Consignment Dealz!

Last season was my first time attending the All 4 Kids Consignment sales. I was overwhelmed at all the deals and wished I had found it sooner. This year I was much more prepared.

This season I wanted to get some winter clothes, an umbrella stroller, and dvds. (I found if you go on the first day you can find brand new clothes, with the tags on, and "like new" condition for kids clothes.) I ended up finding exactly what I wanted, plus a few books, a puzzle, and duplos! I'll have to post the stroller story another day... I don't have the energy now.

Here's my loot!


I think I did pretty good! I found Baby Einstein movies for $5-$3 each, the Duplo bag was $5, and I found name brands like Disney, The Children's Place, Osh Kosh and Arizona.

I spent $35 on clothing. I am very very critical when choosing clothing. It can't be more than $5, must show NO signs of stains or rough wear like those little fuzzy balls that happen around the sleeves. It must also be cute. Cute colors that you don't typically find in cheap stores and cool patterns or imagery that is relevant to our family. For example, I would never buy any Georgia Bulldog anything-there is a lot of it here in GA. Nor would I buy any Cubs, Stealer's, or Marlins sports teams stuff - even if it is really cute, like really really cute.

The sadistic side of me wanted to see if all this crazy searching and inspecting of second hand stuff was really a savings. This is what I came up with...

	Consignment	Full Price
Carters Coverall	$5.00	$10.00
Carters Coverall	$5.00	$10.00
Blue hoodie	$3.00	$15.00
Osk Kosh LS Tee	$2.00	$16.00
Long Sleeve Tee	$2.00	$6.00
Child Place LS Tee	$2.00	$9.50
Disney Vest	$3.00	$10.00
Pants	$5.00	$13.00
Child Place Sweater	$5.00	$15.00
Arizona Sweater	$1.00	$13.00
Child Place Tee	$3.00	$9.50
	$36.00	$127.00

I tried to find accurate prices, and I feel like I did pretty well. Of course no one buys all full price items, we all buy the sales stuff! But this comparison makes my savings look huge!!

Plus I have a slight hippie side to me that says, "Of course it is worth it, it is just like recycling! Re-use is one of the three R's!!" And that is true. Especially for the toys. My mother in law still has the legos and duplos her kids played with. Those things last forever! Better to pass them on or save them rather than dump them in a landfill. Okay, back down off my hippie high horse..

I'm most excited for this outfit. Now if only it would be winter weather, and if only Brad would grow.. That is a whole other issue..
He'll be 24 months in November... Will he fit into 24 months clothes?? He had better!

Sleepy Boy

QUICK!

The baby is asleep, go make some pendants!

GO! GO! GO!

decorating the baby's room

I am quite proud of one room in our house, and no surprise, it is a room that I spend a great deal of time in. I decided when I was pregnant that the baby's room, boy or girl, would have to be a place that I enjoy since I would be spending most of my time there and this may be my only chance to choose what it looks like till he gets older.

I started looking up ideas on the Internet and saving my fave pics. After twenty or so pics, I zeroed on these four. (there weren't very many cute, jungle rooms). Each one has a different idea that I like and had never seen.

Polka dot walls, vertical placement, stickers, and a set of three pieces over the crib.
I focused on these ideas as I formulated the room. (which took months because I really over-think these things.)

After a hand-me down crib, ikea and world market furniture, I had to set in on color choices and decor.
Boy yes, blue no. Monkey yes... but not too monkey. Let's include some other animals. So I started to take action on some ideas. I loved some of the themed stuff in the stores, but I'm cheap and well, an artist, so I think I can do everything art related. This was much harder than I anticipated.

I did paint the monkeys, no they are not my design. Turns out, I am not an artist who can draw. SO The wonderful thing about art just for you is you can 100% copy someone else's idea and it is okay! It is just for you! SO I found some cartoon monkeys I liked and printed them off so I could enlarge them onto a canvas.

The jungle animals are made out of recycled sweaters, cut up and stapled around a square canvas. The gators, etc are simply cut out and glued on! But it is soft, and is a nice texture on the wall.

I liked these elements but I didn't have it all till I found... the stickers!! Toys R Us had the cutest jungle and monkey stickers last year! You could peel-and-stick to your heart's content, and I got them for gifts and on sale! My twist was adding the picture frames on top of the stickers to make a cute wall feature. I haven't changed the photos yet because I like them so much. (My tip for this project is either go black and white with your photos, or match the colors in the photos to the stickers. It will make it look cohesive! See my matchy matchy blues and yellows.)

Now I love this room. I used to sit and judge my monkeys because some have big heads, some have big feet, but now I love them for their imperfections. And the polka dots make them stand out from the wall. (Another tip, my polka dots don't match the green color of the other walls, but it is okay because the two greens never touch each other! You would have never known huh!)

All the spotty movement adds so much life to an otherwise boring space, even Bradley and the puppy are excited to play in his room!

I suppose it is a bad idea to have another kid just so you can decorate another room.. even if it did take me nearly a year to DECIDE what I wanted in here!