Gone Shopping! » books & stationery

waiting for a better book sale

clair — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:56:55 +0000

My kids and I are looking out for the next book sale. The last one we went to was rather lame and we only bought one book! Would you believe driving all the way there, walking miles to the warehouse because their parking lot was full and then only finding one book to buy because everything was so expensive? Talk about false advertising.

finally books we thought, not!

clair — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:24:38 +0000

We went to the MP*H book warehouse sale against our better judgement. Their sales are never very cheap and every time we go, we seem to come back with hardly any books. It’s been like that the past few times so we’ve given up.

We eventually went because the kids are so starved of new books to read and we haven’t been to a single book sale since I don’t know when. So finally I agreed to take them. But the checkout lines were so long and the place was so stuffy we decided to dump the books and leave without buying. We won’t be going again.

spoils from the book sale

clair — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 03:05:40 +0000

The girls and I went to the MPH book sale and came home with these. It’s a small stack compared to what we usually hoard back from other warehouse sales.

We normally get books really cheap at warehouse sales but these were only about 30% off retail price, so we didn’t buy as many as we wanted.

Yeah, the girls were disappointed. They go through books like vacuum cleaners and they’ll be done reading these in no time.

save on printing labels

clair — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:21:28 +0000

These days, very few people make labels manually any more unless they’re for home use.

If you run a business, it would definitely be more efficient to print on Thermal labels to save time and cost.

If you’re looking to buy in bulk, be sure to check out Label Liquidators for some of the best prices on labels and label printers.

do your kids eat their stationery at recess?

clair — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:53:49 +0000

We got to the bookstore every week to buy stationery and more stationery. I’m beginning to think school kids eat their stationery at recess which is why they always need to buy them so regularly.

Just yesterday, we bought clear folders, ring clips, more pens, more glue… and 2 pairs of scissors? Well, that’s because I wouldn’t let the girls buy safety cutters because they can be pretty dangerous.

I do keep bulk supplies of erasers, correction tape, etc in stock to avoid making emergency trips to the bookstore on a Sunday night. Trust me, if we buy any more stationery, I could be opening a convenience stationery store myself.

the reluctant cook

clair — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:03:53 +0000

My friend told me she bought a couple of recipe books from the Pearson sale last weekend. Suddenly I was reminded of all the recipe books I have in my kitchen drawer that I’ve barely touched.

At one time, I imagined myself to be on my way to becoming the Ratatouille of all time . You could find me in my kitchen cooking and baking up a storm almost any day of the week.

My kids were happy and my friends were happy to be at the receiving end of my culinary masterpieces . Has it been that since I turned out anything that even smells remotely like bread or cakes from my kitchen? Hmm, maybe it’s time to find my apron and dust out ‘em old recipe books, eh?

Pearson book sale

clair — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:36:34 +0000

The girls and I were at the Pearson book sale yesterday. We’d been waiting excitedly for it since the day we found out about it.

You can’t blame us, we haven’t been to a book sale in months and our book supply has long since run dry.

They have a great selection – thousands and thousands of books. The only problem is they aren’t categorized so you have to plough through every bin.

I spoke to a couple of people who agreed the prices were pretty good too considering we’d have to pay three times as much at regular prices.

And what a haul we made yesterday ! 26 books in all! This photo shows only half our stash. We would’ve bought many more if the credit card system wasn’t kaput.

We had two boxfulls but when we got to checkout, the girls had to put many of the books back because I didn’t have enough cash to pay for all of them.

I think they missed out on quite a bit of sales there as lots of people were stuck with insufficient cash. Too bad. We might be going back there today to haul home some more.

label printing supplies

clair — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 03:35:23 +0000

The amount of printing we do in the family, you’d think we were a print shop! Lately I’ve made it my mission in life to be on the lookout for all sorts of cheap printing supplies.

I’ve recently added PlanetLabel.com to my long list of bookmarks. PlanetLabel is an online store that specializes in laser and inkjet labels as well as preprinted labels.

See, these days, the kids aren’t just printing out project papers. They have art and craft projects that require printing on different types of labels including some I’ve never even heard of – like brown kraft labels and waterproof inkjet labels.

we need more stationery!

clair — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:07:43 +0000

Raine and Skye bought new pencil cases last night and they’re huge as far as pencil cases go. They’re almost the size of a make-up bag with a zipper. Of course, my consolation is that they contain stationery and not make-up.

Yes, every weekend, we’re buying more stationery. Whatever for, I will never understand. There seems to be no end to it.

Me: Do you really need that many pens?

Them: Sure we do, Mom.

Me: And why are you buying more whiteout when you just bought some last week, or was it the week before?

Them: Because they’re on sale and you get a free beanie keychain with it. See, isn’t this beanie the cutest?

Me: Yes, real cute. And what’s this? Another mechanical pencil?

Them: Mine got stolen at school… or it just walked into someone else’s pencil case, I’m not sure .

Me: Yeah, right!

Well, it’s no use arguing really.

thank goodness for bookstores

clair — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 10:24:25 +0000

I have to say bookstores are a heavensent to shopaholic moms. Sometimes when a group of us moms meet up at the mall with a combined total of anywhere between 7 to 10 kids in tow, we simply turn the kids loose into the nearest bookstore.

There we know they will be entertained for hours just soaking up all of their favorite books. They have each other for company and they know they’re not supposed to wander off on their own. It really works out very well for both the kids and moms .