Disneyland Frontierland Exhibit shirt (and more)

Yesterday was a pretty hectic day so I didn't get a chance to leisurely blog. I forgot to mention that I went to the dentist yesterday to get a filling updated (my dentist really likes to replace *old* fillings it seems). And since I have the dental insurance why not. I always try to make the dental appts on either a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday since that is when the nearby VV store has their .35 clothing days.

I normally don't look too much at flannel type shirts but this one caught my eye -


And then of course, looked at the label:



After a little bit of research I found out that Disneyland used to have a Pendleton Mills Frontierland store and all the clothes sold there had that label. It will go up on ebay eventually. Darn. I was kinda hoping it was some sort of a one of a kind costume from Disneyland that appeared in some show or was worn by Elvis or someone. I think though that some Disney collector would enjoy it.

Also for .35, I also bought Jacob a Target brand lightweight jacket. I just looked in his closet and now he has a pair of identical Target lightweight jackets. Oh well.

Today at Smile for $2 I bought myself a nice desk lamp - and that $2 price even included a compact fluorescent lightbulb.

During this past weekend's yardsale finds, I mentioned that I needed to get rid of the cubicle type storage that I had going on in Jacob's room and replace it with the $2 shelfing unit I purchased on Saturday.

Well here is the "Before" pic (6 wire cubicle things that don't want to stay together and not sturdy - bought at thrift for a few bucks. I am sure I can re-purpose the metal grates for something.)



And here is the "After" pic. The shelfing unit holds tons more and I won't have to worry about it falling apart if I put something heavy on it.




Gonna go to Baskin Robbins tonight for the .31 scoop of ice cream. In reading the fine print, it says you are limited to purchasing 10 scoops per person! wow. I doubt I will buy myself 10 scoops, that would be too much. But 7 or 8 should do the trick :)

p.s. I remembered that tomorrow is May 1st. May Day. The day that some of the students at the *sorta* nearby St. Mary's College go for a naked bike ride around campus. However, tomorrow I have to be someplace that is probably a good 40 miles away and combined with the logistics and the price of gas, I don't think its gonna be worth the trip to gawk.

p.s.s. No I am not turning into a cheap old fart (although I am cheap and I do have a birthday coming up). I did see Big Brother's Adam Jasinski nekked this week on Showtime After Hours. Yea for DVR and the ability to freeze the screen. I never realized until this week how clear the pictures come out if someone was to take digital pictures of a tv screen and turn the flash off. So I got my gratuitous nudity fix in for the week (and didn't have to waste any gas doing it).

p.s.s.s. Yes, that is a Dora blanket on my son's bed. There is nothing wrong with a boy liking Dora.

This date in history....

...I was eating wedding cake and doing the dollar dance among other things. My DH even had flowers delivered today to commemorate the event (I wasn't home for the delivery, I was out shopping). 19 years. Hard to believe my parents allowed their 8 year old daughter to marry. I was advanced for my age.




Yippee - I finally figured out how to take pics using my cellphone and actually get them onto my computer. I know the phone came with an instruction manual but who wants to read that thing.

Here is a pic I took the other day with my cell. I thought plain green bagels were funny.

Leaning Tower of Paper Clips

The other day, I dropped off the big box of free pens that I got at Staples (in the picture below) to the receptionist/secretary at my son's school and she really appreciated it. She said that people were always walking off with the pens in her pen cup.

Today I sent in to the school the above bunch of assorted paper clips etc. Got them last week at Staples. They were on clearance for .50 each so buying six of them came to $3. I paid with one $3 inkjet coupon so I didn't pay anything for them (except of course, the $1 I spent to get the $3 coupon).

I wasted gas for this???

Yesterday I was planning on going to some yardsales (well, of course) and saw one that started at 7am so I decided to change my driving routine and hit that one first at 7am. What a waste of gas. It was so sparse that I felt compelled to take a picture (the seller had gone back inside). When I stopped I thought, well there is probably stuff inside the garage too --- nope. And it wasn't like this was the end of the day and this was all that was left - it was all they had planned on selling.

Did manage to find some other stuff at some sales - a plastic storage bookcase thing for Jacob's room ($2) - the cubicle thing I have now in his room is not working out. Will have to add pics later to this blog entry. Also bought some new/sealed VHS tapes at .10 each for my technologically-stuck-in-the-80's brother.

I am compiling a list of my Top 10 Favorite Yardsale Buys of 2008 and I think so far I have 4 items on the list (no new buys got added yesterday). This list is due to change.

1. North Face fleece jacket at thrift ($4 - even though a thrift store is not a yardsale it's still one of my favorite buys)
2. mini trampoline for jacob ($3)
3. set of Henckels knives $5
4. set of 8 Waterford Crystal glasses $5

Tonight is the finale of Big Brother. I am rooting for Adam to win. Didn't like him at first but he grew on me after a while.

Yardsalequeen in the news

The yardsalequeen website has appeared a lot of different places recently. I got my copy of David Bach's book, Go Green Live Rich - the one that said I was featured in.



Well here is my big feature on page 91 (He also mentions some lesser known websites such as ebay.com and craigslist.org - maybe someday those too will become household terms - haha)



The other week I was interviewed for an article for USA Today - you can read the entire article
here You would think I would have gone out and bought a copy of USA Today that day - but I forgot.

Then this morning I was interviewed on the Air 1 Radio Network Its a network of radio stations all over the country. Radio interviews make me nervous. I am very bad about talking when others are talking.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Recycling at Staples

Someone commented the other day asking about how to recycle inkjet cartridges at Staples so I thought I'd explain it (to the best of my knowledge). So if you don't ever shop at Staples, just skip this entry. Staples recently changed their inkjet recycling policy. Now the way it works is that you bring in your HP, Dell, or Lexmark inkjet cartridges (limited to recycling 3 per day) and hand them to a cashier. The cashier will then ask for your Staples Rewards card (like a frequent shoppers card) and you will be given a $3 credit per cartridge to your Staples Rewards card. If you don't have a Staples Rewards card and you shop at Staples, then you are not taking best advantage of the system. The money credited to your Staples Rewards card will be sent you to once per quarter in the form of check, that you'll be able to use at Staples to buy stuff.

However years ago, Staples used to be much more generous. You used to be able to bring in 20 cartridges per day - any make or brand or even generic cartridge and get a $3 coupon for each cartridge you brought in. Those were the good ole days - I would buy my generic inkjets for my printer on ebay dirt cheap and then get a $3 coupon back on each from Staples. It was like I was printing for free. The coupons would expire 3 months from the issue date and you could only redeem three coupons per day ($9 value).

Then about a year or two ago they changed it to only accepting HP, Dell and Lexmark brands and I think they changed to a 10 cartridge per day recycling limit.

When I was at yardsales or thrift stores, if I could buy cartridges for .50 or $1 each, I would buy them and then bring them to Staples for recycling. I then got into buying cartridges right on eBay - I would buy used cartridges in bulk (like 100 or 200 cartridges at a time) paying about .50 - .75 per cartridge. (I would buy from sellers who offered free shipping).

Matter-of-fact, yesterday I was at a thrift and I purchased four HP brand cartridges - still in the package for $2 (.50 each). However, I think I can sell these on ebay and make more than the $12 credit I would get if I took them into Staples.

When Staples changed their policy a few weeks ago, they did away with giving coupons and just credit your Staples Rewards card. In a way, its better since you can accumulate more money to put towards a larger item. Now when I shop at Staples, I am always trying to get near the $9 or $10 mark so I can use three $3 coupons and pay practically nothing. However, since I spent money to get the coupons, it may only look like I am paying .51 cash, but I did spend some money to get the $9 worth of coupons.

So for people who still have the $3 coupons (like me), they are still good until the coupons expire - which is 3 months from the issue date. And since Staples stopped giving out coupons on March 30, the latest that people have to use the coupons is June 30, 2008.

Since on my Staples Rewards card it appears that I spend a lot (over $1000 per year) that qualifies me as being a "Premier Rewards" member. So I get free shipping on all my orders at Staples.com (as long as I continue to spend $1000 per year). So I will have no problem using all my remaining coupons since I can type in the coupon codes and redeem the coupons thru Staples.com. I think I probably have at least 50 left - since when I found out about the Staples policy change, I went to ebay and bought 70 coupons for $70 (with free shipping. Yes, there were lots of ebay sellers who would sell their Staples coupons. But now since they aren't giving out coupons, the amount of Staples $3 coupon auctions are drying up. Now the ones that are listed on ebay are going for a little more than $1 per coupon plus shipping.

.31 Ice Cream Scoop night at Baskin Robbins

Next Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - there will be a .31 scoop night at Baskin Robbins. Here is the Link if you want to read the details. Now that we have a Baskin Robbins nearby, we'll probably go. But I wonder why its not a .28 Ice Cream Scoop night. The last time I checked, Baskin Robbins only has 28 flavors.

Pink Confetti Everywhere

There are still cherry blossoms on the trees but now the yard looks like its full of pink confetti.

Had a good visit with family and they left a few days ago. On Saturday I took my sister yardsaling and we found a few things. I got this set of Henckel knives for $5 and she got a cute Stone Mountain purse in new condition for $1. At my next yardsale I will sell our current two sets of non-Henckel knives which are about 20 years old. This picture doesn't do them justice - they look almost new.



I got some bad news thru the thrift store grapevine. Yes, there is a thrift store grapevine. I heard that the Catholic Charities thrift in a town about 12 miles away is closing at the end of May. And of course, that is the store that I found the awesome Benjamin Moore Aura paint at. Because of it's location, I didn't shop there on a routine basis but I always stopped by if I was in the area. Tomorrow I am paying someone to smush my boobs (I know what you all are thinking - Chris, you look waaaayyy too young to need a mammogram) so anyway afterwards I will stop by Catholic Charities since it's on the way and see if there is anything good left.

I got a good deal at Staples the other day (I am still using my $3 inkjet coupons.) I also had other coupons to use - like get a free two pack of Delta Elite pens and a free box of 60 cheapo pens. My total came to $19.76 but I actually only paid .51 The Sour Patch Kids are for me. The garage sale labels are going to the winner of the contest that I had in April. A new contest will start in May. I think I am going to drop off the cheapy pens at my son's school.

Update for the past few days

Just a quick note to show you what my flowering cherry tree looks like. And yesterday I went to the Baltimore Aquarium and saw some cool creatures.

Benjamin Moore Aura paint - quite possibly the best paint in the world

The next few days will be a cleaning whirlwind. I am having family visiting this week sooo.....its time to clean the bathtub. And about a million other things. Yes, the yardsalequeen is not afraid to get her hands dirty. And I am going to do more painting today with my fabulous Benjamin Moore Aura paint that looks like coffee with cream.

In my post below, if I sounded like I thought $55 a gallon was ridiculous for awesome Benjamin Moore Aura paint - you were mistaken. It is money well spent - and actually I don't understand why it's ONLY $55 a gallon. It's like buttah. It practically throws itself up on the wall on its own.

p.s. If you think this sounds like I am shamelessly trying to get Benjamin Moore Aura paint to be the official paint of the Yardsalequeen Castle, you would be right. Whaddaya think I'm doing this blog for? My health? I gotta try to get some sort of bennie out of it. Benjamin Moore - contact me, I'd be glad to work out a deal for you to be my official paint :) Oh and I like the 3M blue painter's tape too. And Lindt Lindor Truffles to snack on while I am painting. Now if only I had a Bose Wave Radio with CD player to listen to while painting....

p.s.s. bennie - my slang for "benefit"

It's been a busy week

Last Saturday I had a yardsale ($5 space rental if you bring your own table) and made $151. Top photo is a pic of my junk before I set it up. It was a little hard to see the Power Wheels go ($20). Jacob loved that thing and rode it way past the age it was intended for (1.5 years to 3). There were a lot of other sellers but didn't find much to buy from the others. When I was packing up, I boxed about half of leftovers for donation to the Purple Heart organization. I like that this organization will come to your house to pick up donations and leave a tax receipt. I also donate to Smile but I prefer not seeing "my stuff" again when I shop at Smile. And then I wonder why no one is buying such and such of mine. So when the Purple Heart organization takes the stuff away, I know I am not going to be seeing it again.

Plus, it's much easier to leave the donations in my driveway than loading up the car with the stuff and then lugging it into the donation center at Smile which is sometimes a pain because of parking.

So when I told my husband the Purple Heart people were coming on Friday (yesterday) for donations, he decided on Thursday night to clean out his side of the closet for the first time since around 1990. I should have taken a picture of the mountain of clothes he wanted gone, it was probably 4' tall. It was at least a dozen garbage bags full of clothes. About half went to Purple Heart and the other half - went to the textile recycling/Planet Aid.


Donations waiting to be picked up. Can't see it but there is a big box underneath full of stuff.


Bags of clothes to be taken for Planet Aid/Recycling

I went to a few yardsales this morning. Got a few good things. I got a mini-trampoline for Jacob for $3. I had been looking for one and came really close to buying a new one from Walmart for around $20. Glad I waited. He played a lot on my 1980's era mini-trampoline. I had gotten it back when they first came out and they were the latest exercise craze. Well it finally started falling apart about 6 months ago so now it's gone.

Also got a set of 8 Waterford crystal champagne glasses for $5. I can't remember the exact name off hand. I bought $11 worth of stuff at that sale. Also got a nice wall mirror for $1 (a Queen can never have enough mirrors - haha). And a couple of DVDs for $1 each and some other stuff. At another sale I got a big Yankee candle for $1 (it is slighted used but not much) and a Bath & Body Works wallflower refills for $1 each.

Now that yardsaling is done for the day I am thinking of doing some painting. I bet you didn't know I was an artist too. Yep, my goal for the day is to paint the upstairs hallway. At a different thrift a few weeks ago, I saw they had a small paint section with new cans of paints - like where someone had picked a color and changed their mind so the hardware store donated their mistakes. Well anyway I bought two quart cans of Benjamin Moore paint in eggshell color for $1 each and bought a big gallon size can of something called Benjamin Moore Aura paint (in a tan-ish color) for $3. Well doing some searching online I see that Aura paint sells for $50 - $55 a gallon. Do people really pay that much for paint?

It's a miracle - I can see my dining room table!!

And not only that - the french doors now have Roman shades. It's only taken 15 years to get some sort of covering on them. It's hard to believe but we've been in this house almost 18 years and the french doors went in a few years after we moved in. I convinced myself that they were ok without any covering. A while ago (a few years?) I bought 5 Roman shades. So now 3 are up and we have two left to put up. It isn't too hard to believe but I am curtain/shade impaired. I hate dealing with anything window related. (Personally I think my husband installed them too close to the top but I kept my mouth shut). The shades were on clearance at Lowes for about $13 each, which I think was a good deal. I don't price shades very often (since the thought of dealing with curtains and shades gives me the willies) but for the heck of it I just browsed the roman shades at justblinds.com website and getting a similar shade in the size I needed would be $126 EACH there.

But of course the big story is that I can actually see my dining room table now. I found a home for all the miscellanous crap that I had been storing on it. Will have to deal with that later but at least now we can actually eat food there if we want. Disregard all the junk that is in the corner (that's gotta stay there for now). Would love to get rid of the exercise bike that is in the corner that my husband had to buy NEW many years ago. You can't see it in the picture, but to my left is our treadmill. Doesn't every dining room have an exercise bike, a treadmill and a carpet cleaning machine?? And he doesn't think we need a larger house.

Only one week left to enter contest

If you haven't done so already and want to, there's only about one more week to enter the contest I currently have running. And if you don't win this one, don't worry, you can try again in May when I start a new contest.

My swag from the hair salon - including some hemp seed

As I said yesterday, today I was going to stop by a new hair salon that advertised an open house, door prizes, etc. The above is the swag I got in a little goody bag. I am curious to try the Australian Gold Blazin' Tingle Bronzing Hemp with Hemp Seed. I am looking forward to tingling.

I did the special accordian fold to my entry for the door prizes so I expect a call any moment now announcing that I won a ton of stuff and services.

Tomorrow I am selling at an indoor yardsale. Hope to make some money and find time to shop at it.

Whiskey as a Pirate

In a McDonald's Happy Meal recently, Jacob got this teeny tiny pirate hat which apparently is only good for kids with a small head or dogs. Way too small for Jacob but I thought Whiskey might look good in it.

Recent Bargains. Now I have a dolphin in my car.

Last Saturday was my first real yardsale shopping experience for 2008. And this Saturday I am selling at an indoor yardsale (where space rental is $5). They say over 30 sellers have signed up so it should be very good - but probably crowded as far as how much actual space everyone will get.

Here's a couple of pics from my buys on Saturday. Most expensive thing was the brand new $5 golf cart (has a $59 price tag on it).

On Wednesday morning I went to Walgreens - since they had a special one day promo for a free inkjet refill. Well giving away the free refills is a smart move on their part. They lured me in the door with their free inkjet promo - then they said they didn't refill my particular brand of inkjet - and then all the bright lights and fancy displays enticed me into buying stuff I didn't know that I needed. Like a glowing blue dolphin for my car. It was $2.50 on clearance. And I ended up buying an additional $15 worth of stuff and no free inkjet refill for me.



Then on Wednesday afternoon, had lunch with my husband and then stopped at the little independent grocery where I got all those bottles of adult beverages. I wanted to see if they put anything else on clearance. I walk in the door and see a grocery cart with a sign ".50 each" Ended up buying nine .50 items. Bought a cheap pair of sunglasses, pizza cutter, multipack packages of gum and the below anti-perspirant and mousse for .50 each.



Tomorrow I need to get ready for the Saturday yardsale. But I will find time to pop into a new hair salon that is having a grand opening tomorrow. Supposed to be door prizes and free consulations, food etc etc. Maybe I can win a free haircut or something.

Go Green Live Rich by David Bach

So the other day I am reading my email and see that someone at Random House emailed me to let me know that financial guy David Bach has mentioned yardsalequeen.com in his upcoming book, Go Green Live Rich

It was a total surprise, the purpose of the email was to get my mailing info to send me a free copy of the book. Will post when I get it to give more details about the contents. Majority of the time I know about when the website is going to be mentioned somewhere. I've seen the guy before on Oprah. And now he knows about me (since I am sure he spent hours reading this exciting blog and finding out all about me). And maybe he'll tell Oprah about me and she'll want to meet me and we will be best friends forever. Hey, it could happen. I just realize now that makes me just two degrees separation from Oprah!

Crap. I just remembered that I forgot to look at the All You magazine when I was at Walmart today. I was interviewed for an upcoming article - the article is supposed to be in the May issue, but when I was in NY, I saw the May issue and there was no yardsale articles in it. So I am wondering if the April issue is still on the racks at my local Walmart. And I forgot to look.

Dollar Tree Shopping near the cemetery

I had a dentist appointment today. The dentist office is near a lot of the shopping I did today (Dollar Tree, Walmart, Target, Lowes, Staples etc etc). When I was at Dollar Tree I remembered I had my camera in my purse so I took a pic of a real cemetery which is right next to the Dollar Tree. (I couldn't get a good pic of the Dollar Tree sign next to the cemetery without standing in the parking lot) but just imagine a Dollar Tree to the right).

This may sound strange but after yesterday, I was really looking forward to going to the dentist today and just relaxing. Yesterday, I spackled, I sanded, I painted, and cleaned the floor and basically didn't sit down all day. We've been in this house almost 18 years and when we first moved into this spanking new house, I said "No need to paint right away even though its the cheapest paint the builder could find. Let's just wait a few years and then we can paint." And here it is 18 years later and there are still parts of this house still showing the cheap contractor paint. How sad - LOL! Oh well, there are more important things in life than painting the walls. Like going to yardsales.

My husband is out of town but coming back later tonight. Whenever he goes out of town, I start projects around the house. Today I went and bought two new toilet seats and a new faucet for my Spongebob bathroom. Did you know you can go to Lowes and get a coupon for 10% off your shopping trip?

I will have to post pics of my "before" and "after" of my bathroom. I came up with a cheap way for some Spongebob art for the bathroom wall. I bought Spongebob placemats and stuck them up on the wall. I think it's cute. I didn't go totally Spongebob though, I still kept my shaving brush collection up along with my vintage nasal douche.




I also stopped at VV and bought these vintage risque glasses for .35 each. Scene on left - at first I thought it was a woman about to John Bobbit the guy in the tub. But in studying it, its a woman putting a notch on her bedpost while the man collapses in the tub. Middle scene: woman in a wedding gown saying "Just think in a few minutes he'll know I'm not a blonde" while the mother of bride looks shocked. Scene on right: a prostitute on strike with "Unfair" sign. She is looking at a building that says "Do it Yourself HQ"