Shopping Events Happening This Weekend

Happy Hump Day all!! If you're anything like me, you will have already started planning your weekend. And as with most weekends, there are some super fun events happening in Cleveland, although I'm going to focus on the ones that have to do with shopping!

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, The Cleveland Flea is hosting a series of events at the Slovenian National Home at 6417 St. Clair Ave. The Sneak Peek & Meet the Makers Party (where you get to shop pre-sale) is happening Friday. This is a ticketed event, and you can buy tickets here. Saturday and Sunday is your opportunity to buy gifts and yummy food stuff from 10:00 am- 6:00 pm! I've been to a number of Cleveland Flea events and they are SO MUCH FUN! The food is always delicious, so go hungry! And you can be sure that you will find some really unique stuff.

Also this Friday from 5-9 pm and Saturday from 11-5 pm, Beachcliff Market Square is hosting a pop-up shop for Stash Style, a super cute vintage traveling store! Owner Shannon always has adorable, unique stuff for sale, as you can see from her instagram pic below!

And last but certainly not least, Beachwood Place plays host to the 5th Annual Compassion from Fashion Event to benefit The Gathering Place and UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital. Tickets are $25 presale and $30 at the door, and you can buy tickets and see more information here. Essentially, your ticket buys you a special bracelet which gets you exclusive discounts. I have been to this event a number of times, and you really do get your money's worth AND you're supporting two great causes! Some of the discounts include

- 40% off sweaters at Banana Republic

- 10% off at Brigade

- 25% off at Coach

- 15% off at Kate Spade New York

- 25% of Madewell with a purchase of $25 or more

- 20% off at Moochie & Co, just to name a few…

The last time I attended this event, I got most of my Christmas shopping done well in advance of Black Friday! It was GREAT!!

I hope you plan to be out and about this weekend, and maybe I will run into you (obviously not literally. That would be uncomfortable).

The Holiday Spirit (or lack thereof)

If you're having a hard time getting it together to decorate this Christmas, might I suggest you visit Flower Child on Clifton Blvd? If you've never been, Flower Child is a vintage store, carrying an eclectic mix of clothing, home goods, jewelry and accessories from decades past. Tina and I stopped over this past weekend, and we had an absolute blast walking around. A word of warning- this is vintage retail, not vintage thrift, so you should expect an appropriately different price tag too!

I absolutely LLLUUUURRVVEEE how over-the-top Christmas this store is right now!!

Get in the Holiday Spirit (locally): Urban Home and Garden

A couple of weekends ago, I was at Beachwood Place with clefoodgoddess for the Compassion from Fashion Event, when I happened to noticed a wonderfully decorated store that I had never noticed before: Urban Home & Garden. Lucky for me, the wonderful staff were more than happy to let me take pictures! I found out that the store is Cleveland-based, and there are two locations- one at Beachwood Place, and the other at Beachcliff Plaza in Rocky River.

Seriously, this store is really cute, and has some adorable little gift ideas and stocking stuffers. Not only can you enjoy the Christmassy spirit, but you can get some of your shopping done, and support a Cleveland business while you do it!!!

Come for the shopping, stay for the eye-candy

Wow, I can't believe Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK!!! That time of year is creeping up faster than I can handle, and you know what that means- HOLIDAY SHOPPING!!! Last year, I got a really good head start to my shopping with the Compassion from Fashion event at Beachwood Place, and this Saturday, Beachwood will be playing host to this awesome event for the THIRD straight year.

If you haven't been before, here's what you should expect:
$20 (in advance, $25 at the door) gets you a wrist band that entitles you exclusive fashion discounts at a number of Beachwood Place Stores. If you're one of the first 750 to buy your ticket, you will receive a $10 mall gift card AND a $10 dining certificate to McCormick and Schmick's, making your ticket essentially FREE!! 100% of the proceeds go to The Gathering Place which provides invaluable services for those affected by cancer and their loved ones!

Shopping + a GREAT cause?!? How could this get better??? BUT WAIT, IT DOES!!!
Not only do you get to snack on delicious offerings by Maggiano's Little Italy, but at 7pm, Beachwood plays host to a celebrity fashion show, featuring cancer survivors and local celebs including:

Maureen Kyle

Ryan "Mickey" McLean, from Cosmo's Bachelor of the year 2010 and Bachelorette fame

As hot as Mickey is, I am a married woman, so I'm obviously MOST excited about the shopping. Here's the discounts I WILL be taking advantage of:

BRIGADE: 10% off entire store (N is probably getting some of his Christmas presents from here)

AVEDA: spend $50 get $20 personal blends "purefume"- I need some more hair products, and their hand lotion is a lifesaver in this weather!!

MOOCHIE & Co: 20% off regular priced merchandise- I can't leave the pooches out!! They get Christmas presents too!

BANANA REPUBLIC/THE LIMITED: Need stuff for work

The full list of discounts is available here. You can purchase your tickets here, and if you buy online and use the discount code "266727", you will receive $5 off your ticket price, making it an even better deal for $15!!

So if you want to avoid the Black Friday crowds and get a head-start to the shopping season, I hope you will consider joining me at Beachwood Place this Saturday. Happy shopping all!!

Full disclosure: I received two tickets to this event in exchange for my support via this here blog. As always, all opinions are 100% my own. 

A little buzz

One of my favorite things in Costa Rica was the AMAZING coffee we enjoyed several times a day. It probably has something to do with the volcanic soil, but Costa Rican coffee is DELICIOUS!! So delicious in fact, that N and I are having some shipped to us!!  And I'm happy to say that if you'd like to try some, Amazon carries a whole selection of the Cafe Britt coffees.

With the holidays coming up (this year is going by waayyy too fast), I've been thinking about gift ideas. If you have a coffee lover on your holiday list, you could always gift them some Cafe Britt Espresso with a stove-top Espresso maker and/or Espresso cups!










As a coffee lover myself, there is nothing better than a GREAT cup of coffee on a cold winter morning (yes, I said the "W" word. I'm mentally preparing myself for the inevitable). Do you have a favorite coffee? Do tell!!!

Danger: Carb Overload

For a very long time now, N has wanted a bread maker. I've resisted the idea for obvious reasons: I simply have no willpower when it comes to freshly baked bread. NONE! Well, this Christmas, N's parents finally gave him one:

Express Bread Maker, amazon

N made Italian herb and cheese bread last week. The results:

 

It was absolutely delicious. This bread maker could be the worst thing to ever happen to me. 

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Hello everyone!! Hope you had a fabulous holiday!! I had a great time hanging out with N's parents and brother and the puppies in Chardon, Ohio. They had almost 2 feet of snow, so the puppies were so excited to play!!




I received some great gifts, my favorite of which was this:

What girl doesn't love a little blue box?!?!

What was your favorite present that you received this year? This is a great opportunity for a CONTEST!!! Here are the rules:
1. You must be a US resident
2. You must "like" cleshopaholic on facebook
3. Leave a comment on the cleshopaholic facebook page letting me know about your favorite gift (This gets you one entry). A picture gets you a bonus entry.
Optional:
Post a link to the contest in your facebook status (this gets you 5 entries). Add cleshopaholic to your google reader for 5 additional entries. Adding cleshopaholic to your blogroll gets you yet another 5 entries. Please leave a comment either on facebook or in the comments below letting me know if you did any of the optional entries!

The winner will receive a $25 gift card to Starbucks!!! Get those holiday lattes while they last!! The winner will be picked on January 9th!

Meat and Cheese

Have you "liked" cleshopaholic on Facebook yet? Scroll over to your right to become a fan for Facebook-only content and contests. Thanks!!

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My biggest gift challenge usually involves buying stuff for men. There's the usual golf stuff, or clothing, or sports-related gifts, but beyond that, I tend to have a harder time with men's gifts, and its partly due to a lack of options. I feel like women (a) have more shopping choices, and (b) generally like more stuff, so its almost a lot easier to buy women's gifts (for me, anyway).  When I'm thinking outside the box for men's gifts, I frequently turn to food (there's no reason you can't use this for women too!)...

This year, I combined one recepient's love for meat into a a gift that combined 3 lbs of bacon from the West Side Market (regular, pepper, and applewood smoked) with this fabulous book by Cleveland's own Michael Ruhlman, which teaches you to smoke your own meats at home (and has some great recipes that use smoked meats as ingredients). If you're not in Cleveland, or don't have a farmers market nearby, you can also buy bacon online here.

If your recipient is vegetarian, you could easily replace meat with cheese, using this book and cheese from the West Side Market, or a selection of European cheeses from Dean and Deluca.

Doesn't that look delicious?!?!?

...Let them eat cake

I was at Bazaar Bizzare this weekend, and had an opportunity to meet the fabulous Valerie Mayen (who was on a little show called Project Runway), who is absolutely adorable and a complete sweetheart in person! I thought she did a wonderful job representing Cleveland on PR, and she's just as friendly and gracious in person.

If you'd like to meet her in person, or check out her collection in person, she will be debuting her pop-up shop at Beachwood Place this upcoming weekend. On the 17th, Beachwood Place is hosting a special cocktail party, where you will have get a sneak peek at her collection, meet Valerie in person and sample delectable delights from A Cookie and a Cupcake and Lilly Handmade Chocolates (if you read this blog, you know I'm a huge fan of both).

On the 18th, her collection will be available for purchase. Her collection is also availble on etsy, and any of these pieces will make a really great gift for the fashionista/PR fanatic on your shopping list. Here are some of my favorite pieces, and I have to say, these pictures do not do them justice. They are so cute and fun and well constructed!!

Did you watch PR this season? What did you think of Valerie's performance? How do you feel about who won? (I would've loved to see Valerie win, but Mondo really presented some amazing stuff that got better as the season progressed!)

Shopping local this holiday season: Room Service, now in Ohio City

Hope you had a very happy and safe Thanksgiving!! We had a wonderful time at N's parents. There were 12 adults, 1 baby and 2 puppies in attendance, and we had a blast. We ate, drank, played catchphrase (which is a superfun game and great gift/stocking stuffer for people who like to entertain), and I found that I really don't like losing. My favorite picture of the day was this one:

Our little nephew and Clair

Clair LOVES little kids. Our nephew is still in the army-crawl stage, and Clair would army crawl behind him as he crawled along the floor. SO CUTE!!!

As I mentioned in my Black Friday preview post, I was planning to stay away from the big box/national retailers, and I was mostly successful, with the exception of PETCO for dogfood, and Target for lightbulbs (and the aforementioned catchphrase), but I'm not counting those. N and I decided to start at the newly relocated Room Service (2078 W25th St), which was also hosting Made in the 216. The new store is significantly larger than the old location on Detroit Ave., and is really well decorated. Danielle has a fantastic eye for design, and she did this really amazing thing on one of the walls where she essentially created massive frames out of molding, and then wall-papered the inside. She has a bunch of stuff hung on the wall paper, so its looks like artwork within artwork. Of course, I don't have pictures, but if you have a massive blank wall, its a great idea to try out (I do recommend stopping by the store first to check it out in person).

While there, we picked up these:

Terminal Tower ornament $12.99

And N picked up this Terminal Tower T approx. $30

Incidentally, if you're looking for gift ideas, both these would make a great gift for someone new to Cleveland, or someone who has moved away from Cleveland, or someone who's still in Cleveland and loves this city!!

Reviewing the Compassion from Fashion Event

Remember when I blogged about the Compassion from Fashion Event? Well, it happened on Saturday, and I attended with the contest winner Jess. It was a really fun evening, and most of the stores offered special discounts just for the event. There was a fashion show (that we missed), and food stations catered by Maggiano's: my favorite was the antipasto station- I seriously LLLUUURRRVVVEEE roasted veggies!!!

I had planned to make some progress with my Christmas shopping, and, to be honest, I was pretty successful!! I still have a lot to do ofcourse, but I was happy with my start. It should come as no surprise that I did a little shopping for myself, and of course, it included a couple of J.Crew sweaters (OBSESSION!). But, beyond my sweaters, my favorite purchase from Saturday was these beauties:

That said, I REALLY need to focus, and stop doing my usual "one for you, two for me" holiday shopping routine!! Do you end up buying more stuff for yourself during the holidays than you do presents?!