Surprise high bid items!

 

You can sell anything on Ebay. Anything. We all know this. But with the recent 150 free items to list I put this theory to the test!

Here is what happened:

 

This is a “super cloth” I picked up at a garage sale for less than $1. I really don’t remember. I sold it today for a total of $11. Yay me!

I purchased a few Monopoly games for $.45 each and this is the money from one of them. A guy in Canada paid $6.50 for this little pile!

These train set pieces also came in a $.45 cent bag. I’ve made my money back about 50 times with that bag! Sold for: $5.26.

Now, I know this doesn’t mean I’m making hundred’s of dollars worth of stuff sold but each little item gets shipped out my door it means two things.

• I just made some money
• I just got rid of something

Both are a huge success. If I sold it than that usually means I did a good job buying it! Or at least made my money back!

 

 

Update! The finished kid’s bunk beds!

The quilts are done! Yay! My grandmother whipped them out in like a week!
Here is where the bunk beds came into my possession for a mere $15. (I already had the mattress)
And Here is where they made their first debut a few weeks later.
Below is a picture of them with the dresser I got for free on Craigslist and painted leaving myself enough leftover paint to do the beds when I found them a few months later.

And now here it is all done with the quilts.

Yes! Isn’t it awesome! I love the handkerchief! But that isn’t all!

They are reversible! I know! Custom made and reversible! I’m so blessed!

Check out the way she quilted it. With squiggles! So fun!

Someday I might make pillows for the beds but right now I’m done. Also might make a bed skirt too.

Better yet, my Grandma used mostly scraps for the patriotic side! She made a bunch of “flag” quilts a few years back and had scraps from them. I love it!


 

Linking up to:

• Ninth Street Notions
• Craft O Maniac
• Craft
• Mad In Crafts
• Keeping It Simple
• Sumo's Sweet Stuff
• The Girl Creative
• Making The World Cuter

Saturday finds

 

My amazing hubby was going to help a friend this morning and he offered to take the kids so I could go garage sale shopping. I mean what husband does that? Mine!

So off I went in my minivan but without the kids to hit all the sales I could. I found some great deals, which was awesome but by 10:30 I was beat. This last week of pregnancy must be getting to me cuz I skipped the thrift store and came home to take a nap…I know, how bad is that?

Check out what I got:

A few summer items for the soon-to-be-born baby! 50 cents each:

Shoes for my little girl. They are “jumping bean” brand, which I know nothing about but $1 and in good condition. My daughter loves them!

Some trains for my son, well, he gave the one called “Lady” to his sister and kept “Spencer.”

These trains are mostly metal and run about $12 each from the store. They don’t resale very well but for $.25 each I can’t go wrong for the joy they bring the kids!

 

 

Some string for miscellaneous things…never can have too much! And a small jar for pretty much the same reason!

 

I scored on this Pampered Chef baking stone. It is rarely used and only $1! I later saw a baking rectangle for sale for $2 but I had to pass it up cuz I can only have so many…already regret it though!

 

And at $2 this wagon was my deal of the day! I asked the lady how much she wanted for it and she said, “How much do you want to pay for it?”

Now, don’t ask a garage sale shopping person that! I want you to give it to me just to be ride of it!

However, I didn’t say that! I said the next most insulting thing: “How about $1?”

She said 2 and she got herself a deal! I was excited but wouldn’t have paid more because I don’t need it but it will match my house decoration so I will find somewhere for it …or resale it. The asking price is from $30 to $60 but I don’t know what they sell for yet.

So mostly it was a very selfish day, not much in the way of business but I had a lot of care-free fun and I believe I spent around $8 total. A splurge every once in a while is ok! LOL!

While the kids are away, Mama will shop!

The kids got to go to Grandma and Papa’s for a few days so Saturday morning garage sales where hit by me and my sister…no car seats! Having the kids go with me is fun but going without them is a special treat too!
I didn’t do good on the reselling side of things. Everyone had high priced clothing or it was winter clothing.
But I got a few things for the house:
This pillow was my first purchase. It is missing 1 button. I think I will keep it but if I find a matching button I might sell it, or use it to make another one like it!

Love the ends!

The next thing was a spice rack complete with very strong smelling spices!

Some of them I will use and some I won’t. I don’t need the rack but I love the uniform jars! Thinking of using chalk labels on them. For $1 I can’t loose!

Now this was a random purchase! I first heard and ordered my ultimate cloth after reading this article. They had a promo where you only paid shipping so I got my cloth. Now these are a different brand but seem to work the same way. You only need water to make them work and you can reuse them alot. And there is some freezer cloth in the bunch. Not sure what that is yet!
Anyway, I got this pack for 50 cents.


Then I got some video’s for the kids, 25 cents each, and some lotion from a lady who gets lotion a bunch but is allergic to it. Aren’t these bath and body work bottles like $10 each? The purple one is Avon. Sweet! I have plans on making a “You-just-had-a-baby-so-spoil-yourself” package for friend’s I know who have babies so I’m looking for cute bottles to hold all these lotion and stuff I’ve collected!

I then picked this brand new sign up for $2. Original price tag said it was $19.50. They hadn’t even taken the cardboard off the back to hang it up!

When I showed this next purchase to my husband I told him I felt like I was bringing him record holders or something vintage like that! LOL. These are for my son’s VHS that don’t have cases. I’ve been looking for something uniform. I got these and a few other Black cases for $1

And this last item I’m not sure why I got. It is being used as my change jar at the moment. It just caught my attention 3 times and was only 50 cents. Hopefully it won’t end up in my next garage sale!






 

Linking to:
Young & Crafty
Ninth Street Notions
creatingreallyawesomefreethings

Bunk Beds: Before and After!

Remember those bunk bed I picked up for $15 at a garage sale?

Well, after my daughter helped unload (she did all the planks by herself!)

You know how many trips that was to and from the van?

Here is her little pile! Unorganized but done all by herself. I was one proud mama!

Well after unloading I had to start on the project right away. If you don’t start, it makes it impossible to finish right?

I started by sanding down the pieces. Even with an electric sander this took a while. I decided I should test it to see if I need to sand down every piece or if I could just paint over it.

The paint seemed to do fine over the stain so I went with it. The stain was chipped and needed redone and I figured painting it would be the fastest and easiest ( I already had the paint). It took about 6 days to paint, repaint, and touch up the bed. But was very rewarding.

Here is the bed my son has been sleeping on. It is actually the top of a bunk bed, but this is the only part we have of it. We love this bed. With the side rails on it he went from sleeping in a pack ‘n play to this bed. Since then I added another mattress (that is why it is so high) because I needed somewhere to store it until we got bunk beds put in.

Well, with just a few weeks until the baby comes it was time for this bed to go to storage until our little one can use it.

So after clearing out, sweeping, vacuuming (we haven’t moved the bed in a while) the bed was ready to be installed. My hubby was home this day and boy was I glad!

First off see this piece? For the record these pieces not only fall out but are not sold at your regular hardware store! The bed was missing about 5 of them so off to Lowes we went.

The husband is brilliant! He found these pieces…

And got them to work. And they are permanent…no falling out on these babies!

 

I don’t have matching quilts yet, but they are going to be awesome when they are done!

See those two railing that connect to the ladder. Those were broken when I bought the bunk beds. They said the ladder was busted but it was just those rails. The ladder was fine. We replaced the rails with slightly larger boards ( 4x1’s instead of 3x1’s) but they blend in nicely.

On of the rails that was busted will work for the bottom bunk, so my two year old doesn’t roll off. Hubby thinks of everything!

I love that the ladder doesn’t stick out into the room. We don’t have a ton of space so this is very nice!

The possibilities for these beds is endless, but I doubt black will be their final color. I might separate them someday and do one white for my daughter’s room, or strip and re-stain them a nicer wood stain.

But right now they match the dresser I refinished here. Remember what it used to look like?

Yikes! But it was free!

So the room is still a work in progress but here is a panorama shot so you can see the dresser and the bed. Amazing how paint can make the two things match!

(See that little kitchen in the corner? A friend of ours had a cabinet shop and when he closed it down he used scrap pieces to make these and gave us one. It has real Formica on the top and a real (not hooked up) faucet. The cabinets that make the fridge and under the stove are actually cabinets that go over your stove top or fridge! Amazing and cute huh? And built to last a lifetime!)
Future plans:

• Work on reversible matching quilts
• Add side board so bottom bunk is roll-off proof.
• Add gutter bookshelves to walls.

Linking up to:

• Designer Garden
• Just a Girl
• At the Picket Fence
• Fun To Craft
• Fingerprints on the Fridge
• Remodelaholic
• Chic on a Shoestring Decorating
• My Romantic Home
• Craft O Maniac
• Crayon Freckles

Beds, my ‘one’ weakness

Ok, so I have many more weakness than buying beds but this weekend this was my strongest weakness!
My husband had gone to Joplin Mo to help with the disaster relief and I kept my pregnant self at home with the kids. Oh, how I wish I could have gone!
And on top of that my close friend was getting married in Pennsylvania that day. It was a trip we decided against due to the long trip and being 8 months pregnant. (We live in Oklahoma. and for the record, we were pregnant before she got engaged. I just made the mistake of saying she couldn’t get married the month the baby was due. I didn’t mention we couldn’t even fly the month before that!) It was a terribly hard decision and though I couldn’t regret the wisdom of our choice, I did have to live with the regret that I wasn’t there.
So it seemed like everyone had somewhere to go and something to do but me. I know…poor me. Ukk. Ok, so what did I do? I went thrifting!

I got almost a dozen clothing items to resell from 99 cent day at the thrift store, then I hit up the surrounding areas for garage sales. The pickings were slim. It seems like a few people do annual garage sales on memorial weekend and then other people don’t even try for it.
I tried a few and ended up at one that had some promising kid items. Seeing I was pregnant they started mentioning things they would recommend. I wasn’t interested but I did eye some wooden twin beds they had laying out.
Now let me explain. I have my two kids currently in the same room. This gives us a spare guest room/ office which is nice. Once the baby comes I plan on putting bunk beds in there for the older two and the baby will go in a crib then toddler bed. I got a really nice solid wooden bunk bed for $10 without mattress’ (have those) at a garage sale last summer, we didn’t need them then but I sent them to my parents to store until we had another baby and needed it.
It wasn’t a fancy bunk bed. It had solid wooden head/footboards so it could only be used for bunk beds, and a nice ladder, but really it all needed to be stripped and re-stained from wear. And it didn’t have any side board to keep the kids from rolling off.
The beds at this garage sale looked like this:

The only reason I asked about it is they reminded me of twin beds I saw at a friends house.  They have two girls and their beds were matching white. I don’t think they were bunk but they were very cute and crisp in their room. And these headboard reminded me of those beds. So I asked the price.

“Um…$10 each” was the answer. I groaned. If she had said $20 each I could have walked away.
“Are they bunks?”
“Yes, but the ladder is broken so they are only good for being separate.”
“Not if you have a handy husband like mine they aren’t!” I thought
“Will you take $15 for both of them?”
If she said no then I could walk away right?
She said yes, helped me load and unscrew the pieces and got all the hardware labeled in a bag for me. And she threw in the broken ladder.
I haven’t set it up yet. I’m not crazy about orange wood so I’m painting it. Don’t hate me. I usually like the natural look better but these bed either needed stripped and re-stained or painted. I chose painting since it is cheaper (I have the paint) and easier.
All of that project will be posted later. Here is what I believe it will look like when it is assembled.

Actually the ladder is just fine. I started painting it right before it got too dark tonight. The parts that are broken are the slates the ladder hooks onto. I think I can just get new slates for it and drill holes. Anyway, you will see the finished (not orange) product as soon as I finish it and get pictures taken! I’m pretty excited. And the fact that the beds come apart will make them useful for as long as the kids are in my house.
Now to just find a new home for the $10 bunk beds that are at my parents house…maybe I can sell it for $25 to pay for both cost of bunk beds!
Oh yes! And when my hubby got home and I told him I got something we absolutely don’t need he responded with, “You got a bed.” Lol! He wasn’t thrilled to say the least, but when I told him the price and that she talked down from her original price he was hoping I got the whole thing for $10…yes, always wanting the lowest dollar. I think I would have felt bad if she would have sold it for $10 with all the help they did loading it for me!

Linking:
Thrift Share Monday
C.R.A.F.T