Stylish AND "Green"

Alrighty, so when we moved to Belgium back in 2009, we were informed that the grocery stores don't bag your goodies for you (say what??) and they normally don't have bags on hand that you can have..for free, that is. Even the little plastic baggies cost you money. You have the option of buying some nice re-enforced style bags, which I've done MANY times, but I usually forget them and end up having to buy another one in the midst of unloading my shopping cart. D'oh!

Or, there's the option of buying re-usable shopping bags from the Commissary made out of cloth. Don't get me wrong, I've relied on them for a while, but they wear out pretty fast when the baggers overload the actual bag and cause them to rip apart. Nothing better than picking up a bag that's full of canned food (or glass items), the bag rips and all your stuff is rolling down the driveway. That's happened quite a few times. NOT a fan of it! 

Recently, I've been re-introduced to "Thirty-One Gifts" by a friend who buys bags / customizeable things  from her sister who's a Consultant for the company. After seeing her use her nice, sturdy bags for grocery shopping, I was finally sold on the idea to take the plunge (and investment) to get some for me. Besides, who wouldn't want pretty bags? Uh..well..men..but you know what I mean! SO, since I was gonna buy so much, I opted to do an "online show" which was suggested by my friend :) 

Luckily, the monthly promotion at the time was "For every $31 you spend, you get 31% off the next item". Sounds like a good deal to me! Saving IS saving! After doing a lot of searching, picking my poor friends brain to death, measurements for comparison and finding patterns I liked, here's all the goodies I ended up with! 

I got four of the "Large Utility Totes" in a pattern called "Black Parisian Pop" since I reaaaally like the damask pattern. They're made out of a heavy duty canvas material with a re-enforced top so when you're putting stuff in the bag, it won't flop down. When it came to personalizing, I opted to not do that since I figured the pattern was pretty busy as is. Besides, if I did get it personalized, it would've been in hot pink...and it's enough as is for Eric to carry this pattern around when he goes shopping without me, lol. In addition to the Large Utility Totes, I also go two "Market Thermal Totes" since we buy a lot of Almond Breeze whenever we raid the Commissary. The whole "matching" thing came into play, so I went for the black ones since the other patterns would clash with the damask style way too much. I guess I'm OCD about that sort of thing, lol. Although, I had them personalized so they say "COLD STUFF!" so the baggers will see what they're for right off the bat without having to ask, plus, it'll help when we get home so we know to put the things in those bags away first :)

The best part? ALL of that fits into one bag! LOVE! 

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!

Due to the damask style being one of my fav's, I got a "Oversized Storage Organizer" to put on my side of our bedroom wardrobe. I love how it has a "window" on the front of it so you can see what goodies you have in there, ya know, just in case you end up wanting something out of it :) Mines already been filled up with all sorts of accessories like hats, scarves, gloves and anything else you can think of. 

I have a knack of leaving my hair dryer as well as hair straightener out wherever I can in our oh so space limited "shower room". It drives Eric absolutely nuts because they usually get in his way when he tries to shave for work, so, he'll stick them wherever he can, which is usually out of MY reach. After doing some more searching and more measuring, I ended up getting a "Mini Utility Bin" in a pattern called "Flutter" so I can store all of my "madness" in one convenient spot. Truth be told, I was a little skeptical about it since I didn't think it'd be deep enough to hold my stuff....

...and I was totally wrong to doubt it! My hair dryer, straightener, hair brushes and some of my hair care products fit in there perfectly! AND, it fits in our vanity storage area without having to squish it down to MAKE it fit. The cool part is that it looks like it's a square tote, but that's just the exterior. It's actually circular so it allows you to have more things in it. Verrrry clever! 

Last but not least, I got a Host Special item, which was the "XXL Utility Tote". Sorry that there's no link for it, (I couldn't find it on the site)...BUT...it's in the online virtual catalog on page 15. Three zippable / removable bags come inside a massive tote. It's HUGE! I'm trying to figure out what I'll use it for since it's larger than I /thought (totally not a bad thing!). I'm sure I'll use the bags for when I only need just a few grocery items from the local grocery store. Or maybe we'll use it for storage stuff. Ahhhh the possibilities! 

There ya have it! The cool goodies I got from Thirty-One! I'm gonna go through my pile of old shopping bags  and FINALLY toss all the ones that are barely holding together, which is almost all of them! I'm REALLY diggin' the quality of these bags, so I'll definitely be a returning customer for more Thirty-One stuff down the road :)