Craigslist and Ebay June/july 2011

I hardly ever post, so joining into this linky party, http://mydeartrash.blogspot.com/ , is inspiring me to blog more regularly...Thanks Kelly and Laura! I had another good week.

I ended up selling my 2nd Ethan Allen recliner...I bought the pair at a garage sale for $25...for both!!!! I sold one last week for $120, and I sold the leather one this week for $100.

I also sold a Hampton Bay ceiling fan that we bought about 5 years ago. The box has never been opened, and it's been sitting in our garage. So I listed it for $85, and sold it for $75.

The Michael Kors watch I had mentioned last week ended up selling for $83.99.

Last Thursday I hit the Goodwill for $1 day. Everything with a yellow tag, the color changes weekly, was $1. I spent $20, and came home with some great stuff. The Friday prior, I hit the jackpot at a garage sale buying about 20 tshirts, lots of Hollister, and probably 8 Chico's and J.Jill pieces. I spent $44 at that garage sale and had to make 2 trips to load all the clothes in my car!

My top sellers this week have been:

 This Talbot's women's blazer sold for $14.99, I paid $3.

 These Stein Mart espadrilles were new when I bought them at Goodwill for $4, they sold for $11.50

This Chico's skirt sold for $10, I paid $2.

Here a few things I learned this week: 

-when shopping on GW dollar days, you must not go hungry or grumpy or short on time...be prepared to work.

-3 of the 20 items I bought needed to be fixed/mended. it's hard to inspect every square inch of a garment when in the aisle with 5 other people looking for yellow tags. I have a sewing machine, so I managed to repair 2 of the 3. When I listed the 3rd item, I just took pics of the flaws, and edited them at picnik.com, and added arrows to point out the flaws. Therefore the buyer will know what they are getting.

-when I start the packing process, I took out all of the sold items, and sprayed them lightly with Febreze. It just made me feel better. :)

Thanks again girls for inspiring me to make extra money for my family. I have already earned just enough to pay for one of my daughter's summer school classes....almost. The fees are just under $2000, and with the money I've earned selling in the past 2 weeks, and the OT I worked last weekend, I'm short a few $100. What an accomplishment!!! My twins are turning 21 in December, and my next goal is to earn and pay for our trip to Vegas. Now I'm not stressed or worried about how we are going to pay for the trip. Now have a plan.

I can't wait to see what everyone else has sold this week!!!
~natalie

Craigslist & Ebay June 2011

I've been inspired by the girls over at My Dear Trash , thanks girls!!! I have sold on ebay in the past. But I've never done it with a goal in mind. Kelly at My Dear Trash, has inspired me to set a goal, and then work towards it. I have twin daughters that are going to be seniors at the University of AZ. They are both taking 2 summer school classes starting in July. That means that we have to come up with an extra $4000! So with only 3-4 weeks to earn this money, I started looking around my house to see what I could list. I realize that I will not be able to come up with the entire amount, but anything is better than nothing!

So here is what I've sold so far:

 I bought these chairs on CL for $20 for all 4. I painted and covered the seats, and sold them for $100! My first Craigslist sale!!! I received an email regarding the chairs within a few hours of posting them!

I had this Sundance ring just sitting in my jewelry box. I bought it about 3 years ago while in Chicago. I NEVER wore it, so I decided to put it on ebay. I paid about $249. It is still in the Sundance catalog for $299. I sold it for $199!

This is an Ethan Allen recliner that I bought at a garage sale for $12.50. I sold it yesterday for $120!!!

These sneakers have been in my closet for years. I only wore them a few times. I think I paid around $65 on ebay for them. They are currently listed, and have 13 bids, and are currently at $51! *update! these ended up selling for $92.01!!!!WOW!!!!*

This Michael Kors watch is currently listed on ebay, and is at $80.99. I've had it for a few years, and I just never wear it!

I also went garage-saling last Friday, and I spent $54 on about 20 t-shirts at $1 each. Many were Hollister. I also picked up some Chico's, J. Jill and Talbots clothes. We'll see how it all goes!!!

So far I have approximately $420 in my summer school fund. I opened a new checking account at a local bank that offered $125 to open the account. So really I have $545.

Thanks Kelly and Laura for inspiring me to do this!! I think my daughters at the UofA are also thinking about selling trash!

Hope this inspires you to recycle your things and clean out your closets!!!

~natalie

sconce wall!!!

I saw this post http://www.bloglovin.com/m/2003782/210790016/fb on facebook, and I thought, "I'm going to do that!" I had everything in my closet that you see on the wall. I had 2 half-full cans of white glossy spray paint. I laid everything out first on the floor...

 This was the first plan. Then I went back into my closet, and found another piece. So this is what the final layout looked like...

This pic was taken after I spray painted everything. I didn't have quite enough glossy white, so I had to run to Wal-Mart at 9:45pm on a Saturday night. My husband was out of town, and my daughter was at a friend's house, so it was just me and Bella.

Here is the blank wall in my office:

and here is the finished wall!

I am so happy with it!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

~natalie 

i'm linking to these parties: 

http://www.thegirlcreative.com/ 

http://craftskeepmesane.blogspot.com/ 

http://makingtheworldcuter.blogspot.com/ 

http://craftomaniac.blogspot.com/

http://skiptomylou.org/

http://sewcando.blogspot.com/search/label/Craftastic%20Link%20Party 

http://creatingahouseofgrace.blogspot.com/2011/04/twice-owned-party_25.html 

Thrifting/Garage Sales - March edition

I've decided to start a new series. I love to see what other bloggers find when thrifting and going to garage sales. So I am going to start posting what my 'finds' of the week are. 

This first picture is the result of an estate sale and a couple of garage sales. I spent about $25 total for all of this. There are 3 vintage cameras that I bought for my daughter who is a junior in college and a media arts major. She already has about 3 cameras in her vintage collection, so she'll be thrilled with these! 

I got these for $15 for both. I'm sorry for the fuzzy picture. I took this pic with my iphone. I can't find my regular camera. Believe me, they have beautiful frilly detail. I think I will turn the big one into a cork board for my office. 

I also found this beautiful sofa table on Craigslist. 

It turns out the woman I bought this from is a fellow blogger!!! Here name is Laura, and her blog is My Dear Trash at http://mydeartrash.blogspot.com/

It was so great to meet her and now follow her blog. Go on over and check her out!!!

New look for my Blog!!!

Today I discovered "Cute 'n' Cool Blog Stuff by Itkupilli. Here is the link to the website  http://cutencool-itkupilli.blogspot.com/ 

 I downloaded the background and banner. Thank you so much!!!

The background I chose was the Shabby Turquoise Damask, it can be found here: http://itkupilli-cutencool.blogspot.com/2009/06/3-column-minima-shabby-turquoise-damask.html. 

The banner I chose was the Venice Header, it can be found here: http://cutencool-itkupilli.blogspot.com/2009/09/venice-header-for-3-column-minima.html .

I'm very happy with how it looks! What do you think? I appreciate any comments/suggestions you may have!!!

Goodwill frame to Jewelry Holder

I knew I wanted to make myself a jewelry holder for my closet. I had this very narrow area of wall available, and I wanted to have my jewelry displayed instead of in drawers, so I would wear it more often. So I had my eye open for a long narrow frame whenever I was thrifting. I came across this frame at Goodwill and picked it up for $4.99. The back had a stamp that said some brand of calendar. 


I started off by removing the back board, wiping down the frame with a wet paper towel, sanding it a little, then I sprayed it with gray primer, then used Gloss Black spray paint. I'm in a glossy black phase right now! 

Next I used a spray adhesive on back board and laid down a layer of batting. Then I used a remnant of material that I had left over from another project that I will post soon. I secured the material to the back of the board with khaki-colored Duct tape that I had in my tape drawer. It's not pretty, but who is going to see it? I used Hardware Cloth from Home Deport for the inside...it's like chicken wire, but the openings are 1/4 inch squares. Here is a link to what I bought: http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202024052/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 . Please use leather gloves when cutting the hardware cloth. I measured the inside of the frame and added about 3 inches to each measurement, because I wanted the wire to 'pouf' out a little from the frame. 

You can kind of see what I mean from the above picture. I didn't pull the cloth/wire tight. This is what I did, with the gloves on, I bent the end of the wire/cloth on the shorter sides up about 1.5 inches, then I did the same to the longer sides. Then using a staple gun, I stapled the long side into the side of the frame. Then I moved to one of the shorter sides, and so on. It was not hard at all. 


 I also bought little cup hooks that you see screwed in to the bottom of the frame and S hooks. I wear a lot of hoop earrings, and I wanted something to hang them from. I spray painted the cup hooks, S hooks and the hardware cloth with Krylon Brushed Metallic spray paint in Sesame Shimmer. It's a beautiful champagne color. The cup hooks were an ugly yellow-brass color, and the hardware cloth and S hooks were silver. It's a subtle change, but totally worth it.


Then I carefully placed the back board back in place, and while holding it upright on the table with one hand, I staple-gunned the back on with the other hand. I didn't want to lay it flat because I didn't want to push in the wire/cloth. Then I just used a ruler to figure out the spacing for the cup hooks along the bottom. I started the holes with a small nail, and then just screwed in the hooks. The back board already had a hole in it for hanging, so I didn't need to add any hardware to the back.

Thank you so much for stopping by...doing tutorials is new to me, so please be patient!!! I will improve, I promise!!!

favorite blogs by category

This is my confession: I abuse post-it notes. Okay, I said it...I am one of those people who has stacks of random notes on my desk. I've designated a little basket for my notes...today I was going through my notes, and I came across a list that I had started of different blogs I liked. I wanted to put this list somewhere. I'd like to a create tab on my blog someday, but for right now, I'm just going to make it a blog post. So this post, is just going to be a small list of the blogs I've written down. I plan to update this with more blogs as I come across them. 

Thanks for stopping by!

AZ BLOGS: refreshed decor - http://alifeofblue.blogspot.com/p/shop-refreshed-decor.html#

amber lane living - http://amberlaneliving.blogspot.com/
a life of blue - http://alifeofblue.blogspot.com/

twice lovely - http://twicelovely.blogspot.com/
 

PAINTED FURNITURE:  btween blue and yellow - http://btweenblueandyellow.blogspot.com/

DECOR STYLE: young house love - http://www.younghouselove.com/
house of grace - http://creatingahouseofgrace.blogspot.com/

owls, owls, owls....

So I guess you could say that I'm not that great at blogging...it has been months since my last post. I work full-time, and sometimes more than 40 hours a week, so completing projects and then blogging about them can be a challenge. I was thinking about it the other day though, and realized that I had done quite a few owl projects over the last few months...

I have twin daughters that are juniors in college in Tucson....which is about 2 hours away from home. They live in a condo, and they like owls. So as I've recently become a thrifter/garagesaler, I am always on the look out for owl items. Usually, I just spray paint them with Krylon gloss White...I will always use a primer...whatever white primer I have on hand. I've found that just about anything will look modern and clean with a fresh coat of high gloss white spray paint...here are a few of the projects I've completed:

vintage Owl Mail Holder:

from the same garage sale, vintage owl bookends

this week I found this owl pair at Savers

and yesterday, I found this little guy at the Salvation Army...I'm including a pic of the bottom, where you can see the signature of the artist, Nell G 1974. I didn't paint over that, I thought it was cool.

So that's my little blog post. I am going to try to post more often...I've been trying to fix-up the header. Soon, I'll figure out how to change the color of the text on the header so you can actually see it!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm linking up to this party:

http://funkyjunkinteriors.blogspot.com/

~natalie