How do you choose?

 
Friends, I had the BEST luck yesterday -- I won a giveaway over at Design Mom!. Do you read all of Gabby Blair's amazing stuff? Oh I just adore her! And her giveaways are to die for. I always enter (you can't win if you don't play!) but never dream of winning because she usually has nearly (or more than) 1,000 entries per contest.

But yesterday I got an e-mail notifying me that I won! And a really good one at that -- $250 to spend at House8810.

So that got me to thinking: how do you spend "free" money like that? Even if you've never won an amazing contest like those at Design Mom, certainly you've gotten some sort of reward or even received a gift card.

Do you go crazy and buy frivolous things that you'd never spend your "own" money on? Or do you go super-practical and feel as though you have to get the absolute most bang for your buck?

I go back and forth. This time I went super crazy and bought all kinds of fun things that I would have had a hard time spending my "own"money on. And, my lucky, lucky sons (especially Lucas!) will be the recipients of some pretty fun things this year for Christmas!

But I did make sure to get the most bang for my buck -- through some slight changes to my initial order, I got my grand total up to $249.45!

Photos above are a few of the items I selected from House8810. And that umbrella? Totally keeping it for myself!

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!