About a month or so ago, fellow mom blogger Evelyn Tan-Rogers of The BottomsUp Blog told us of the (then) upcoming annual Singapore American School White Elephant Sale - which was to take place on the 11th of May this year. She even shared with us her loot from last year's sale. Oooh! I love a good yard sale and thrift store! I was determined to go. I even thought of what I'd say to hubbs if he was reluctant to go: "Make it my birthday treat?" - but thankfully he was quite game for it and I didn't have to use my lame line on him.
Held at the SAS Junior School foyer, it was a hive of activity and I could see people carting off their loot, even though I arrived relatively early (I thought!) at 9 plus. Thankfully, there were three playgrounds surrounding the foyer area so hubbs kept the kids busy with those while I shopped to my hearts content. And shop, I did! Scored many good buys. Shall list them, and perhaps you can spot them in the pictures! :)
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| Our loot from the 2013 SAS White Elephant Sale! |
- $20 - 20" wheel bicycle of a decent brand. We've been wanting to get Isaac a bigger bicycle and this was perfect! :) Took it out for a spin to check that the gears were in good working condition before confirming :) great buy!
- $5 for a Star Wars tshirt for Isaac
- $3 Goodnight Moon board game based on the book of the same name. Heard of this children's board game and wanted to try it.
- $3 Dinosaur Floor Puzzle by Melissa & Doug
- $2 Cluedo board game that still looked pretty new
- $10 Batman costume complete with cloth half mask and cape
- $10 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Audio Book CD set - been searching for the audio books for ages! And they are usually much more expensive than $10 per book, so this was a great find!
- $10 for 2 Winnie the Pooh DVDs, 1 Tigger DVD, and a Roald Dahl's BFG DVD - Shawna likes Winnie the Pooh so this was mostly for her. But Big Friendly Giant dvd?! Wooohooo!!!
- $5 for a Christian Dior white shirt (for Asher) that hubbs got conned into buying (by some very charming young ang moh ladies trying to raise funds with their sales for charity)
- $5 for the pair of Mad Rock children sized rock climbing shoes! I grabbed this as soon as I saw it. It was still very new. Hubbs says a pair like this probably costs $70 or more. Fantastic buy, this!
- $1 green hammock that hubbs bought. I saw this earlier but it was marked $5 so I didn't buy it. Guess when hubbs went for a look around, they'd marked down stuff already.
- $1 for 2 Angry Birds melamine cups
- $2 for a very new "The Boys' Book: How to be Best at Everything"
- $6 for two thick Batman comic books and 25 comics!!!
- $7 for a Melissa & Doug magnetic responsibility chart, complete with the magnets - bargained down from $10!
- $4 for a Cake Pops tray (bought for my sister!)
- $4 for a whole bag of white craft glue
- $1 for a newish red address book
Pictured below are the comics that I bought that cost me a grand total of $6! Mighty pleased with this buy! The two Batman books right at the bottom are hard cover 1cm thick good quality comic book. I couldn't believe they were hawking it for $2 each! I know the shops would sell something like this for a minimum of $20, most likely more!
The other comics were still in their clear plastic bag, going at 5 for $1. Asher asked to get 2, so I told him and Shawna to pick 5 in total. Isaac came back from the loo, and I told him to pick another 5. We paid up. And then, 15 minutes later, while waiting by our loot coz hubbs brought the twins to the toilet to change diapers - the stall holder's Mother (I think) came back, and lowered the price to 10 for $1 !!! I couldn't help but go:"I just paid $2 for ten of those!" And she said:"Oh go ahead and pick 5 more!" I was stunned, and said meekly:"Oh, really?" And she said :" Yes yes, go ahead. I was too busy shopping myself to man this stall earlier. Go ahead!" And so, I selected another 5 more, without paying anything more. Reaching home, when we took the comics out of the plastic bags, we realised that some packs had 2 comics in it! That's how we ended up with 25 comics for $2 !
I even found Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki comics! Wow! I have never seen that! I first knew of this from the Studio Ghibli movie of the same name. Way cool!!!
And there you see Isaac trying out his new bike! :) We're getting closer to our dream of making cycling trips as a family together! :) Shawna is already proficient on her balance bike, and Asher is very fast on his scooter as well. Looks like we could do a family biking/scooting adventure soon! :p