I found some fantastic deals at Borders. I didn't even realize they had a clearance section, but when we were there for the Fancy Nancy party in May, I saw it. At the time, they had the Wallies Peel and Stick chalkboard designs for $4 (down from $20). I came *this* close to getting one or two, but decided we really didn't need them.
Then, when we were there about two weeks ago, I had to hunt down the children's clearance section. It was much smaller and was a completely different location. They still had those chalkboard stickers, but this time, they were 98 cents each.
For that price, I snapped them up. One package was a little too beaten up, so I let it go, but I got two packages of the plane and cloud designs and one of the house/tree designs. I figured I'll give one of the plane/clouds as a gift. I saved $60 and paid less than I would for the tiny chalkboard strips at the Dollar Tree.
They have excess in the packaging (like the borders on stickers), so I'm going to cut out some smaller designs too.
Oh and we're going to put one up on the front door so that we can leave notes to each other and reminders when we're on our way out. Another tip is to put one inside your cabinet door and that way you can write down items as you run out. We found it useful to do something like that on the cabinet door where we keep medicine. That way, when we gave the kids a dose of medicine, we wrote down who got what when. That was particularly useful with twins when we often found ourselves trying to remember who we got medicine last.
Back to the topic of unlikely clearance and great deals, I once found a big box of foam Chanukah stickers for $1 on a clearance table at Barnes and Noble. I don't think these are the places where most people even think to look for clearance.
No matter where you are, try to hunt out the clearance section. You might be pleasantly surprised. We certainly were!
