Outlet Shopping.

I live very near an outlet mall, and it has many great stores.  I recognize that I am very spoiled to live so near great shopping.  All that being said, I really am jealous of people who live near the outlets in San Marcos, Texas.  They have several stores that I wish we had here... Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Tory Burch, Kate Spade, Vera Bradley, Gucci, and Prada just to name a few. 

A week and a half ago, I stopped by San Marcos on my way to El Campo.  Luckily, I am a power shopper, so I could hit up the stores I wanted to, and only spend about 3 hours there.  In all seriousness here, when I pulled up, I was beyond excited. It is definitely one of my happy places. While shopping, I thought to myself, "Wow, I wonder if this is how happy some people are at Disney?!".

I did some Christmas/Birthday shopping, so I can't share those purchases, but here is what I bought that I can tell you about...

Pottery Barn

I got these towels for my guest bath.  I have had plain brown hanging up, but decided that for at least Spring and Summer, these added a little pop of color (plus they were significantly reduced from PB usual prices as the hand towel was $7.49 and the regular towel was $11.99)...

Since getting a picture for above my mantle that my grandmother painted, I've been redoing my mantle (more to come on that).  I found these candle holders which work perfectly (there are only two...one pic is for scale, one is for detail).  They weren't a bargain, but I really liked them and thought they were worth the money...

Williams Sonoma

This is a bit of a cheat photo.  I actually only purchased the carafe for myself, but I purchased the odd size measuring cups and spoons and the bread basket for my Mom to give me for Christmas.  I've been wanting a carafe (for what I don't really know), and this one was like $6.  I bought the measuring cups and spoons as gifts last year, but never got any for myself.  I've always wanted one of those bread baskets.  You can heat the basket in the oven and it will keep your bread warm while waiting to be served.  I think that most of the time, it will be a fruit basket.  Mine is white.

Vera Bradley

I found this little pencil case.  It matches my school bag (which isn't new, but I have shown you for reference).  It was on sale for like $4, so I couldn't pass it up!

Kate Spade

I've been looking for a new work bag forever.  I either can't find one big enough, or the drop isn't long enough.  I found this bag and it fit me needs perfectly.  Plus I got it for like 70% off retail price!  I also love the Kate Spade sayings, so I had to show you what's written on the storage bag...

Tory Burch

For some reason this is the summer of the flip flops for me.  I've mostly bought Havianas.  I bought them in brown, blue, and pink, but haven't been able to find any in black (or at least in black at the reduced price I wanted to pay).  I got these cute black flops at Tory Burch.  Isn't the box and bag just too cute?

So that's what I got at the outlet.  I'm sure I could have shopped some more, but I still had miles to go and I knew that I needed to save some money because I had an appointment a few days later to shop the Nordstrom Anniversary pre-sale (more on that to come too!). 

I was happy to discover that I am capable of seriously power shopping that outlet, so I think that there may be a what I like to call a "suicide trip" to San Marcos closer to Christmas...drive down, shop, and drive back all in one day.