Hummers, humvees, hummers, hammers, hummus, hamsters, even Hummers!

Jimmy Kimmel Video Link

I was watching Jimmy Kimmel the other night and saw this garage sale ad. I copied it with my camera, but this video came out much much better. (I'm also providing a regular clickable link to the videos, since someone emailed me to say they have a problem viewing YouTube videos when they are embedded into a website. Someday I need to update my Yardsale Humor page and provide clickable links for those too). Someday.

Also found this one from Ellen DeGeneres (she loves a garage sale. But then at the end she told people just to donate their junk. She can't have it both ways, if everyone donated their junk, there would be a world without garage sales, and that is crazy talk.)



Ellen DeGeneres View on Garage Sales

I get mail

Besides getting an email about every other week from someone telling me that yardsailing is not a word and that I should use spell-checker, once in a while I get a nice email like this (edited for length)

Hi! I want to tell you about the yard sale I had at our house this past Saturday. My husband was not optimistic and repeatedly stated that he'd be happy if I were able to make "at least $100". I SHOWED HIM! LOL! I somehow made over $1200 at my yard sale. Yes...you read that right. One thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars. I never would have believed it possible if I hadn't done it myself this past weekend! One day. One sale. I was "open" from 7:15am till 2:00pm at which point I started giving things away. I have to tell you that I contribute a lot of my success to your website. Thank you so much!

Respectfully,
Jenna B.

Yard Sale Bargains from Saturday

I had a good yardsailing day on Saturday and as usual, bought a bunch of stuff. I love my Super Pickle (I have my original Super Pickle from the 80's, so now I have two).

Went to a moving sale (the elderly couple moved to an upscale senior housing complex). They had friends hold the sale for them. I piled up a bunch of stuff and when I asked the price for all of it (nothing was marked), I was told $3. I got a box full of vintage postcards & souvenir booklets, 2 vintage beach towels, Fenton glassware, a baggy full of men's tie tacks which I forgot to photograph, a ceramic stamp moistener and a vintage Clara Peller Where's the Beef? dish towel.

Other buys:

$2 Jewelry Box
$2 Speak & Spell (collectible - ebay)
$1 Vintage Fisher Price Airplane - ebay
.50 Schlitz Beer tap from 1970 - ebay
.50 Spongebob VHS
$1 20-in-1 tool
.50 Julie and Julia paperback
.50 vintage Ziggy
.05 War button

A few people have asked what my ebay ID is (yardsalequeen.com) but I also put a link over there to the left. I'm currently taking an ebay break, but I should be back selling in a few weeks.



$2 Speed Limit sign (I didn't ask where the seller got it.)
$1 pool bug skimmer
$1 pogo stick
.50 stilts


Another pic of the postcards (click on the pic to enlarge)


Another pic of the jewelry box




Video Link

To see what other yardsailors bought this past weekend, visit Southern Hospitality Blog

Spare bedroom remodeling done on the cheap

Well I think I am done with the spare bedroom remodeling. Except that if I come across a tan or yellow colored queen sized bedskirt anytime soon that would be a good thing. But if not, that's ok. Matchy matchy is so boring. Oh and haven't put the picture frames back up. The Eames-era/mid-century/Danish modern pole lamp is destined for eBay some day. I just don't feel like dealing with shipping it now.

$3 Paint from thrift (Olympia Premium paint in Timeless Taupe)
$2 curtain rod from thrift
Replaced cheap plastic mini-blinds with 2" slat wooden blinds ($3 yardsale). The blinds are nice....they are imported and I believe they come from the exclusive faux-wood forest of China. Nothing but the best for the Queen!
$1 towel rack - July 3rd yardsale buy





The closet is full (surprise surprise), so my guests will have to hang stuff up on the door if they want to hang anything up. Notice the different door knobs - this is a combination "before and after" pic. The one on the left is the old builder's grade 19 year old doorknob. The one on the right is one of the new doorknobs bought at Big Lots at 90% off (paid .79 for the pair of doorknobs. I put the other one on after I took the pic, but wanted to show the difference) It may not look like a huge difference but the doorknob on the left is cheap goldtone plastic and the one on the right is heavy, shiny and new.


The little nightstand was a $5 yardsale buy (but am not using it has a nightstand - the thing on it is a noise machine - yardsale buy of course), the middle dresser is the dresser I had as a child (my parent's bought new. The matching highboy dresser and twin bed are in Jacob's room) . I bought the the vintage vanity on the right at the local auction house for $30 and refinished it. I have the round mirror to go with it, I just never put it on. I don't have any place to put the dusty sewing machine, so it will have to stay there. Under the vanity - where a chair would normally go - I use for storage and have the junk hidden. And get this....I even totally emptied the top drawer of the larger dresser so a guest could put stuff in it. That was a job in itself!


And on the middle dresser is one of my favorite yardsale buys from Saturday. A cherry wood jewelry box with key for $2 (it came in it's original Penney's box). It had some light scratches on the top, but that is what Old English scratch cover is made for.




Well I couldn't hide all the stuff in the room, I left cherished family memories on the bookcase. Like family pics. My favorite Pet Rock. My first ever yardsale buy (the troll on the top shelf, purchased circa 1970 in Latham, NY for .75, my cigar box collection, my Mattel Baby Beans doll, a conch shell taken from the beach in Aruba. I swear it's not clutter. Ok, well maybe the stack of comic books and VHS are.


Will post my yardsale buys tomorrow and I'll show you my Super Pickle.

Week in Review - Thrift Store Artwork

Haven't blogged much this week so I will fill you in on stuff I did this week. On Wednesday I went back to the waterpark as a parent volunteer for Jacob's summer day camp. The group left the water park at 2:30 so I had some time to kill before I picked him up at 4pm.

So...I went to the nearby faux-casino. I figured why not, they give out free diet pepsi and I was thirsty. (But I am always thirsty for a diet-pepsi). I figured I would put $5 in the Lucky Dawg machine (in honor of the Whiskey Dog) and see what happened. Yep, I won big. Here is my receipt, I walked away $1.10 richer and had my thirst temporarily quenched for free.

I went to Smile a few times this week. I bought this cross-stitch thing for .50 Can you imagine doing all that work and it only selling for .50? Maybe I'll put it on ebay, it's really not my style.


And for $2, I bought this framed artwork. I may keep it. Someone paid a lot of money to have it professionally framed. The mark on the front is just lighting glare.



I went to a moving sale on Friday. The sale was down a long gravel driveway that I never knew existed. The seller is moving to Indiana with 11 horses. I can't even imagine doing that.

Whenever I'm irritated by my neighbors, I think wouldn't it be nice to live like this out in the country but then reality hits and I realize how much I would hate having to drive Jacob down the driveway to catch the school bus or to get the mail etc. And I bet they can't get high-speed internet without paying the cable company big bucks to lay a cable to their house.







The work of cleaning my house is still underway. I haven't put up the spare bedroom curtains yet, so after I do, I will do a post about my spare bedroom makeover. And wanna know what the kicker is? I did all this work, my DH went into the bedroom and didn't notice a thing. I wonder how long it will take him to realize I painted the room.

And ta-da, here is a picture of my new and improved under-the-bed storage. Pretty impressive, isn't it.



During cleaning, I came across this yardsale buy from a few years back. A bunch of empty Easy Bake Oven cake mix boxes from the 70's. I think they are neat. I took a picture of only about half of them.



Yardsales today were great. Well some were just so-so. But I hit a few that were awesome. Will post my yardsale buys from today within a few days.

Went to a moving sale today

I didn't quite finish my spare room makeover yet. I need to hang the curtains and needed a larger curtain rod. Went to Walmart today and got a cheapy curtain rod. At home, I remembered a while ago I bought a new fancy curtain rod with fancy finials ($2) at Smile that I never used. So I think I will be returning the Walmart one.

And if you think the pic of what was under the spare bed was bad before....just wait until you see the "after" pic, I put the bed up on the bed riser thingies, to increase the storage space.

DH came home a while ago from spending the week working in Syracuse, NY. Despite growing up in upstate NY, I've only been to Syracuse once - and that was at the glamorous Greyhound bus station during a college road trip.

will post pictures later. Hopefully I got some good pics today at the horse farm moving sale.

Thrift Store Pet Peeves

I spotted this article today regarding a Goodwill Thrift Store in Colorado. Who donates a land mine? Personally I believe it was intentionally dropped off by a frustrated shopper who wanted it to explode so it would force Goodwill to clean out their old merchandise and replace with new.

My fav thrift (Smile) totally changes out their clothing twice a year - spring and fall. And they sort clothes by size. What a concept. I hate when thrift stores (like Goodwill) sort by color- see pic below. It drives me nuts. Who goes to the store thinking "Hmmm...I want to find a red shirt today". Not many people shop like that. And then have to weed thru 5' of red shirts to find one in your size.

Clothes sorted by color at Goodwill (ugghghg)


Clothes sorted by size at my fav thrift


Kids book section - at my fav thrift


Kid's books disorganization at Goodwill:


I spotted this sign at one of my other thrifts. I don't want to know why they needed to tell people it wasn't a bathroom.


==============
I haven't finished cleaning up the spare bedroom yet. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow. Will show updated pics. Tonight I put the bed risers on the frame, so I will increase my storage capabilities. Some of the stuff could be tossed (recycled). I know there is no value in my old Franklin day-timers from work. I don't think Jacob wants to play with my plastic vanity. The VHS tapes will go to my brother for Xmas. The Tyco train stuff is for ebay. And some of those toy things are new (well new from yardsales) - potential birthday party gifts etc.

Almost time for a shopping intervention

I finished painting today. The paint I used yesterday was a new gallon of Olympic Premium - bought at thrift for $3. Not as wonderful as my favorite Benjamin Moore Aura paint (the unofficial paint of the YSQ Castle) but it was still a good, low odor paint.

Anyhow, long story short, I did end up removing the mattress and boxsprings today of the spare bed (the bed frame is missing a few nuts & bolts, so I figured I would stop at my local Ace store tomorrow and buy what need. Don't need the bed falling apart when my guests visit.

Anyhow, look at my junk under the bed. I found some neat stuff that I hadn't seen in a while. Like my favorite Liddle Kiddle - my Kozmic Kiddle. If you didn't grow up playing with Liddle Kiddles, then you don't know what you missed. And I found my Car-municator. A paddle communication device used to get the attention of other cute drivers. And my ice cream scooper collection. Some of the scoopers are in my Marx beauty vanity (I removed the legs for storage)






p.s. yes, that is some empty cereal boxes you see. You don't save them do you? Because 50 years from now, they are going to be worth tons. And I will be the only one who was smart enough to save them. Mark my words. Email me 50 years from now so I can tell you "I told you so!"

I hate painting

We've been here at the castle for 19 years now and I vividly remember moving in and telling my DH "It would be stupid to re-paint right away, let's just stay with the builder's grade antique white for a while - after all, it was just painted." Well 19 years later, I finally got around to painting the spare bedroom today. And yes, there are still rooms in the house with builder's grade antique white on the walls.

Today I even found a couple pieces of fossilized dry cat food stashed away in a corner, presumably from a long dead mouse. Didn't know I had a cat? I don't. Rudy died around 1996 or so. And he wasn't the best mouse hunter. My housekeeping skills have been a little lacking ever since the invention of the internet coupled with my yardsaling addiction.

Will add some pics tomorrow to this post. I'm beat tired. Gotta remember this feeling when I think "wouldn't it be nice to have a bigger house with 9' ceilings etc? Ummm...no. Gotta remember that. Too much work to keep up and paint.

p.s. the reason for the painting is not because I wanted to, it's because we are having out-of-town guests in August and again in September so I figured it was time to paint the spare room and clean up any decades old cat food that may be laying around and any other surprises.

Before:



After (YES this is an AFTER photo - haha. And no, those old lady SAS shoes aren't for me. They are for ebay)

Winner of the $25 Walmart Gift Card from Garage sale cow

This morning I had random.org pick out a winner for the $25 gift card courtesy of Garagesalecow.com is:

HAYSTACK

Thrift Store and Yard Sale Buys

Here's what I bought yesterday (and a few things purchased at my fav thrift on Friday)

.50 each DVDs
free - empty Shure microphone case (you know i love storage so I'll find a use for it)
.50 canvas bag from the Gap
.50 Cows on Parade cow (resale)
.25 - $1 each - cookbooks



.50 ea. cans of paint
.50 Scotchgard
.25 - bug spray
.50 bottle of Future (I have linoleum in my bathrooms and Future does make it look much better, even though the floors needs replacing.)
$4 new gallon of Roll-off cleaner (made for cleaning boats, but it works well on other stuff inside and outside the house - sells for $24.99 at the store)
.50 Mensa card game
$1.50 - two piece silver looking thing (see other pic below)
$1 Car Capers (a game from the UK)
.05 Bless this Lousy Trailer plaque
$2 set of Very Irresistible perfume by Givenchy. Will probably resell it since I'm already very irresistible - haha.



Then at my thift I bought this $4 jacket. I liked the 3/4 length sleeves and it fit good and was comfortable. But those stripes???? I'll have to wash and iron it and try it on with different tops etc and see how it looks.

If you want to see what other bloggers have found this weekend while out yardsaling, check out the Southern Hospitality Blog



And below is the thing I saw on Thursday at my thrift but didn't know what it was. It was only $1.50 but couldn't tell if it was missing any pieces or anything. So I memorized the company's name and checked ebay. I saw the last one on ebay sold for about $21 so I went back on Friday and saw it was still there so I bought it.

Anyone want to guess what it is? (and for those who have been reading my blog for a while, I know I never revealed the answer for the last thing I had people guess on, but I will do a blog post and update that too soon).

The spray paint can is just there for size reference. It's two pieces. The little bowl thing has the handle and it can swivel around and be removed from the base. The orange thing is just the price sticker.

Wanna guess? No prizes if you get it right, just bragging rights. Extra credit if you know the manufacturer's name.





Video Link

Today is last day to enter $25 Gift Card Contest

I am back from yardsaling (will post my buys tomorrow) but I just wanted to give a quick reminder that if you haven't already entered to win a $25 Walmart Gift Card courtesy of Garage Sale Cow you better not dilly-dally.

To enter, read my post from last Saturday: Garage Sale Cow $25 Gift Card Contest

Good luck!

My 24 Hour Annapolis Vacation Re-Cap

My husband had to work this entire week in Annapolis - which is about a 45 mile drive from our house. And DH's job was paying for the hotel for the week. Although it's not too far, it seems like it takes forever to get there since a good part of the drive is on a two lane road, and it's difficult to pass slow moving cars because of the oncoming traffic. Then you have to deal with Annapolis traffic.

Anyhow, Jacob's summer camp was having a field trip to Annapolis on Wednesday, so I figured it would be a little change of scenery for us to spend Tuesday night in Annapolis. So on Tuesday afternoon, I picked Jacob up from summer camp, then drove to Annapolis to spend the night. Then on Wednesday morning, I went to the field trip location and dropped Jacob off with his group.

Our itinerary: got to the hotel around 5:30 - we changed into our swimsuits and went swimming until around 7pm. Went to dinner at Red Robin with DH and then walked around the mall a little. Then at 8:30pm, went to Chuck E. Cheese (it was near the hotel) and spent a half hour playing games until it closed at 9pm. They have a new Deal or No Deal video game which Jacob loved. Of course I buy the Chuck E. Cheese game tokens with coupons - so we always have a supply of tokens.

The next morning Jacob and I went back to Chuck E Cheese at 9am to play some more (since the camp group wasn't going to be in town until around 10:30am). Chuck E. Cheese is very peaceful at 9am. Then after I dropped Jacob off with his camp group, I went shopping. I went back to the mall to buy something I spotted the previous night - a birthday gift for a niece. Also bought a few things for me - a $1 Martha Stewart book and a $1 Festivus CD. I may give the CD to my DH for Xmas. When I peeled off the $1 Borders sticker on the Martha book, underneath there was a $18.88 Wal-mart price tag. Borders had a bunch of these books, so I'm guessing they were Walmart leftovers or something. Also went to Trader Joes and Whole Foods and bought a few things. Annapolis is our closest location for Trader Joes and Whole Foods. But the Traders Joes doesn't sell alcohol (so no two buck chuck).

And since I still had some time, I hit the Annapolis Goodwill store. I swear, visiting other thrift stores just makes me realize how great my local thrift stores are. Do people really spend $8.00 on used, crappy, no name shoes? I think I am turning into a Thrift Store Snob. Don't get me wrong, I can deal with a disorganized thrift store, as long as it's cheap. But I ain't paying no $8 on used crappy shoes. I can understand why some people really dislike thrift stores. If all they have is overpriced, disorganized thrift stores in their area, I wouldn't like them either.

And on Wednesday afternoon, I was able to stop at one of my local thrifts on the way home and bought a few things.

The only things I bought at the Goodwill were two CDs for $1.75 each - a little more than I usually spend for CDs, but I had to have some CDs of my boyfriend Edwin McCain

Also in the pic is some stuff I bought this week.

$1 Viewmaster reels Great Smoky Mountains (I heard that Viewmaster is no longer making souvenir type reels)

$1 a 2003 edition of Little Black Sambo
$1 Martha Rules book
$1 Nemo software for Jacob
$1 Festivus CD
$1.50 Mary Kay pressed powder (new)
$1 Mary Kay makeup case - new - fits the pressed powder
$2 pair of Aerosoles shoes for me
$1.50 Made in Denmark bottle opener

Breaking News: I went shopping in a mall (yesterday and today)

It's been a busy 24 hours for me. More on my 24 hour "vacation" later. I need to relax a little now (like I've said before, vacations are for "doing" not relaxing) so I will write about where I went and what I bought tomorrow.

Anyhow, just wanted to remind everyone if you haven't already done so, enter to win the $25 Walmart gift card courtesy of Garage Sale Cow To find out more - read the July 11 blog posting

Yard Sale Pet Peeves

I forgot to mention that this past Saturday there were a few sellers who did not float my boat. I saw some yardsale pet peeves (of mine) being committed. And I kept my mouth shut. One seller thought she had come up with a smart idea - she took a huge piece of cardboard and wrote the prices of everything she had for sale on it. Of course it wasn't in alphabetical order and her handwriting looked like chicken scratch and/or hieroglyphics. I wish I had taken a picture of it, but she was hovering over her sign.

Second, there was a seller who used the pre-priced price tags. Normally that is a good thing. But this seller had stuff priced so high that the pre-priced stickers didn't go up that high. So for a $30 item, she put three $10 stickers on it and we were supposed to do the math and know she wanted $30 for it. For some reason, it really bugs me when sellers do that. Don't cheap out - buy some blank labels.

And lastly there was the seller who didn't go thru what they were selling. They had a big rubbermaid tub of CDs all at $1 each. I rummaged thru them all, picked out a few I wanted and then checked to make sure the CD was in the case. It wasn't. None of them were. All that time wasted. Grrrrrr....

Note to Donna (the recent winner of the Garage Sale America book) - I'm putting the book in the mail today. One thing I didn't notice until now is that the author autographed it (on about the third page in).

Saturday Yardsale and Estate Sale buys

Yesterday there was a ton of yardsales. Almost too many, I didn't even get to them all. I left the house around 6:30 a.m (there were several sales with a 7am start time) and was home around 10:30.

To see what others across blogland have bought at the yardsales this week visit the Southern Hospitality Blog

A nearby beach community had a community-wide sale. I bought a lot of stuff from one house which was more like an estate sale (but with cheap yardsale prices). One side of the driveway was lined with boxes full of .25 items and the other side of the driveway was .50 items. I bought the box full of old slides (from the 60's and 70's) for $3 from that sale. I think I want to look at them all before I sell them (there are people on ebay who buy miscellaneous family slides). Most are from the late 60's to early '70's. There are some really cool retro images on them. It's sad that no one from the family wanted them since I know you could pay someone to project the images onto a screen and then record them onto a DVD or something. (as usual, click on the pic if you want to see an enlarged version)



.50 package of vintage tube socks from Zayre's
.25 vintage beer tray
.50 - $1 each cookbooks
$2 new Folkmanis pirate puppet
$2 Lego Racer (new box)
.50 Lego Star Wars

$1 and $2 - packages of shower gels/lotions
.50 each - vintage telephones (too bad they weren't some funky color cuz if they were, they would sell really well on ebay)
$1 each - casual Bass shoes for me
$5 stack of Martha Stewart Food magazines
$2 nice Wilson softball glove
.25 ea - fluorescent marking paint, tire cleaner

.50 semi-used Bath & Body Works candle (for me)
$1 brand new large Yankee Candle (I will put away and re-gift it)
.25 vintage melted plastic popcorn Santa
.25 cut glass tray
.25 each - vintage Fireking
.50 each, pretty crystal candle holders
.25 vintage electric curling iron with wooden handle (scary - haha)
.25 Christmas pickle in a jar
free - tupperware keychain



$3 lot of family slides. I was randomly looking thru them (just by holding them up to the light - and I happened to see the plastic popcorn Santa in one of the Christmas slides)

Video Link

p.s. Don't forget to enter my Bloggy Contest to win a $25 Walmart Gift Card.