Yard Sale

I am so glad that my grandmother suggested a yard sale at her home this summer! We would never have been able to do it at our apartments, and her yard/garage is a very nice, peaceful space. In fact, our customers kept commenting about it! We had our first sale last Saturday, but we only had 42 customers in 6 hours, and while my grandma and her husband (not my grandfather - long story sorta) made about $40, my mom and I only made $17!

So we tried again today, with cleverer advertising. My step-grandfather put out several signs on the street yesterday morning (last time my grandma insisted the signs not go out till the morning of). 83 customers and 6 hours later, my mom and I had $86 more for our collection, and my grandmother made $177! I did not take pictures today, because I was in a bad mood this morning (I woke up late). But here are some from last weekend! Click photos for larger versions (the ones with our faces don't get bigger cause I'm paranoid).

My mom setting up at 7:30 a.m.!


My childhood dresses. These didn't sell so well either day, I think because they're so out of date (they're from the 90s). After our sale today, we took all the leftover items to Goodwill.


Oddly enough, neither of these items sold! The doll house went from $40 to $20 and finally $15, but nobody wanted it. Just as well, since the roof was missing. I was in love with that table as a child, though! It is kinda crappy looking though, perhaps.


Some old dolls and Thomas the Tank Engine stuff in my rickety old bassinet. Hmm, funny that the pictures I have from last week represent a lot of stuff we did NOT sell! Trust me, though, we sold some good stuff. Today I sacrificed my PlayStation1 and all my games. We got $25 for it all from a young couple with a 3-month-old baby. They got a lot of stuff and there was some confusion with their transaction, but I do know for sure that they paid for the PS1!


High chair and baby dresses. These all sold, actually! Haha finally a good photo.


Some glassware and books. My grandmother had so much glassware; it didn't all sell, unfortunately.


That trapezoid just right of center is "The Music Maker," a harpsichord-like instrument that I tuned after it being out of use for 10 years! Everyone had fun giving it a try with the pick (included) that we set out next to it.


Me and some baby fashion.

This was such a satisfying endeavor, despite the frustration with my grandmother throughout and the occasional boredom. However, as my step-grandfather put it, yard sale customers sure are funny. They buy the craziest stuff, they're friendly, and they love to talk. They really made everything worthwhile! :) What a great relief to get some cash for our clutter!

Promises

I'm so sorry to not be posting very much lately. I can assure you, it's not for lack of de-cluttering. Problems with our bathroom sink and plumbing gave me an excuse to clean out our bathroom, which was already the cleanest room in our house, even though it was pretty gross. Before and after pictures to come soon!

But before that...

I'm having a yard sale with my grandma, her husband, and my mom tomorrow at my grandma's house! We did one last weekend, but we didn't advertise, so the turnout wasn't great (42 people in 6 hours - I made a couple high scores on my phone's Diner Dash game, make no mistake). So we put out some ads for tomorrow and hope to sell everything! I took pictures last time and will take more tomorrow, so those will be coming forthwith! Dang that is an old fogey word.

Sorry to be all teasy and such and not even give a picture on this entry!

Garbage Disposal

My mother's wrist puncture wounds got infected, so that means she now has a huge splint on her left forearm and has to wear a sling. This also means that I have to do most of the housework. I just spent about 75 minutes doing dishes and I noticed, the same as I did a couple days ago when doing dishes, that the black rubber of our garbage disposal opening is a nasty yellow color. I Dawn'd it up and wiped off the crap with a wet paper towel. Much to my disgust, it was filthy!! Not just old (what kind of black fades to yellow anyway?). Feeling very un-green but determined to get the nastiness away from where we clean our dishes, I used many paper towels in the same way to get under the rubber surface, too.

You guys, it looked like FECES. :(

I looked online for ways to thoroughly clean garbage disposals and came upon AskTheBuilder.com. Tim Carter's article primarily offers solutions for smelly garbage disposals, but the ideas are great for everyday switch-flippin'-water-runnin'-food-crushin' fun. He says, in a nutshell:

Grind up the garbage with the water running into the disposal. Then, when it's finished, turn off disposal and stop it up. Fill the sink 2/3 of the way up with water, then add soap generously; finally, let the soapy water run into the disposal and turn the disposal on. The blades will swirl it around, effectively cleaning up that nasty poo-maker. (Ok those two are my words, not his.) There are many more great suggestions at Thrifty Fun.

Thanks to AboutAppliance for today's image.

Do It Yourself

Well, it's been a busy past few days! Not only with de-cluttering, but with birthdays and hanging out with my best friends for summertime fun and trying to get myself a job. I did de-clutter one of our couches in the living room. However, I sat down on it today and realized it's a depressing spot! It receives almost no light, even though it is about five feet from the window. Of course, this is because one of our bookshelves is placed illogically and uglily between the two! Hmm. I can't wait to start the re-arranging part of our project. In the spirit of DIY thinking*, here's a fun link about how to fuse plastic bags to make stuff! Just don't inhale those hot plastic fumes, kids.

Via Curbly.com

* Ok that's kind of a stretch, from my progress to "DIY" but I don't have much to write about...

Fancy Box How-To

After charging my camera batteries for around 815 hours, I have photos ready for a little tutorial. Keep in mind that I am only slightly creative at best, and my execution is kind of horrible. But the idea is what really counts: taking ugly old moving boxes from when you moved 13 years ago (hey hey) and making them look semi-decent so you can use them as storage anywhere in your house! This project is also good if you have over 50 rolls of wrapping paper that you need to use for something. Click the photos for bigger versions.

1. The box.



This is what my bedroom closet looked like before I cleared it out - I de-boxed the top shelf and I de-clothed about half the clothes rack, and I de-crapped the floor. The boxes were still hanging around after all that, somehow, so I came up with the project I will now demonstrate via pictures.

2. Wrap it like a present.



I estimate my boxes to be around 8x13x8, so the wrapping paper didn't quite fit perfectly on each side (you'll see this more in later pictures). But you can start by just laying the box on top of the unfurled roll and cutting it so that the paper covers each of the wide sides. I then folded the extra paper onto the inside of the box and taped it there.

3. Cut diagonally at the box corners for easy folding.



Just make little snippies at the inside corners of the box, so when you fold the paper up over the remaining sides of the box, you don't get paper bunchies. Have some yummies as a snack, maybe rub your tummy, listen to your munchies go crunchy. K I'm stopping.

4. Now fold the new extra paper in like before.



The remaining two sides of your box should now look like this on the inside. Keep in mind you can also use a square box or any other shaped box if that's what you have on hand and want to fancify.

5. When you fold up those two remaining sides of the paper, you should get a triangle-like shape down at the bottom.



This is a little tricky to explain, but hopefully you can use your present-wrapping skills, along with the photo, to figure out what I mean. If you need to, go back to where we made those snippies at the corners. Now pick up the tips of the paper that's hanging off the side of the box and bring them in to meet the center of the box side. Folding over the paper onto the inside, with the help of our snippied part, tape that extra paper down to secure it. Now smooth out the doors of paper you just made against the box; you should get something like the triangle I have here. If you're better at wrapping presents, then you'll get well I don't know what you'll get, just move on, you queen of present wrapping. Whateva.

6. Fold up that triangle.



Easy as pie. Now just tape that pie slice (the triangle) up to the side of the box. Smooth out any weird paper waves.

7. Be "creative" and cover any mistakes you made.



Since I'm not the queen of present or box wrapping, I had an ugly strip of my old box showing, and the triangle was shorter than I expected. So I took out some old poster board I've had since high school and made this little strip. I did it on both sides because I like symmetry. You don't have to like symmetry, but you also don't have to call me up in the middle of the night when your ugly box is haunting you from the closet.

8. Wrap the box top.



Pretty self-explanatory. I just barely had enough paper left on this dying roll to do each short side of the box top. My creativity knows no bounds, so for the top...

9. ...Be creative. Always.



I used more of that same poster paper to cover up the still-hideous top of the box. Got many different paper media used up that day! Success.

10. Labels!!



Labeling is important, as I've said before. So do something sorta makeshift or whateva. You can see how laughable my own writing and labeling is here (I didn't have enough room for the word "contents" so I cheated in a very erudite manner by making it French - "contenu"). Do your own thing. Or copy mine. Better, though. Of course.

Tell me your project ideas! And link me to photos (completed projects or incomplete, doesn't matter) if you want. I may even try them for myself. Better, though. Of course.

All Quiet on the Wrapping Paper Front

I had an idea for the wrapping paper that was so controversial in our house before. I'm beginning to free up space in my bedroom closet (we left Barbie Double Skatin' Fun in the capable hands of Books for the Barrios today - I don't know if that's the kind of toy they want, but it's the kind of toy they got today), and I want to start migrating the crap from my bedroom itself in there.

The problem is, the boxes I have to store my stuff are mostly horrible old moving boxes - cardboardy and belabeled (now incorrectly) in bright red marker. So I was thinking of how I could make my closet storage prettier. While I first thought of buying some classy boxes like these ones from Ikea (in red, because I think it looks so impressive and bold, and I'm formulating a color scheme plan for my room involving white, brown and red), I had a better, more sustainable idea.

Since my good friend, who has been posting very helpful suggestions and feedback here, reminded me of the importance of reusing, I thought I would take some of our wrapping paper and use it to cover my moving boxes. I'm thinking I'll use one paper for a few boxes on the floor of my closet, and maybe a couple different ones for the boxes that will sit on the top shelf I have. Labeling is of course necessary, so I think I'll concoct some sort of handwritten, concise labels out of paper lying around, backed perhaps by construction paper. I do enjoy construction paper (it makes me feel like the kindergarteners I work with during the school year :D)! I'll be sure to post photos when they're completed. (Sadly, there are no real before pictures of my closet, because my stinking rechargeable batteries die if I don't use them within 24 hours of charging them. Any tips?)