Goodbye July!

I cannot believe that today is the last day of July! Summer seems to be going by so quick this year and I'm sad we only have a month to go. It's been so nice actually having decent weather this year too. Last year summer only lasted about 2 weeks in total weather-wise but this year so far has been wonderful!

Sales this last week of July weren't too shabby, they were consisant and only had 2 or 3 days without a sale. I also had a couple of small sales on Facebook, everything helps!

Finally one of my Stitch plush sold! Too bad it wasn't the backpack. I did get a low offer on the backpack but I'm holding out for more, after 30 days we'll see if we lower it. This guy cost me $2 at a yard sale and he sold for $11 (eh...) plus $18 shipping to Australia!

 I accepted a lower offer of $29.99 on this Toyko Starbucks mug and the buyer was from Austria so he paid for the extra shipping too. Hope it makes it there safely, I always get nervous shipping breakables overseas.

I've had this Tommy Bahama shirt for a while but never got around to listing it. Glad I finally did as it sold for $24! Note about Tommy Bahama, watch for fakes, TB is faked a lot. The quality in the sewing on these shirts is wonderful (hence the high retail prices) and you'll notice with genuine TB shirts that the design matches up with the button line. Other knockoffs will have mismatched seams on the front so if you see a Tommy Bahama at the Goodwill, hold it up, if the flower or leaves in the design are not matched up on the button line, put it back!

I bought little miss Hello Kitty on an impulse for $2 because she was "Tan" - if she'd have been the Build a Bear version she'd have fetched me $40, but $14.99 isn't too shabby for a small plush!

And finally, back to school shopping is in full swing right now! If you have any backpacks or new with tag kids fall clothes, get them listed this week! Make sure you add "Back to School" in your description too, it will help! I bought this Jansport on Thursday for $6 and sold it on Sunday for $23!

Unless I make any more sales tonight (not likely since I never sell more than one thing a day it seems!) that's it for July. Not a bad month profit-wise but I'm hoping for a stellar fall this year!

I want so badly to get some more things listed but we are leaving on a vacation/road trip next week for 12 days so I'm going to resist, with the exception of maybe the Little Einsteins backpack I found yesterday since its a backpack! August is a busy month for us and we are going to soak up every bit of summer we can get!

The Perfect Storm...

You know when you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach that something is going to be really really good and then it proceeds to keep you from sleeping all night because you keep thinking about it? Well that was me last night and I was up super early this morning too.

Remember the free mugs that I picked up from my neighbors a couple of days ago? Well, I realized on Wednesday that she & a few other nice ladies were gearing up for another sale this weekend and had started setting up tables and putting things out. I actually thought it started yesterday and stopped by to shop but they told me they weren't open til Friday but that I could go through the free pile if I wanted. They had added more so I picked up a couple of things and then made a mental note to be up bright and early the next morning to check out the stuff they were selling. I mean if the free pile was this good, what were they wanting money for?!

We drove by on our way home from dinner last night and I saw a bunch of vintage items & Christmas items, etc. I got excited. I actually spent a long while researching what sells well in vintage Christmas items on eBay last night so I wouldn't pass up anything by mistake! I woke up before everyone else this morning, calmly had my 1st cup of coffee and was jumping out of my skin by 8 to get down the street! I left my husband with the sleeping kids and practically ran out the door as soon as he was up!

It was everything I'd hoped for and MORE!

Lets start with what I spent money on:

I saw that the cute little elves do well in large groups on eBay. I'm collecting the Dr. Seuss beginner books for a large lot and the little box is 5 pewter figures from the Americana Collection. These items cost me $1.50.

I paid $10 for this vintage "Queen Bess" pattern Silver Plate set by Oneida Community. The lady told me her mother actually collected stamps to pay for this back when she bought it. I don't know how old it is but its in really good condition and there is a lot of pieces. I'm hoping for $100, maybe more, I'll keep you posted if it sells.

This is Mr. Mike from the original Toy Story movie. He was stuck in a box of games and had $5 written on the box. The lady told me it was from another yard sale left over so she'd take $4 for it. The seal on the box was broken, so I think that he was taken out of the box but never actually used. The only other 2 of these that I could find on eBay completed listings that had the box or were new in box, sold for $221 and $300. CHA-CHING! Seriously if I can get $200 for this guy I will be so happy! That will be my best score ever, if it sells for that much! Too bad theres a big $5 written on the box!

So $15.50 spent on a few items. Now lets look at what else I picked up from the huge FREE pile! They added a bunch more and said they got tired of going through things and just threw stuff over there and to have fun going through it that there were probably some good items in there...

I grabbed a few cool toys from the 90's. Remember that show "Dinosaurs"? Not the Mama! That's Robbie, the brother dino! The back of Snoopy's head is a rotating comic and the other items are just random and fun.

This is a shoe box full of vintage Christmas items and other kitschy things. It's going to take me a while to go through it all and see what I have. Most of it will probably get listed as craft supplies on my Etsy shop. There's also some super cool retro fabric, a couple of mugs, a cute frame and a lot of new in package craft items!

Sitting in the free pile was also this very cool wood crate full of jars. There's a few large canning jars and a ton of smaller vintage jam jars. Since I'm making jam this weekend it was perfect and really I picked up the crate because I've been looking for one.

So there you have it, I'm in yard sale heaven right now and can't wait to start getting these things listed! Especially Mr. Mike, I just need some "C" batteries to make sure he works! Sorry for another super long post, hope you all have a great weekend!

Free is Always Fun!

**Upadate** Wow! I just noticed that this was my 600th post! Awesome-sauce!

I love finding items for free off the side of the road! I love it even more when I can turn that free item into a few bucks!

We were out of town last weekend but one of the residents on our street had a garage sale I guess and when we got back there was a box marked FREE out at the end of her driveway. I wonder if she saw me digging through the box and thought I was nuts. I mean, kind of strange to be going through your neighbor's free pile when you've never even said more than "Hi" to each other in 8 years, right? I have no shame. :)

Here is what I picked out of the box!

(Please excuse the phone pic & the fact that my Dear Daughter is in the background, she was being defiant. Isn't 4 a great age?! HA!)

I picked up 3 mugs, 2 red plastic vintage-y cups & 2 kids cups that aren't pictured. There is a Sandra Boynton mug on the right, its in ok condition but I'm going to clean it up and see if it sells. Doesn't look like this one will make me more than a couple bucks if I'm lucky. I just learned about Boynton mugs a few weeks ago. We love her kids books in our house!

The mug on the far left is a Fitz & Floyd "Coq du Village" cup. It's a litte scratched on the inside but the design on the front is wonderful so I will probably list it for about $15-$17. Not bad for FREE though!

The mug in the middle is a bit of a mystery I'm hoping someone out there might know about. It's a pottery mug with glaze so it could have just been someone's home project, but the flower is really beautiful so I am not sure it could be good but I can't seem to find anything about it. The signature on the bottom is hard to make out, I think it says, "Cullan" or "Collan" or something like that! Any one who has seen this before, please comment!!

Its going to be another warm day so we'll probably hit up Value Village when the baby wakes up from his nap for some A/C! I have a 30% off my whole purchase coupon so watch out, things could get crazy!

Ups & Downs

Well I feel like after I posted last week about not having any sales for 10 days I got 6 sales in 5 days, which was great! Now all of a sudden, nothing again. My thoughts are that A: eBay's doing a lot of updates to their search engines and things are NOT working (Please fix these problems soon eBay!) and B: it's summer and people are at the beach, not their computers so I just need to stop complaining and gear up for a busy (hopefully) fall selling season.

I'm trying to find "Back to School" items and get them listed this week because now is the time, August is the back to school prep month so get that stuff up there so it can be visible and I usually leave space in my titles for "Back to School".

I have found a lot of good plush and toys lately. Last week I got the Stitch backpack and then in another thrift trip I found a Blues Clues play house, a Little Einsteins character plush and a very large Talking Mushu Dragon from Mulan which is apparently super rare and there's a completed for recently that went for $75. I gotta get that one listed soon too. We were out of town last weekend so I have to get back into listing tomorrow so I can make some money and get that inventory moving out my door!

Here's what sold last week: A couple were awesome sales and the rest were small, but small is good because it means things are out of my pile and onto their new homes!

Oneidacraft Lasting Rose Flatware Set - Paid $5 at a garage sale.

 I've sold a few loose pieces of flatware but this was my first "set" and I listed it at $89.99 OBO. I got an offer for $56 so I countered with $60 to cover shipping costs. Luckily the buyer was in CA so it was only about $8 to ship and I'm happy with my profit on this especially since it wasn't really a complete set.

My Little Pony strikes again. This time it was a vintage Pony Purse. I picked this up at a yard sale along with a purple pony & Dream Castle accessories for $2. I previously had sold the pony & accessories for $28 so when this sold at auction for $10.49 I was fine with it. There were about 20 watchers so I got my hopes up that it would go for at least $20 something but alas you can't win big all the time. It was all profit so I am good with what I got and off it went to the Netherlands today! (buyer paid $10 shipping also.)

 And KEEN strikes again as well! I got these at a fancy thrift store in the mall (a thrift store in the mall?! what?!) for $7.50. Originally I got them for myself but I like my Keen flip flops much better so I listed them and they sold for $44.99 with free shipping! They fit in a padded flat rate mailer.

Backyardigans Bobblin Big Top Circus Characters - Paid $.25 each at garage sale.

 I originally thought these might be on par with the Little Einsteins figure replacements but alas, nope. It took a couple months but these finally sold the other day for $6.99 and the buyer paid $3 extra for Priority shipping to get them to her in time for a birthday cake decoration. Luckily the postal service didn't fail me and they made it a day early and I got fantastic feedback from the buyer. She says the cake turned out super cute too!

Disney Store Mulan Lucky Cricket Beanie - Paid $.50 @ thrift store.

 My little lucky cricket must have been lucky because she sold pretty quickly for $7.99 with free shipping. Not a big profit but when I brought it home I thought it would become my daughter's because they just don't seem to be selling on eBay right now. Mine still had both tags attached though so that must have been why it sold & I'm happy with my tiny profit!

prAna is one of those REI brands to always be on the lookout for. I have consistantly sold prAna over the years for a decent profit but only if I can pick it up for cheap or new with tags. I paid $4 for these at a senior center thrift store a while back. They took a while to sell but finally did for $14.99 with free shipping. Again, not a huge profit but it's all about getting my inventory sold right now!

Wow this post ended up much longer than I thought it would, sorry! Hope everyone had a great weekend and has great sales this week, hopefully I'll get another rush of sales this week, fingers crossed!

Craigslist Rocks!

I just have to say I love this little reseller blogger community we are part of! I randomly came across THIS post from Late Night Coffee two days ago. I have a few Stitch plush right now that just don't seem to be selling so had I come across one of these at a garage sale or thrift I may have passed right over it.

Now I sell a lot on Craigslist but I also randomly surf CL in the area I live in or areas I will be traveling to when I have free time, usually during naptime, for Disney items & other BOLO things like Little Einsteins, Blues Clues, etc. I once picked up a set of brand new Wiggles dolls for $20 in an area I was traveling to and then flipped it the next week for $75 on eBay. Sometimes people are just trying to clean house and they don't know what they have so up on Craigslist it goes! This is also a great place to source cheap items when its not garage sale season.

Well the same day I saw that post I was also doing my random monthly(ish) searches on Craigslist. I typed in Lilo & Stitch, hit search and low and behold, what do I see??

A Stitch Backpack from Disneyland - this is one of the two that do really really well, like I am going to list him tomorrow for probably $75 or $85 and let it ride! How much did I pay? FIVE BUCKS! Yep, $5 and I had to drive a little out of my way to pick him up. But the nice thing was I was already 1/2 way there because I was selling some jeans to another buyer and I just had to call and arrange a meet up. I usually don't like going to people's houses off CL, creepy, but this was the middle of the day and we met outside. His kid was even playing baseball in the driveway so I felt ok about it!

As the title states: Craigslist Rocks! I'll let ya'll know if he sells!

What is Going On?!

It has been officially 10 days since my last sale on eBay. WHAT?! NO FAIR!! (Kicking and throwing a tantrum in my head!) I would really like to be selling some of this stuff I've collected soon since we have a trip next month and a trip in November that I really would like to save up for. Plus the fact that I want some stuff out before I bring in more stuff!

Anyway, in hopes to possibly kick start something I got 8 listings done today, which is pretty good for me! I actually have a whole other big pile of items to get listed but I am not sure I'll have a chance to take pics today, maybe tomorrow.

Come on people, buy my stuff!

On another note, its hot here, not super hot but hot for Seattle and for those of you who live in parts of the country where central air is a requirement, most homes in Seattle have no A/C. We generally don't need it except for about 2 weeks every year where it gets relatively warm and humid and we all wish for rain again. (Not me, I love the summer!) But my point is that its almost 80 degrees in my house right now since our window a/c unit is in the basement and not hooked up right now so I loaded up the kiddos and we went to a couple of thrift stores, which lucky for me, are nicely air conditioned!

Isn't this vintage wooden Playskool puzzle cute?! I love vintage items, the box actually is the cutest part with its bright colors and the puzzle has a real compass on it! Unfortunately it's missing the Rhode Island piece but I'm hoping that wont affect its sellability too much. I picked it up for $2.

I also grabbed a pair of New with Tags Boden maternity jeans for $4. From the looks of it after the purchase I may not make much on those but I figured it was worth a shot, people are always pregnant and Boden is a great brand so fingers crossed. I also got another pair of kids Keen's for $5.99 and a couple of books.

Now I must get back to listing and hoping that I make a sale on some of my treasures because it's looking like a perfect garage sale weekend!

This Week's Sales!

Well I didn't get many sales this week but the few I got were good ones so I'm a happy camper. We are currently over in Leavenworth for the rest of the week, been here since Tuesday so I haven't been listing at all. When I get home on Monday I have a whole stack of items to get up for sale and hopefully make a litte money!

I tried to go garage saling here in town today since last time was such a great success but I guess people don't really do Friday garage sales much because there was only one and it was insanely over priced. Things I would expect to pay $2 tops for at a rummage sale were priced at $15 - um no. We'll see if I have any time tomorrow morning to run out for a bit but my son is turning a whole year old tomorrow and we are having a big family party that I will be sure to post pictures of next week! I can't believe he is turning 1 and I'm a little worried about this party because we have about 30 people coming over to our tiny place for a party on the patio and it's going to be over 100 degrees outside! Eek! Wish us luck, we are going to need it!

Well onto my 3 sales...

This was a Facebook sale that I happened to post last minute before leaving for our little trip on Monday. I was going to eBay them but I didn't feel like putting the effort in to taking a bunch of photos and cleaning the scuffs off! I picked them up at a garage sale for $1 and sold them for $7. Not a bad profit and probably about the same as I'd have gotten on eBay after fees.

This is Cinderella's castle - the Polly Pocket version from the 90's. Vintage Polly's do really well on eBay. This was in a big bag of clamshells and Polly's that I picked up at the Children's Hospital thrift store a couple of months ago for $5. My daughter has been playing with the other clam shells non-stop so I figure I'll let her keep them for a while and when she stops playing with them then they'll go up on eBay. Probably around Christmas time I'm assuming. Anyway, the castle ended up going for $41.99 with free shipping. Shipping was a bit more than I'd hoped for at about $10 because it was such an odd shape. Oh well, I'm still happy with my profit!

And finally... the Chaco's! Remember my post a couple of weeks ago about going garaging over here in Leavenworth? Well you can read about it HERE. I came across these sandals and new they were a sure sale but I only had $15 left on me and 3 sales left to go to, so since the lady wanted $12 for them, I left them behind. I didn't end up finding much else at the other sales so I sent my husband back for them an hour or so later. He picked them up for $9, a little high for a garage sale, but like I said, I knew it would be a good sale. I finally got them listed last week and they sold within a few days for $67.99 with free shipping! I was able to fit them in a flat rate padded mailer for $5.10 and off they went to a mom who had a son heading to camp this weekend!

Always go with your gut feeling. I couldn't stop thinking about those sandals (I LOVE my Chaco's,  paid $100 for them about 4 years ago and I wear them almost every day in the summertime.) and had to go back and get them; good thing they were still there when my hubs went back!

I got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates!

Well our garage sale was kind of a bust this weekend; it was terrible weather and you can't win them all. I did make about $30 and only sold about 10 things so what I did sell was good stuff and my sister made some good money also; about $150 plus about $175 in stuff we sold on Craigslist before the sale. This was a sale to help her get rid of some of the junk around her place before she moves and we definitely accomplished that so I can't really complain. Although a little more than $30 would have been nice for a weekend's worth of work!

Anyway - I had to share this little clip of my daughter riding around on her garage sale find from last week! She and my mom spotted those puppies from the car and I picked them up for a whopping 50 cents! (And of course the baby is walking now and wants to be a part of whatever Big Sis is doing!)

Enjoy and I hope you all had a great weekend!