These are some pictures from their websites...a pretty accurate picture of what it looks like in there. Clothes, toys, furniture, and everything else sold by consignors is weeded through and accepted only by trained workers. They do not allow anything that has holes or tears in the clothing, or just looks like it's in bad shape. Toys must be working properly and be gently used...they're pretty good about what they accept and what they won't. This is a bi-yearly event, so since last year, we've been selling Zoe's clothing to make back money and buy next season of clothes and some age appropriate toys. Works out perfectly! Most of the stuff is sold at about 25-33% of the original price, many with tags still on the product indicating it's never been used or worn.
So we got spring and summer clothes for both Zoe and also for Ethan. We spent about $120 per kid on clothing, which seems like a lot at one time, but consider that it's for 6 months! Zoe was really easy to shop for. She's already wearing 24 month clothes, so I shopped out of the 24 month section and the 2T section. I was actually a little disappointed in the number of racks of clothes this year. Normally, there are about 8 per size, but this time there were only about 4. Oh well...I got a lot of cute stuff, some of it at $3 a pop. Ethan was a different story. I shopped for Zoe first and then moved to the little boy section. I just kind of stood there for a few minutes going, "What now? I've seen nothing but girl clothes for 2 years". The boys clothes make up only about half what the girls clothes do, so I didn't have but 3 racks or so to go through for each size. It was just so hard to decide how many 0-3 month and how many 3-6 month things to get not knowing how big he's going to be or how fast he'll grow. I ended up with only about 8 or 9 0-3 month things, about 15 3-6 month outfits, and a few 6 month clothes (just in case he's a big one). I chose not to get any newborn clothes b/c I remember Zoe only being in them for a few weeks. We also got Zoe a few toys, though with it being halfway through the third day of the sale, toys were thinned out considerably. She got a talking farm house with lots of animals that go inside for $10, and a jumpoline for $12. I'll post pictures of that when we get it blown up. I'm excited about it b/c she LOVES to jump.
The event that we will consign at, another of the many duck duck goose sales all over Arkansas, is held in Hot Springs (it cut down on our driving time to drop clothes off and pick them up). It's in two weeks, so anything that I find that I missed at this sale b/c of the slim pickings, we'll get there. Consignors get a chance to shop the day before the sale even opens to public, and there are just a few things that I know I want to get. We'll also look for some more age appropriate toys for Zoe since she's outgrowing a lot of what we have here for her. I'm hoping to find a small dollhouse and maybe some puzzles with little knobs on them. She's all into imaginary play now and loves the wooden puzzles that we have here. I'm sure we'll find some other things there.
I had an OB appointment at 1:30 in LR anyway, so a friend of mine who's expecting her 3rd 5 weeks or so after me went up with me and we shopped for a few hours before meeting up with the rest of our families. About the time we were wrapping up, our husbands and kiddos came to meet us there, help us out with all the stuff, and we all went out to eat. So much easier on our family that way since Zoe has to constantly be entertained when she's in a new place and since I'm the one doing the clothes shopping, Darin would have been forced to chase her around until I was done. He did that during the October sale and we decided never to do that again. ;-)
As exciting as yesterday was for a money conscious mom, I was up walking around for about 2 and a half hours...and WOW was I tired. I guess I forget that when I'm in this stage of pregnancy, I'm really limited on what I can do for long periods of time. Bummer deal...
That's great you found lots of good stuff! You must remember to take it easy though as far as standing and walking for long periods of time! Ethan'll be here soon!
ReplyDeleteYou learn that the amount and quality of clothes at those sales decrease as their sizes increase. Kids wear them longer and they wear out before you can sell them. Especially boys! Don't even think of being able to reconsign his stuff once he gets mobile. You can just forget it! But I still love those sales!
ReplyDeletei noticed the same thing that you did - there were only, maybe 3 or 4 racks of the 18month sizes for boys. i did get some pretty cute things, though. it would be hard to go from a girl to a boy - i do notice - but don't dwell on the fact - that there are soooo many more girl clothes! i think i would be overwhelmed IF we do have another baby and it ends up being a girl.
ReplyDeletei just can't imagine going there with a little one - i'm glad that it worked out that you didn't have to keep track of Zoe while you were there!!