Bottom for each box you make. Gift Box Bottom

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Madoline and I lived in Los Angeles (in the San Fernando Valley) for a year and a half, during which time we went through a shopaholic phase followed by a phase of extreme frugality (described in Our Family Financial History). When we decided to be frugal, I learned a lot about free and low cost activities in the area. Here we will share some suggestions for free and frugal things to do in the Los Angeles area. Note that I have not been to all the places listed here, but many are things I remember hearing or reading about while living there there and others have been gathered from online sources.

All activities listed below are FREE of admission charges unless otherwise noted (some activities are free on particular days or at particular times of day). Those that are not free cost $5 or less per person. Parking fees are noted whenever possible. Depending on the distance and number of persons in your group, public transit may or may not be less expensive. Check out an earlier post I wrote on How to Save Gas and Time by Using Google Maps, which includes tips on looking up public transportation directions and fares.

General & Sight-Seeing

The Grove Fountain Photo credit: r3m3dy

Our favorite frugal activity was walking malls and pretty places to both sight-see and get some exercise. Here are some of our favorite places to walk. Note that even though these include shopping centers, you do not need to shop in order to enjoy the scenery and atmosphere!

• Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade

  Grab a drink or ice cream cone and just enjoy the scenery and street performers. Check out Santa Monica Pier while you’re there. You don’t have to spend money on the rides, just enjoy the scenery, have a look at the famous carousel built in 1916.

  More information: Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade

• The Grove

  A very pretty outdoor mall with cute buildings and a park-like setting with fountains and outdoor seating. Includes free events such as Movies in the Park, Girls Night Out, Music in the Park, etc.

  More information: The Grove

• Farmers Market

  

  The Farmers Market isn’t only a place to shop for groceries, but they host free events all year round including a Summer Music Series; Family Fun with music, arts & crafts; Fall Festival with marching band, petting zoo, pig races, etc.; Holiday Festivities including music, Menorah lighting, caroling and a toy soldier band; Mardi Gras with Cajun bands, mask making, etc.; and the Gilmore Heritage Auto Show featuring more than 100 vintage and classic cars. (Photo credit: andy castro)

  More information: Farmers Market Events

• Downtown Burbank

  “Come Out and Dance” with live bands with free dance lessons, fine arts festivals, Halloween trick-or-treat, Holiday Cheer and more in Downtown Burbank.

  More information: Events in Downtown Burbank

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These small bags with pretty gingham pattern are ideal for small gifts or visible storage. Simply click on the template images below and print with printer setting on “Scale to fit page”. Choose landscape paper orientation for larger items. Assembly may take a few tries if you have never done this sort of project, but be patient and you will find it well worth your efforts.

These images are provided for personal non-commercial use and may not be published elsewhere. If you want to share this with your friends, please link to this page.

If you enjoy our free printable templates, please consider making a donation to help us produce more.

Gingham Carrier Bags

For carrier bags, regular printer paper is recommended. Directions are provided on image:

1. Fold down top of bag.
2. Crease on lines to make rectangular shape and glue into a tube.
3. Fold bottom of bag end as if gift wrapping a box.
4. Use yarn, ribbon or string for handles and make a crease down each side as you have seen on paper bags.

Click on the small images to enlarge and print.

Yellow Gingham Bag	Violet Gingham Bag	Spring Green Gingham Bag
Red Gingham Bag	Blue Gingham Bag	Pink Gingham Bag
Orange Gingham Bag	Green Gingham Bag	Brown Gingham Bag

We have decided to start a new section in our blog devoted to providing printable paper products for your personal use. These will include such items as greeting cards, gift bags, boxes, tags, invitations, and other stationary designed especially for Our Fourpence Worth. You only need to open and print templates, and possibly do a little easy assembly to get your finished product. We hope our projects will save you money by providing attractive alternatives to purchased products. If you enjoy using our design, we would appreciate it if you tell your friends or link back to us.

We already have many designs finished and scheduled to be posted. Please check back soon!

Some of you may have noticed references to the Wall Street Journal in a few of my recent posts. This is because I began receiving a print subscription of the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago - for free. I am a member of the e-Rewards program, which offers rewards currency in exchange for completing market research surveys.

I have joined many survey programs before, but this is the only program that I have found to be reliable. With consumer surveys for market research, there is often a pre-screening survey that you have to fill out to see if you qualify. Some of these pre-qualification surveys take about 10 minutes to complete, after which you find that you are not eligible. With e-Rewards, they give you a small reward - $0.50 in rewards currency - even if you don’t qualify. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. And it adds up fast.

e-Rewards currency can be redeemed for a number of rewards such as magazine subscriptions (subjects range from fashion, to fitness, to business, etc.), Blockbuster video rental coupons, Borders Bucks, ariline miles, hotel points, coupons for dining and luxury merchandise stores, and more. Click here to see a full list of rewards.

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With numerous “How to Save Gas” tips all over the internet, such as this one on WikiHow: How to Save Money on Gas, I figured I wouldn’t do one here because they can be easily found elsewhere. So this post won’t be about the most common suggestion such as: Unload all unnecessary weight, leave early, drive slower, etc., but rather on how you can use tools provided by Google Maps to save you gas and time.

With gas prices constantly rising and the economy as it is, we can’t go wrong saving even tiny bits of money and gas here and there. Even if we shave off only .1 mile on a daily trip, it will add up to something.

Google Maps has been getting fancier and fancier with satellite images, trip planners with multiple destinations, re-route tools to discover shorter routes and more. Many of you probably already know about this, but it is possible that some do not, so I thought I would do an in-depth guide on how to use Google Maps to help you plan and re-route trips, be they long or short distance.

This is a rather long guide (mostly due to the number of images), so here is a table of contents of the sections contained in this post:

• How Google Maps Can Help You Save Gas and Time
• How to Re-Route Trips on Google Maps
• Driving Directions and Route Options
• Traffic Conditions
• Satellite Image Street Views
• Foreign Travel
• Fun Stuff & Research
  • Photos and Wikipedia
  • What does your house look like from the sky?

How Google Maps Can Help You Save Gas and Time

• Re-routing drives for daily errands, trips to the grocery store, to your kids’ schools, church, the bank, post office or homes of friends and family.
• Planning routes with multiple destinations to consolidate your trips.
• Avoiding left turns, which according to UPS (UPS Delivers Gas Saving Tip), saves gas because it prevents waiting in traffic.
• Satellite images of street views can show you what unfamiliar destinations look like so you can know what to expect, which side of the road your destination is on, which lane you should be driving in and prevent you from wasting time by getting lost.
• Traffic conditions look-up for live traffic or a specific day and time can help you plan your departure time and estimate driving time.

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