Home 'n Hosed: Consignment Shopping

In his new S.P.UDZ coveralls.

On Thursday night, I headed over to the New Moms Pre-sale at the Little Sprouts Consignment Sale, after having had a very unsuccessful experience at the Encores and More sale the weekend before. I wasn't sure what to expect (other than pretty nasty weather outside) but I wanted to give consignment shopping another chance.

This sale only gave passes to the first 300 new moms who registered online so I hoped that unlike the Encores sale, the lines wouldn't be too long. It also promised "Upscale and Boutique" items... clothing that I love the look and feel of, but not necessarily the price-tag on.

I got to the sale about 5 minutes early and parked in the back because there were a good number of cars in the lot (it's a smaller warehouse and smaller parking lot). There were quite a few moms waiting outside in a line ready to shop (not 300, though). The people at the door were super friendly and so were the workers picking up the discarded clothing from the end of the racks, etc. There weren't many toys but I got Ethan a super cute exersaucer (a Safety 1st 2-in-1 Discovery Farm set) for $25 that once he grows out of the exersaucer part can be converted to a little train that does a figure 8. It's missing a couple parts -- small toys to be used on the "shape sorter"...but I figure we can find other shapes that will work for that...and the $25 price tag was well worth it. Plus, the company emailed me a PDF of the instruction manual after I sent them an email asking if one was available (I received the manual less than 2 hours after contacting them -- AMAZING considering they haven't made this product for a few years!) so now we know how to use it safely!

The best part of the Little Sprouts sale (other than the friendly people) was the clothing! It was all too cute! The average price of most items (for boys) was $10 but instead of trying to find something nice, the shopping was really more about trying to decide which things I thought were cuter than the rest. Lots of Gymboree, Janie & Jack (one of my favorites), and Gap but also Kissy Kissy, Patsy Aiken, Tea, and more! I probably overshopped a little but ended up with 20 new outfits for Ethan for the upcoming Spring/Summer seasons.

There was a line to get out, but it wasn't very long and they had a pretty quick system for getting everything priced and paid for. Plus, they had cute giveaway bags from Art & Soul full of advertising (the bag is really cute). And have I mentioned how friendly everyone working the sale was? The people at the checkout were especially nice! This was 100% a better experience than the Encores sale. Now, I can't speak for the other days of the Little Sprouts sale (when it was open to the public) but the presale was FANTASTIC! Maybe this makes me a Consignment sale snob, but I'll take that title if it means I get lots of cute clothes, and exersaucer, a few small toys and a huge bag full of bibs and burp cloths for under $190! I will definitely be at the next Little Sprouts sale. Oh -- and if you're in TN, tomorrow (Sunday) is the Little Sprouts 1/2 off day (the last day of the sale) if you want to check it out.

Here are a couple more outfits I got at the Little Sprouts sale: