What a Deal!

A little while back my mom and I were shopping at one of my favorite little local stores in downtown. It's one of my favorites mostly because they have the best supply of Vera Bradley items in our city (we actually don't have a real Vera Bradley store in my city. The nearest one is about an hour away).

So I honestly wasn't looking to buy anything. I just pretty much wanted to stare and drool and think about how excited I am to use all my VB school supplies I bought about a month ago.

But then I saw the sale bins. I always like looking at the sale stuff and laughing at how expensive all the stuff is. Except...something about these sale bins were different. That's because they included prints that are definitely not the clearance, soon-to-be discontinued prints (you know it, Deco Daisy, Safari Sunset, etc). Yes. Prints that are the current, regular prints were on sale. Like Island Blooms, Happy Snails, Rosy Posies, Ellie Blue, and Mocha Rouge. They were selling the small and large duffles, 17 inch laptop sleeve, lunch boxes, the Vera, and other popular styles.

However, my eye went instantly to the large duffel. See, back in my freshman year a friend of mine toted hers in Paprika around whenever she went home for the weekends. That was when I fell in love. Problem? It's $85 and I could never justify spending that much on a weekend bag basically. But it never helped that I noticed tons of girls at my college with the duffels, toting them so easily on their way home for weekends.


The price at the store? It was $59.99, so I think 30 percent off the original price. Which is less than the actual clearance on the website, with the discontinued prints! Okay, only like $4, but still. And my eye was definitely liking one they had in Island Blooms, which is regularly $85.

But, I decided to wait. I thought maybe it's an entire Vera Bradley thing, but nope. It was just this store. So a few days later we went back, and thankfully, they still had it.

{Sorry for the picture...When it's empty, it's impossible to make look good}

And now it's all mine! I love it. I think it's gonna be great for going home on weekends, and even storing things in my dorm room (I can picture out of season clothes in it or shoes). I guess it was just meant to be!

Vera Bradley Heaven

Hey everyone!

If you haven't already noticed, I'm obsessed with Vera Bradley. I love everything about their bags, backpacks, and schools supplies. Which makes sense why I was so excited to go to the Vera Bradley store this past Tuesday, when their school supplies and three of their new fall colors were released.

I was literally in heaven! Armed with a coupon, I was in the school supply shopping spirit!

Looking at this picture of all my purchases just makes me sigh out of content and pure happiness! I love all over Vera's products and prints, and I was excited to get some of the newest prints (Va Va Bloom and Paisley Meets Plaid). Sadly, Indigo Pop just honestly isn't a favorite of mine, although I can say that lots of Vera fans that like cooler colors and blue LOVE it!

Usually I'm so excited for the Vera planners, but this year I wanted to try out the Lilly Pulitzer agendas (waiting for it in the mail!!)They definitely were flying off the shelves like hotcakes at the store I was at. In fact, I believe only 1 agenda in Va Va Bloom was available!

Let's take a look at my loot!

I was so thrilled that my store had the book keepers in Camellia. I actually didn't think they'd have it, so it was such a pleasant surprise that they did! I plan on keeping all my notebooks and folders for my classes in these in my room. It seems like it would be a great way to keep them organized and easy to get to on busy mornings!

Since I'd need some notebooks for my classes, I decided to invest in the Vera Bradley 3 subject ones. The first is in Va Va Bloom and the second is in Island Blooms! I think both prints are so much fun and will make taking notes in Bio (ewww) interesting!

I actually used the old single subject Vera Bradley notebooks last spring and loved them! They are not only adorable, but have pages the size of like a 5 Star spiral. So there's plenty of room to take notes!

I am super excited for the new flexi pocket folders! I played with them in the store and think they seem more durable than the old just cardboard-y folders. I got them in Paisley Meets Plaid and Va Va Bloom. I can't wait to stash all my important papers in them.

The next purchase isn't necessarily "school supplies." However, I think it's going to be a total lifesaver for organizing and toting my makeup around. It's the hanging organizer in Island Blooms.

I love this print so much! I had a pretty hard time deciding between this or Va Va Bloom, but I decided that I just couldn't resist Island Blooms. 

 

This is what it looks like open. It has a ridiculous amount of space, let me tell you. It has four pockets and I think at least three of them (I'm not sure about the top pocket haha) are lined. Perfect for traveling with makeup. I was reading the reviews of it and one woman claimed to have held 21 MAC eyeshadows in one of the middle clear pockets, so I'm sure all of my makeup will fit easily.

I actually didn't pay for this, because I returned the Vera Bradley towels that I bought in June. While I thought they were adorable, there was one deal breaker for me: they need to be line dried. Yeah, not so fun, especially when using a community laundry room. I was actually pretty disappointed, because they were adorable, but oh well. I think is will work out better for me anyway. It's more practical for me, at least.

The next thing that I got was these adorable sticky notes, otherwise none as the Forget-Me-Nots. 

They are also in Va Va Bloom and I can't wait until I use them at college! Basically, it has one long list sticky, one medium size, one normal sized one, and those cute little flags for like reading textbooks.

Another item that I just couldn't resist were these highlighters in all the featured fall prints. I love that they are skinny and come in five colors (perfect for color coding your planner, which I'm planning on doing for the first time this fall). Gosh, I love these!

These next purchases were difficult to get, let me tell you. The top study buddy in Paisley Meets Plaid was the very last one at the store I was shopping. Not just in this print, but in all of them, in the entire store. Wow. Originally I wanted two, since I was planning on using one for my math class and one for my biology class. However, I had to just buy one on Tuesday since they were out.

However, when shopping at a local Vera Bradley dealer (that sounds like it's a car haha), they still had a ton of study buddies and they even had some in Va Va Bloom. So I snatched it up in a rush of excitement. Basically, if you can't tell (which I'm sure you can't because of my awful iPhone pictures) this are index cards on a ring with little dividers in between them. In other words, a perfect study tool that just so happens to be totally adorable as well. No wonder on Tuesday and Wednesday the website was COMPLETELY sold out of them. But I got mine and I know they will be super helpful, not only for college girls, but every student.

My final school supply that I bought were this cute little clips. They are Camellia and they are just so cute. If my planner isn't too big, I plan on keeping track of the date with these cute little guys and the same for my notebooks for my classes. 

Finally I bought this iPhone case on the dorm room special hours day and decided since it's Vera to post it here. I haven't used it quite yet because I keep forgeting to, but I was so excited to see that they are now making cases, finally!! It's in Va Va Bloom, and I can't wait to put it on my phone.

So not counting the iPhone case, I got all those adorable school supplies for $63. Not bad when it's Vera Bradley. I had a $20 off a purchase of $75 or more, which definitely came in handy. But I think these items are all so worth it, because Vera constantly proves to not only be cute, but to be very well made.

Any school supplies you can't wait to buy? Any Vera stuff you need for school?