Leopard top from The Children’s Place, GAP capri jeans, black Mary Janes from Walmart, and Green Dog brand leopard skort, all from Goodwill for less than $10.

One of my favorite places to go bargain hunting is at my local Goodwill. I usually go once a month on my lunch break to dig around for treasures. Typically I come home with something for my daughters. I’ve also picked up nearly new GAP jeans, Ann Taylor pants, and other name brand clothes for myself. Now I’ll wholeheartedly admit there was a time in my life when I would have turned up my nose at thrifting, but it can be addictive once you realize what bargains await.

Last week I hit Goodwill and the first thing I did was take note of what color sales tag was on sale for the day, as those items were on sale for half price.

My girls are cheetah/leopard crazy and my 6-year-old has been begging me for something leopard so I had to snag an adorable skort for less than $3. I also picked up a cute soft leopard swing top from The Children’s Place for my 3-year-old. Now she and big sister can be Cheetah Girls on the cheap! The GAP capri jeans in a 7 slim were a great a bargain and I was pleasantly surprised to find they fit my 6-year-old perfectly.

My deal of the day was a cute pair of George (WalMart) brand Mary Janes for my 6-year-old daughter. The bonus was I had no idea they were included in the “red tag” sale. The final price at checkout was less than $2 and they look brand new! How cute will these be with fun tights and my daughter’s school uniform khaki jumpers this fall and winter?

My total bill for these four items was less than $10! Shopping like this for children’s clothing can be addictive and I know it won’t be long before my daughters are label conscious and will ban me from picking up clothes for them second hand.

Here are some tips for shopping at Goodwill:

• Be sure to check out their monthly sales calendar. Each day has a different special promotion. Our local Goodwill stores also have a half-day sale the first Saturday of each month. The lines are long, though, so be prepared and you might not want to take small children.
• Sometimes children and toddler size clothes get mixed up on the racks, so don’t forget to flip through both sections if you have time.
• Check carefully for stains. Personally, if something is for “play” I don’t mind a small spot and many stubborn stains can be removed with a little TLC.
• Goodwill has an Internet auction site at shopgoodwill.com

Do you have a favorite local thrift store? I like shopping at Goodwill because the revenues fund job training and other services to prepare people for job success. What kind of deals have you snagged while “thrifting?”

After I wrote this article, Savvy School Uniform Shakedown, which I posted to give parents ideas on ways to save money when buying school uniforms and standard school attire, I was interviewed for an MSN Encarta article on saving time and money as part of an overall piece entitled “Do School Uniforms Make Better Students?”

There are some great tips in the MSN two-part series.

I am very lucky in that so far I’ve spent about $50 on my first grader’s school attire this year. Granted, it’s not yet truly fall here in the South so I haven’t had to buy any long-sleeve shirts for school, but I was lucky in that both her grandmothers bought her a few new jumpers and skorts. I am also the lucky recipient of hand me downs from my neighbor’s daughter, who is a year and a half older than my daughter. She let me go through her daughter’s outgrown items from last year and I picked out two jumpers and a skort. Basically I just needed to buy my daughter new shoes to start the school year.

How much do you spend each fall on back to school clothes?

Rick Smolan, the talented Time and National Geographic photographer behind many large collaborative photography projects for books such as Day in the Life and 24/7 turned his camera lens on home life for his 2008 book, America at Home.

The photos in the book were taken over the course of seven days last September by 100 photojournalists, as well as thousands of amateur photographers. America At Home also features gorgeous photos, evocative captions, thought-provoking statistics, plus personal essays from noted writers such as Amy Tan, Dominique Browning, former editor in chief of House and Garden Magazine, Dominique Browning, Simpsons creator Matt Groening, and New York Times correspondent David Pogue.

What makes this book especially great for gift giving (think Christmas) is that you can upload a picture of your own to create a personalized book jacket. The entire process takes less than 5 minutes once you choose a cover photo (the digital file you upload must be high resolution.) If you already have photos in a Google Picasa Web Album or Phanfare.com photo album you can browse those albums from within their site and load them into their system. The possibilities are endless. You could choose an old black and white family photo, a favorite summer vacation picture, a picture of your children, your pets, or even your house.

Here are a couple I’ve created:

America At Home (including custom book cover) retails for $39.99.

Savvy Housewife is hosting an America at Home cover contest and one lucky winner will receive their own custom book! Upload your photo and create your cover at the America at Home website and then right click and save your cover and e-mail it to savvyhousewife at yahoo dot com by midnight September 15. I’ll narrow down the entrants to three finalists and hold a contest for the winner of the best cover; entrants must be U.S. residents.

Here is a wrapup of what my Johnson & Johnson Camp Baby peeps are up to:

Mom’s Favorite Stuff has posted a huge giveaway to celebrate the launch of their sister site, The Mindful Moms.

Kim at Hormone Colored Days has written an interesting post about the worth of mommy bloggers: Mommy bloggers are hot? Blog it while it’s hot sisters!

Leeanthro at Soy is The New Black has launched an amazing blog fundraising and awareness effort for Juvenile Diabetes. Her 4-year-old daughter was just diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. There are some great prizes and it’s all for a very worthy cause so please check it out as she prepares to participate in the Step Out Walk to Fight Diabetes. Her fundraising effort ends September 15, so do stop by and read her story.

Now that school is back in full swing, I make sure I keep a stash of snacks for that after school “Mommy I’m STARVING” time. Also, it doesn’t hurt to have an emergency bottle of wine for mama and daddy. I’m just sayin’.

Families have been submitting their favorite healthy, kid-friendly recipes to the Dole Way to Snack! Recipe Contest. Visit the official website to find smart snacking recipe ideas and vote for your favorite snack daily for a chance to win $100!

In November the crazy zoo gang from Madagascar returns to the big screen in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Visit the Dole Marty Snak Pak site for information on purchasing an adorable limited edition insulated Marty Snak Pak, which is the perfect size and shape for Dole Fruit Bowls.

One lucky Savvy Housewife reader will win coupons for a month’s worth of Dole Fruit Bowls, a week’s worth of Dole Jarred Fruit products AND a Madagascar 1 DVD. To enter, simply leave a comment here about your child’s favorite healthy snack. A random winner will be drawn from all eligible entries left by midnight Thursday, September 4. You don’t need a blog or website to enter, but you do need to leave a valid e-mail address so that I can contact you should you win. Giveaway open to U.S. residents only.

Does your preschooler use you as a human tissue? Has your car been Cheeto’d one too many times with orange, sticky fingers?

Wet Ones® Wipes recently introduced a new and convenient Car Canister dispenser which fits perfectly in car cupholders and asked me to test them out. I love this product! In fact, it’s such a great idea I am sure a mom must have invented it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stuck in the car and my girls have shouted from the back seat, “Mommy, my hands are messy!,” with no water or soap in sight and I end up rummaging through my glove compartment box for some drive thru napkins.

Germs quickly spread from one snotty nosed kid to the next and with cold season just around the corner, it’s good to know that Wet Ones® Antibacterial Wipes kill up to 99.9% of germs. Wet Ones® Wipes are also available in handy singles and travel packs which make them an essential toss in for every kid’s backpack, lunch box, and mom’s purse.

Wet Ones® Hands and Face Wipes are inviting everyone to participate in the Go Places. Cleaner. Photo Contest. Participants will have the opportunity to win the Grand Prize of a portable GPS System and a $500 gift card for gas! While you’re there, download a 75 cent coupon off Wet Ones products.

Enter the sweepstakes by visiting www.wetones.com through September 5, 2008 and uploading a photo of yourself, family, or friends with a Wet Ones® product. In addition to the Grand Prize winner, three 1st prize winners will be given a satellite radio (1 year subscription) and a $250 gift card for gas, and eight 2nd prize winners will be given a $100 gift card for gas.

Looking for a fun way to help your little one learn to write their name?

The Little Stamp Company is a small business founded by a mom who wanted to develop a unique, educational, and fun learning tool for her child to learn to print her name. Lee-Ann O’Neill, mompreneur and teacher, was inspired to invent the product when her daughter was 3 and just learning to write her first name.

The self-inking stamps, with a large ‘dotted’ font, promote printing in a much more engaging, interactive way than practicing on a printed worksheet since every child loves to see their special name. Each personalized stamp uses child safe washable ink to keep their hands free from messy ink while they enjoy stamp and practice tracing the letters in their names on paper, cards, journal pages, etc.

As you can see, my 3-year-old loves her signature name stamp from the Little Stamp Company. One of the biggest early learning steps for a child is mastering writing their first name. We worked on printing her name while her big sister worked on first grade homework with her daddy. Having her own “homework” makes her feel special and reinforces the fact that learning is fun. She was quite proud of herself!

Right now The Little Stamp Company is offering a back to school special with free shipping for all orders over $80. These would make wonderful stocking stuffers! Ink refills are available for $5.95 in purple, blue, or green. For older children, The Little Stamp Company offers name stamps in 11 fun and funky stamps.

Savvy Housewife readers get 15% off all orders at Little Stamp Company using code savvyhousewife.

Danielle who commented, “My daughters also became fascinated with China and its culture during the Olympics. This book would be great for them,” is the winner. Thanks to everyone who entered!

My daughters became completely fascinated with Chinese culture during the Olympics in Beijing. Savvy Housewife has a beautiful book, Motherbridge of Love, to give away from Barefoot Books, which was founded in 1993 by two mothers .

From the Barefoot Books website: Our products are intended to act as springboards for children’s hearts and minds, helping them to express themselves with confidence and integrity, and to explore the world in new ways. These, it seems to us, are essential skills in today’s fragile and fast-changing world. We need creative people in business, in the arts, in medicine and science, and in government. But creativity doesn’t just happen: the seeds may be in all of us, but the way we raise our children, and the emphasis we place on their imaginative development, is what helps those seeds to grow.

This beautiful poem celebrates the bond between parent and child. Through the exchanges between a little Chinese girl and her mother, Motherbridge of Love offers a poignant and inspiring message to parents and children all over the world.

I love that the text royalties from the sale of this book are donated to Mother Bridge of Love, a charity that reaches out to Chinese children all over the world in order to develop a connection between China and the West, and between adoptive culture and birth culture.

Savvy Housewife is proud to sponsor a giveaway to this beautifully illustrated book which won the #3 spot in Time Magazine’s Top Ten Children’s Books of 2007. To enter, simply leave a comment on this post between now and midnight Monday, September 1. A winner’s name will be chosen randomly from all comments. Thanks and good luck!

I’m going to start a new feature here on Savvy Housewife called Save and Tell (original, no?) where I post links to good deals and have a little show and tell time for my own frugal finds of the week and encourage readers to do the same.

Why? Well, I love to save money, I love deals, bargains, clearance racks, you name it. I can be a Target snob, but I’m trying to cut back on the unnecessary purchases and open my eyes to new ways to save money and improve our household budget.

Here are today’s items for Frugal Finds Friday:

Print a downloadable coupon for a free McDonald’s chicken sandwich or southern style chicken biscuit with the purchase of any medium or large beverage. (Hat tip, Moms Need to Know.)

Amy Allen Clark at Mom Advice publishes a Freebie Friday post weekly that is definitely worth checking out (she is a master of frugality.)

Girlfriend get rid of those mom jeans! I heard a radio spot for Old Navy’s huge denim extravaganza tomorrow Saturday, August 23 (in stores only.) Pick up some fab jeans for yourself for only $12 and for your toddler or school kid for $7.

I love the occasional clearance bins at Publix. This week I picked up Cover Girl lip gloss and eyeshadow for $1, Scooby Doo vitamins for the girls for $1, and Cover Girl Advanced Radiance makeup for $2 after an instant coupon on the box. It pays to scrounge!

Do you shop at Dollar General? It’s a great place to stock up on cleaning supplies. This morning I picked up their in store brand of toilet bowl cleaner and spray bathroom cleaner (comparable to Scrubbing Bubbles) for $1 each and some great black picture frames with white mattes for my bathroom redo for $6 each. Rumor has it that my peacock fabric Vera Bradley tote bag I’ve been carrying this summer is actually a knock off from Dollar General. Shhhhhh, don’t tell anyone!

So, do you have any frugal finds to share with us?

Our house was built in 1968 and is your standard brick ranch. We still have the original Colonial blue tile wall trim in our hall bathroom. One of the first things we did was replace the blue toilet and sink with new white ones. I told my husband there was no way I was peeing in a blue toilet. Yeah, call me a potty snob.

I painted the walls a pale yellow and now eight years later I’m so tired of the yellow and blue scheme. Recently (five months ago, cough) I bought a gallon of very pale blue paint for the walls and I’ve been on the hunt for a new valance as I’m also sick of our shabby chic yellow and blue valance which now seems very 1998. I am keeping our shower curtain, though, which is an elegant white damask. I’m also keeping most of our silver accessories. Our cabinets are white with brushed silver knobs. I hate our vanity counter top, which is that faux ugly white marble with baby blue veins, but it’s staying for now.

I’m thinking the new bathroom scheme will be pale blue and black with silver accessories. I might frame a few of our favorite black and white family vacation pics in black frames with white mattes.

I’ve been searching for a valance that was more elegant in a black and white scheme but not toile as it’s in the shabby chic genre that I’m trying to move away from. I’d thought about trying the brown and blue color scheme that is popular, but I keep gravitating toward black and white.

I found this valance on ebay today and thought, “This is IT!” There are actually three listed and I only need one, so perhaps if I was super crafty girl, and I’m not, I could think of some way to reuse the other two valances.

What do ya’ll think? You may hate it, but I think it will look really nice. The window is small and it needs a punch of something, especially against the pale blue solid walls. Oh, and the floor is white tile.

I love the tassels and the fact that the wall in the background of this photo from ebay is almost identical to the color of our accent tile. And look how tres chic it looks. I think I may have made my decision by writing this post. Vive le tassels!

Do you have difficulty making simple home decor decisions or is it just me? Sometimes I dream of building a home, but I’m afraid I’d never be able to decide on anything. I need a decorating fairy godmother.