Yesterday I had the chance to stop by my local Disney Store - they are holding their Twice Upon a Year Sale in stores AND online and select merchandise is marked up to 50% off… there are some GREAT deals!

One that caught my interest in particular was a big display of character shirts.  These are PERFECT to take on your Disney Parks visit.  I like to pick them up on discount, pack them in our bags and surprise Lily Bean with them when we arrive.  She loves wearing these shirts whether we are home or traveling – they are comfy and cute.  (And they will be WAY cheaper than waiting to purchase them from a park gift shop!)

In fact, she already has the Snow White shirt in this picture.  She loves it SO much that I bought one in a bigger size. 

There were a TON a shirts for $6.99/each.  Regular price is $12.50 and sometimes they will go on sale for 2 for $10, so $6.99 is a great deal.

There are several of these $6.99 shirts also available online – and be sure to shop through Ebates b/c you will earn an additional 5% cash back on your purchase.

Toss an item from the New Arrivals section into your cart to score free shipping with promo code SHIPNEW.

While supplies last – so check them out now!

I whipped up two of these adorable Berry and Evergreen Candle Centerpieces for our dining room table.  It could not get much more simple – they are beautiful and SO easy to make!

There are several advantages and then a bunch of disadvantages to living in your childhood home. You might think that it was a bonus when we purchased our house from my dad after my mom passed away AND IT CAME WITH an entire basement, storage shed, garage and large crawlspace full of 3 generations of family stuff. (Read: crap.)

Cue the dumpster.

We have owned the house for just over 5 years at this point and we are STILL making our way through the boxes and totes and bags of stuff. Now, don’t get me wrong – it’s not all trash. We have found some really awesome heirlooms and memories throughout all of this cleaning and purging. From my mom’s wedding dress to my very first pair of Winnie the Pooh sneakers – some really fun stuff to rediscover.

One of the collections that we did gain possession of was my mom’s Christmas decoration collection. That is a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because there are definitely some pieces in those boxes that I really like and enjoy displaying around the house. Then there are the scary, ugly, beat up ornaments that I don’t want anywhere near our holiday merriment but I feel too guilty to throw away!

If I could have my holiday decorating wish come true, it would be to have the bankroll to instantly acquire a houseful of decor that was my style and looked great.

But that’s unrealistic. There’s no way I have the budget to blow on a ton of holiday decorations all at once.

So here is my plan: Every year, I am going to treat myself to 1-2 pieces of holiday decor to slowly add to my own collection. Each December we travel out to Harrisburg, PA for a HUGE holiday craft show. Finding that special decoration at the show is pretty much a given – the choices can be overwhelming!

Last year I solved the “I have no dining room table centerpiece” issue with this piece:

And just this past weekend I solved the “Thanks for building me a new mantel, Biker Bob, now what the heck am I going to decorate it” issue with this swag and a new wooden sign:

Yahoo!

Pair these with some of my other favorites that I have collected over the years – especially my Willow Tree Nativity Set – and I finally feel like I am on my way. The house is decorated in my own style without blowing my budget.

Now I’d love to know, how do you spread real cheer with your holiday decorating? Show me with your photos! Click “Add me” in the Cheer Tree below to upload your holiday decorating photos and share them with your Twitter followers and Facebook friends. Be sure to click on “Special Offers” to unwrap the hidden coupons and deals exclusively from Sears. Keep checking throughout the holidays–new deals are unlocked every day! For all your holiday decorating needs and solutions, don’t forget to visit Sears and discover real deals, real cheer!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Sears. The opinions and text are all mine.

On Sunday we did something that we haven’t done in MONTHS and MONTHS… we made time to check out a local consignment sale.  I can’t say it enough – consignment sales are one of the very very very best ways to save money on all things kid and baby… ESPECIALLY on clothes.  You can find absolute killer deals on gently used and/or worn kid stuff, like… unreal discounts.

Unless there is something that I really need or want to find, I like to treat consignment sales like treasure hunts.  There is no pressure to bring anything home, but I almost always find some great stuff.

Another tactic I like to use is shopping at sales that offer half off or discount sale days.  So this sale in particular offered a 50% off sale.  Tags that listed a “YES” next to discount were offered at half price.  This is where you can find some serious savings.

I have so much fun grabbing name brand (sometimes designer brand) clothes for Lily Bean at $1 (more or less) per article.  It makes me smile to think of how much less I paid than having purchased it in the store – PLUS if she destroys the outfit in the mud or a drive-by spaghetti sauce incident, it’s no big deal.

So!

We filled up two resuseable totes to the tune of just $29.  Here’s what we bought:

5 shirts + 1 shawl (includes 2 OshKosh, 1 Children’s Place, 1 Gymboree) – $7.50

5 pairs of pants (includes 1 pair of Levis and 1 pair from Old Navy) – $7

1 skirt + 1 dress (Lands’ End & Sophie Rose) – $4.50

Some randoms: CD wallet for Lily’s movies when we travel, pumpkin carving tools, Gymboree barrettes for my sweet niece – $3.50

Melissa and Doug ABC puzzle and Disney Princess ball (ie occupy-Lily-while-we-shopped ball) – $1.50

Remember how I told you that we saved a lot of money on Disney souvenirs?  One of the BIGGEST money savers for us at the parks was the elimination of souvenirs purchased on site.  I used post-holiday sales, online sales, etc to pick up fun Disney themed goodies throughout the year and took them to Disney with us.  Each night Lily was surprised by a different souvenir that I had picked up on the cheap.  Did she know or even care where they came from?  NOPE.  Was she thrilled?  YUP.

We are hoping to return to Disney next year, so I am already on the lookout for fun treats to throw in my souvenir bag.

2 princess books + 2 princess puzzles + 1 princess nail decoration pack – $5

So totally awesome!

What have been your best consignment sale scores?

There is something about a vegetable garden…

something about the magic of planting a seed or a tiny plant only to be gifted EDIBLE goodies after some water and sun.

I find it amazing, magical even.

And it just makes me feel so very Laura Ingalls Wilder - ish.

What’s growing in your garden?

As we proved on Saturday, you really CAN do movies on the cheap.

You just need to keep your eye out for the right deals and know when to combine them.

Our original plans for Saturday included an outdoor 4th of July event.  As the temperature and humidity just kept climbing, we bagged that idea and decided to do something indoors instead.  We took Lily Bean to see Cars 2 and she LOVED it.  Actually, we all enjoyed it – it was really cute.

We took our family of three to the movies for – wait for it – $12.  That includes food.

Here’s how:

Tickets for 3 = $5 total: Lily was free because she is under 3.  Then for Biker Bob and I, we used the free Cars 2 tickets that came inside the movies on that Incredibles/Cars deal a couple months ago (no longer available).  The free passes were good for tickets up to $8.50 and our local Regal charges $11 so we just had to pay the $2.50 difference for each ticket… $5 total.

Large popcorn, small popcorn, gigantic soda bigger than my head: Bob and I each had a free small popcorn via text coupon on our phones (still available!).  They let me upgrade to the large popcorn (normally $8!!) for $2.  So we got a large popcorn for $2.  Then Bob used his coupon for a free small popcorn and bought a ridiculously large soda for $5.  I tried to argue with him that the soda was so big, it was nearly sinful.  We would never drink it all – not even close.  He started up with the “it’s a BETTER DEAL to buy the bigger soda – it’s just $.50 more than the medium and it’s SO much bigger.”

Sorry, didn’t realize that Bob is now hawking deals for the movie theater.

Anyway.

Free popcorn and $5 spent on soda for him.

Grand total of $7 spent on 2 popcorns and one drink.  That’s $1 less than the price for ONE large popcorn.

Free popcorn for next time: If your local theater has a customer loyalty program, I HIGHLY recommend signing up for it.  We have a Regal Crown Club card which we had over when we buy tickets or concessions.  Yesterday when we bought our tickets, it spit out a FREE small popcorn coupon that doesn’t expire until 8/31/11.  We saved that and will probably use it when Bob and I go see HP7.2 (!!!) in a few weeks.

There are also various summer movie programs for kids offering free or super cheap movies throughout the summer.  For example, the Regal Summer Movie Express is offering $1 movies on select weekdays every week.

So, the front and side of our house garden-wise traditionally looks like… how do I say this politely?  Total CRAP.  That’s about as nice as I can muster.  Old walkway that has literally been here since the house has been built.  Every year I tell myself that I am going to rock the joint out with some flower mania.  Then every year I end up giving up and calling it an EPIC FAILURE because I either refuse to spend a ton of money on flowers (WHY are they so EXPENSIVE?) or because I do buy flowers, but they die.

I took some before pics right around Easter weekend b/c my friend, Janet (aka Garden Guru), agreed to help me come up with a PLAN.  I’m so glad I have something for comparison – it sure is a big difference!

As far as cost goes, our spending was very minimal.  We bought all of the flowers from Produce Junction – a local (small) chain that sells produce and plants.

To give you an example of pricing, the two most expensive flowers that I purchased were the braided hibiscus and the rose bushes ($15 and $12 respectively).  The rest averaged $7-$10/each.  2 of the hot pink perennials in the front and both hostas were already there.

The new walkway was done using edgers bought from Home Depot (about $30 worth) and believe it or not, the large flagstones were ALL found around our property (especially back in the horse’s pasture).  We have very rocky, clay soil here and stones are commonplace – all shapes and sizes.  (I like to think that the lackluster soil contributes to my track record of killing plants, but somehow I doubt it’s related.)  Biker Bob hand filled the stones with a bag or two’s worth of cement.

Ready?

You probably won’t need me to tell you which pic is before and which is after, but I will anyway.  Cuz I’m helpful like that. 

Wall along the house BEFORE:

Wall along the house AFTER:

Flower bed by kitchen door BEFORE:

Flower bed by kitchen door AFTER:

Front beds/walkway BEFORE:

Front beds/walkway AFTER (forgot to take a pic of those big rocks at the end that are all falling down in the pic above – Biker Bob rebuilt both walls – higher and neatly in place!):

We just happened to be at Lowe’s while they had various solar malibu lights on sale B2G1 free – that motivated us to replace the super cheap-o set that we bought last year.   Only about half of the old lights even survived the Narnia-esque winter that we had – I guess it would have been smart to take them out of the ground and put them into storage til Spring.  I tend to forget about things like that.

So we were able to do quite the little spruce up for a surprisingly small amount of money – just some good ‘ol fashioned hard work.

Now if you’ll excuse me – my Google calendar has just reminded me that it’s time to go water the flowers.

What kind of outdoor/garden/house DIY projects have you been working on lately?