shopping spree at homegoods

I was given a $25 gift card by the nice people at BlogHer and HomeGoods to use at a HomeGoods store here in town. I'd never been there before, so I went to their website first and looked around. Right off the bat I found several things that I was interested in, so early this week, Dan and I had a day-date at the HomeGoods store to make the purchases.

This would have been a great place to do some Christmas shopping for friends and/or siblings, but luckily I am pretty much done with my Christmas shopping already. So guess what, I got to shop for myself! Mostly I looked at kitchen items--in the next few weeks I'm turning my Americana kitchen into an all white & black (with some red accents thrown in) one, so I looked a lot at dishes. However I was tempted by a lot of other fun items including some beautiful Christmas table runners, some adorable tiered red and black aprons, totally cute decorative stacked bowls, and some really lovely metal serving trays.

In the end, I found a great deal on a set of 12 porcelain white dinner plates for under $20 and some gorgeous (and really thick) wrapping paper.

I've been looking for a few months and never found anything even close to this nice for a price like this.

They really are perfect (and I know, plain, but white is what I wanted).

This paper is pretty and bright and really good quality.

I wrapped my brother-in-law's present in it and love how fancy and professional it feels and looks.

I could have spent hours in the store looking at other home furnishings, decor, the baking and cooking treats, and the seasonal stuff. There was also a whole kids and toys section I didn't touch as well as a full bathroom section. It looks like a really great store for some unique finds; I'll have to keep it in mind for future gifts!

Blogher is giving away a $100 gift card to the HomeGoods store, as well as 20 $25 gift cards! Go here to check it out and enter!

(I was not paid for this review, but was very happy to be chosen as one of the recipients of $25 gift cards for the purpose of sharing my shopping experience)