What to do with my FabShopHop gift certificate.
 

Maybe post the store, and if anybody sees something there they'd like, offer to sell it to them or swap them for something. I won a $10 one a few years ago, and ran into the same situation. I think it was just my dumb luck to win it at the only store that didn't have SOMETHING I would use (I think it was embroidery patterns or something). Good luck with yours.

Do they have any notions, thread, needles ? maybe a pattern ?

I searched the whole website. I thought Thread - but that was very limited. I just bought needles and I didn't find any patterns that struck my fancy. When Hayloft went out of business I stocked up on blenders and lots of other fabrics.

Hopefully someone can use the certificate.

I won once, & all the store sold was fabric, so no other choices. Figured, if I spent the $10 on fabric, then I would still have to pay for the shipping, so I was not impressed & did not use it. Now, if they had had patterns, books, fqs, charm packs, then I might have used it & spent more even. So don't feel alone if you don't use this one. They don't seem like a prize, do they...

I've sometimes just not used the gift certificate if there was nothing I liked. Doesn't happen often, but I have just ignored it if I didn't see anything I really wanted.

The Klasse sewing machine needles are excellent quality, a European company...and a very good price. You could order 4 packs and have enough for a little while.

I a $10 gift certificate in October and the store that I won it for didn't have any fabrics that were to my taste and I figured that the $10 would cover just the postage so I didn't even use the certificate. It is nice that these are given away but I couldn't justify spending the money on something I didn't like just because I had it.

Are there any young people you know, who are starting to sew?If so ,they may get a real bang out of finding it in their stocking.40 years ago when I started sewing everything I had was leftovers from my mom and it wasn't much(she was a single mom).At 8 years old I would have been overjoyed to get just 1 new thing of my choosing.Just saying.

That's a great idea!

I just read it again and it says non-transferable. So I guess I will take the suggestion and buy some more machine needles. They will get used eventually and I won't have to worry about running out for quite a while.

I really wish I knew a young person locally to pass this onto. If she were local I could order and have it delivered here.

Thanks all, Sunnie

I won $10 certificate from Alderwood once but I was able to spend it. I did win two more $10 certificates from the Fab Shop and could not find anything from those stores and just did not use it. Congratulations on your win!

I had the same thing happen to me last year and thankfully my mom love something from the store so I just gave it to her in exchange for some choc. chip cookies. I do feel I ended up with the better end of the deal.

You could trade it with someone for fabric or an item you would like to have. You could gift it to a quilting friend whose style is like that of the shop where you won the certificate . You could select fabric and make a gift for someone you know. Or, you could sell it or swap it withone on this board. Whatever you end up doing, good luck.

You could try 4-h or girl scouts.Both need our donantions and any other help we can give.I was a girl scout leader for my daughter Sarah( we can't keep leaders up here) anyway Charlette and I paid for most everything our girls did.And in this economy things are much worse than 10 years ago.I heard 4-h is having problems too.I'm sure your neck of the woods things are not much different.Just saying......

By the way Merry CHRISTmas :)

I won a $10 gift certificate, too. I really appreciate the effort of these shops to support the shop hop. I was able to find fabric that I needed from a particular company. However if I couldn't justify the shipping costs then I wouldn't order anything just because I get $10 off. I won't buy if the end doesn't justify the means regardless of the bargain.

It happened to me, but it was only a $5 certificate. I just didn't use it.

I won a $10 several months ago and like someone else said, with shipping so expensive it just wasn't worth it to me to buy anything, so I didn't. Hope you can use yours though or that someone else can.

When you win the gift certificate, does it cover the postage? My daughter won one from the pine needle and has given it to me, and the only thing I have seen that I would even want is the tater bag insulation stuff and its $3.99 a yard and I thought about getting 2 yards and GIVING it secretly to my daughter that actually won the gift certificate. Postage is $2.00 so the total order would be $9.98.

As a participant in the Shop Hops every month - I can provide some information about the prize coupons/gift certificates.

a) They are NOT TRANSFERABLE - unless the shop in question chooses to accept it, if the order name is different than the name on the coupon, the coupon will not be acceptable and the shop owner should contact you to determine what to do with the order.

b) They DO NOT cover shipping costs. Most of the shops in the hop are small enterprises and giving away free shipping on a small order adds a lot of expense to the prize. On a lot of stores though, they'll be applied after the store minimum free shipping threshold is met. Some not.

c) They DO have a limited life. Usually they must be used in a specific time period, normally within about 3-4 weeks of when they are issued.

Hope this helps clarify...