Christmas is one of my favorite times of year. I have an excuse to decorate the house with bright colors that I wouldn’t usually use. This is our cats third Christmas with us, and I opted for a little different decorating. Instead of putting all of the ornaments on the tree this year I decided that they were much safer placed in containers out of the way and not dangling there for what seemed like her entertainment. Last year our tree looked like a train wreck after only a week into having the tree up. By the time Christmas arrived our tree looked worse than Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.

This year as soon as the tree came out of the box, it was open season on the Christmas tree. I knew that the cat would immediately look at the Christmas ornaments on the tree as an excuse to jump five feet into the air to get as many of the ornaments off as possible while damaging the tree with each leap into the air. She not only tries to climb the outside of the tree, but the inside as well. It’s quite a sight. This year the cat loses and I win with my new strategy.

I actually saw this in a magazine one year, and thought that it had an elegant look. I gathered the glass jars I had around the house, emptied their contents if they had other objects in them and filled each jar with similar colored ornaments. The look is quite stunning and creates the perfect centerpiece. The jars can be grouped together or stand on their own, but they truly are quite beautiful together. We may have to use this tactic for several more years until our cat gets a little more mature. This year our tree is decorated with lights and silver ribbon, simple and sweet, and something our cat cares nothing about.

This year was my first year to participate in a consignment sale, and I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Read more about ways to prepare for the consignment sale in my last article. Getting ready for a consignment sale can actually be done on a weekly or monthly basis. I routinely have to take articles of clothing out of my sons rotation of clothes because he has outgrown them. The first thing I do before sending them to the thrift store for a donation is to determine if it is an item that will resell. I do some of my prep work well before the consignment sale, so that I’m not doing it all at once right before the sale. Here’s what I look for to prepare my items to the consignment sale:

• Name brand clothing – Most people are looking for name brand clothing that is in excellent used condition.
• No missing buttons
• No loose strings
• Remove stains
• Iron all articles of clothing
• Save all hangars for your clothing items (hangars are usually not returned)
• For toys clean these, and use a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to clean any marks off the toy that aren’t removed with soap and water

Preparing your items ahead of time for a consignment sale will make you better prepared for the sale, and be less stressful in the end. Not only do you have to prepare your items, but labels have to be made and attached to the item as well with all of the item description and pricing information. Consignment sales are usually held twice a year in the spring and the fall. For the spring sales, they are usually looking for spring and summer type items, and for the fall, they are looking for fall, and winter type items. Just save these items in your closest neatly stored until your next consignment sale. They don’t take up much room, and you’ll benefit in the end.

I had the opportunity to visit my local thrift store yesterday. I try to go at least once a week because their inventory is constantly changing. As anyone knows who frequently shops at a thrift store, it’s hit or miss as to whether you’ll find something. Today’s finds weren’t half bad, and I actually found something I’m always on the lookout for; a Caillou video for my three year old son. I frequent this particular thrift store because their prices aren’t outrageous and I was able to pick up eight items for right at $6.00.

One of the reasons I shop the thrift store is to find inexpensive items to decorate my home with. I’ve found odds and ends to decorate with at the store for the last year, and while I don’t find something every time for my house, it’s just a matter of time before something shows up. Yesterday I found a retro ear ring holder, but won’t be using it for ear rings. I thought that it was cute enough to decorate with, and for $.39 I couldn’t go wrong.

My son ended up with a shirt from Old Navy, and two kids shows on VCR tape. They rarely have anything on DVD, but I’ll pick up a good video on VCR tape every once and a while there. I found a book that looks like it was read once, although it does have highlighting on the pages. When I go to the thrift store I usually have a mental list of a few household items I’m looking for. Sometimes I find them, and sometimes I don’t. Here’s what I ended up with (the Caillou tape is not pictured because it was already being watched):

• Retro ear ring holder (for decoration)
• 2 children’s VCR tapes
• A book
• Child’s shirt
• Kitchen item (strainer)
• Candle holder (for decoration)
• Pumpkin (for fall decoration)

All of the items are in excellent used condition, except for the retro ear ring holder. Shopping in a thrift store is an experience all its own. It takes time to sift through all the items to find something useful, and a lot of it is really useless. Here’s my ear ring holder already put to good use.

Have you ever made an online purchase that you’ve nearly regretted in the long run? I had an eye-opening experience when purchasing a desk for my twin daughters room. My daughters share a room that is quite small for two people, but more than adequate for one person. As a Christmas gift from my mom last year they received cameras that were of such low quality (not the fault of the gift giver) that they had to be returned. I told my mom that I had been wanting to purchase a desk for their room, and asked if it would be okay to use the money towards that purchase. My mom was fine with it, so the search was on for the right desk.

I searched weekly for the right desk, because it not only had to serve as a desk, but I needed a desk that had the option for a hutch as well to accommodate vertical storage for their room. I also didn’t have a fortune to spend on the desk so I searched every place I could think of. Nearly every time I stepped foot in a Target or Walmart I looked through their furniture for an acceptable desk. I checked online weekly at places like Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, Craigslist, Freecycle, Target, Walmart, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids. I did find several potentials on Craigslist, but either the price was too high, the desk was too large, or there was no hutch. To say the least, I was quite frustrated with the search. I was elated when I searched Office Max again, and found what seemed to be the perfect desk that included the option for a hutch, at a great price.

The desk and hutch arrived in two different shipments. I have put furniture together before, so I was prepared for at least a few hours to put the desk together. I actually had the help of my mom to put the desk together which was immensely helpful because of the several obstacles we encountered as we put the desk together. Only one review for the desk was negative, and it was spot on. The wood was of low craftsmanship, many of the pieces were warped. This type of furniture usually comes with a minimum of 100 pieces of little hardware that has to be installed along the way, which is what I expected. During two different instances, we encountered manufacturing flaws. The first was a hole that should have been one place, but was drilled in another place. The second was a screw hole that is normally pre-drilled, but was non-existant. The flimsy panels that slide into the rear of the desk for the rear desk panel were warped and extremely difficult to install. One of the desk drawers is so flawed in craftsmanship that it barely pulls out and is extremely difficult to push back in. The second desk drawer works a little better, but not by much. After about four hours, and getting a drill out to use a router to create a hole where it should be, we were finished. The only thing that made the desk acceptable was that it looks great, and although it is not fully functional, was purchased at a price that I couldn’t turn down.

The hutch arrived several days later, and while it did not have all of the major flaws that the desk itself had, it still had the same low craftsmanship that the desk had. We had to shave off part of a dowel because a pre-set hole was off about 1/16″ of an inch, but other than that we were able to overcome the rest of the minor obstacles we encountered.

The desk looks amazing in my daughters room, and they are already putting it to good use with their homework. The experience won’t keep me from purchasing future items online, but in the future I may stick with a brand I trust like Sauder. I am wondering how honest the feedback was on the OfficeMax website and if they encountered similar problems when putting their desks together. Feedback online often makes it difficult to make a decision when purchasing because of the skewed views on a product.