Hello Kitty at Sears and Elsewhere

If you follow my photos on flickr, you've already seen the first of these photos, but I went to Sears sometime about a month ago - I was visiting my dad and we were sort of wandering around the mall. I don't go to Sears (it's probably been most of a year since I was last there!) but he likes to look at the appliances and power tools - how appropriately dad-like, right? ;) So on the way out of Sears, we went thru the upstairs where the clothes are and I spotted a bunch of Hello Kitty stuff! I was surprised, I didn't know there was anything Sanrio at Sears! But then, these days, Hello Kitty truly seems to be everywhere...

Mostly they had banks, wallets, scarves, boots and umbrellas. The boots were cute, but I think they were sized for children (no surprise!).







I really liked the wallets, they're those flat kind that have lots of room for cards. But I didn't end up buying one because I know I won't use it. I'm plenty happy with my current wallet style! Still the one with all the bows was so adorable...



Don't you just love it?

Hot Topic was right outside Sears, so I couldn't resist running in there, even tho I feel like I can't really subject my dad to that (he waited outside). They had still more cute flat wallets!



This one was my favorite, and even more tempting, but I didn't buy it either... *sigh*

I basically forgot about most of these photos because they were on my cell phone camera, but when I remembered them a month later I decided to run back over to Sears to see what they had. Maybe some of it would be on sale? Kinda, but not really... Sale, but not clearance. The prices were not good enough to persuade me to buy stuff I didn't really completely want/need. This was the weekend of the huge rainstorm tho, so I couldn't resist buying an umbrella. I had an umbrella (two in fact), but there's nothing like getting soaking wet in the rain to convince you that another umbrella couldn't really hurt. Unfortunately, waiting in line convinced me that Sears is not really a great place to shop. The clerks were basically inefficient and not very nice. Not that I generally make it a point to criticize stores, because it could be they were having a bad day, or that one girl was just not nice, but... I still kinda feel like I won't be going back anytime soon.

However, if I *were* to go back, it would be to buy one of these cute watches! I noticed them on the way in the second time, as I was trying to remember where in the store I'd seen the original stuff...


The box

I saw two versions of Hello Kitty watches:




I also saw a Bratz watch, which was kind of entertaining!



You can see a price tag on the Bratz watch ($20), but I think the Kitty watches were more expensive, if I remember correctly. Probably closer to $30. I might be wrong, but I'm thinking probably not, or I would've bought one!

And to further prove you never know where you're going to run across Hello Kitty, I was poking around in A.J. Wright (a discount store - they're sort of like a Marshall's or a T.J. Maxx, I guess, tho probably not as nice! XP). It's next to the Target, and I pop in there sometimes to see if they have any cheap dolls on sale that I can buy and steal their clothes for my Pullips! Ah, the strange life of a doll collector...

I was really excited tho, because I found some Hello Kitty headphones there for only $8!!



This would be exciting enough on its own, but it was extra exciting because I'd already bought these headphones once before, and I lost the ear bud piece - I don't know what you call it, but the little squishy plastic piece that keeps it in your ear. I was waffling around about buying a replacement (like $6 for a couple of sizes of just the squishy pieces) or just buying new headphones (which cost like $16 if you buy them in the store. I'd bought my original pair at Target, but they don't have them there anymore. The sanrio store still sells them tho. They have Chococat and Kuromi too, btw.). I figured at least that way I'd have a second pair for when the first pair wore out and I could probably just share the earpiece thing, unless I got really unlucky and lost more of them! But, you know, it was $16 for something I already had. So when I saw this second pair for $8, it was the best news ever! Haha. And, as an unexpected bonus, they come with a case and a thing to wind it around. Score!

Here's a close up of the cute illustration of Kitty rocking out.

What sort of music does Kitty listen to anyway?

I also stopped by Toys R Us and found a couple of cute things I hadn't seen before. These are like the Kittys in animal costumes they have at Target, but smaller...



I like the giraffe, I just want that one!

On the other side of the size scale, they had these rather large 35th Anniversary Kittys too. Cute, right?



I haven't spotted much new at Target recently, but I did see this cute little item as they roll out their summer toys.



It's a sprinkler!

EDIT: Of course, just after I post this, I spotted some new stuff at Target! Yikes! (this is all not counting the Easter stuff too, which needs its own post still... ^^;) So I'll have to post those photos soon!

And then, finally, I got a better picture of the corduroy Kitty that everyone seemed to like so much! :)