Easter Take Two

Aunt Kiki and Cici are here for a long weekend, and we're having a blast celebrating a belated Easter!  We made footprint Easter Bunnies:

Cici's

Lucky's

Charm's

It was hard to get a picture with them all looking my way:).

We did a little shopping this weekend too:

If you liked the black and white striped Olin rug that I posted about in our front room, you may want to check out Home Goods where I stumbled upon a huge pile of flat woven rugs that are almost identical to the Olin rug.  They were available in black and white, grey and white, and several other multi-colored options.  Prices were fantastic at $7.99 for the 2' x 3', $12.99 for the 30" x 50", $29.99 for the 4' x 6' and $49.99 for the 5' x 8'.  

Also, Gymboree had a fantastic sale going on.  I picked up several pieces including this sweater dress (the picture doesn't do it justice!).  The dress was on clearance for $9.49, down from $43.95, and since an additional 25% off was taken from the lowest sale price for clearance items, and I had a coupon for my purchase as well, my cost for the dress was $3.78 (over 90% off)!  Lucky will get a ton of wear out of this next winter.  I heart deal shopping!!  

I hope you all had a nice weekend, too!

My Souvenirs!

Last week, we flew to Florida and enjoyed wonderful family time with both sides of our family.  We stayed at my father-in-law's condo and also got to spend a good chunk of time with my parents and siblings and Baby Cici too!  It was a wonderfully relaxing week, and I'm sure I'll be making a post of vacation pictures once I have the chance to go through the huge file of photos:)!

In the meantime, here are the souvenirs I picked up while on vacation purchased almost entirely at....World Market.  I just love that store.  I wish I had bigger suitcases:)!  (Most of the items I purchased couldn't be found online, although I did provide a link for the one that could.)

Wood Colored Pencils

World Market

$7.99

Fish Tambourine

World Market

Clearance $4.98

Ceramic Measuring Spoons

World Market

$2.99

(Slowly but surely, we're eliminating plastic from the ol' kitchen.)

Bird Cage Photo Display

World Market

$23.99 On Sale

(They had a larger size that was on sale for $31.99 that I would have preferred, but it was HUGE and it was questionable if it would have fit in my suitcase, so I settled for this cute smaller scale version.)

Chalkboard Birds on a String

World Market

$7.99 On Sale

(This purchase will be much more exciting once it's out of the package:).  And it would be easily DIY-able, but I imagine the cost would come close to $8 anyway!)

The coolest shell ever

Bonita Beach Shop

$2.99

I can't wait to start using these vacation finds!

Christmas in September!

I'm not sure what's going on, but two of my favorite home decorating stores, Target and Pier 1 Imports, have been having fantastic clearance deals as of late.  And as a result, I need to start selling some of our extra furniture pieces on Craigslist to build back up my 'home decor' fund fast:)!

Here are my recent Target finds:

It's an amazing haul, no?

The sunburst mirror was $12.08 (50% off).

The quatrefoil mirror was $9.64 (50% off).

The yellow rosette pillow was $12.48 (50% off).

The yellow shower curtain (which may turn into regular curtains) was $3.74 (75% off).

The leaf curtains were $4.98 (75% off).

The blue king bedding set was $24.98 (75% off).

After much searching, I did track down an azul floral 5' x 7' rug for $49.98 (75% off).

And a super comfy Home Medallion 5' x 7' rug for $32.48 (75% off).

The other rug that you see the top of on the left side of the image above is the azul floral runner for $22.48 (75% off).  I'm still debating whether or not that one is a keeper.

Since I picked up the blue duvet for my parents, my total for everything else is about $150, including the runner rug which may get returned.  That total is pretty amazing considering the 5' x 7' floral rug is normally $200 alone!

Now, on to Pier 1.  Here are my finds:

Total for everything pictured: $40.69.

2 Beaded Pillows: $6.18 each (75% off)

Fun Teal Throw: $12.48 (75% off)

Lantern: $6.18 (75% off)

Fall Potpourri: $1.78 (90% off)

Blue Bottle: $2.98 (75% off)

Succulent Tea Lights: $1.48 (75% off).

I've got big plans for all of these goodies.  Many of them will end up in our basement once we turn our focus to decorating that space later this fall.  I heart clearance scores!

Junk Bonanza 2011

As I promised here and here, here is a round up of images from the Junk Bonanza held in Shakopee, MN two weekends ago.  I had never been to this event before, so I had no idea what to expect.  Apparently, there are a lot of people who love junk as much as I do:

I apologize for the quality of some of these images...it was crazy in there...crazy in a good way though:).  Here are some of the things that caught my eye:

 Orange Factory Cart:

Old Suitcases and Trunks Galore:

Lots of Letters and Signs:

Antique Dress Forms Galore:

Old Birdcages: 

 Repurposed Items:

License Plate Bracelets

Old Music Sheet Wreath

Coffee table turned Ottoman

Amazingly Unique Light Fixtures:

Old Parts, New Hearts: 

I love card catalog-like pieces of furniture with multiple openings for storage.  The Junk Bonanza had a plethora of these type of pieces:

At the Junk Bonanza, I realized that our basement exercise room needs one of these...

.

or these:

My seasonal items could be stored and labeled so nicely in these instead of using the big rubbermaid containers we have going on now in our exercise room!

 Knit Chevron Blanket

Even the displays were amazing:

For the first hour that I was there, I didn't purchase a thing.  Instead, I think I was walking around with my jaw dropped at the sheer volume of junk and people in one place.  Also, many of the pieces that I was really interested in already had 'sold' signs on them by the time I walked through about 15 minutes after the start of the 'regular bonanza hours' (Early birds could enter at 8am with a $25 ticket charge.  My ticket was $8 and allowed me to enter at 10am.).  Here are the few things that did come home with me:

I love these locker bins.  Seriously love them, but they aren't cheap.  This one cost $22 (insane for an old bin, right?!), but it was one of 2 bins that were being sold individually at one particular booth (The booth also had a locker unit full of the same shelves but they were sold as a set and the entire unit had already sold!)  I probably would have passed on it because I'm too cheap, but the numbers on it are very meaningful to me.  I lived in 2 houses growing up from the age of 2-18 and both homes (located about 2 blocks apart) had the same address numbers '134'.  What are the odds of that?  When I look at these numbers, I can't help but be taken back to the days of my youth!  This bin spoke to me, and I answered the call!

I also picked up these old tags.  The '79' one is an old cow tag.  Perhaps the 11 one is as well.  They were $5 and $3 respectively.  I chose the 79 one because my kiddos were born in 2007 and 2009.  And I liked the 11 one as well.  I don't have any specific plans for them yet, but I think they may be used in our office, once we make some changes in there!

Overall, I loved the Junk Bonanza and plan to return next year.  Maybe I'll be an early bird and maybe I'll take Bill along (mark your calendar, dear!) to help load a big ol' card catalog or locker set or something else junktastically wonderful!