Dinosaur Designs Sample Sale Report

Hi peanuts,

It's just depressing when I can't think of anything nice to say about a sample sale. At first I wasn't sure if this actually qualified as a sample sale as it's being held in Dinosaur Designs' regular retail store at 211 Elizabeth Street. But it was. The regular merchandise has been cleared out and all of the jewelry is in plastic bins while the homegoods are arranged on the tables and shelves around the store. 

Let me just get this out of the way. I've never been the biggest fan of Dinosaur Designs. As someone who dabbles in art, I'm not going to be impressed with clay or resin jewelry and all of the jewelry at this sale is made of resin, regardless of whether it was made in Australia or not. I just find their jewelry very big and clunky and cheap-looking.

But on to the positives. You will certainly find something at every price point at this sale. If your taste runs to the cheap and whimsical, I'd head to the ring section first. "Classic Resin Rings" are $5 each and if you buy 5, it will only cost you $20. At first I thought the rings were just amorphous, abstract shapes but upon closer inspection I found asteroid shapes full of craters, roughly molded scarab beetles, a pair of lips, and faceted gemstones among the amorphous, abstract shapes. The rings aren't arranged by size so you'll just have try them on and see if anything fits.

There were also these eye-shaped Christmas ornaments which you could use as a dashboard decoration or restring with a longer chain to make a pendant. They were selling for $10.

I realize you can't see much with all the plastic but this bin of necklaces was mainly priced at $20 per necklace. It featured an assortment of styles, all fairly colorful and large. There were large disc pendants as well as a small array of dangling pieces.

The other two bins of necklaces featured more expensive "specialty" pieces which were mainly around $100-$120 though I didn't check all of the tags.

These necklaces in particular struck me as a little Wilma Flintstone but as I already mentioned, Dinosaur Designs isn't really my style. However, there was another bin of $50 necklaces that were fairly similar to these so if these styles do appeal to you, I would probably suggest opting for the less expensive version. 

There was a large array of bangles. I'd say there were maybe seven bins of them. They were mostly these oversized bangles but there were some thinner bangles closer to the register. The bangles were marked as $20-$40 depending on the bin. There was a nice variety in style and color. Again, this style of jewelry is just not appealing to me.

As for the home goods, there was also a wide range of price points and styles. Prices ranged from $10 all the way up to I think $50 for the larger items. I was informed that these bowls were food safe but not dishwasher safe and not meant to be used for very hot foods or liquids. 

$50

The sale will continue through tomorrow. Hours are 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.