My 25 Favorite Amazon Purchases in 2018
Ah, Amazon. It’s one of my very favorite places to buy things! There are some items I just won’t purchase from Amazon because they end up being overpriced or not top-notch quality, but for the most part, Amazon is where I turn to when I’m looking for something. We live over an hour’s drive away from a Target and 35 minutes from a Walmart. Some days, I make the trek with my one-year-old in tow, but I have to plan for that kind of outing and have the energy for it, haha. 🙂 Therefore, a lot of purchases I make these days are online. We definitely end up with a lot of Amazon boxes on recycling day!
Lately I’ve been loving others’ round-up posts or lists of their favorite items: things like Natalie Bennett’s favorites, children’s book lists on Everyday Reading, or Blair Lamb’s Holiday Gift Guides. I find it so fun to see what other women are loving, and it’s just plain helpful to see their favorite products or tips when you know you share things in common with them!
I feel like I’ve been creating lists on my blog for forever, but some of my favorite posts were the actual collections or round-up posts that I’ve done in the past year:
Sophie’s Favorite Books (at 14 Months)
Christmas Gift Guide for the Homebody
Christmas Gift Guide for Babies Under One
My Favorite Baby Products (Months 6-9)
55 Must-Have Books For Your Child’s Library – one of my all-time favorite collections to pull together!!
My Favorite Amazon Purchases in 2018:
Over the last twelve months, I’ve purchased items from Amazon in all kinds of categories. The items I’ve listed below are, of course, all things that I have purchased myself and have actually loved! I’ll divide these products into categories (books, home, and baby, if you want to scroll down to a particular section), and I’ll include the current prices!
** Links in today’s post are affiliate links. If you use the link to purchase, I would make a tiny commission, at no extra cost to you. Thank you, as always, for supporting Just Bee!
Books:
Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave, $23.99 // I do love Joanna Gaines, but I especially love the versatility of this book. Here, she offers advice and her tried-and-true tips for creating a space that is not only beautifully designed, but personalized for you and your taste. (Meaning, this book is still good even if you’re not obsessed with JoJo’s specific style.) Bjorn and I will be building our future home, so paging through this book and learning her tips and tricks gets me so excited! It’s a large, gorgeous coffee table book, and it helps you narrow down your own design style, and thoughtfully create your own space!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Board Book, $8.73// This book made it into a recent blog post on Sophie’s favorite books, since she loves it so much! This board book version is awesome. It still contains the fun cutouts and different sized pages, like the original book, but it’s just extra durable. So cute!
Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life, $12.55 // My dear friend recommended this to me and it’s so, so good. From the introduction: “I believe that most Christians think fondly of Jesus, are sincerely grateful for salvation, and remember his name as a tagline when they pray, but they don’t see his work and life as something to contemplate every moment of every day…What I’ll be asking you to consider throughout this book may be summarized in one simple question: In your pursuit of godliness, have you left Jesus behind?” This book reemphasizes the importance of the gospel in how it affects our everyday life. This was an awesome purchase.
Home:
Diamond Dazzle Stick, $5.49 // After spilling my old jewelry cleaning liquid in a drawer maybe a year or more ago (whoops), I’ve been on the hunt for something to clean my rings with to make them sparkly again! 🙂 I’ve been thrilled with this product – because of its price as well as the fact that it works! It’s safe to use on diamonds and other precious and semi-precious gems, and I love the built-in brush at the tip.
Great Bay Home Sherpa Holiday Throw Blanket, $32.99 // I purchased this throw in the Warm Red Reindeer design (pictured on the chair above), to be used every year as part of our Christmas decor. It turned out to be the softest, prettiest thick blanket! We used it every single day. I loved it so much I bought it as a gift for someone else last Christmas, too! There are multiple designs – and all of them beautiful! The prices vary a bit between different designs.
Free & Clear Liquid Cleanser, $7.99 // I dealt with really painful, dry hands last year for a lot of months. I’ve since learned that soap is one of the culprits that irritate my sensitive skin. After researching different soaps, I settled on this one. I love having a soap option around the house that I know won’t bother my hands!
Torani Coffee Syrup Variety Pack and Pumps
, $28.01 and $12.99 // Before these prices seem too alarming, you should know a couple things, haha: #1, we live an hour from a Starbucks/Caribou. Because of sheer distance, I’m not going to coffeeshops much. Buying syrups to have at home costs way less than purchasing $5 drinks at a coffeeshop anyway. #2, these Torani coffee syrups are basically giant! They’re huge glass bottles, not just a small sized container of syrup. They’ll last me a super long time. I use a few pumps every day to make fun hot drinks here at home, and I’m in love with our little coffee station! If you want pumps, you’ll have to buy them separately like I did, but they make all the difference in terms of convenience and that little coffee shop feel. 🙂 The Torani brand syrups taste delicious. (I’ve heard that their sugar-free syrups don’t taste as good, though.) The variety pack that I linked has a vanilla syrup, hazelnut syrup, and caramel syrup. This was definitely a favorite purchase I made this year, and I feel like I’ve barely made a dent in them!
2-Tier Non-Skid Cabinet Turntable, $29.63 // I feel like the price went up on this, but it is a great product! (I also feel it is bigger in person than it appears in the photo.) Last fall, I desperately needed a way to organized our spices because our cabinet was driving me crazy. 🙂 I love the fact that this turntable has two levels! It has made a huge difference, and I haven’t dealt with a disheveled mess in our spice cabinet ever since!
Geniani 4 Liter Cool Mist Humidifier, $39.96 // A humidifier makes a big difference for us in the winter. I run this one at night in our room. I’ve tried a couple brands of humidifiers before and this is my favorite. It’s super easy to fill up and it runs quietly.
Munchkin Miracle 360 Cup Adult Water Bottles, $29.99 for a pack of 2 // I’ve mentioned Sophie’s awesome Munchkin 360 cups in past posts. When I saw that they had parent cups, I got so excited! Just like the little ones’ version, these adult water bottles don’t leak or spill when tipped upside down. They’re great to take in the car or on the go, and they even make drinking water while laying in bed easier! 🙂 I bought the pack that has a black and a white water bottle, but they do make them in brighter colors like blue and pink. They’re easy to clean and they contain an extra seal inside the lid that the children’s cups don’t have. I use these literally every day. I love them so much!
Big Red House Oven Mitts, $13.99 for 2 // I’m a total oven mitt person. I like to be all armored up before opening the oven, haha. I own these in grey and they are great! The stripes that you see above in the photo are actually a grippy silicone type material, so you can’t really drop a pan once you’re gripping it! Love them.
Hamilton Beach Personal Blender, $14.99 // While sure, I’d love a Vitamix someday, at this point I’d rather spend my money on other things. 🙂 And this $15 blender does its job! You can’t beat that price point. It makes a generous portion, too!
Epica Stainless Steel Compost Bin, $22.95 // This little compost bin has helped us so much with avoiding a stinky kitchen trash. We use this compost bin to store any raw meat bits or fruit waste like banana peels until trash day rolls around again. In our town, we don’t get a trash bin (the big flip-top ones on wheels) so we must fit all our trash into a large black trash bag on trash day. That means I can’t just throw stinkier trash into a large trash bin in the garage all throughout the week. So having a compost bin like this, with a tight lid, really helps us not be able to smell the trash until trash day! This bin has become a workable, practical part of our trash system.
^^ You can see the shoe organizer shelf with the grey bins in the background! ^^
Grey Cube Storage Bins, $24.50 for pack of 4 // I got these as part of an organization project – probably my favorite little house project from last year! I had purchased a 4-cube organizer shelf from Target (which I got for $40 but is currently $30!!) and then bought these grey cube bins from Amazon to use in the shelf compartments. We keep our shoes in these 4 bins and it has made a world of difference in terms of how we stash our shoes! The cube storage bins are 11″ x 11″, and the cube areas within the shelf are 13″, but it is working wonderfully. It all looks so pretty together, too!
Bamboo Vegetable Brush, $7.95 // A handy little brush with stiff bristles. I love using this to scrub our veggies.
Indoor Digital Thermometer, $16.99 for a pack of 2 // These have been so useful to have around! I actually have at least 3 in the house, including one sitting in our room, but I especially love having one downstairs in the living room and one in Sophie’s room. These are simple little thermometers that stand up (almost like a little picture frame) and they show the temp and humidity level. It’s nice to monitor the temperature in the house because I don’t want to overheat the house unnecessarily during the winter, and I also know the best range for Sophie (and me) to get our best sleep at night!
Baby:
Easy-Close Baby Gate, $49.99 // I’m a big fan of this baby gate. We’ve had one at the top of the stairs for a while, and I love how easy it is (for an adult) to turn the safety lock and swing it open and closed. Sophie hadn’t shown any interest in climbing the stairs until recently, so we just got another of these gates for the bottom of the stairs. Even though I’m tall, I prefer not stepping over a baby gate (especially since we have really steep wooden stairs) and these swing gates are awesome.
Toddler Rubber Sole Boots, ~$15 // I owe this recommendation to my friend Courtney, who got a pair of these for her little one! We’d been talking about finding good winter boots for our girls and Courtney came across these ones with rubber soles! I love them because they’re lined with a soft furry material, they velcro nicely, and the soles are rubber so Sophie can actually walk in them without slipping around! I got Sophie a pair in the color Beige (pictured above) in the 12-18 month size. I’m tempted to plan ahead and snag another pair in the next size up! There are other fun colors to choose from as well.
Boo Boo Bunny, $13.94 // I got this for Sophie mostly for nostalgic reasons (I grew up with an “ouch mouse”) but it’s turned out to be a good purchase all these months later! Sophie walks everywhere now, and more bumps and trips and falls come with this stage. It’s nice to keep this little toy in the freezer, where the plastic “ice cube” part of it freezes up – then we can go over and grab it to put on a bumped head or elbow. We don’t run for the freezer every time Sophie gets a bump, but it definitely helps when she needs a little extra comforting.
My First Photo Album, $14.95 // I’ve listed this in Sophie’s current favorite books post as well! I love how many protected pages there are for you to slip 4×6 photos in for your little one to look at, and there’s a cute mirror on the last page.
Grabease Self Feeding Utensil Set, $14.50 // I saw that these are currently unavailable at Amazon but since I got ours from Amazon, I’m listing them here anyway. 🙂 I just linked to the actual Grabease site. Sophie uses her Grabease fork and spoon every single day – actually, for every meal. They’re designed thoughtfully and are recommended by occupational therapists. If you have a little one who is transitioning between finger foods and older-kid utensils, these are amazing! Sophie has a lot of success feeding herself with them and it makes her so proud!
Britax Advocate ClickTight Convertible Car Seat, $349.99 // I love this car seat so much!! Britax has the highest safety ratings and I’m glad we picked this one. It’s a big, heavy convertible car seat but it is easy to install and take out of different cars! 🙂 Definitely one of our best Amazon purchases last year.
Silicone Baby Bibs with Food Catcher Pocket, $19.99 for a pack of 2 // I honestly don’t know what we’d do without these! (Well, we’d have extra messy meal times, haha.) Sophie drops a lot of food when she eats and these bibs save the day! They’re cute and super easy to clean off!
CoolBELL Baby Diaper Backpack, $31.99 // We love this thing! A backpack diaper bag has made life a lot easier. For such a low price, it’s super sturdy, roomy, and cute! We take it everywhere.
Wild Republic Blue Jay with Authentic Bird Sound, $8.49 // These are too fun! Sophie’s obsessed with birds right now and loves mimicking their calls. For Christmas, I put these on her wishlist and her grandma got her a beautiful robin one. I love the fact that it has an authentic recorded bird call when you squeeze it! Now Sophie owns a blue jay and a robin. I wish they had a mourning dove, because she loves the doves in our backyard, but there are something like 39 other birds they sell! It’s a big selection and such a neat way to teach and enjoy bird calls!
Whew! If you made it to the end of this list, thank you for sticking with me!! 🙂 I hope that you enjoyed seeing my favorite Amazon purchases. Hopefully you found some helpful recommendations, whether it was in the home, books, or baby category!
Did you get any of these items last year? What were some of your favorite purchases last year? I’d love to hear!