UsedEverywhere.com

UsedVictoria: Show Us Your Wings and Win!

Hello Victorians! We have a challenge for you! Show us how creatively angelic you can be this Halloween and win an awesome baby gear prize pack!

Here’s what you gotta do:

1. Pick up a set of angel wings and halo at our head office (2nd-floor, 818 Broughton Avenue) any time between 9 AM – 5 PM today (Thursday), Friday or Monday 
2. Take a photo of yourself or loved one doing something AWESOME in said wings and halo
3. Submit your photo to the lovely Alexa via email: alexa@usedeverwhere.com by 5 PM Wednesday, November 2nd.

We only have 17 sets, so if you want to enter make sure you get here quick! Plus, you’ll have a 1 in 17 chance of winning! Pretty good odds!

The most creative entry will this awesome prize pack containing the following Graco Pack ‘N Play with change table attachment, Ikea moon wall light, Bumbo, Huggies diaper & wipe, reindeer outfit. We’ll be posting some of the more creative entries here on the blog, so check back next week. Good luck and may the best angel win!

Show us your wings & win this awesome prize pack!

UsedBlog Covets: Kilim Area Rugs

original 1970 Oushak kilim via usedvictoria.com

I’ve been looking for an area rug for my living room for a while now. I’m drawn to Persian rugs, but I also want something that will work with my sort-of mid-century-meets-thrift-shop-kitsch aesthetic. And so, I turned to Apartment Therapy as you do in these situations. Lo and behold, writer Regina Yunghans just so happens to be thinking along the same lines. She’s considering adding kilim carpets to her home and well, now I am, too. A kilim is a flat-woven tapestry rug that’s produced from the Balkans to Pakistan. It’s thinner and flatter than other Persian-style carpets, which appeals to me for some reason. Maybe because it packs a visual punch but still manages to be a bit sparse? Not sure…

Anyway, after a quick search on UsedVictoria, I found the lovely kilim carpet shown above. I love the colours and pattern and I think it will work with the other textures in my home, adding some much needed warmth. I also love that it’s vintage. I think it would feel quite at home with my other second-hand treasures. What do you think? I know I love the look, but is there something about the lovely kilim I should know before doling out the do-re-mi?

Baby Costumes: The Cuter the Better!

Okay, so some people are Christmas people…the ones who need the giant, fully decorated Christmas tree in the house and the million Christmas lights outside, complete with blinking robotic Santa and Rudolph out on their front lawn. My husband and I are not these people. We are Halloween people!!! We need to have our house decked out in blood and gore with plastic body parts and a graveyard with scary tombstones and a robotic zombie (his name is Bob) on our front lawn. So you can imagine how excited we are this year now that we have a child to dress up for Halloween and go trick or treating with (is it wrong that a very small part of why we had kids was to go trick or treating again on Halloween?…No?  Oh good. Whew!)

The hardest part though is figuring out what to dress our son Grayson up as for his first Halloween. Personally I wanted to go with blood sucking baby vampire or maybe flesh eating zombie baby but supposedly these not very popular (or sane) costumes to dress your baby in. Then I thought I’d try to be clever and come up with my own funny costume for him (note: this was also kiboshed):

Get it? He's an iPod....hahahahahah! Okay, maybe I'm the only one who thinks this is hilarious.

The advice I got was the cuter the better. Why? Because to to trick or treat with a baby you have to distract people from the fact that your baby will obviously not be the one eating the free candy put into his little pumpkin pail. (Just to clarify, it won’t be me either; it will be my husband who I have to constantly hide chocolate from in order to get any for myself!)

So I enlisted the help of my mommy friends and asked them what they dressed their kids up as for their first Halloween to get ideas for cute costumes for Grayson.  Here were the most popular ones:

Number #1 was definitely the baby monkey costume.  This makes sense since it seems to be a universal thing for Moms to call their babes “my little monkey.”  I mean my husband and I actually took this a bit too far and had professional photos done of our son dressed as a sock monkey:

Sorry I just had to post this! Could a sock monkey be any cuter???

The next most popular baby costume was, strangely enough, a baby giraffe.  I’ve never really thought that baby giraffes were all that cute but I have to admit that a baby dressed as one does warrant the automatic cute sound “Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

And finally the third most popular costume was the loveable, huggable Tigger from Winnie the Pooh:

This makes sense because, “The wonderful thing about Tiggers. Is Tiggers are wonderful things.Their tops are made out of rubber. Their bottoms are made out of springs.They’re bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy fun, fun, fun, fun, fun  But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is I’m the only one.” Sorry, I just love Winne the Pooh! Doesn’t that bring back childhood memories?

The runners-up for cute baby costumes were baby bumblebee, baby lion, baby piggy, baby spider (I’m terrified of spiders so I’m sorry but this one is definitely off the table for me!) and a cute baby pumpkin.

I actually toyed with the cute pumpkin idea so I went online to see other people’s ideas on how to make this and I can’t believe what I found:

Hahaha! Boy, he sure looks happy!

Now, as you know, I’m all for saving money but I think this is going just a bit too far! Although people may just give us candy out of sheer pity!

So now I’m sure you are now all dying to know what we decided on for baby Grayson’s first Halloween costume….ok here we go…drum roll please…The Tigger costume!

Sorry but I couldn’t post a pic of Grayson actually in the costume…that would be like opening presents before Christmas!

I lucked out and found this costume brand new on Usedvic for only $10!  Unfortunately the baby it was intended for outgrew it before Halloween (useful tip, don’t buy a costume for your baby too soon). I am so excited and can’t wait to see him in this and go trick or treating…Plus I’m thinking, on the cuteness scale, this costume will definitely get us a full pail of candy. Tee-hee.

***Coupon tip of the week:  make sure to hold out using your coupons until you can get a really good deal using them. For instance, if you have a coupon for $2 off a deodorant, wait till you see that deodorant go on sale for $2 and you can get it for free!  Of course, if you need to buy something right away and you have a coupon for it, it makes sense to use it then but if you can wait and there is lots of time till it expires, save it!

It's Baby Mania in Victoria!

Find the best baby restaurant in town at the Vancouver Island Baby Fair!

One of my guy friends asked me what I was doing this weekend and I told him I was going to a Baby Fair.  His reply was, “Is that where people go to bid on babies?”  An honest mistake I thought, as I may have thought this a few years ago before kids were a factor in my life.  Anyhoo, after attending the Vancouver Island Baby Fair this weekend for the first time, I can safely say that NO babies were auctioned off but you could definitely find practically everything else baby related to buy.

I bought a weekend pass thinking “why would you need two days to go to a baby fair?”  As I walked through the front door of the arena, I realized why… this baby fair was huge!!  Booths as far as the eye could see.  I couldn’t believe there were so many businesses out there specializing in baby products and services.  And most of them were locally owned by moms and parents so it felt great to buy stuff knowing you were helping support your local community.

There were a ton of booths selling adorable baby clothing, each with their own unique designs or specialty items like bamboo swaddlers and organic onsies. Here are a couple of neat items I found:

These are called "Japanese Monkey Pants" because they make your baby's bum look like a monkey. So cute!

Hand knit sock monkey hats!!!

I was quite surprised at the wide variety of stalls showcasing services for babies…baby skin care, baby acupuncture, baby chiropractors, baby astrology (I’m not kidding) as well as booths with information on child education, sports programs, insurance, jewelry, children events…the list goes on and on.

I ran into the usedvictoria.com crew raffling off some cool baby items you can find on their site.  Looks like Andrea chose some pretty some good items as people kept asking them if they could buy the items on the spot. (Sorry you’ve got to go to their site):

Charlotte and Andrea at their first baby fair with usedvictoria.com

Awesome choices for the prize pack Andrea! (There's that fabulous Bumbo again)

My husband had a funny thing happen to him. I had left him with the stroller to go check out a booth and a guy approached him asking him he was interested in any marriage counselling.  His reply was “Dude, do you really think I would come to this if I needed marriage counselling?”  LOL.  I would agree that you definitely have a strong marriage if you can convince your husband to spend four hours on a weekend surrounded by hundreds of moms salivating over all things baby!

Cross-Canada UsedSites Tour of Awesomeness

From top left to bottom right:  Mid-century Danish modern teak cheese board, Scandinavian Porsgrund porcelain trivet, 1953 Eames fibreglass chair, vintage spice tins, 1960s Vanity Fair children’s record player, original Beverly Hills 90210 lunch box

Go to Your Cage!

Creepy cage via UsedCowichan.com

Just in time for Halloween! Or maybe a creative alternative to the “time-out corner”? Just a thought.

Frame it

Square dancing applique via UsedVictoria.com

Wouldn’t this be lovely framed? I can see this in a nursery or in any room, really. Just plain pretty.

Back to… Something Else?

We’ve been talking a lot of back to school on the UsedBlog, and rightfully so. It’s kind of a big deal, after all! I chatted about high school and university preparations while Andrea gave some perspective on the countdown from the younger set side.

For the first time in a whopping 16 years, I will not be heading back to school next week. This is something that, to be honest, has rattled me a bit more than I anticipated that it would. Finishing school (for a while, anyway) presented its own set of challenges; including, but not limited to, being broke and moving back in with (gulp) my parents. Bother upon bothers, never mind being subject to my parents’ rules yet again, what to do with four years worth of stuff?!

Enter a ruthless closet clean out (donated!) and an assessment of what furniture I did, and more importantly, didn’t need. A negotiation with my roommates resulted in me selling them my dining room table and chairs. Just as I was about to post my desk on UsedVictoria.com, a friend posted a Facebook status asking if anyone had one they would be willing to sell. Well that was easier than expected!

On the other side of the ferry ride, I found myself with yet another desk that needed a new home (no more homework for me!). Again, mere moments away from posting on UsedVancouver.com… and my dad decided to take it. No money changed hands there, but since he bought it, I guess it’s fair enough.

Sometimes things just work out.

This isn't my desk, but it could have been!

Starting Over on a Dime

From left to right: Krug dining table - a mark of fine furniture, dining hutch & chairs, awesome birds painted red by yours truly

Change is good. Moving sucks. It just does. It’s expensive, exhausting and did I mention expensive? I moved my family from Vancouver to Victoria a couple of months ago. After living on top of each other in a teeny 2-bedroom apartment on the mainland we were excited to move into our spacious, 3-bedroom townhouse in pretty much the best co-op ever. We left a lot of stuff behind to save money and space in the moving truck. Fresh start, yeah! So, we loaded up the baby, the teen and all our remaining worldly goods and crossed the water to start a new life. It was a smart move, but a costly one. After paying the movers, ferry fare, co-op shares and first month’s rent we were broke. Broke but unbowed.

You see, I had big plans for our new home. I’d been dreaming of a vintage-inspired space furnished with quality pieces and I wasn’t about to let a couple of empty pockets ruin everything. And so, after some intense shuffling, juggling and pilfering I managed to secure $500 to furnish and decorate our new home. That’s a teen’s room, a nursery, a master bedroom, dining room and living room all for the cost of a new La-Z-Boy recliner. I was going to have to make a dollar dance. Hard. Like, Footloose hard. I knew I’d get more bang for my buck shopping second-hand and with kids at home, I’d have to conduct the bulk of my search online. This is when UsedVictoria.com tapped my shoulder and asked to cut in. This is also where the dance analogies end. I promise.

I hadn’t heard of UsedVictoria.com before my brother-in-law started sending me links to stuff from the site. Great, cheap stuff! Within an evening I was hooked. I set up RSS feeds and email alerts and I downloaded the Usedeverywhere.com app for my iPhone. I was determined not to miss a deal. Sleep, I could do without. But not that perfect velvet, raspberry, polka-dot sofa! Perhaps this is a good time to reveal I have a slightly obsessive personality… Anyhoo, my mild dip into mania paid off. In two weeks I scored the following:

• captain’s bed (free delivery!) = $125
• crib & mattress $50
• sofa & love seat (free delivery) = $125
• vintage solid wood, dining room table, hutch & 6 chairs (delivery $25)= $175
• glider (FREE)
• dishwasher (FREE) + an awesome handyman to install it
• new duvet cover & pillow cases = $15
• unpainted wooden bird candle holders = $3

GRAND TOTAL: $493 (note: some prices were negotiated – shrewd!)

Come on. How good is that? And I came in under budget allowing me to splurge on some red paint for my beloved bird candle holders. The dining room set is my favourite find. It’s beautiful, solid and the table came with two leaves. I can easily imagine my family gathered around it for many years to come. It was also very cool meeting all the sellers. From the empty-nesters who were finally letting go of their newly married daughter’s captain’s bed to the young couple wanting their grandfather’s dining room suite to go to a family instead of a reseller – these used items came with stories. You won’t find that at Ikea.

What’s next? I like a challenge, so I’m going to attempt to finish our semi-finished basement using only free items. I’m in no rush. I will set up my feeds and alerts and bide my time. In the meantime, I’m throwing down the gauntlet! What can you do with $500? $250? Less? I’d love to see  you make that money shake it.

Epic Battle

My roommates and I try to be good to the environment. We recycle, use green cleaning products, turn the heat all the way off, all that stuff. We even compost.

And that’s where the problem starts. Somehow it escapes us to take out the compost every day or every other day as we should… and things can get a bit gross. Particularly as it has started to heat up in lovely Victoria (finally!), things start to go bad… and I know I don’t have to tell you how gross that is.

All of those factors combined have brought in some new house guests: fruit flies. So small, yet so aggravating. Something about having flies floating around makes your house seem so dirty, even after you’ve power-cleaned the entire place. Trust me, I’ve attempted.

How To Get Rid of Fruit Flies

This is not the most exciting video you’ll ever watch, but it will help you as it helped me! Sorry, little guys. You just weren’t invited.