Today, 5/17, is Ride Your Bike To Work Day. In celebration, participating Starbucks offering riders a free tall (12 fl. oz.) handcrafted beverage as a reward for all that extra leg work.

“Riders can stop by a participating Starbucks location on May 17th and show their bike helmet, cycling shoes or some other piece of bike gear to a barista in exchange for their free drink. Offer is limited to one beverage per customer on May 17, 2013 only.”

Thanks Cheap Bastard Seattle!

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Sia and I both had the opportunity to meet the gals from Sorella Restyle, a women’s clothing consignment sale, this past weekend at the Just Between Friends Tacoma sale, as our booth was right next to their booth. I was excited to learn about this new sale, which is starting today, Thursday May 9th and running through Saturday May 11th. I am hoping to check it out today or tomorrow to see all that they will be offering.

We have shared a number of different children’s consignment sales happening around the Northwest this spring, but this Sorella Restyle is a new sale that will be just for you women! They will feature stylish and trendy, gently-used women’s clothing for women of all ages and sizes, including maternity, for sale in their consignment event. You’ll find everything from clothes, jewelry, shoes, and purses. Make sure to check out their Facebook page to see some updated pictures of the event.

Here is the information about their sale:

Thursday May 9th: 9am – 9pm

Friday May 10th: 9am – 6pm, 6pm – 9pm – 1/2 off sale

Saturday May 11th: 9am – 12pm, 1/2 off sale

Location:

The Sorella Restyle sale will be happening at The Manor (which is not the Meeker Mansion) in downtown Puyallup.

The Manor
427 North Meridian
Puyallup, WA  98371

Let us know if you head to the Sorella Restyle Women’s Consignment Sale and if you find any fabulous deals to share with all of us!  And if you can’t make this sale, make sure to save the date for their next sale in October – it will take place on October 23rd – 26th, 2013.

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Ride the Ducks wants us Washingtonians to get a break on enjoying a Duck tour. So they are offering $5 off through 5/3!

Here is the announcement they made on The Duck Blog:

“WA residents… it’s time for your Duck Tour! Between April 7 and May 3, 2012, we’re making it easy to kick back and enjoy your beautiful city! $4 off all tours departing Sunday through Friday with WA State ID.* Buy tickets now!”

Details:

*Regular prices are - ADULTS $28 / KIDS 12 and younger $17

*Must show WA State ID for each adult ticket purchased. Up to 4 child tickets can be purchased with each WA State ID. Discount not applicable to baby tickets. Limit 6 tickets per transaction. Not valid for tours departing on Saturdays. Cannot be combined with any other offer or discount.

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Today at Cupcake Royale stores, they are offering a FREE scoop of ice cream between 2 – 8pm at all of their locations. If you go to the Madrona or West Seattle locations, you can substitute an ice cream sandwich. Check out their website for more details.

Here are the locations around the Puget Sound:

• Madrona
• Ballard
• West Seattle
• Capitol Hill
• Bellevue
• downtown Seattle

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Amazon Local has FREE Vouchers for Johnny Rockets. They are good for a BOGO free combo meal. My teen loves Johnny Rockets, so I am going to have to grab one of these for sure!

Details on the Johnny Rockets deal - 

• Free voucher for free combo meal with purchase of combo meal of equal or lesser value
• Combos consist of a juicy burger, golden fries, and your choice of soft drink

Here is how to get this deal:

• Go to Amazon Local.
  
• Select Seattle as your city, and the Johnny Rockets deal should show up
• Click on “FREE Voucher” tab to add to your cart

What You Need to Know

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Living Social has a deal available right now for a discounted voucher for Menchie’s Yogurt - buy a $20 voucher to Menchie’s Yogurt for $10. This will actually be $20 punch card that you can use for 5 $4 cups of froyo & can also be used on toppings, etc.

This deal is found under “Bellevue/Eastside” deals.

This is only available at 3 Puget Sound locations:

• Seattle – 507 Broadway East, Seattle, WA 98102
• Kirkland – Suite 935, 935 6th Street South, Kirkland, WA 98033
• Tacoma -  1816 South Mildred Street, Tacoma, WA 98465

Fine Print:

• Limit 1 per customer, up to 1 additional as a gift
• Limit 1 per customer per visit
• All services must be redeemed by the same customer
• Not responsible for lost or stolen card
• Only valid at location purchased for: Seattle, Tacoma, or Kirkland; not valid at any other location
• Voucher valid for five $4 dollar cups of froyo
• May be used over multiple visits

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The City of Seattle, King County and Snohomish County have teamed up together to offer a FREE bag of compost.  All you have to do is head to CompostDays.com and click on “Compost Days coupons” (on the right sidebar) and then enter your email address to receive your coupon. You will then receive your coupon to pick up a FREE bag of compost at any of Cedar Grove’s facilities.

You can also get involved in a region-wide scavenger hunt to find Corey the Compostable Apple Core. There is a map of 45 retail locations around the two counties and if you find the specific poster, enter the code found on the site to get a FREE bag of compost at any retail location that sells Cedar Grove compost. You can go to multiple locations and get multiple coupons. Also, the more codes you enter, the better your chances of winning a spot in the Big Dig.

The Big Dig is a fun event where contestants dig through a huge pile of compost for $1000 in prizes including Fred Meyer & McLendon’s gift cards.  There’s actually a Big Dig event happening tomorrow in Lynnwood.

3 Big Events happening around the area:

• Saturday, March 30: Fred Meyer, Lynnwood (4615 196th Street SW), 12 p.m., featuring Ladd Smith, Co-Owner of In Harmony Sustainable Landscapes
• Sunday, April 7: Fred Meyer, Ballard (915 NW 45th Street), 11 a.m., featuring Ciscoe Morris
• Sunday, April 14: McLendon Hardware, Renton (440 Rainier Ave. S.) – 11 a.m., featuring Ciscoe Morris

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Being frugal, we have not spent a whole lot of money on stuff for our kids. I try to find creative ways to get their toys, books and clothing for cheap or free. Still – somehow they have acquired a ton of stuff. My two girls share a room, so the “stuff” problem was twice as bad. Something had to be done. So, we spent a weekend (and then some), working on their room. The highlight of the project was the bed my husband built them for around $170 (compare to this loft bed that Pottery Barn was selling for over $1200!) Here is what we did:

#1) Gut & Organize – we spent half a day and a two Goodwill runs just to gut their room. Many of the items had been given to them, and over time *stuff* took over their room.

#2) Build Bed – my husband did most of this in our backyard, and then assembled it in their room. He got big props from me and the girls on this project, we loved his work!

#3) Re-purposed Furniture We Already Had On Hand – We have not spent much money on buying furniture. We have built most of it, or repurposed hand me downs into pieces we could use for their room. 

Wild room equals wild kids. Or is it, wild kids create wild room? I don’t know – but either way things were getting out of hand in their bedroom. We had recently repainted and upgraded them to a bigger girls room (from the nursery stage) – so we had most of the items we needed in the room – but they needed some help.

 The closet in their room is huge, but we wanted them each to have their own sides. We did this by removing the closet doors, and adding a stock bookshelf from our local Home Depot to the middle of the closet. My husband then added a shelf and second bar on each side of the closet. I searched high and low for affordable matching dressers. I found these two at Ikea for $34.99 each! We have plans to add mirrors and silver paint to these down the road to glam them up some, so stay tuned for that project. A few baskets from Michaels and lots of gutting – and their closet is not such a scary place any longer.

The Playhouse Bed: the biggest project in the room!

Previously we had a antique rod iron full sized bed in the room that the girls shared. While I love that bed (it was mine growing up), we felt like it was time to give the girls their own space. Since they share a room, we thought the best way to do that was to create a room within a room!

My husband built this play house style bed for around $170 for the kids (he used blue prints we found on Ana-Whites site, and modified those to what we wanted). We used common wood (lower grade wood) from Home Depot – and our wood total came to $110. Paint and screws were an additional $60 (he had all of the tools already). We still plan to add planter boxes and curtains to the house (I have material to match their curtains), but we just have not quite got that far yet. If we were to move and the girls had their own rooms, the bottom level can be converted to a playhouse just by removing the mattress and putting the kitchen inside.

This was the perfect opportunity to let each of our girls express their own personality. My youngest, Nissiah, loves monkeys. She found the jungle themed comforter and pillows at Target, and we went to our local Dollar Store and purchased $2 worth of wall decals for her to decorate the inside of her pad with.

Adayah, our middle child, is a princess through and through. She went for more of a glam look in her roof top pad (we also used Dollar store decals for her to decorate the wall behind her bed). We plan to put up a track so that she can pull a sheer curtain around her pad if she really wants her own space.

Re-purposing Furniture

One of the things the girls needed most was more/better storage. We had an old kitchen cabinet (over the fridge) we were not using and it was deep enough to hold two huge toy boxes inside (the tubs you can find at Target). Only problem is that it was ugly. The solution: paint it white, add $1 mirrored Tinkerbell decals from the Dollar store to the doors, some new knobs and put a bookshelf on top (their grandpa built them the bookshelf). We then store all of their movies and some books in the shelves, and toys can be easily tossed in a tub when the girls are done playing.

We also had someone give us an old computer armoire that nobody wanted anymore. My girls needed some place to store their dress up clothes, so I thought I would make them a wardrobe closet fit for two princesses.

It was originallly brown. Initially I had done a quick remake with some duck tape (pictured above). Umm….that did not work out as well as I had hoped. I started by removing the shelves inside for the computer. A fresh coat of white paint (left over from bed), 10 $1 mirrors from the dollar store, some mirror adhesive from Home Depot ($4.99), and a free glass doorknob (took it apart and screwed them in for door nobs) and $15 + tax later and we had a wardrobe closet that I just love. Stay tuned for a more detailed post on that later.

Candle sticks were $.50 at garage sales last summer. We had a cheap lampshade, so I dressed it up with a $9 black base from Target, and some girly fringe from Joannes. I got this look for about $12, compared to the $39.99 lamps we were finding.

I had an old sewing table that I got for $5 at a garage sale (yes – it still has the sewing machine in it!). I added $10 in tule, and a zebra ribbon aroun dit to give it the illusion of being wrapped in a ballet tutu. My girls love it.

 Combining design with function is critical when you have two kids sharing one space. We used the bottom of a corner hutch that we got out of an old house for free (lots of painting and changing out of hardware to get it to look like that), to create a place for the girls to play with their polly pocket toys. We cut scenes out of barbie boxes and magazines (like a fireplace and closet) to decorate the house, then added some dollar store furniture. Best part is that they can keep their polly pockets in these zip up cases in one of the baskets in the closet. When they are done playing they zip the dolls away, close the door, and the mess is hidden!

You can find other ideas on how to convert bookshelves or old dressers into doll houses here.

We also built this kitchen and window cabinet for the kids (well their grandpa built, and I decorated). You can take an old cupboard and create a similar effect for a kitchen. Best part is that it acts as more toy storage. They keep all their kitchen toys stored inside when they are done playing. We shut the doors on the mess, which is what mom loves about it!

The window box above was made from an old window we got for $5 at a yard sale. We built a box the same dimensions as the window, painted it, and added hinges on. Now they have the perfect place to store a special tea set too!

What are your favorite ideas for storing toys, organizing and more in kids rooms?

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The Pacific Science Center is back with their Cigna Days promotion for FREE admission once a month thru April thanks to the Cigna Foundation.   The first 200 guests will be admitted for FREE the first Monday of each month through April!  This starts tomorrow, Monday February 4th and will also occur on Monday March 4th and Monday April 1st.  The free admission includes exhibits and an IMAX documentary film.

The IMAX films you can see for free are:

• Flight of the Butterflies in 3D
• The Last Reef 3D
•  Hubble 3D
• Born To Be Wild 3D.

{Admissions to IMAX® feature films, as well as the planetarium and Laser Dome shows are not included in the Cigna Days offer, so you will have to pay regular admission for those opportunities.}

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