Tag Sale 101 …

Tags

Family, Flea Market, Garage sale, Green, Money, Tag Sale, vintage

I am getting ready for a Fall Sale!

Have you ever had a tag sale? No.  Why?  I bet that if you looked around there is some stuff you are not using … dishes, glasses, clothes, shoes, purses, toys.  I’ll wait, go look … SEE! 

Here are a few Dos & Don’ts to help you get started …

DO

• Price Everything!
• Price everything TO SELL!
• Have change (quarters, and dollars especially!)
• Have plenty of newspaper, boxes and bags
• Advertise!  (craigslist, local paper, local online paper, post about it on your Facebook Page, Tweet it, Instagram it)
• Hang nice, clear signs … signs that can be read from the car (check your local code, sometimes you are responsible for removing all the signs too!)
• Plan on a 1/2 Price Sunday Afternoon!
• Schedule a charity pick up for your leftovers.

DON’T

• Take any of it personally. There will be a few bad apples …
• Try to sell anything that is broken ~ especially electronics! (have an outlet, or an extension cord accessible)
• HAVE FREE STUFF! A bowl of hard candies, or Hershey Kisses is OK, but no FREE TOYS!
• Advertise too early ~ a Saturday & Sunday sale should be advertised on Thursday & Friday … you don’t want to get pushed to the bottom of the list.
• Be unrealistic with your prices.  If you saw something online or on TV that is NOT the tag sale price!!!
• Take anything back in!  If you are willing to sell it, then you should definitely donate it!

There is nothing nicer, in my opinion, than sitting around on a Sunday night, drinking a cold beer and counting your money!  Pick a weekend, give it a shot …

~ Peace

Something Simple … My New Friends

Tags

Bar Keepers Friend, Bon Ami, Cleaning, Home, Pyrex, vintage

Do you know Bon Ami & Bar Keepers Friend?  You should meet them … a little old fashioned, but hard working, sharp looking, and they do what they say they will.  All the qualities of a true friend, no?

In my vintage world I clean A LOT of things … rusty things, sticky things, scratched things, shiny things.  You name it I have probably had to find a way to clean it.  Working on a Bakelite Telephone right now … Really!

I had heard about Bon Ami & Bar Keepers Friend, great for this, amazing for that … no idea why I never had any in the house, until last week.  See last week I was prepping some vintage, stainless steal kitchen utensils and they had been loved (loved in Vintage world means used) … these were loved good!  A little stickiness, some rust, some grease, etc.  I used some castile soap, I used baking soda, vinegar, all worked, just not as well as I would have liked.   At the same time I had read a thread some where, probably a vintage board on Facebook, about using Bar Keepers Friend on Pyrex … LIGHTBULB!  Trip to the hardware store, because around here that is where they sell all of the GOOD cleaners that actually work, and brought my new buddies home … since then we have been cleaning everything!

My favorite thing … Bar Keepers Friends cleans utensil scratches on your plates.  These are utensil scratches … you have them, I know it.

This is the after … I know, right?

Now I know, who really cares about utensil scratches? Me (hangs head in shame) … In a real world normal application the bathroom sink and the tub look like this too!  With no chemicals, no smell and no bleach!

Happy Cleaning!

~ Peace

Confession … Summer Freedom, Not Really

Tags

Confession, Family, Home, Parent, Summer, Television, Working Mom

Sitting here, 8:30 on a weekday morning, in my jammies drinking coffee, trolling, listening to some streaming NPR … jealous?  Don’t be! I would love to have something fun to do today, use these summer days like all those creative mommies, fun loving mommies …

With all this damn trolling I have been doing (out of boredom) I have been thinking about virtual reality VS. real reality lately.  Not just spaces and tablescapes … but life.  Everyday real life, with kids, on a dull, hot, Summer day.  How come no one posts pictures of kids in the same clothes for days at a time, watching YouTube or building Legos?

Doesn’t anyone else have a hard time filling the day, everyday?  Isn’t anyone else too broke to go and DO SOMETHING everyday?

Summers are hard on Moms like me.  Moms that cherish and need alone time, like to work.  Work from home! I tried to make a Summer schedule; I will get up super early, go for a walk, before the man leaves for his 9-5,  work for an hour or 2 and then we will do something.  That day has happened once …

Our beach vacation cannot come soon enough! I am done with 100 degrees, air conditioning and TV!  Until then ……….

~ Peace

Something Simple …

Tags

Family, Home, Home Making, homemaking, Shopping, tips

The answer ~ Q-tips, bar soap, coffee filters, garbage bags …

The question ~ What are the things you ALWAYS forgot at the store?

A simple idea that we have been using here at SbS HQ to avoid the trip back to the store  …

If you take the last of anything, or preferably the 2nd to last … tear off a piece of the box, bag, packaging and leave it out where we make the shopping lists.

What simple tricks, or ideas, do you use to make it all work?

~ Peace

If Phia was in charge …

Tags

Education, Facebook, MySpace, National Poetry Month, poetry, poetry month

My girl, 14, had a writing exercise last week in ELA (English Language Arts, don’t worry I didn’t know what that meant either) … she was given a poem skeleton and this is what she came up with … Pretty damn good!  Witty, poignant, truthful, age appropriate yet adult at the same time … Happy National Poetry Month!

If I Were in Charge of the World

By: Sophia Peluso

If I were in charge of the world,
I’d cancel idiots, homophobes, close-minded bigots,
ignorance, algebra,
Actually all math in general,
MySpace, Facebook,
and also allergies.

If I were in charge of the world,
There’d be shorter school days,
longer summers, unlimited phone
and laptop battery lives, more attractive people,
and kittens.

If I were in charge of the world,
You wouldn’t have bad hair days.
You wouldn’t have hashtags.
You wouldn’t have bad grammar.
Or “No you cannot punch he/she in the throat.”
You wouldn’t even have messy hand writing.

If I were in charge of the world,
Pizza would be a vegetable.
All zombie movies would be rated “G”,
and a person who gets moody,
and sometimes forgets to watch their mouth,
Would still be allowed to be in charge of the world.

What would it be like if you were in charge of the world?

~ Peace

i heart … i hate

Tags

Confession, hate, love

I Heart

Danny

Sophia smiles

Anthony kisses

wine

home

the hunt

the lake

the beach

laying in the sun

a good bad movie

talking too loud with my friends over dinner

picking

the eureka moment

beers in a quiet bar

holding hands in NYC

making it work

ridgie chips

quiet house

caller i.d.

snow days

character assassination

yankee baseball

 

I Hate

 

small people

grudges

basil

assumptions!

changing the sheets

capri pants

mean girls

gossip

dwelling

debt!

curve balls

 

Blame Kelly …

 ~ Peace

Sara Style … Spring Wreath

Tags

antique, Ideas, Pinterest, Spring, Wreath, Yarn, Yarn Pom Poms

I decorate my wreath for EVERYTHING!  As an apartment dweller it is the only public display of Sara Style …

I have a very simple, well made, store bought grape vine wreath.  I have had it for at least 1,000 years, and it is a wonderful canvas … some sparkle for Christmas, Forsythia for Spring …

I am like a wreath stylist, here is my wreath decoration box … each season (month) has a little baggie with some flowers, a ribbon or two, fake fruit, leaves, garlands, outdoor décor, seed pods …

But alas I was bored by my go to Spring things and as I am prone to do, I took a look around the house to see what there was to use … I have a GIANT bag of yarn!  Have you looked around Pinterest at all lately, it is just full of Yarn PomPoms … just check THIS simple search.

So I made PomPoms!!!!

With my girl …

We used the Antique serving fork method … you all know that one right?  You can also use your hands, a hair pick, a cardboard template …

I had thoughts of making enough PomPoms to cover the entire wreath, PomPoms are not as easy to make as I thought!  We made this many …

I wired them, using florist wire which I keep in my wreath box, and …

I know, my door looks chartreuse, it is not.  I wish it was … it is really just apartment building green.

That is enough craftiness for me for a bit … I will be decorating the house for Spring this weekend, in Sara Style as well.

~ Peace

Treasury Tuesday … Retro Roosters

Tags

Decor, design, etsy, Etsy Treasury Tuesday, Retro, Roosters

Happy Tuesday … here’s a  little collection of vintage cocks I put together for you

TeeHee!

~ Peace 

Please click on the image to JUMP to Etsy …

Confession … Monday Morning Truth

Tags

Clean, Clean House, Confession, Family, Home, Monday, Weekend

This is what my house looks like this morning .  No special set up, no proper angles, no streaming sunlight … just a real home, on a Monday morning, after a fun and busy weekend.

My Dining Room

The Kid’s Room

The girl’s side …

The boy’s side … Imaginating!  Imaginating is messy …

… and my “BedroomOffice”

Happy Monday!  What is your truth this morning?

~ Peace

Evolve … Simplify Sara

Tags

branding, business, etsy, evolve, Small Business

Organizer ~ in my genes, but as work, not so much anymore.

Antique Dealer ~ EEEK!  Not yet!

Tag Sale Diva ~ not nearly as often as I would like … love me a good tag sale!

Proprietress of an online vintage store ~ YES!  Everyday!!!

When trying to get a small (really really small) business  off the ground word of mouth is key.  That is why it is vital I can answer the questions “What do you do?”, “What are you up to these days?”  At the bus, at a dinner party, in a class, Walgreens … people are so nosey!  No they are not … I just don’t answer these questions well.

I find myself rambling, giving the entire history of the last 3 plus years of evolution, only to get to I have an Etsy Shoppe. 

“A what?”

An Etsy Shoppe!  It’s an online market place for vintage and handmade goods.

“Oh, like craiglslist?”

NO!

I struggle.  I have to … SIMPLIFY IT!

Maybe I need new business cards?  Handing someone a business card makes it a legit business right?

Thank you all for indulging me … allowing me to work this through, you are witness to my over thinking and over analytical brain …

~ Peace 

In this Series …

• Evolve ~ Questions, Promises & Solutions
• Evolve, ReVolve, ReBrand