CamelCamelCamel - Amazon Price Tracking

I love Amazon but there is a certain need for skepticism and diligence in attending to Amazon pricing. Have you noticed how the price of an item on Amazon.com can fluctuate, not only day-to-day, but even throughout the day? Ever see a price on Amazon advertised as a "sale" or Lightning Deal only to realize Amazon's sale price is the same as other retailers own regular price? I actually saw a Lightning Deal today that was about fifty cents MORE than Amazon's regular price before the "deal." So how do you make sure you're getting a good price? Well first and foremost, Google the item before you buy so you can make sure it isn't cheaper elsewhere. Don't trust Amazon's "sale" prices. But say Amazon's price is as good as any or you're just trying to catch the best deal - how do you know when to buy when the price fluctuates so often?  CamelCamelCamel to the rescue!

http://camelcamelcamel.com/ is an Amazon tracking website.  It gives you a price history of the item and can also alert you when the price drops below a price point that you have specified.  Here's how it works:

You copy and paste the url of your Amazon item into the designated space on CamelCamelCamel.

Copy from here:

 

 

Paste to here:

The miraculous result?  A price history of your item with fantastic detail and optional alerts you can set for the item. (P.S., don't tell my daughter what she's getting for Christmas)

This graph shows the price history and can help guide you in deciding if you should buy now.  (I'm feeling bad for any suckers who paid $76.82 in March.) 

Then for even further detail, the table below highlights the highest, lowest, and average prices as well as indicating the last 5 pricing changes.  So while the current price isn't the lowest price, it's a pretty good one.  Incidentally compared to Target and Walmart, it's a great one.  So I can purchase at this price point feeling confident that I got a good deal.

If you really want a better deal than the current price, you can set up alerts. Enter your desired price and you will receive an email whenever the price drops to or below your desired price.

 

And there you have a brief overview of CamelCamelCamel.  Online shopping just got smarter.

Pac Man Costume Tutorial

One very undeniably suburban thing about me is that I happen to be somewhat crafty and I don't pretend to deny that. Every year I make my kids costumes. Outside of the Royals in the playoffs or a good Wildcat football season, it's probably the highlight of my fall. My husband keeps warning me that some day my son is going to refuse to take my costume "suggestion" and will insist on a store bought super hero. I haven't lost him yet. When I suggested Pac Man, and his baby sister could be a ghost, and they can chase each other, he was so excited he asked if he could have his costume right then. And then he encouraged me through the process to get to work so he could play with his costume. I found some cardboard and foam board tutorials, but I decided to try using foam. Glad I did! It isn't too uncomfortable and as he likes to pretend to eat people and run into things it's definitely safe and durable for a 5 year old to wear and play with. Since I didn't find any others using foam I thought I'd try my hand at posting a tutorial. Note, using foam is more costly than cardboard, but I think it was worth it.

I ended up buying 2 of these pre-packaged 22"x22"x2" foam squares for the circle parts. Then I bought a yard of 1" foam for the middle.

First I cut circles out of the square pieces utilizing the full width of the square.  For the mouth I cut out from center a little bit to make sure there was room for my boy inside.

After cutting out the mouth, I did the arm holes. I held it up to my son and marked where his arms should go. Then I cut out a circle in that general area. I tried to make sure to leave enough foam at the top to be sturdy, but not to bury my son's head inside.

I did the same on the second square to make the other side of Pac Man. Next I took the long piece and cut it in half.

Then I busted out the hot glue gun for some serious Pac Man assembling. I glued the long pieces on top of one Pac Man side. I was concerned Pac Man wouldn't be tall enough song was sure to add the middle part so that it overlapped the circle sides. This added a little more height and also made sure it was a nice round circle instead of the jagged edges I cut.

When the first piece was done I marked where the head hole should be

When the first one ran out I glued the second long piece in place and cut it to length. 

Then I cut the head hole and the bottom. I used my son to figure out how big to make these.

Then I hot glued the other side of Pac Man on.

And then cut out the mouth pieces from the excess 1" foam. I measured my Pac Mand mouth space and cut to size.

Then I cut out and glued the mouth pieces into place.

Once Pac Man was glued together (and several times I had to ward off my sons attempts to jump on it), it was time to make Pac Man yellow.  I used yellow felt. I bought WAY more than I needed so I'm not sure how much you actually need, but enough to cover Pac Man. I traced around Pac Man leaving about a couple inches margin. No need to be exact, just need enough margin to overlap a bit. 

Do this for both sides. Then get some spray adhesive.

And spray glue the yellow felt on the sides. (This can be messy and make surrounding areas a little tacky - I did mine outside.)

Next I cut the arm holes like this. Then I spray glued the triangles into the hole, but maybe you can skip spray gluing these and just hot glue them. I ended up needing to hot glue these down due to sliding arms in and out - the spray adhesive wasn't cutting it on these.

Spray glue the center strip too. The cut the bottom area out. I did it again with slits and glued the remainder inside so it wrapped a little. Again probably hot glue these wrap pieces.

Do the same with the head hole and hot glue.

Now Pac Man needs some black felt inside his mouth. I measured what I needed and cut the black felt slightly smaller to leave some yellow around the edges.  I spray glued it, but ended up having to hot glue the edges because it was coming off. (Apparently I forgot to take a pic of this step, but it's not difficult).

And finally Pac Man's eyes. I found varying eye shapes online, but decided to go with the smaller Pac Man shape because it was the easiest. I used a cup to draw the circle and then cut a wedge out. I hot glued the eye to both sides and then Pac Man was complete.

 

And there you have a fun soft foam Pac Man. My son loved this costume. He put it on about every other day until Halloween (and I'm sure it won't stop there). Though his little sister didn't quite chase him as much as he wanted, he did try "eating" everything in site.

First Birthday a la Ballet

I previously posted about how I love throwing kid parties.  I can't help it. It's the suburban crafter in me.  I may have considered Vera's gender reveal party to be her first party, but here is the real deal. Vera's first birthday party.

 

Since I project my love for dance upon my infant by pretending she's already a ballerina and I have some good tutu pics, by default she ended up with a ballet birthday.

 

 

I made this little high chair tutu for the big moment. At first she had no idea what to do with the cake, but after some encouragement, she dug into the icing.  Girl knows the good stuff.  She also loves fruit, so I made some little toppers thanks to my Silhouette and some glitter cardstock and put them on toothpicks and fancied up the fruit a little.

 

 

Rather than attempting the cake (I don't really do anything that involves the kitchen), I ordered a little pink cake with pearls and cupcakes and added some more of the toppers I made.

 

As party favors I had mini square prints and stickers of her one year photo shoot and also rock candy for the kiddos.  I ordered the Minisquares and stickers as well as some Mighty Prints I displayed from Social Print Studio http://www.socialprintstudio.com/ . They have some cool products and their prints and squares are printed on a thick cardstock that is just generally awesome.  I had lots of party attendees asking where I got the prints, so I thought I would post a shout out to SPS.

 

I wanted to do something fun as a memento from her party, so I bought a pink leather notebook and had everyone write a little note to her. I plan to give it to her when she turns 16 as something fun to look through and that she can use when she's older to write her masterpieces after all the love in the front of it.

 

 

 

Since I took all of her monthly pics with tutus, I had to put together a little month-by-month arrangement as part of the décor.

 

From all of the outtakes, I found wiggly baby moments that actually look like she's executing fantastic ballet moves and made this poster.

 

 

To show off some of her cute 1 yr pics, I made a little ribbon garland and used clothespins to display the pics for the party (these are Mighty Prints from SPS above).

 

 

Overall it was a successful party, full of cuteness and lots of love.