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

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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

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

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

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

Make Lemonade!

Tags

challenges, cover ups, Decor, design, Home, Ideas, repurpose, vintage

Any lemons around your house?  I have a few … a lemon is a spot or a thing that HAS to be there, but has “aesthetic” challenges … so now, do you have any lemons?  An outlet in the middle of the wall, thermostat, fuse box, steam riser?

This is my kitchen lemon, a GIANT, white outlet, in the center of the wall over my bar cabinet, and under my beautifully accessorized (if I do say so myself) cookbook shelves …

This is my lemonade …

A fruit crate brought home from a Tuscan Market, yup that’s it! No more eyesore outlet …

Here are a bunch of great ideas for your lemons, and the rest of mine.

Exposed pipe in the living room?  I have one in my bathroom … love this solution!  Adding porch post to my flea market list.

Source ~ Ethereal Plus What I Love

Giant, ugly, air vents? Kelly at Eclectically Vintage made lemonade by using an Antique crib side rail and ribbons to cover it up.  I love outside the box solutions …

Source ~ Eclectically Vintage

These 2 cover ups deal with all that techy crap we have to have in our homes … the router and the wires.

Source ~ Anamu

Source ~ Lushome

Cover that stat!  Cute idea & a great tutorial …

Source ~ Frankfully

Or …. we can embrace them and make them as beautiful as their surroundings

Source ~ Refinery29

So many different ways to make lemonade of the lemons our homes can toss our way … thanks to the creative bloggers that share their wonderful ideas!

~ Peace

Click on the photos and jump to the source!

Thrifty Thursday ~ Paper Bag Valentines

Tags

1st Grade, Craft, DIY, Hershey Kisses, Paper bag, paper lunch bags, Valentine, Valentines Day

Why reInvent the wheel, right?  I used brown paper lunch bags for Kindergarten Valentines … so I tweaked the idea a little for the 1st Graders.  A few less kids, means a little more money in budget, so I can include a pencil for our new little writers …

Same as last year … a heart on every bag

Color, Color, Color … cut, hole punch and a mock up that doesn’t work.  It’s droopy …

Second try (with some input from my Girl) … no cutting, fold the bag, 4 layers, not droopy anymore!

This year Anthony wrote his name IN MARKER on all of the bags …

$10 for a great big bag of kisses, $2.98 for 30 pencils, had lunch bags on hand (always do) … and my grand total for 19 Valentines $0.68 each!  Loving that!

~ Happy Valentine’s Day!

Related articles

• 10 Valentine’s Day gift ideas for school (mnn.com)
• 20 Homemade Valentine Ideas (abeautifulmess.com)

A Safer Lunch …

Tags

Family, Food, Ideas, kids, leftovers, lunch, lunch bag, money saver, plastic wrap, soup, tips, trick

Free of leaks & spills that is … I pack lunch for 2 kids and 1 husband everyday.  The husband lunch is usually leftovers, leftovers has meant soup A LOT lately, and after a lesson learned last week this is how the soup gets packed now.

A little plastic wrap BEFORE the lid goes on and we are safe from spills and leaks … for the husband that is.  Still get a lunch bag full of water from the boy every day, even after my love note …

What tips and trick do you have?  Thought I would share mine …

~ Peace

Vintage Pennants …

Tags

AMNH, Arkansas, Disney, history, Kansas, Michigan, Niagara Falls, Ohio, pennant, Quebec, souvenir, vintage

The predecessor to the shot glass and the t-shirt … a memento of a family vacation, proof of allegiance … a school, a team … A memory,  the pennant.

Amazing, cool looking, kitschy little pieces of history … anything familiar?  Did you go to Niagara Falls on your honeymoon?  Maybe you know a Central Catholic alumnus?

Quebec, Chateau Frontenac

Hot Springs AK

Niagara Falls

Michigan

Disney!

Kansas City

The Hayden Planetarium

Central Catholic HS Toledo OH ~ STILL THERE!

Quebec Aquarium

These are all available, for you, at Sfuso …

~ Peace

Food Triage …

Tags

Food, Home, Ideas, kitchen, Money Savers, Offbeat Home, Organize, Pantry, perishables, prepare, Triage

Not meal planning … The Chef does not do that.  He decides everyday, on the way home from work, what is on the menu for that evening.  That said … we still have to plan a little.  I mean come on, I live here too, and I plan!

Our compromise, inspired by the Offbeat Home article Make better use of your kitchen’s resources to waste less food and save more money … specifically THIS picture.

Photo by Cat Rocketship

Here’s mine …

Here’s how …

Take stock of the perishables …

• Crisper Bin … see the leftovers too!

• Cold Cuts

• Check your freezer, any prepared meals in there?  Anything that really should be cooked soon???

A well stocked pantry combined with keeping track of your perishables means less waste,therefore, more money!  Who doesn’t like more money?

~ Peace

Other Pantry Posts …

Simplify your Pantry …. An Experiment

Simplify your Pantry … Follow Up

Pantry Lists & Shopping Strategies

Pantry Experiment … Eat ’til It’s Empty