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October-November 2010 Newsletter

Fall is Here & Winter is Near

Dress Tips for Upcoming Holidays & Celebrations

Fall and winter bring not only beautiful orange leaves and banks of snow, but also many parties, school functions, and family gatherings. All this activity and celebration may require a special outfit or two for the children involved. At The Briar Patch, we are advocates of thrift and tradition and believe that dressing children for special occasions should not be expensive, but fun and functional. To this end, we have some suggestions and special discounts for holiday dressing this fall and winter season you may find helpful. Please read on!

First up is Halloween! Need a costume? For girls, we suggest going through her closet and finding any fancy dress she is sure to never wear again. Chiffon, tulle, and organza overskirts can be slashed with sheers upward from hemline in vertical cuts. You can fray edges of the material where slashed to make spooky, float-y streams. A perfect effect for ghostly femmes, wicked witches, or even a fairy. If there is time, you can "watercolor" the dress with diluted liquid fabric dye. Hang in the sun to dry a few days before the event and do not wash the altered garment with any "real" clothing. If you can't bring yourself to actually cut a dress, then use it as it is! Previously worn fancy dresses are perfect attire for a princess, queen, ballerina or movie star. By adding a few stellar accents like a crown, feather boa, sunglasses, fairy wand, fairy wings, southern belle hat, flower head-wreath...that dress can become anything from a Shakespearean sprite to Queen Elizabeth (the first, second or third).

Halloween costume for boys? So EASY! Find his functional Sunday suit, paint his face green, and add lots of hair gel to his handsome head (Frankenstein!). Or you can go for James Bond in a black suit and any gangster of the roaring 1920's with a pinstripe suit. Cut out cardboard medals and shoulder accents, paint them gold and add lots of colorful fringe...make a hat of historical design (just search online for historic pictures)...and you can have any great admiral or sea captain. Accents that can make an ordinary suit a terrific costume are accoutrements like an eye patch, hand made medals and uniform accents, fringe, striped ribbons, painted scars and stitches on the face, crazy hair styles (how about Einstein?), crowns, capes, pant legs tucked in boots, swords at the side, vampire teeth.

Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving celebrations almost always involve a huge and wonderful meal. So, avoid dresses for girls and boys' dress shirts that cannot be washed. Have your young gentleman remove his suit coat when at the table. Most boys' suit jackets are easily spot cleaned with a damp rag. However, a white satin dress that collides with cranberry sauce will be next year's Halloween costume for sure. For girls, consider cotton or cotton blend traditional dresses and ensembles, such as smocked skirt sets and smocked dresses. These styles are classic, comfortable and just perfect for the Thanksgiving table. At the Briar Patch, we offer beautiful smocked dresses and sets from high end designers such as Anavini at family friendly prices. Our collection of suits for boys is incredible and incredibly priced as well.

Happy Holidays! For Christmas and Hanukah, The Briar Patch has a wonderful selection of holiday dresses for girls. For boys, we have just added several accent sets that include ties and vests in beautiful colors. These are inexpensive and can add that bit of holiday color to transform the traditional boys suit for festivty. Consider colors such as red and champagne gold! Remember, too, that often by adding a simple fluffy shrug or dress sweater, even a sleeveless girl's dress can be worn for the holidays.

We hope this helps! When you have more than one child to dress, or are organizing holiday pictures with coordinating girls' dresses and boys' suits, there are several special offers mentioned later in this newsletter which provide signifcant discounts.

A Rainbow of Options for Boys' Suits & Tuxedos We hear it so often, "Why are there so many cute colors and styles for girls and not for boys?" A comment made almost any day in shops across America. Well, our buyers searched high and low. We found wonderful options for boys that remain handsome and strong, but also offer a full spectrum of color choices in neckties, bowties, vests and entire suits. These exciting boys' suits are priced reasonably and made from quality, easy-care materials. Each style is designed to provide tradition, charm, and comfort. Please visit Boys' Suits and Tuxedos to view the new collection and admire the wonderful array of colors now available for boys of all ages. Also wonderful is that the accent pieces for these suits: vests, neckties, bowties can all all coordinate with the endless options available in dresses for girls at The Briar Patch. Mix and match to create a unique and fun grouping of gorgeously affordable ensembles for your next family portrait. In fact, we will share a discount code with you for just this purpose. Click here to find a coupon code applicable for the purchase of two ensembles from our stunning collections of dresses for girls and suits for boys.

The Briar Patch is BBB Certified We do value good manners at The Briar Patch, but we must boast about our recent Better Business Bureau certification. It is a privilege to partner with the BBB on both a national level for our website, and again at a local level for our storefront shop. The Briar Patch is in business its 10th year in 2011. This tenure alone speaks well for our dedication to our trade and commitment to our customers. While we are very much aware that no business is perfect as each is a sum of human parts, we do feel this designation demonstrates our sincere desire to be fair and consistent in application of policy, adherence to safety standards, quality control, and customer care.

Large Purchase Discounts Available with Online Coupon Code An increasingly common question we are asked is if The Briar Patch offers a discount for purchases of numerous flower girl dresses or boys tuxedos. Our founding philosophy is to provide every customer with a fair price, regardless of the dollar amount of any purchase. To this end, all dresses for girls and suits for boy are priced as fairly as possible at The Briar Patch. However, we are now offering a coupon code online for purchases of five or more ensembles, girls’ dresses or boys’ suits, at full price. Please click here to make note of this coupon code for your family or friends. Other coupon codes are also available and change randomly, so check back often.

The Briar Patch May be Relocating our In-Town Shop & Online Office As the holidays approach and deadlines for delivery become more urgent, we want to communicate that both our in-town shop and online store offices may be moving to a new location in the next few months. For this reason, we are not stocking as deeply as usual. Please be sure to communicate with us concerning any orders that require urgent delivery more swiftly than our standard 10-14 working days. This is especially important for multiples in girls dresses or boys suits, this means more than one item is ordered in the same style and color. For such orders, it is our policy to order directly from