It's only a few days away - our annual yard sale! My oldest daughter lives next door and has the perfect place for a garage sale. So every year we fill up her garage with our items and those of a few other family and friends and then turn around the next weekend to go spend our earnings at the citywide yard sale in a town just 20 minutes from here. It's a lot of work (I spent most of today locating items and pricing them, and still have tons to do!), but it certainly helps get rid of some of the clutter, and allows us to shop without guilt the next weekend. My stuff is mostly clothes, but also some other good stuff, like the beautiful yellow quilt I bought last summer that my younger daughter didn't like. And the brick-red chenille bedspread I bought for our bedroom that my hubby disliked. And all the chenille spreads I bought at yard sales last summer because I was so sure I was going to create some wonderful things with them. But I had to make a decision about where I'm going to spend my very limited spare time, and the garden won, so out goes the chenille.
Maybe I'll buy flower pots or garden tools with my chenille profits.....
I have been on a mission this year - to hit every yard sale I can - and it has been a blast. I've bought over 450 separate items at sales in 2007 and still have 6 weeks to go! Of course, the sales have dwindled to nearly nothing lately, and the goal isn't to break some kind of record for number of items, but to find things that I love, or that one of my kids or grandkids will enjoy, or something that will save money I would have spent anyway, or to even help my Christmas fund. No doubt I'll have plenty to share in future posts, but this one is about some of my favorites from this year - items I love and have kept for myself.
Bowls! Why do I have this crazy h
angup about
bowls? Glass, ceramic, pottery - mixing or serving - I love 'em. The white with blue stripe is a set of 3 nested mixing bowls. The yellow looks old but is in great shape and we use it often. The blue spongeware is probably part of a pitcher & bowl set, and isn't old by any means but I love the look of it - makes a great salad server. Not pictured is a Betty Crocker mixing bowl with handle and spout, and a couple of the opaque white mixing bowls that were popular in the 60's-70's.
And I had made up my mind it was time to find an old pie safe or china cabinet or some piece of furniture for displaying stuff, in my farm kitchen. I got rid of the cheap old baker's rack, made of green and gold tubing, that had been tolerated but never loved, during our yard sale in April of this year. I was keeping an eye out for that wonderful piece that I knew was just waiting for me to find it...and then in June, there it was! I went to a garage sale at a huge house and was taking my sweet time since I didn't have to be at my job for a couple of hours. The owner started visiting with me about all the items she had in the house that she wanted to sell...leather chair and sofa, huge TV armoire, solid wood computer desk and matching bookshelves....and then she mentioned a buffet and got my full attention. I don't intend to leave it the color you see
here...however I was surprised that it didn't clash in my kitchen. Good thing since I may not get around to painting it for several months yet. It holds a number of treasures I've picked up at sales - an old aluminum colander, several vintage aprons, a tin watering can, the bowls I bragged on above, a picnic basket from a thrift store, and more, more, more. The plan (as of right now) is to paint it a rich chocolate with an antiqued cream color on the interior display walls, leave the unpainted wood as is, and replace the plain wood knobs with white porcelain ones (already purchased at another yard sale).
