St. John Yard Sale Weekend

It was a great yard sale weekend last weekend. As I mentioned in the last post, we hit a lot of duds the week before and I was feeling a little discouraged, but last week was much better! The very first yard sale we hit was very close to our home. I almost didn't go because it was so close to home and I wanted to hit the road and head into town. My mom convinced me to check it out, and I am super glad I did! I found seven St. John skirt suits! This is a brand I know about from watching States Place videos on YouTube. I paid $10 each for them, and I have them each listed on Ebay for $100 - $300 each depending on the quality. A couple of them were flawed, but I think I can still make a decent return on each of them.

The next yard sale we went to was a church yard sale. I love church yard sales because I always find really great stuff for awesome prices and this was no exception. One of the first things I found was a scanner! I've wanted one of these for a couple of years now, since I started Amazon FBA, but didn't want to pay a ton of money for one. I've already tested it, and it works great!

Some other finds from this yard sale included some clothing, a pair of shoes, a vintage Sesame Street Scrabble game, a Nintendo game, and some other odds and ends. Mom also picked up some things for her sewing projects. The best part is that we paid $14 for everything!! Church yard sales are the best!

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Small reselling complaint: Mercari's shipping options haven't been working on Google Chrome this week, so cross posting has been a bit of a challenge. I know that Mercari's desktop version is new and that they are constantly updating and working on it, but I hope this glitch gets fixed soon!

In other news, I sold two bundles of three items each on Poshmark yesterday! I love these bundle sales because they are often filled with slow moving items that may not be worth the shipping by themselves unless the buyer really wants them. My sales were slow during the last week because I went without internet and didn't have any activity for a couple of days, but sales picked back up yesterday after having some activity in my store. It's amazing how inactivity can effect your sales. It doesn't seem to matter how many listings I have up. If I don't share or post new things every day, I don't get sales. Odd.

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"Nice is different than good." -Into the Woods

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Over and out.

Vintage Clothing Yard Sale Haul

I was able to go to yard sales on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the week before last. The weather was really nice and there were plenty of yard sales in my area. I wasn't expecting to find one on Thursday, but there was one open on my way home from class. I was able to pick up a couple of pieces of clothing and a steam cleaner for myself. We just purchased a steam cleaner for $100 at Lowe's because we really needed it, so of course I found this one for $5 right at the beginning of yard sale season. We always joke that whenever we purchase something for full price, we find a good coupon deal for it the next week, of course!

On Friday it seemed I was hitting many duds. Mom was working Friday, so I was only yard saling in our area. When she is off from work we usually venture out a little farther and find better stuff. I picked up a few pieces of clothing, including some jeans that I managed to get home, steam, photograph, and list, and it sold the next day! I've been trying to get my inventory photographed and listed the week (if not the day) I purchase it as not to build up a "death pile."

On Saturday, Mom and I went out to yard sales farther from home. We didn't have much better luck than I had the day before, but I was able to pick up a few things. We came upon a retirement home rummage sale and found several things. As we were browsing, two women came up to us and told us that all of the clothes were a quarter each and that when we got to the front we could make an offer and they would make a deal. They were very nice! We managed to find a few things and went up to the lady checking people out. As she was counting our items up, she was adding $2-$4 per item as she was counting. When we told her that the ladies on the floor told us the clothes were a quarter a piece, she was very skeptical and didn't believe us. After a little while of her miscalculating our purchases, I counted them out and paid. We ended up paying a little more for the items that we were comfortable with, but we were eager to get out of there. It's too bad one of the nice ladies on the floor wasn't checking people out!

The best yard sale we hit on Saturday had vintage clothing for $1 a piece. I picked up several coats, jackets, and some odd pieces I picked up to research later. I paid $10 for 8 items at this yard sale, one of the nicer coats was $2. I didn't research any of the brands while I was there, I decided that $1 wasn't too much of a risk, and if I sell one piece I will make my money back on the whole haul. I enjoy these unique pieces, and $1 was a great price. This is why I greatly prefer yard sales to thrift stores because I can often find interesting pieces for dirt cheap. These pieces would have been $10+ at a thrift store.

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"Nice socks." - Neal Shusterman (Unwind)

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Over and out.

Rainy Yard Sale Day

It was a very rainy weekend here. My class was canceled Friday, so I decided to go yard sale. Since I had a long essay to write for my Literature class, I wanted to hit all of the yard sales on Friday so I could focus on school work over the weekend. Several of the yard sales were canceled because of the rain, but I was still able to hit a few. (Of course I forgot my rain coat!)

The first yard sale I hit was a $5 fill a bag sale. The person holding the yard sale said that his grandmother had recently passed away and she was a collector/hoarder. There were a lot of vintage Disney items, and it was a really fun dig. I only picked up a few items because a lot of her stuff was really dirty and hadn't been stored properly. I did manage to pick up an Aladdin Micky Mouse lunch box, a Micky Mouse Etch-a-Sketch, a Sesame Street pillow case, a Raggedy Ann plate from the 60's, and a set of Star Wars cup lids. I paid $7 at this yard sale, $5 for a bag and $2 for the bag of Star Wars items. This wasn't anything super exciting, but it was a fun dig and I enjoy finding unique items like these.

At another yard sale, there was a large box of what I thought were sheets. As I was digging through them, the lady running the yard sale informed me that they were clown pants that her husband's father and grandfather used to go "clowning" in. I loved that she was using the word "clown" as a verb! They were all handmade with nice vintage fabric. There was a ton of fabric to each suit, and she only wanted a $1 a piece. I picked up three, that were not worn out, to recycle the fabric for Mom's sewing projects. This was a total win!

Part of the fun of yard sales is that I usually come out of each week with an interesting story. Even though I don't always find something awesome, going to yard sales is always an adventure.

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"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive not after he is dead" -F. Scot Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)

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Over and out.

Tuesday Thrift Finds

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I don't have any classes on Tuesdays, so when Mom came home from work yesterday, we decided to go thrifting. At the first thrift store we went to, I found a coat for me that was half off at $2.50. I'm very picky about coats and jackets, so this was an exciting find for me. I also managed to pick up a couple of pairs of shoes. One pair was was $5 and the other was $3. I'm hoping to resell them for at least $30 each. We also found a couple of nice dish towels for Mom's sewing projects.

   

I found the next thrift store to be very picked over. We looked for a while, but only found a Mary Engelbreit bag that we wanted to add to our reusable shopping bag stash. I was going to check out with just the bag when I noticed a Louis Vuitton bag in the display shelf of the checkout counter. It had a $40 tag and was half off! So I paid $20 for my first Louis Vuitton find! Plus, the cashier looked at the Mary Engelbreit bag and said that an employee must have accidentally put it on the floor because they were using it to carry stuff around, and she gave it to us! This was a super thrift experience!

The last thrift store we went to was very crowded! I picked up another $5 pair of shoes similar to those in the first thrift store. I also picked up a Columbia purse, some fabric for Mom's sewing projects, and a Yankee Candle topper. Mom found this vintage Playskool Mail Box toy. As I've mentioned before, I am on a vintage toy kick right now and have been on the lookout for them. As she was shopping with the toy in her cart, she had TWO people try to get it from her. One was a man who followed her and was saying things like, "We shouldn't be buying all of this stuff. We should just put it all back." The other guy was trying to tell her that it was damaged and had parts missing. This thrift store was very crowded and the other shoppers were vulture-like!

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I read a hack on Instagram that you can clean up a piece of clothing that has deodorant stains by scrubbing it with an inside out sock. I tried it on this prom dress and was very pleased with the results.

Before

After

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RIP Big Kitty
2006 - 2018

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"I have a masters degree in American literature. There's nothing I can't handle." - Ezra Fitz (Pretty Little Liars)

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Over and out.