How I got a one of a kind dress for about $10

My mom and I like to shop at Savers and Goodwill.  On my most recent visit to El Paso we went shopping at two different Savers locations. Here is how I got a great dress at a great price.

1. We went on a Holiday weekend. Because it was Memorial day weekend Savers had all clothing 50% off. I bought an all cotton dress for 6.50. I liked the material and cut of the dress, but I thought the black and white was boring.

2. I bought a bottle of fuchsia liquid rit dye at Hobby Lobby. With coupon it came to $2.40. Always use those 40% off coupons when shopping at Hobby Lobby. I have the app on my phone which makes it easy.

3. I used my new pressure cooker to dye the dress. I didn't use the actual pressure cooker function. I used the saute function to heat up the water, dye, and dissolve the salt. I got the dress completely wet before adding it to the bath. I turned the pressure cooker to warm and then let the dress cook for about 1.5 hours--stirring and shifting the dress regularly. After cooking the dress I rinsed it a bit in the sink, and then threw it in the washing machine. (Just to be safe I ran a tub cleaning cycle on the washing machine when the dress was done.)

4. When it came out of the dryer I had a whole new dress. I'm so happy with how it turned out. I then sewed shut one of the seams that had come unraveled. That's probably the reason it ended up at Savers. Someone didn't want to bother fixing that slight problem. I hand sewed it shut, and because it is the seam in the arm pit, it didn't have to be perfect. My hand stitching skills are pretty sad, but I knew I couldn't fit the sewing machine foot in the little area I needed to sew shut.

Voila. My new dress.

Give Me Stuff for Free

Sometimes I get 10 dollar gift certificates and I really try not to spend more than 10 dollars when I go to the store.  I used to get a lot of them from Kohl's.  I've also gotten them from DSW and Victoria's Secret.  I recently got one from Eddie Bauer.  I really didn't want to drive out to the outlet to spend the $10, and when I saw that they were having free shipping I decided to spend the gift certificate.  I bought a pair of socks--less than ten dollars.  I've already received them.  I like the stripes and they might be my new favorite pair of socks.

Usually when I spend less than the amount of the gift card I forfeit the remainder.  I refuse to spend money at VS.  Eddie Bauer actually sent me a check for $3.23!  Not a gift certificate....a check.  Real money.  So they sent socks straight to my door (FedEx) and gave me a check.  Happy Holidays to me.

Rainy Sunday in Napa: Oxbow Public Market

It was rainy Sunday morning, so we spent some time indoors at the Oxbow Public Market.  I had sworn off these kind of places because they tend to be the same kind of stalls over and over again and I have trouble deciding what I want, but this was different.  Oxbow Market is small and each stall is different.

Tiffany and I bought specialty salts and spices at Whole Spice Company.

A very nice man at Tillerman Tea sold me 3 different kinds of Oolong.  He didn't look at me like I was nuts when I asked for Dong Ding Oolong--in fact he had many different choices.  Unfortunately they were out of green puerh tuo cha.  I would have bought one.  I could definitely work in a spice shop or a tea shop.

We had lunch from C Casa.  I had a taco with meat that tasted like tamale meat (beef of course) and Ross had a duck taco. I wasn't very hungry--still stuffed with lamb ragout and coffee cake.

Cupcakes at Kara's Cupcakes.  Ross and I split a passion fruit filled cupcake and Ross, Tiffany and I split a vanilla cupcake.  The vanilla frosting on the passion fruit cupcake was like buttah--no grainy sugar at all.  The vanilla cupcake had vanilla-bourbon frosting that was more like traditional butter cream and very flavorful.  I would have liked the buttah texture with the bourbon flavor.

I got a cappuccino from Ritual Coffee Roasters to go with the cupcakes.  Finally got that pretty coffee.  It was amazing to watch the guy pour these.  Ross's latte was pretty too.  I'm going to buy a different milk pitcher and practice making foam and pouring.  I want to be able to make a heart like this or a leaf one day.  Oh, and I had just bought some vanilla sugar at the spice place, so we used that in our coffees.

Busy Weekend

On Saturday I went shopping in Pennsylvania with Elizabeth. We went to some outlet malls and the King of Prussia Mall, which is the second largest mall in the country. It was a busy day and although I got some good deals, I don't feel the need to ever go back. I was specifically going shopping for some boots, and I was disappointed to come home without any.

After all the shopping I met Valerie and the girls for dinner at Chick Fil-A. We then headed over to Ulta to buy makeup for Evelyn. Yes, Evelyn. She will be dancing in the Nutcracker and needs her own make up set.  Thank goodness the ballet company gave Valerie a list of approved products. It took us a while to find everything and make our choices. With no guidance we would have been there forever.

Saturday night Bailey had claimed the inflatable bed and didn't run away when the girls got into bed! She even stayed for part of their bedtime story. The girls were great with Bailey and she was really comfortable around them, even laying on her back!

After the girls fell asleep Valerie and I ran to Wal Mart for a makeup case and some other things. I finally got to bed around midnight--the second night in a row of late nights.

Sunday morning we labelled all of Evelyn's make up and Julia gave Valerie and me makeovers with all the new make up. We went to the Dairy for lunch. Even though I told them I only wanted a little bit of ice cream they double packed the first flavor and I had to tell them to stop scooping on the second flavor--and I still couldn't finish it all. I got pumpkin and gingersnap. I really like the gingersnap.

Julia really didn't want to leave. I tried to explain that she had to go back so that she could go to preschool and stuff, but she wasn't having it. When it was time to say goodbye she refused to hug us and said she didn't want to go to preschool.

After lunch I went to a couple of stores and ran out of steam pretty quickly. I took a nap as soon as we got back home. I'm still a little worn out. I'm not used to being so busy.

Leather and Cashmere

I go to the Nearly New Sale at GBMC twice a year with my friend Amy. It is the perfect place to find great deals on clothes and things for the house. I usually go with Amy on Sunday afternoons, but we decided to go yesterday morning. Wow. The place was a madhouse. We could barely walk around and didn't even see half of the place before we called it quits. We went back again today, and there was hardly anyone there. It was so much nicer.  All in all I spent less than 50 dollars and came home with:

a pair of black leather pants that I will probably wear to Ross's company Christmas party

a black cashmere sweater (Bailey and I loooooove cashmere.)

a jenaer glas cappuccino cup that I'll be using as a bowl

a small, really cute depression glass pitcher

a metal pitcher

a new powdered sugar shaker for Ross (We can't get our old one open to add more sugar!)

a Japanese tea set for two

a tie for Ross

a pink ball of yarn

a set of yarn for darning

a white designer purse--it had pen marks on it, but I've already cleaned it up and it looks great

a ceramic pot for my imaginary ginkgo bonsai

thigh high stockings

Another Great Day

We have had two days of great, hot weather. That meant two days of driving around with the top down.

Today we headed to Baltimore for lunch with the Lusters. We got to spend a little time with them before they went to see Thomas the Train. After lunch Ross and I went did a little shopping. I'm looking for some wedges to replace my flip flops. I had to throw out my black platform flip flops before we left Texas and my brown ones are getting a little ragged. Ross is the one who ended up buying a pair of shoes! We also made a trip to Whole Foods to stock up on some cereal and yoghurt.

After snap (snack and a nap) we ran a couple of errands. I'm thrilled that I found Dundee Ginger at TJ Maxx. I've been out of ginger preserves since we got here and hadn't been able to find it anywhere. I bought another brand, but I don't think it is as potent. At the end of the day we ended up at Broom Bloom Dairy. The line was super long, but I'm glad we stuck it out. They had cake batter on the board, so we bought a quart. I had some caramel cashew ice cream and Ross had vanilla with Reese's pieces. It was a great end to a great day.

Breaking My Rules and Doing My Part

I avoid the mall in December. It is one of my rules. I broke it yesterday to see if I could find a good deal somewhere on long sleeved T-shirts. I realized that I don't really have any long sleeve T-shirts. I have plenty of long sleeved shirts, but I can't see myself wearing my Ann Taylor button downs to the gym on cold days. So I did my part to stimulate the economy by going shopping. I did buy 2 long sleeved shirts for myself, a couple of shirts for Ross, and red velvet jacket that I didn't really need.
So there, I helped the economy by buying something I didn't really need. I joined in with the "holiday spirit."
Yesterday I read an article that said that 30-50% of retail sales occur during the holiday season. Ha! Our economy is strongly based on people going out and buying each other useless, unnecessary crap during the last 7 weeks of the year. Yep, I was moved by the spirit of shopping to buy even more junk at the galleria. But how could I resist buy-one-get-two-free deals at Lush?
My husband is unemployed and I barely make enough to buy groceries, but yesterday I was doing my part to stimulate our crap-based economy. I'm a little disgusted with myself.

Hotel Wonderlands

Each hotel had it's own wonderland complete with plenty of high end shopping. This photo is of the grand canal shops at the Venetian. They have a canal and you can ride a gondola around. It is located on the 2d floor and is completely indoors! With the painted ceilings you feel like you are outside (except it is air conditioned). There was entertainment every hour in St. Mark's square. The canal looked like it was full of toilet water because it was so blue. Nothing like the actual Venice. A few of the hotels have the painted ceiling indoor shopping areas. I thought the Grand Canal felt the most realistic (giving the feeling that you were outside). I thought the Caesar's Forum Shops had the best shopping. It was an entire mall! Three levels! And it was so beautiful. I found a pair of white lucky brand button fly jeans there on Thursday and it just made my day. I was tired and starting to get cranky, but some cute little jeans turned that all around. When we got back to the hotel I took a shower (to get off all the smog dirt and sweat) and then a bath with a lush bomb.

Mystere was my favorite (Tuesday night), but my favorite day overall was Thursday. We spent the morning at the spa. I had a salt scrub and my mom had a massage. Then we just hung out at the spa relaxing and using the saunas. We had dinner and watched a drag show then walked the strip and checked out all the hotels--Paris, Bellagio (we watched the fountains, and I wasn't impressed by the Chihuly glass ceiling), and Caesar's Palace (my favorite). We took tons of photos. I wish I could post them all.

The photo above is a mosaic behind the front desk at Caesar's palace. The whole place was full of statues and other forms of art. Even the flower arrangements were beautiful. Caesar's was definitely the most impressive.