Holiday Rush!

Well my busy photography season is finally coming to a close and I can breathe a little easier now! I did over 30 mini sessions since the week before Thanksgiving plus regular sessions on top of that! Needless to say I'm exhausted but my new camera will be paid for in January and 1/2 of my new website design is already paid off, thank you Christmas card photos! We even managed to get in a few good shots of my own family this year!

In online selling news things have been pretty dead with the exception of a few International sales on Etsy and odds & ends on ebay things are non existent. But I have to admit, I kind of like it. I had one instance of something being broken where I had to file a claim and it stressed me out so I'm actually a little glad things are slow on this front these days. I haven't even been buying for eBay anymore since I'm trying to cut back on things I put in my storage area although I did find some cool Star Wars Polly Pocket dolls yesterday that I may have to auction off this week!

Its also given me a good chance to really concentrate on the antique booth selling as well. November was the best month of the year for the store I sell at and the best month of the year for me as well! I had over $500 in sales! It felt really nice to do very well my first month in the big spot and I hope it continues! I need to sell more furniture, that's where the real money is! My issue these days is finding time to source. I have pretty much one chance a week to shop and I feel like the thrift store prices have skyrocketed on vintage in the last year to where there's no money left to make a profit. If I have to spend $75 on a dresser before I buy paint and put hours of labor into it there's no money left to make a profit with when I am finished. This means I'm really going to have to step up my game in the summer yard sale season and make sure I buy lots to stock up for winter months as well.

On the semi-good news side, we got a new car! This one is a Pilot and I literally fit an antique dresser in the back with my kids in their car seats as well, score for more hauling space! The downside to this? I was in a nasty car accident on the 21st of November that totaled my car. Luckily no one was injured other than myself; my kids were both in the car with me when I was hit and the only problem we've had is getting my back back to health from the whiplash. It wasn't my fault and their insurance company gave us a decent payout for my old car. I guess all things happen for a reason but man, it was not great timing let me tell you! Here's a pic of the new beast - I love it!

I'm excited for our annual Christmas trip to Lake Chelan this coming weekend! Its a great chance for us to just stop the hustle and bustle and spend quality time together as a family. Mostly because there's really not much to do there in the winter other than sit in the hot tub, make gingerbread houses and watch endless hours of Christmas movies in front of the fireplace! Oh, and theres 3 really sweet thrift stores that I'll definitely be hitting up, I need inventory!

I do apologize for not having much time to blog lately, I'm hoping in the new year that will get better. I want to show off my refinishing projects and my booth space more as well! I hope you'll keep coming by and checking in! For now, I'll wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy beginnings in 2015!

Hello Holidays!

And just like that Thanksgiving is next week! I can't believe it is here already and Christmas is just around the corner! In keeping up with tradition, Christmas continues to overshadow Thanksgiving, ultimately trying to take over the holiday all together by luring people to actually go out on shop for Christmas gifts on Thanksgiving day. No Thank You. I will be comfortably sitting at my family's homes gorging myself on too much turkey and pie to even think about heading to the big stores that evening. While I have gotten a bit of a head start on shopping, it can certainly wait until a day that is not designated for spending time with family, watching football and EATING all the food!

There's my two cents on that I guess! Now, holiday sales for me, that is another thing all together! I started early as well and listed a few Hallmark Ornaments that I grabbed cheap at the beginning of the Christmas craze and listed them right away!

 

I bought the Owl and the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown ornaments together in a grab bag at Value Village for $2.99. Charlie Brown sold the day after Halloween for $19.95 with FS and the Owl sold a couple days later for $9.95 with FS. About $17 profit after all the fees and shipping! Not too shabby!

I paid a little more than I like for Belle and the Beast at $5 but I had a gut feeling it was a good one and that it was! They sold within a little more than a week for $39.95! A great flip!

I am hoping my Dark Knight ornament that is currently listed will sell as well, fingers crossed as always! I have a few $100 items up on the internets right now that I'm really hoping someone will just have to have and it will help a lot with the Christmas budget next month!

In other good news, my first month in my bigger space at the Antique store is going swimmingly! I have already made rent for the month and beyond so we'll see if that $400/month goal will happen over the next 10 days, I'll keep you posted after I get home from gorging myself over Thanksgiving Break! Mixed in with all the selling mayhem I have also signed myself up for 2 full days of Holiday Mini sessions with my photography business! 30 families spread over 2 days and each family gets a 20 min session with 15 images all promised to be edited and delivered by the first week of December -- I have officially lost my mind. But it will be buying me a brand new shiny camera come January! The new year is going to bring a lot of new things for both businesses and I CANT WAIT!

Happy Thanksgiving All I hope it is filled with much pumpkin pie, turkey and happy family! 

Buy Vintage, Save the World

Hello! Just wanted to check in and show off my new space at the antique mall! My new space is located right next to my previous space but this one is about 3 times the size and just at the bottom of the stairs into the basement! My booth is the first space you come to at the bottom of the stairs so I am really trying to make it pop so it is eye catching and inviting. I want people to want to look through my items!

I moved 1/2 way in on Halloween and even sold a piece of furniture on Sunday so I am already almost 1/2 way to making rent for November. (Please God let this have been the right move for me!) I spent 3 hours at the shop first thing Monday morning moving in my furniture and rearranging so it looks fabulous!

Here are some photos of my space!

 Used my old spring from my crib when I was a baby as my new vintage linen display!

 Vintage Rocking Horse from the 50s that was a re-pop of a horse from the 1800s, a great piece!

 Found this chalkboard design on Pintrest, I'm hoping it will help people choose to buy instead of just browse!

 I even added a Christmas Corner! Who doesn't love vintage Christmas items!

This chair will house some homemade scarves starting next week!

What do you all think?!

I'm going to be heading back to the shop again this week to add a few more things before the weekend and will take some more photos! Are you interested in seeing more items that come into the shop and online? I started my very own Facebook page for my resale business today! I'll be featuring my booth space hopefully weekly with new additions, my refinishing projects and also fun thrift store stories and adventures, much like this blog but more often hopefully! I want to generate traffic to the store but also have a place to feature more items that I find!

If you are on Facebook, please go "Like" me and follow my page!! CLICK HERE!

Happy Hunting!

Bit the Bullet

I did it, I bit the bullet and agreed to move to a much much much bigger space at the Antique Store... The rent is going from $60/month to a whopping $230/month! Its insane, I know. But the space is about 10'x10' and the amount of junk I'm going to be able to shove in there is going to be incredible!

What I love about this shop is that its not just antiques and vintage that; its more of a "lifestyle" store so its a mix of old and new. Those cool things you see on Pintrest that you want to make or do? You can find those kinds of things or the things to make the things at the Whitehouse so I'm hoping that my new sales goal of $400/month isn't going to be too ambitious.

Right now my goal is $150 minimum and I've surpassed the goal every month except one and I've never not made rent. The lady in the space now needs to downsize so we are switching and she says last month she pulled in $600 -- my fingers are crossed and hoping I'll be able to sell more furniture in this space now as well so I can sell more of my project pieces like this chair...

This is another item that I picked up off the side of the road for free. I didn't even sand it just wiped it down, painted with an awesome mint chalk paint, distressed and waxed it; then recovered the seat with a cool coral and navy print. Mint and Coral is super in right now so I'm hoping it will do ok and sell quickly!

Speaking of selling quickly, that cute dresser I refinished from my last post sold within a week for my full $100 asking price on craigslist!

In other news, consignment sale season is finally a wrap and it was my best season yet! Between 2 sales I'm bringing home over $700 just by selling my own kids outgrown clothing and yard sale finds! I probably invested only around $50-60 in the items I bought to resell. I probably should keep better track of what I do spend but its so little that most of the time I only pay about 25 cents - a dollar per item. Now to start collecting for the spring sales! I also dropped off all of my leftover fall clothes at the consignment store today so I should be able to pull out even a little more before its all said and done!

Sorry I don't really have any exciting sales to show you from the online world lately. I have sold a few things, mostly bread and butter stuff you've all seen before but I have been getting consistent sales and I'm almost totally caught up on all the old inventory!

I'll leave you with a BOLO today; this was a pretty good find! I originally purchased it to rob it of its tiles so when I looked it up I was pleasantly surprised!

Be On the Lookout for these big guys! There are 6 games in 1 cool wood box and it is HEAVY! I paid $8 for it, luckily it was new and never used other than the box being all bunged up and it sold within less than a month (Once I finally listed it, its been sitting in my kitchen for months!) for $100 with free shipping! It was heavy though as I mentioned so the shipping was a big one at $35, after fees and shipping my profit was $42 though so totally worth the hassle of shipping! I probably could have held out for more money but I was happy to see it go it took up a lot of space!

Happy Almost Halloween!

Keep Chugging Along!

The photographer's "Tax Season" as I call it is just getting underway for the year. I call it that because so so many families contact me during this time for family portraits which is wonderful and I love doing it, but man, its busy! Most of my weekends are filled with photo shoots then my weeks are filled with editing of those shoots and not a whole lot of time for everything else! I love photography, but sometimes really wish I had a slower pace of life and a little more time on my hands to do things like this:

 

I got this absolutely awful dresser last week at the VV for 10 bucks. My friend even made the comment, "You paid for that?!" But after a little sanding, some chalk paint and a bunch of money spent on cool knobs its now an adorable little shabby chic piece of furniture that will hopefully fetch way more than $10!

 

I love painting furniture and frames and I am also having so much fun sourcing for my little antique booth and creating pieces to go in there. Things were a little slow the last month or so. I still made rent but my check was small. I get my next check today or tomorrow so we will see how September went, really hoping for another big month of sales in October especially since I'm considering moving to a bigger space. This would double my rent at least if not much more so my measly $150 sales goal every month would have to at least double that.

 

Its not a lot of money but let me tell you - the peace of mind is so much nicer! There is no shipping, no positive or negative feedback, no returns, no photo taking or even really dealing with customers at all other than my work in shop days which are lots of fun and a nice "Mommy Break"! I like it a lot and I feel like I'm shying away from the online world a little more just because the stress and pressure of selling online is so much greater. I'm constantly worried about returns and bad feedback so much so that I can't even enjoy when I get a good sale!

 

Speaking of online selling, I'm continuing to move out my inventory, they haven't been huge sales but sales non-the-less, I had 7 "Cha Chings" over the last weekend. We are hoping to move into a new house sometime in the next 6 months so I've been in the process of Operation Prep The House. Which means packing things away and trying hard not to bring more home. This is also the nice thing about having a space to sell at because when I get new inventory for the store I can just bring it there right away vs storing it til it sells!

 

Well there's my adventures in Re-Sale for the week, I'll leave you with a couple of fun costume sales I've had and hopefully you all are having great weeks as well!

 

These are 2 Disney Store costumes I bought for a slammin' deal last week. They are both in excellent condition so I messaged the lady and asked if she would sell me both costumes for $20 ($10 each). She agreed so I ran and picked them up the same day and listed them the next. Pocahontas sold within a week for $28.95 with free shipping and then Rapunzel sold the day after for $34.95! I made about a $25 profit on both costumes after shipping and fees. Not too shabby!

 

They are shipping today, both to U.S. addresses (I've had a few international issues lately so I'm nervous about them now) and I risked my Top Rated status and marked no returns on Halloween costumes because of my Little Einstein's costume debacle last year and that I have heard people return them after Halloween so hopefully for the sake of my nerves these costumes go to 2 little girls who will love and use them well!

Mugs, Mugs, Mugs!

Anyone else having a rush on mugs these past couple of weeks?! I literally have almost sold out of all my mug supply! I am actually looking in my cabinets for more to see if there are any I want to sell from my personal collection!

Bought this Starbucks Sumatra Tiger mug at a yard sale for $4 over the summer and it went into that  "save for fall bin" and got forgotten about! I usually don't pay that much for mugs at yard sales ever but this one still had the price sticker on the bottom and was brand new. Sold about a week after I listed it for $30 giving me a profit after fees and shipping of $16!

 Bought this one at Value Village about 2 or 3 weeks ago for $3, it was my inspiration to get all my other ones out and get them listed, sold within a week for $35 with free shipping! Nice $22 profit after fees!

 Ariel I have had for a while, she's too cute and I figured Naomi would love it if she never sold. She sat for about 3 months with no activity. I lowered the price to $20 last week and she sold right away. I only paid 70 cents for her at a little thrift store so it was a decent $10 profit after shipping. It was a Disney Store mug, Disney Store is just one of those sure fire brands. It may sit for a while but worth the wait!

Here's another Disney item I have had for a while! This is Pocahontas' friend Meeko. I paid $5 for him at a consignment sale over a year ago for Naomi. She never played with him after the 1st day so I decided it was time to clean out and Meeko went to a new home this week for $19.95 with free shipping to California. Not a great profit on this since it wasn't really bought for resale in the first place but I'll take a couple of bucks profit on an item over donation any day!

How was your week? I'm busy listing costumes today; hopefully its a good week or two with those!

Fall Is Here!

Well I think Fall has definitely arrived here in the Pac NW! Its been raining non stop for about 2 days straight now but the nice thing about it is that since I'm stuck inside I can get to all that work I've been putting off. I changed the Scentsy out to a fun fall scent, spaghetti sauce in the crock pot and I've been "Gettin' it done" all day which includes listing away with all that inventory I've been saving up.

I tagged 210 items for the Fall consignment sale and I'm taking literally a car load full to the convention center tomorrow morning! I am excited for this sale I have a lot of items, most are outfits and nice name brands so I'm hoping this will be a great paycheck for me. I plan on taking all my leftovers to another sale at the end of next month as well. Yard sale season was very good for clothing items this summer!

Last week I did a bunch of listing of old items and I was beyond happy to see some of them leave to new homes! I have a couple of fun items to share with you guys today!

This took me a little while to figure out but it is a French butter keeper by Emile Henry. I guess it stores butter inside the lid and doesn't need refrigeration. When I found it I had no clue what it was but I know Emile Henry can be semi-valuable so I grabbed it. This was at my favorite sale of the year at a small fire station in Central Washington. It is INSANE at this sale, I'm talking hundreds of people there at opening and people literally running to grab items they've spotted. I ran for a cute table but it got picked up and I got almost knocked over trying to get to it! The reason the sale is so popular is that it is by donation - meaning you pay what you think is fair. I picked up a boat load of items at that sale including this little guy, a bunch of vintage smalls, a mid-century ottoman, lots of toys, a pair of Keens and Chacos and much more! I paid $20 for what I purchased and then I've already sold the ottoman at my shop for $25 and now this little gem sold for $25 with free shipping! I should be able to sell the 2 pairs of sandals in the spring for at least $50 each as well.

Little Einsteins ALWAYS sells! I bought this costume last year and it sold almost overnight. Only problem - yeah it got returned for fit -- grrrr. But by the time I got it back there wasn't enough time to sell it again before Halloween. I kept it listed through Christmas with no activity or offers so I packed it away and stored it all year, which in my small house it took up good storage real estate, this guy is big! I was very happy that it sold the day I relisted it this year. I listed at $75 and it sold with a best offer of $60 plush shipping to California. It cost $15 to ship 2 states away, I told ya it was big! So glad its finally gone to a new home and its also the reason I say no returns on costumes now. 

This is one of the things I forgot I had purchased earlier this summer! We bought it for a whopping 30 cents when we were in Idaho visiting my dad and when I got home I just stowed it away. Well I'm glad I did, it sold within a day and a half for $49.95 plus international shipping! After all the fees and stuff I made just over $36, I'll take that any day! Now lets just hope I don't get a message saying it broke on its way to Costa Rica, fingers crossed!

Hope fall sales are in full swing for all my fellow resellers out there!

Balance

I am finally getting back into the swing of things now that school is in session and I'm home enough to be able to get things done! I even got some stuff listed and sold last week; which after 2 months of almost no online sales it was nice to package things again and take them to the post office!

My goal this week has been to get all the items for my upcoming fall consignment sale next week organized and tagged. I accomplished that goal today and have 1 week to go through the kids rooms and my storage areas one more time before the sale! So far I have almost 200 items going with a value of over $1,000. Granted I would only get 65% of that if 100% sold at full price but still, that would be so awesome.

Sales in the shop have been slow and steady. I have not had a month yet that I didn't make rent but I've decided I need a bigger space because my area has so much in it that I think buyers don't look much because its crowded and overwhelming. I'm working on sourcing more expensive items and things I know will be sure to sell. This week I brought in all of my fall and Halloween/Thanksgiving items and even sold a couple within the first few days. I have made rent already for September so all is well on that front!

I took time today and went through my ebay storage area, aka my sons closet! I had so much that I've just been shoving in there and waiting to list that I had forgotten about! I photographed every item I came across and now I'm going to spend the rest of the day listing listing listing! I finally feel like I have that time and motivation back so lets hope for good sales from all this awesome stuff I forgot I had!

Here's some of my sales from the last two weeks! Enjoy and happy selling!

Vintage Pendleton Blanket - Bought for $6 at Value Village - I stored without listing for a few months; finally listed it and it sold within 3 days on Etsy for $60 + Shipping to Alaska! The review said it was perfect for cold Alaska weather!

This sweet vintage hankie caught my eye at a yard sale over Labor Day weekend. I himmed and hawed over it for a while as the lady was very firm on her $5 price tag and said it was very rare. I finally caved and shelled out the $5 thinking I loved it whether I sold it or not, the graphics are just so cute! After a little research I found out it was a promotional hankie for lipstick from the 50's and was quite rare! Having never sold a handkerchief before I figured I would list it high and take a best offer. Much to my surprise it sold within a week for my full asking price of $49.95 to a buyer in CA. Proof that you should always go with your gut feelings!

 

Clancy Bear from Pottery Barn Kids - he sat and sat for a long time on ebay but finally sold to a buyer in FL for $35. Not a big profit but I was glad to see him head to a new home since he took up a lot of storage space!

 

Better get to listing, I hope I have a nice long list of sales to show you all next week!

Here We Go!!

Oh how I would love to have stayed forever... I call this my Lake Powell Easy Chair! This and a paddleboard is where I lived for 3 days at the end of our journey two weeks ago and I'm already missing the relaxation I found on that trip! Even though it was a crazy trip it was still so fun with many family memories made!

We started our trip in Vegas, then drove all night to Page, AZ. From there we borrowed my cousin's RV and drove around Arizona, New Mexico and Southern Colorado for 9 days just the 4 of us! We saw lots of cactus, cliff dwellings, Tombstone, the Very Large Satellite Array, rode the train to the top of Pikes Peak and ended our trip back in Page for 3 days on a house boat in Lake Powell! I even got to go to one antique store in Mesa where My Dear Trash sells her awesome furniture! It was a whirlwind 2 week trip and we had soooo much fun!

But Here We Go! Back to Fall, Back to School, Back to Work!

I can't believe I have a 1st Grader on my hands! She and I both were very excited for school to be back in session and I'll be even more excited next week when Mason starts his first year of preschool! Two days a week with 2 free hours? Whatever will I do?? I fully plan on those being my sourcing days since there are so many thrift stores nearby his school!

In the resale world things have been dead as a doornail for the month. I did make rent and do well last month at the shop which is good but online I sold 3 things all month two of which were on Etsy on the last day of the month! I have to say, it was kind of nice to not worry about shipping and feedback and listings but man the corner of my dining room is starting to get buried and to the point where its stressing me out to look at it so I need to get to listing and moving some inventory!

Bring on the Fall Sales!! Oh and consignment sales are coming at the end of the month too, I can't wait, I drug in all my bins for this today to start organizing and I think I have more this fall than I've ever had before -- 5 BIG bins full of clothing, costumes and toys. I am hoping for a huge paycheck from all this work!

Relief Grief and Summer Adventures

Good 'ol Wall-E made it safely to Israel and I finally received positive feedback on the transaction! I was just a little freaked out about that sale going south so I'm relieved that it is over and I can move on to the next!

I also recently was looking back at my posts and realized that I forgot to post when we lost Max at the end of June. It was right after school let out, the day after to be exact and life has been very busy the past month or so mostly because I don't like sitting around at home with him not here. He bounced back when we got him on the meds but took a huge downhill turn 1/2 way through June and basically told us he was done, it was the hardest thing I have EVER had to do in my life and would not wish that pain and suffering on anyone. Its also something you can't prepare yourself for even if people tell you over and over how hard it will be to let go of your pet.

I miss his nails walking on the floor and greeting us at the door when we come home so I have purposefully been scheduling things away from home all summer to avoid missing him so much. We've gone camping twice, taken a trip to Idaho to see my dad, a road trip to Canada, rafting in Oregon, spent a couple weeks in Leavenworth and now next week we are taking off on a 2 week trip around the southwest. Most of these are things we couldn't have really done with Max so I end up missing him so much more when we get back home and I realize that he's really not here. I have a feeling once school starts and we are home again and back on schedule that it may really sink in; hopefully its not a bad winter. We all miss him terribly.

On a brighter note, we have had an amazing summer of adventures so far, hence the absence of postings as well. I can't wait for our trip to the Southwest next week and wish we weren't flying so I could turn it into a sourcing trip, maybe a couple flat rate boxes will have to find their way home if anything amazing turns up! I am also pleased to say that I met my sales goal plus some for the month of July at the shop! I said in my last post that I'd love to see a $200 month and I think I ended up with around $205 in sales so I'm a happy camper!

Taking another little haul down to the store later today which will include this chair re-do I just finished last week; I love refinishing old furniture and was so excited to refinish this old chair and trying out upholstery for the first time! I had the paint and batting already, got the chair for free and paid about $3.99 for the cute chevron fabric!

What do you all think?!

Everything's Better In Summer!

Except online selling that is...

I've decided to kind of "Give Up" for the time being! We are just too busy playing to have extra time to list items and I'm not home much right now so I would have to have my husband ship out any items I sell anyway and we are taking a big long 2 week trip down to the Southwest in August so listing for items to sell during that time would be a bad idea! I'm going to end all of my items before we leave on that trip so that I don't risk selling something and being unable to fulfill my shipping agreement.

That being said, I have had a few awesome sales lately! Most of those were on Etsy surprisingly! I usually only sell about 1 or 2 items a month on Etsy but the last 2 weeks brought 4 really great sales so I thought I'd show them to you!

OH! and for those of you wondering, Wall E made it to Israel as per the shipping tracking info but I still have yet to receive any feedback or communication from the buyer. Its past the 2 week return period now but the last Israel issue I had came 60 days after the sale so I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be ok with this one!

 This is a beautiful mirrored tissue box that I picked up for $3 at a yard sale in May. Its kind of an old Hollywood design and that is pretty popular right now. It took a month but it sold for $45 plus buyer paid shipping! After fees my profit is $40! It's out for delivery today so I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one too that it arrives safely, shipping a mirrored box is something to make you bite your nails over so I made sure it was packaged very well before it left, hopefully no cracks!!

This is another craft kit I purchased when I got started buying them its a retro kind of pillow Crewel kit and it sold within a couple months for $15 + buyer paid shipping. After fees my profit was $12, I like selling on Etsy so much better. The customers are generally nicer and the fees are sooooo much lower to sell on there.

 

I pulled this cute little Dala horse out of a toy box at a yard sale for a quarter. It was a little beat up but the maker sticker was still on the bottom and in very teeny tiny print it read "Dansk Designs" and its made in Denmark! The 2 "D"s! Dansk and Denmark are 2 words that I always like to see together! Because of her semi-poor condition she took a couple months to sell but finally did for $26 + Shipping! I already have a positive review and my profits were an awesome $25 from this quarter toy box find! You never know what yard sale treasures you can find in such random places!

 

This one is the best flip I've had in a while! This is an Arabia of Finland Emilia dish. Usually with this pattern we see it only in black and white so I had a feeling when I picked it up that it might be something good. I dug this out of a big box of dusty junk at a pickers heaven garage sale a few weeks back. I paid $4 for a whole armful of stuff and I think it ended up working out to be about a quarter or 2 for this dish. Its on its way home to Finland, hopefully its made it safely there already actually, and the buyer paid $75 plus shipping for it! After fees and the shipping my profit was an awesome $67 - this is why I will never be able to stop "Treasure Hunting" as I call it!

 

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I'm also happy to announce that I've already made my sales goal at the Antique Shop this month as well! I worked my shift and made rent so I'll have a nice check coming in August! I'm hoping for the rest of the month to bring in even more sales. The weather here has been amazing so its bringing people out to shop and I hope I can profit on that! The shop does a big tent sale in August to celebrate the historic house's birthday and the owner says that during that month is probably the best sales dealers see all year - lets hope that's true! I'm already starting to gather and price items for the tent.

 

I'm really enjoying this booth thing as much as I thought I would. Its fun to source items for my space and ebay at the same time and I'm actually hoping a bigger space opens up before fall so I have more room to bring in bigger pieces and stuff I would hate to have to ship! Here is me working my shift last week!

 

 

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In the meantime, we are playing and having fun this summer and I'm not worrying about much else! We've been picking berries, camping, taking road trips and enjoying life as much as we can while the weather is good and we have no schedules to keep! Hope you all are doing the same!

27 Hrs

I wish that there were like 3 more hours in the day. I could really go for that these days because I feel like I have just NO time to get everything done in the day; I've been up and running early in the morning and working til late in the evening almost every day and still feel like I'm under a mountain of editing! I shot a wedding a couple of weeks ago and have a 6 week deadline to get almost 1400 images edited on top of all my other sessions that I've set up as well. Plus I want my kids to have summer fun and not be stuck at home while Mom is working all day every day! I guess I can't complain too much because it was a great pay check for me and my family and will allow us to do lots of fun summer activities but I've just recently decided that after this year I will no longer offer wedding photography. Its just too much work and pressure to make it perfect; I much prefer the family sessions and newborn sessions that take about a week or two to edit after and are so much fun to complete.

Needless to say I have had ZERO time for eBay or shopping. I was able to hit up a charity yard sale before the wedding last Saturday and loaded up with some good items for my booth and fall consignment sales for CHEAP but alas nothing great for eBay so here it sits with 27 measly listings and nothing much in the pile to get listed. I do have a few mugs and stuff waiting but with it being the summer slump and us traveling so much I think I'm mostly going to concentrate on getting the current inventory out & just wait to list everything else I may buy until we get home from our big vacation at the end of August. I did just go through this morning and lower some of my prices in hopes to move some items out the door this week.

We went camping over last weekend and it was nice to come home to a few sales. June was my worst month since February and I think July will be the worst of the year since I'm not going to list anything new unless I find something amazing that I'm sure will sell fast. My booth sales for last month weren't great either but I at least made rent for July so I'm not in the hole. They have finished up with the road construction right in front of the store so please let that mean that July is going to be a great month; fingers crossed, I'd love to see a $200 month!

Here are the few things that sold this week:

New with Tags Tommy Bahama T-Shirt - sold for a best offer of $30 to Hawaii - I paid $5 for this at a yard sale so after fees and shipping it was a $16 profit.

My plush stash has dwindled down to almost nothing which is nice but the last hold outs would be nice to see to new homes! I bought Flower for $1 back in March and she finally sold for $20 so only about $10 profit after fees and shipping. One less thing to store!

I shouldn't have bought this Tommy Bahama shirt. I did because it was the 2X size which usually does well. However it was linen which wrinkles very fast and it ended up having a small stain on the bottom so it took a long time and finally sold for $22 after a couple of months. I paid around $8 for it though so only about $6 after fees and shipping. With TB items I will only buy the shirts now at a very low price and only if they are 100% silk and have one of the fun pictures on the back like the Tiki Bar shirts or something like that. Those seem to be the only ones that do very well anymore.

Oh Wall-E! I bought him for $4 at a charity thrift store in April and he's sat for a couple months now. He finally sold this weekend for $30 and I was excited until I saw that it is headed to Israel. UGH! I vowed never to ship there again and thought I'd updated my settings to reflect that but I guess I hadn't saved it or something so the buyer was able to purchase it. I emailed the buyer (who has a VERY low FB rating) and told them to please cancel the sale within 12 hrs if it was purchased by mistake. This is what the scammer told me last year when I went through the Paypal fraud issue, that they never ordered the item. Well I did not hear from the buyer and since I didn't want to get a ding on my rating for canceling the sale I reluctantly shipped him off. My fingers are crossed that this is a genuine sale and doesn't come back to bite me in the rear in a month or so but only time will tell and you better believe I updated my shipping preferences so this doesn't happen again!

Well, that's all for now folks!! Have a very happy 4th of July and here's to good summer sales, if that is even possible!

American Girl!

Well I am still not sure if it was a good buy or not, and I'll explain why in a minute but its worth blogging about I think!

A couple weeks ago I saw a post on my Facebook group for a Kit Kittredge American Girl Doll and several outfits each priced out separately for a decent amount and at the bottom of the post they said they'd sell all pieces for $150. There was the doll, a stand, her scooter and plush puppy dog, an AG bed with bedding and an additional 7 outfits included. I emailed the lady and asked if they could take an offer of $140 and I could pick it up the next day.

My daughter got Saige for Christmas and has been obsessed with outfits and accessories for her ever since and has been saving for a bed for her for the longest time. The bed was really cute and they wanted $40 just for the bed at the priced separately rate. The way I saw it was if I paid $140 for the lot I could sell the doll for around $100 and if I got $10 for each other piece it would make it a good deal especially since the bed alone was worth about $40-50 on eBay. Of course this doesn't factor in fees and shipping at all. hmmm...

I decided to go for it and purchase the whole big lot for $140. My daughter was so excited when she got home because she thought it was all for her but I explained that just the bed and bedding was hers and the rest she could play lightly with until the pieces all sold. She seemed happy with that.

Well Kit along with her nightgown, stand, scooter and dog sold within just a couple of days so it didn't work out to well in my daughter's favor but nicely in mine! I sold her for $134.95 with free shipping and it cost about $18 to ship it. So after fees it came to about $99 back from the $140 spent. I probably could have asked a little more and held out longer but I'm happy that it was a fast transaction and the new owners have already left positive feedback, whew!

One of the bummers when I got it all home was that not all of the outfits were American Girl Brand and a few of them had stains and holes. I gave a few pieces to Naomi to have for Saige and the rest got listed.

 

Rebecca's PJ set - Sold for $14.95

 

Red Cloak Sold for $14.95

Bloomers from Kit's Meet outfit - Sold for $6.95 

I have 3 more outfits currently listed and if just one of those items sells then I'll have made my original investment back, plus the others are more complete outfits not just single pieces. Not a huge amazing grandiose flip however, the way I see it is that I got Naomi's new doll bed and a couple of extra outfits for FREE! Plus if she ever gets over it and decides to part with it she'll make some easy money on it because its a SUPER cute blue daybed that is now retired from AG.

Remember this awesome American Girl storage locker that I found at Value Village a while back? It had a price tag on it for $9 but I had a 30% off entire purchase coupon so I got it for around $6. Naomi never really showed much interest in it so I took picks and put it out in the garage. I started with craigslist because this thing is BIG and heavy! Its retired and hard to find and the completeds on eBay are for about $120 when they sell, not bad until you calculate out the shipping. I'd have to buy a box for it, and to ship it would have been around $40 if it was cross country! Crazy!

So up on Craigslist and Facebook it went. I had a couple of low offers for about $40 and was about ready to take one of those until this morning! A father off craigslist emailed me and said he wanted it and could meet at noon. We met, he handed over $60 and said he wasn't sure if it was worth that much but his daughter wanted it and that was that! The way I see it is that is probably more than I would've gotten for it off of eBay after fees and shipping. So glad I held out for the extra 20 bucks!

 

Moral of these stories, American Girl sells, as well all already knew hopefully! Anyone find any AG at yard sales yet this year? Its always on my radar but I never seem to find it! 

My 1st Month

Well I'm pleased to announce that I met my $150 sales goal for May at my booth space in the Whitehouse Antiques Shop!

The way I figured it was that with my rental fees ($60/Mo + 12% commission + 8hr shift) that I'd need at least $150 in sales every month to make doing this "Worth It". My first month, while I got a check and that's great, was kind of a wash because I had to work 2 shifts as you have to work a floater once a year and the owner likes you to work it in your first month so you are fresh from your training shift.

Anyways, here is a breakdown of items that sold last month:

1. 2 Vintage Paint by Numbers Dog Pictures - Paid $0 for them as they were out of an estate I'm helping with - sold for $10 (These were SOOO ugly I couldn't believe it when they were the first thing that sold for me!)
2. 9 Pc Vintage Children's Kitchen toys - from the estate as well, $0 investment - Sold for $12.
3. My husband's old Speak and Spell toy - I didn't test it so I had no idea if it worked, paid $0 - sold for $6.00
4. Mickey Mouse Tea Cup - Paid $.25 - sold for $3.
5. Vintage Metal Measuring Spoons - Paid $1.08 - Sold for $3
6. Vintage Triple Opening Metal Picture Frame - Paid $.50 at a yard sale - sold for $10.
7. Set of 3 Vintage Framed Owl Prints - Paid $9.95 for these over a year ago - sold for $15, glad they are gone!
8. Vintage Oven Serve Aqua Custard Dish - Paid $1 at yard sale - sold for $6.95
9. Folding Table that I got for free and refinished and Chalk Painted Turquoise - $10 in paint and supplies - sold for $20.
10. Vintage Suitcase - Paid $1 at a yard sale, it was in terrible condition, caved in and inside was peeling - sold for $6.
11. Decorative Wire Bird Cage - Got at yard sale forever ago can't remember how much I paid but less than $5 - Sold for $11.95.
12. White Sandstone Owl figurine/paperweight - Paid $2 at a Thrift store - Sold for $5.
13. Vintage Green Shoe - $0 from estate - Sold for $5.
14. Another vintage suitcase - Paid $4 for this 2 years ago and used it a lot to carry photography props, had to upgrade to a bigger case so I put this one in the shop. Sold for $16.00.
15. Vintage Rusty old Rake Head for someone to repurpose as a jewelry or wine glass hanger. Paid $0, found it under our house - sold for $14.
16. Cute wire birdcage framed picture from Hobby Lobby - Paid $5 off FB group - sold for $12.95.

Total Sales was $156.85 + $14.90 Sales Tax which I'm responsible for paying to the DOR.
After Commission ($18.82 and June's Rent $60) I got a check for $92.93 - just about enough to cover my 2 shifts at the store haha! Hoping next month I can actually turn a profit, this whole bookkeeping thing is super confusing so I am looking for deductions everywhere!

Last week I decided to rearrange a bit, here's what my space currently looks like, I've only had a few sales so far this month totaling $25, hopefully it improves!!

I think I might start a Facebook page for my business. I can post updates about new items I've taken to the shop but also new items I put on Etsy and eBay too as well as garage sale finds. Does anyone else have this currently? Do you have lots of fans or do you ever generate extra business from it or would it be just one more thing to add to my plate?