Only 161 Sleeps Till Christmas* — It’s Time to Start Shopping!

Belleville from the Harbour

* As of Saturday

 

And what better time to start Christmas shopping than during the annual Sidewalk Sale here in downtown Belleville?  For as long as I can remember — certainly for all 26 years that we have been in business here — merchants have been rolling tables and bins stocked with bargain-priced goodies outside for the day, and hoping (sometimes without luck) for a clear sunny day.   In years past, we have sometimes been lucky enough to have the Farmers’ Market move to Front Street for the day, too, which was always interesting and fun.  (These days, of course, the Farmers’ Market has its own beautiful arcade space behind City Hall, just adjacent to Front Street.  It’s well worth a visit.)

Another fabulous event being held in tandem with the Sidewalk Sale this Saturday is Berry-licious, the annual competition between downtown chefs to see who can produce the most mouth-watering creation featuring local strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.  The competition runs from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., or until all the berries are gone.  Don’t wait too long!

In honour of the Sidewalk Sale tradition, we’ll be holding a one-day store-wide sale at Scalliwag Toys on Saturday 16 July 2011.  Every regularly-priced item in the store will be sold at a discount equivalent to the HST usually applied, so that an item marked at $4.99, say, will sell for just that (in other words, you save the tax).

There will also be bigger discounts on ends-of-lines and close-out items, which will be tagged at up to 50% off.  Most of these are things that we thought were pretty neat … unfortunately, not enough customers agreed (at the regular price, anyway) for us to keep carrying them.  These close-outs are limited in quantity, of course.  All sales on close-out merchandise are final.

No lay-aways are available during the sale, and we won’t be taking special orders at these prices.

Come on down on Saturday, indulge in a few Berry-licious goodies, and see whether you spot a bargain.  See you there!

L8ter, Baby :)

We all knew that it would happen eventually … babies would discover social media.  After all, who doesn’t want to know exactly what their friends are doing, even when what they are doing is burping, changing clothes, or napping?  In those respects, babies are not very different from teenagers, and where would Facebook be without those?

The IOBR

In the spirit of irony (we hope) here is the IOBR, the world’s first social media tool for babies.  Created with tongue firmly in cheek by Passi and Ripatti, two Finnish designers employed by design agency Palmu Inc., the IOBR purports to extend to babies the ability to send status updates to a fellow infant:

The actual status update is done by placing the appropriate block in its designated place on the box. For example, an “eating” update is sent by placing the square block with the “plate, spoon, fork” -icon in the square-shaped hole on top of the box. This results in the illumination of the corresponding status light on the friend’s device.

Sharp-eyed viewers will recognize the BRIO Shape Sorter as the repurposed underpinning of the IOBR.  Thoughtful readers will appreciate the designers’ satirical skewering of our apparent desire to let the world know of our every motion and thought (would anyone care to read my Twitter update on my break-time muffin?)

Let us hope that it remains a satire, and that we don’t see some version of this at next year’s Toy Fair.

New Gift Wrap Service Starting August 1

Sample Gift Wrap

As of 1 August 2010, we’ll be offering free gift wrapping with a minimum purchase of $20.00.  We’ve ordered in some cool gift wrap designs (a cute all-purpose birthday paper plus some “new baby” papers in pink and blue gingham).  Now all we need to do is to get our old gift-wrap desk up from the basement and into the store!  (And dust it off.  And maybe paint it.  Of course, that’s a whole blog entry in and of itself.)

We’ve ordered in the design shown at left as the all-purpose wrap, so — with any luck — that should be what arrives!  We’ll keep you posted.

A New Standard for Truth in Advertising

No wonder this thing has gone viral.