5 Reasons to Request Gift Receipts for Your Baby Shower Gifts

1. Duplicates

People aren't memorizing your list, and end up getting you items in multiples, no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

For instance, I received 3 tubes of nipple cream. I understand my nipples will get sore, but I really hope one is enough to start! If my nipples hurt enough to make it through 3 tubes in the first few months, I'll likely be looking for other solutions and different brands, or (gasp!) give up on breastfeeding altogether!

2. Sales

This reason isn't for everyone, as it requires some patience and some work, but it can really pay off.

People often buy full price, as they think of buying you a gift a week or two before your shower. If you have the patience to go back to the store with the item and the receipt when these items go on sale, you can save a huge amount. The newborn diapers on my registry are $14.99/pack at Toys'R'Us. Yet they often have them on sale for $8.49/pack. With a little organization, I can get two packs of diapers for the price of one; that's 6 days of diapers versus 3! Did I mention diapers are expensive?!

The week after my baby shower, all of Aden & Anais went on sale for 20% off at Chapters. My girlfriends had purchased a set for me from there at full price, but had given me the gift receipt. I was able to go in and get the difference back in gift cards, to put towards another purchase. That's almost $20 to spend on a book or other cute baby item of my choice in store or online! And I know they were genuinely happy I was able to do this, one of them even told me about the sale.

3. Lowest value for returns without gift receipts

Many stores, in particular Toys'R'Us have a policy of giving you only the value of the lowest price they ever charge for that item. Say your child is born huge and never fits into newborn diapers? You get only $8.49 for that pack, even if they are currently being sold at full price, and even if they were purchased off your registry at full price.

With the number of people who use Toys'R'Us for their registries, even knowing they don't have the best prices, you think they would have the technology to help you return items purchased on it at the price that was paid. But what's their incentive to do so? They know you're going to spend money there anyway, and that you have no choice but to return or give it away if you can't use it. If you return something without a gift receipt, which was paid for full price, Toys'R'Us is actually making money for not selling you something.

4. Baby may never fit into certain clothing, diapers, etc

I'm keeping the tags on most of my newborn-sized items until baby comes, in case he never fits into them. Diapers can also stay in their sealed box or bag. Every baby is different, and there's no guarantee they'll ever fit into anything newborn. Wouldn't it be nice to exchange these for items a size bigger and not lose money on them in the process?

5. It's a question of taste... 

This is a controversial one. If you really don't like something you received, and don't plan to use it, should you keep it? Would your family and friends prefer feeling good that they made a great choice selecting a gift for you, or would they prefer you get something you love and really need?

You'll have to use your judgement on this one, but it'll be difficult to even contemplate this if you don't have the gift receipt.

Ombre Elephant Nursery Art

This was an incredibly easy, 10 minute project. The best part is that I was able to reuse paint samples I had picked up from Benjamin Moore when deciding which colour to paint the Turquoise antique dresser, so this art perfectly matches the nursery.

I previously punched out elephants from paint samples, as you can see in my previous post, Colourful Elephants using Paint Samples and Martha Stewart Punch, which is what inspired me to do this project. 

Instructions

Cut out the backdrop

Use the paper insert from the frame as a guide, as you can see in the picture below.

Cutting out the backdrop to fit the frame

Cut out your shapes

I used 4 different paint samples (Benjamin Moore 2043, 2044, 2045 and 2046) which each had 4 shades of a single colour. I punched an elephant from each shade on each sample to end up with 16 elephants.

Elephants, ready to go!

Line up the shapes on a grid

The easiest way to ensure that they line up is to use a grid. I used a cutting mat for this, but even simply lined paper will go a long way to helping you space these out evenly.

Line up elephants using a grid to space out evenly

Use the foam dots to glue on the shapes, one row at a time

Placing the foam dot on the back of the elephant

Sticking elephants to backdrop one at a time

Finished product, prior to framing

Ombre elephant nursery art, ready for framing

And here's a sneak peak of the next frame I'll be making...

Yellow ombre elephant nursery art

If you decide to do this project, email me a picture! I'd love to see what you come up with!

Materials

Cardstock or paper for backing

Paint samples matching your nursery, one for per row

Double-sided adhesive foam dots, I purchased a package of 100 for $1.50 at Michaels

Craft punch in an interesting shape - Martha Stewart makes punches with butterflies, ladybugs, hearts!

Shadow frame, I used an old Ikea Ribba 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" but any shadow frame will do

Children's Book Rail for Nursery

The inspiration for this project came from Emaline's Elephant Nursery on Project Nursery. Similarly, I planned to put up 5 picture rails, however after installing 4 I decided to skip the bottom one for now in case I find a small side table I'd rather use next to the glider.

Children's Book Rail for Nursery

I used the Ikea Ribba Picture Ledge in White, in the longest length, 115cm.

Instructions

Putting these up is fairly straightforward, but here's how I did it to ensure the shelves were perfectly lined up and level.

Decide where to position each rail.

First, I determined that most of the tallest children's books were 10 - 11 inches high. I wanted at least an inch and a half between the top of a tall book and the next rail, so I opted to position the rails 13" apart, leaving a gap of about 12 and a half inches between rails for books.

I then calculated 13"x 5 = 65" as the total height of the finished look, since I was planning to put up 5 rails. I roughly wanted the top of the topmost books to line up with the top of the closet door frame, and the bottom rail to be sightly above the outlets on the wall. 65" was slightly taller than the space I had, so I moved it up a couples of inches until I was happy with the space taken.

Determine the centre of the rail

Try to find a stud where you'd like to centre your picture rails. If you can't find one in the centre, then attempt for either one of the two sides. I was planning to centre the rails on the wall, but opted to move the rails over two inches to the left to secure the centre screw of each rail into a stud.

Select an appropriate centre point based on your success finding a stud.

Position the top-most rail

Position the top rail at the correct height so that the top of books will line up or be just above the average door frame in your room. With a pencil, mark the wall where the centre screw needs to be placed according to the centre point determined above.

Mark out the centre screw for all shelves

Use a level with a ruler to measure out the distance between shelves. So from that pencil mark, I measured straight down 13", ensured it was level then marked the wall.

Measuring distance between picture rails using a level

Repeat for all shelves. If you have 5 shelves, you should have 5 pencil marks on the wall when you're done.

Mount the rails

1. Screw in the rails one at a time. Start with the centre screw, but don't tighten it completely.
2. Place the level on the shelf and tilt the shelf until its level. 





3. Remove the level and screw the centre screw in tightly. Screw in the left and rightmost screws.
4. Repeat for all of your shelves.

Mounted shelves

Fill with children's books!

And finally, the crowning moment, position your children's books! Lay out the tall ones across multiple shelves first, distributing similar books to balance out the look of the shelves. Layer books on top, progressively getting smaller until you've positioned all of your books.

Ikea Ribba picture rails with children's books

I simply love the pop of colour this adds to the nursery!