Usually I don't post retail finds. This is because in this consumer culture we live in almost anything that someone buys new can be found used somewhere (excluding disposable goods of course). People seem to just go through stuff rather quickly in the US. However, last year I read an article about Japanese dollar stores coming to America. The article listed the first of these stores as opening in the Lynnwood mall, which is not too far north of Seattle, but never on the way to anywhere I go. I will be heading up North soon and thought maybe I would check it out so I went to there website (http://www.daiso-sangyo.co.jp/english/) and found that there is also one conveniently located at Westlake Center in downtown Seattle. Now dollar stores are usually full of cheap and low quality goods, but somehow when those goods have cute Japanese packaging they look like a lot more fun. They also had some really cute stationary and fun ceramics. Most things are priced at $1.50. I resisted many of the fun things to buy and contented myself with this:


Its a set of play dough accessories for DD to use with my homemade play dough. I realized the hard way that just giving her things out of the kitchen drawer can be messy and hard to clean up. Anyway if you get a chance I recommend checking out these cute stores.