A Brooklyn Shop Girl’s Guide to Black Friday

I spend a lot of time in retail stores. Probably because I work in one, but also because the only thing I do more than help others shop is shop myself. I’m your neighborhood shop girl and with years of retail experience on both sides of the cash register, I can give you all the tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way.

Since everyone is looking to score a deal this week, I thought we’d start things with some tips on shaking off the tryptophan hangover and hitting the stores this Friday. The day after Thanksgiving is the holiest day on the shopping calendar, the Olympics of retail, the day when dreams of designer fashions and home electronics at affordable prices are made and broken. This isn’t just a President’s Day Sale people—this is Black Friday.

1-Mentally prepare for the melee. Have coffee, tea, a yoga session, or a meeting with your spiritual advisor or palm reader. Whatever it takes for you to be in top mental condition at 4 AM, do it.

2-A little reconnaissance work can go a long way. Make a list of stores and the items you want from each one. Check store web sites and Facebook pages this week—there may be extra coupons and savings if you’re on their mailing list, or some extra deals you can print out and take with you. It doesn’t hurt to know the floor plan of the store either. Sales don’t count if you’re lost in the wrong elevator bank.

3-Use credit cards. It’s faster than cash and harder to steal. Use this opportunity to get your frequent flier miles, sale price protection, extra warranties, or points (but don’t use it as an excuse to buy everything in sight—trust me, you do not, under any circumstances, need harem pants).

4-Bring back up. Alexander the Great was nothing without his army, so there’s no way you’re going to conquer the furniture gallery at Macy’s on Fulton Street without some help. Divide and conquer, my friends (and all the better if there’s a group to carry home your spoils of war).

5-Wear the right clothes. Leave the five-inch heels at home and travel light. Don’t waste time waiting in line for dressing rooms—wear clothing you can slip items over. Avoid bulky coats and bags because they’ll weigh you down as you maneuver the sale sections.

6-Be nice to the sales people. The only thing more frightening than shopping Black Friday is working it. Sales associates are the only people who know where that last Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer in pink is, or where an extra cashmere sweater in your size is hiding.

7-Bring sustenance. You can’t shop ‘til your drop if you’ve already dropped from low blood sugar, so stick an energy bar in your bag and bring some water. Door busters are almost as important as your health. Almost.

8-Confrontations. You and a fellow shopper grab the same dress. Be polite, but firm. That dress is going home with you because the shopping gods told you so and it’s fashion destiny. If all else fails, tell her you’re pregnant, have cancer, or you “just want to try it on for size” before bolting (but only if you think you can outrun her—that’s where tip #5 comes into play).

9-Stay home. If it all seems too overwhelming, stay in your sweatpants and score some Black Friday deals online. Sites like retailmenot.com and couponcabin.com have additional savings, and most stores have the deals available on their websites, sometimes starting the night before. Get your online bargain hunting practice in before Cyber Monday (the Black Friday of internet shopping).

I hope these tips have you geared up and ready to go for the biggest and baddest shopping day of the year. Above all, remember to play nice. No one wants to end up like that lady who got trampled at Wal-Mart last year. Happy shopping!

Lauren Soroken is your friendly neighborhood shop girl. She lives in Prospect Heights with a very large collection of vintage accessories.

Published on 11.24.10.

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Friday PSA

If you do not have your voice again to your favorite Brooklyn Do Gooders, you have to Sunday (October 17)! And you can cast 5 votes per day until then! Whenever you're site invites you to broadcast your vote via Twitter + Facebook. For this I am broadcast here.

So far, I voted for:

Caroline Salguero, because I love that it is therefore dedicated to the waterfront and because she was able to make an oil tanker to Red Hook use public or cultural waterfront retreat.

Tony Gentile, owner of the crest of the Bay Lone Star Bar and Grill, because it is super generous and opened his restaurant many times each year to benefit charities host.

Johnny temple, the creation of the Brooklyn Book Festival because there is no small feat, and today it is one of the best annual events we are hosting here.

Sean at, because he mobilized a group of people for repair of tennis courts in McCarren Park and landed a $50,000 grant to fully restore their.

DaVanie Jackson, because that it helped start an organic farm in Bed-Stuy much used as a dump + distributes food through a food pantry, it also helps to rely.

And those who are just some of the awesome voyeurs worth vote dedicated to

Published on 10.15.10.

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Friday PSA

If you do not have your voice again to your favorite Brooklyn Do Gooders, you have to Sunday (October 17)! And you can cast 5 votes per day until then! Whenever you're site invites you to broadcast your vote via Twitter + Facebook. For this I am broadcast here.

So far, I voted for:

Caroline Salguero, because I love that it is therefore dedicated to the waterfront and because she was able to make an oil tanker to Red Hook use public or cultural waterfront retreat.

Tony Gentile, owner of the crest of the Bay Lone Star Bar and Grill, because it is super generous and opened his restaurant many times each year to benefit charities host.

Johnny temple, the creation of the Brooklyn Book Festival because there is no small feat, and today it is one of the best annual events we are hosting here.

Sean at, because he mobilized a group of people for repair of tennis courts in McCarren Park and landed a $50,000 grant to fully restore their.

DaVanie Jackson, because that it helped start an organic farm in Bed-Stuy much used as a dump + distributes food through a food pantry, it also helps to rely.

And those who are just some of the awesome voyeurs worth vote dedicated to

Published on 10.15.10.

This entry transmitted via the service for full-text RSS - if this is your content and you read on someone to another site, please read our FAQ page fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Article five filters features: After Hiroshima - non-rapport Cancer Catastrophe of Fallujah.

View the original article here

First Friday at the loom

By Joe Proudman

Ray Cross is rightful place I am in the business. He quickly slips her apron of colored in blue ink overhead.He wears a black shirt with a blue design that he printed there are some years is a young tall and thin, with brown hair which are covered by a green Cap army skewing slightly towards the right guy.

Hung on the walls around him are models of bikes, a zombie George Washington and a massive ship among the patterns of various shapes and lines. Lean screens in a battery against the wall under the first President.

Cross is created near bath in the loom, a local consumption which houses several showcases, including a general store, clothing made by hand, jewellery and cyclomoteur.La boutique repair shop Avenue Mall is named the loom, because he was once a textile factory. Every first Friday that stores remain open late, offering rebates, transactions and artists such as cross. There is even a tattoo artist on Friday.

Before you notice it is implemented, cross is already printed on already printed shirts, superposition of a broad view on the older bikes and patterns. Cross is the type of person who likes to stay occupé.Il explains shirts that it covers are close to being the cloths, but it gives them a second life.They offer several patterns and soon are recorded on decorative wall of money from the trade.

As he pays a black ink on pink screen, he talks about his studio, which is a couple of blocks of Jefferson Street train L.Il runs Bushwick Print Lab and around the area since the greater part of the Decade.

It checks to make sure it is on ground level on the table and continues to speak that it prepares to print, has never really stop, but slows down right before it spreads to the ink on the screen on the shirt. A crowd begins to form on his table.Pour five dollars they can spice up old CAP or a shirt.

A young woman said: "I came to get the print screen.

Older women replied, "Oh, a read you about it online too."

Okay, the nods of young women while taking his black sweater, await cross.

It modifies the fact with this familiarity écrans.Il that they don't miss a beat sewage screen when his wife calls.

Cross says that the process is quite easy. ""You are quite well push the ink through a hole", he explains .the fun night is the people with as it prints.

The first guest has his Jersey printed using bicyclettes.Les tan offers to use hypercolor ink that changes colour to chaleur.Il shows his card that uses the same ink and crossing a blow dryer causing dispara?tre.Elle part is it's ink even Coors Light uses on their boxes activated froid.La woman said impressionnée.Les is sold.

It cannot stop everything just as good and buy a blouse printed off the coast of the wall.

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