* get up early *

Put your signs up, start pulling everything out and start setting it up about an hour before the sale starts. Try to arrange it attractively, but remember that it's probably all going to get messed up as people go through it anyway. Remember to keep things in sections to make it easier for people to find. the more visible it is, the better it will sell.
If you don't want early birds, you may want to put "early birds pay double" in your ad. :) Remember that they can be your best friends though, because you don't have to lower your price on anything that early in the morning. I welcome people to look around as we're pulling stuff out.

So, you're ready to have a yard sale? Yay! It will feel so good to de-clutter and purge of the things you aren't using or don't love.

* The ultimate form of recycling *
pic source
This is an appropriate post for Earth Day as well, since I believe yard sales are the ultimate form of recycling. Instead of adding to a landfill, you are passing it on to someone else to use. When you go to yard sales, you find items to re-purpose instead of buying new. You are also supporting the American economy, because of your money goes into the pockets of your fellow citizens. Now that we have warm fuzzies about yard sales, here we go.

Okay, cheesy title, but I needed to make a filler for my wall since I decided to go ahead and break my plates. Didn't go to yard sales this past weekend (are you proud of me??) so I went ahead and shopped the house...

I found a ring of old keys I found at a random yard sale this winter that my kids love to play jail and zoo with. They love the klinkety sounds of the keys, so I took three off and left two to jingle. We'll see if they notice...

Another framed yard sale picture ($1) I was going to use to make a chalkboard with, but I'm going to use it here instead.
Take them out to my workshop, a.k.a my garage with an old carpet remnant on the ground. The carpet serves 2 purposes: soak up oil from our little old car my husband drives and my spray paint center.

The frame is perfect, don't need to touch that. Spray paint the keys black and when they are fairly dry, I take a fine sandpaper and gently let some of the gold show through to make them look nice and old:

It looks great just like that, but we're going to add our keys...

Hot glue them on, and there you have it.

Who needs pretty white plates when you've got cool grungy keys in a frame??

When you are practicing different arrangements of your beautiful plates on the wall, don't trip over your baby's bouncer and drop them.

photo from Martha Stewart

In the April Martha Stewart Living, she showed how to decorate eggs with designs from paper napkins. Very cool idea, but I wasn't really planning on doing it this season. Then, in TJMaxx, I saw these napkins for 1.99/pkg. Hmmmmm....my wheels started turning and I thought what if I could do this on plates?
Remember the plates I found at Target back in February? I loved the little beaded edge, but wasn't crazy about the pattern. So, I spray painted them cream with~be sure to spray a couple of light coats, letting it dry completely in between so you don't have drips.

I cut up the napkin and there were three layers~I just gently took off the top layer to use.

I don't have mod podge, but you can make your own by using elmer's glue and just watering it down. I put a thin layer on the plate, placed the napkin layer down,

and then gently added a thin layer on top and smoothed out any bubbles. The nice thing about this is if you make any mistakes, you just take it right off, wipe the glue off and try again. It took me two takes.

I love how they turned out! If there are any flaws, they are going to be up high where no one will notice~I'm hanging them in the dressing area of my bathroom.
**Side note: "I might learn to like her. Hang her in my bathroom." Can anyone name the movie?? **
The bathroom's coming...I may just have some pics to show you next week! But for now, this works for me. I'll see you back here tomorrow for a fun giveaway~I think you'll love it! Have a great day~

Back in December, I told you I was going to show you a ribbon intervention. Well, I was 9 months pregnant~didn't happen. So, with the Michael's craft boxes on sale this week for $1.67, I thought this would be the perfect time. Here is the Martha Stewart ribbon box that inspired me. $18? Not so inspirational. Let's see if we can do better...

photo by Martha Stewart Crafts

Part of my ribbon stash. Also not so inspirational...

Take your craft box and place rolls of ribbon in it. I used my red, pink, and cream fat rolls in this one. You want them snug so they won't be sliding around, but not tight. They will need to have room to roll when you pull yuor ribbon out of the side. How did I get those nifty little holes?

Ladies, start your drills! I had marked the box where my ribbon was and just drilled along the side. If are making a box of skinnier ribbon, you'll obviously need to make more holes and closer together. If you've never used a drill, get acquainted with yours today. Power tools are your friend! If you can use a hand mixer in the kitchen, you can use a drill. Ask the man in your life if he can show you how to make some holes in your box using a 3/8" drill bit. He'll be impressed. Now, when you go to get your ribbon, you just pull out the length you need, cut it, and everything stays nice and neat. If you go to Michael's and they don't have the boxes in colors you want, buy them anyway at the sale price and you can exchange them later when they get more in. If they're out, you can get a rain check.

Works for me... have a great Wednesday and happy April Fools!

* if you buy new things, you have to get rid of some of the old *
Unless you have a bare house and are starting from scratch. But, I have a sneaking suspicion that most of you {like me} have too much stuff already. If you start bringing home a bunch of treasures and add to your home without replacing items, pretty soon your house is going to look like an indoor yard sale. Get rid of things you may not love and replace them with things you do.

Remember these quotes from this post? Use them as a guideline in this area:

"Remove the clutter and then honor and respect those things that make your heart sing"


"When we talk about saving money, the best way to save it is not to waste it. And it doesn't matter how much time or energy or money you put into a room, if you haven't edited and organized and decluttered and gotten it into a beautiful, functional state first, you've wasted the money." ~Candice Olsen

Awesome advice.

Yard Sale, Garage Sale. Potato, pot-ah-to It's all the same, right?

Where do I begin?

First of all, you have to go. I hear lots of, "I never find good things at yard sales." And I find myself just wanting to say, "because you never go, or when you do, it's on the way home from something at 2 p.m. when everything is gone!" It takes a little planning and effort.

So,

*Look in your newspaper's classified section (many are available online to look at for free

*check on Craigslist in your area under garage sales
*look in the little free newspapers that come out during the week
to see what's going on for the weekend. I check on Thursdays and Fridays.

If it looks like a promising weekend, make plans to go!

I would say map out your route~I get frustrated very easily if I get lost on the way to yard sales because I think of all those great finds that are being snatched up because I'm LOST! So, I use Google maps~you can add as many destinations as you want and they give you turn by turn instructions from each place. This is well worth your time. Be mindful of the start times when they begin when making your "plan" so you don't have one beginning at 9 a.m. as your first stop if you're heading out at 7.

How do I know where to go??

I would just start going to areas near you. It won't take you long to figure out where your favorite neighborhoods are. You may have to drive a little ways to get to them and you'll have to determine if that's worth it for you. In the summer, when gas prices were crazy high, it wasn't for me. My favorite neighborhoods always seem to be mature areas with big trees and a good mix of older and younger families. Once you find your favorite areas and neighborhoods, you'll always gravitate there first. Pretty soon, you'll even become familiar with the street names and when a sale comes up on say..." 320 Sycamore" your heart will skip a little beat because you know that's a "good" street. :)

Are neighborhood yard sales always the best?

Hmmmm. Not always. Neighborhoods tend to have a preview night where they shop each other's stuff, and it seems everyone goes there, so it is crowded and gets picked over quickly. It's nice because you can hit a lot in not very much time, but some of my best finds have been skipping the neighborhood ones and hitting some others that are going on that same day. If you go to the neighborhood ones, head to the back first and work your way up, since people tend to hit the first houses they come to, and bring a bike or a stroller to quickly navigate from house to house. I have a friend who goes with her husband on bikes~one takes one end and the other takes another and they use their cell phones to keep each other up to speed on what they're finding.

What time should I go?

I like to go early. As I'm making my little route, I look at what time the first one I want to go to begins. Then, I plan on being there 1/2 hour early. Most people plan on early birds, and a half hour seems to work out well for me. So, if it's 8:00, I try to arrive around 7:30 and they are usually hauling their stuff out and don't mind if you start looking. April and May seem to be huge yard sale months and lots of people start at 7 a.m., and I head out about 6:45 then.

Of course there are exceptions, but this has worked well for me. If they haven't started bringing things out yet and there are plenty of other sales going on that day, I don't waste my time waiting. I'll come back if I have time at the end. There are also advantages to going at the end of the day~most people just want to get rid of everything and will practically give you things, but I love the selection first thing in the morning.

Do you go by yourself or with a friend?
Either. It can be a ton of fun going with other people, but if I'm on limited time I like going by myself because I know what I'm looking for and can move quickly from one to the next. That being said, some of my favorite yard sale memories have been with friends and family~being lost, trying to contain our excitement when we find a treasure, or wondering how we're going to fit that bookself in our little car, or where we're going to hide our stuff from our husbands. :) It's always nice to have a driver and a navigator as well.

How often do you go and for how long?

It all depends on what is going on in our family life. Saturday mornings are usually "mine" to head out and have time for myself, so if it's yard sale season that is what I tend to choose to do. But if we have activities planned or soccer games in the morning, I can head early for an hour (it's amazing how many you can hit in an hour if you have them mapped out and they're not far) so I can be back for whatever we have going on.

Yes, but not many during prime "season." The thrill I get in finding good deals is so worth sacrificing a few minutes of extra sleep. If you can't do Saturdays, Friday mornings can be your best friend. I like to head right after I drop the kids off at school and there are wayyyy less people on Fridays. If I have good luck, I don't have to worry about heading out on Saturday.

Oh, this has been so much fun writing~can you tell I love yard sales?? I would love to hear your tips for "before heading out" and I know many of you are experts. What would you add?

Next, will be "at the sale..." Stay tuned!!

I wanted to make a cute, unique baby gift for a friend of mine and had seen some adorable creations around blogosphere with fabric paint and iron-ons, and wanted to try my hand at it. So, I took a 48 cent Old Navy shirt from their last clearance sale~they were marked .97, and then half off that~can you believe it?? Look at the tag to see for yourself....

You can create a font in your own handwriting~for free!

Go to http://www.yourfonts.com/ and it will lead you right through it. You'll need a printer and a scanner. The thing that took the longest was filling out the template~I was trying to get it perfect and spent forever. I added some little symbols on the bottom too.

How fun to be able to use your own handwriting on the computer for scrapbooking, address labels, little notes, lists, letters...the possibilities!

And look at the bottom of the post~there is my name in my own handwriting!

To add your signature to your blog, you'll have to use your new font to write your signature in a photo editing program, then host it on a site like photobucket.com or flickr.

Then, follow the instructions on this little tutorial here.

Have fun!

Kels and her husband

Well I feel completely honored to have a guest spot on this blog. I am no where close to my sister's talent, but I like to think sometimes that I got a little bit of her decorating niche in me- and I do mean very little! My ward was doing their annual craft Saturday and since I was on the committee I was in charge of putting together some type of craft. After searching the Internet I decided to be bold and take on the task of making an antique clock. I had always wanted a big clock so I decided, 'Might as well make it!' After doing much research and experimenting with a few different things I finally was able to complete this project! I love the way it turned out and am so proud to say that I made it myself! It is very inexpensive to make and it will be even less expensive if you have one of those oh so common table tops that Melissa has found numerous uses for already! Here we go!

I couldn't resist scheduling my post for 11:11 a.m. on 11/11 :)

I've seen topiaries like these and have loved the simplicity of them:

I love the look of weathered pots. Here is one that has been out for almost a year on our back porch (plus, I had to show you that I really can keep something alive~my impatiens are my last hope of not having all brown thumbs!)

Tip Junkie is having a "favorite project of 2008" party. Go check them out!!

My favorite post of 2008?? It was between the kitchen or bathroom makeover, or the 3 legged table ideas, but I think I like this one the best, because it's a small, do-able project. You can see the before and after here.

The top layer was already peeling off, so I finished the job with a wallpaper scraper to reveal the wood underneath