A messy situation

The other day I was in Goodwill. I had a bug to get some name brand clothing to sell on eBay, and as luck would have it every item I touched was gold! I was gathering clothes with wild abandon and picking up speed. However, this beautiful scene, was not meant to live forever. I had tried to brave my local Goodwill store with 3 young children (6, 5 & 21 months) and in an instant my fruitful gathering skidded to a stop. I gazed down the aisle at the child who was emitting a rather annoying and loud noise to find that as my eyes traveled back down the aisle to me, there was a nasty line of olive green poo to match the pair of pants I was holding. The poo line led straight back to the poor potty-training pull-up wearer that is my son, who was standing almost embarrassed in a larger pile of it, with more dripping his leg. Empathy over passed the embarrassment and frustration I was harboring, and although I could not and would not scoop him up into my arms with all that stuff on his legs, I did carefully kneel down and let him know it would be alright. I really hoped this was true, and that the clothes around us had been saved from the fate the floor had fallen.

Next, was to alert the cavalry, and luckily for ME, there was an employee on the next aisle (probably come to find out who's kids those were playing amongst the clothes). Unluckily for HER I had a yucky discovery she was going to have to take care of. I told her I would clean it up if she'd just get me some paper towels but she refused. Apparently this is part of their job - yuck! I grabbed my baby by the wrists and hauled him out as best I could hoping he didn't drip anywhere. Thankfully my car was better equipped than my purse and he was cleaned up in a matter of minutes. And BACK into the store we went. My cart was waiting, the aisle was cleaned up, and we were back in business. Although the store would probably prefer we just went home.

I left with about $100 worth of clothes (lots of goodies I'm finding as I'm listing them) and an excitement to post them all on eBay. Oh, and 3 tired children, who'd pretty much worn themselves and me, out.

And today, as I look back on the experience, and can throw my head back and laugh!

Ruined t-shirts

I HATE to throw things away (well useful things anyway, I'm not some hoarding garbage monger). I love to sell things on eBay, and I love to donate things to Deseret or Goodwill, and I love to declutter, but t-shirts with stains to me aren't donation quality. Who would want them? They still have a lot of life in them really, but my kids drawers are always overflowing anyway (because people love to give clothes to me) so the stained ones get discarded. Which brings me to this dilemma. As a recycler who can't stand it when I see somebody throw away a perfectly good plastic bottle which they could be recycling, what can I do about all these ruined t-shirts??

Well, I have been fortunate to find a couple good ideas and I'm itching to buy a new sewing machine to try them out. My sewing machine fell off a counter and has some serious damage which I'm not sure is fixable, and it's older and I want one which does some fun stitches. Actually it would be very ideal if I just won one like you can in a giveaway I just found on a beautiful site Handmade Beginnings, here's the link for the giveaway
http://lp.wileypub.com/handmade/indexIE.html

Back to the good ideas for upcycling some old stained t-shirts. These gals are truly gifted!

The Crafty Cave made these beautiful bows and lots of others. Check out her fab tutorial here.

At Second Street is one of my favorite blogs. Read her tutorial here for this adorably wonderful hat that can be made for kids and adults!!

Creative Jewish Mom has this beautiful centerpiece on her blog. I'm not sure if these flowers would come out quite the same in t-shirt material, but I'm thinking of some of the ruffly sleeves and necklines of some of my girls shirts. Wouldn't those be sweet flowers!? Check out her tutorial on these felt flowers here.

Helping Little Hands has a great tutorial on how to make old t-shirts into summer shorts for kids!! Click on the following link to check it out! Helping Little Hands: 25 Minute Upcycled Summer Shorts & Capris (or Pants): Tutorial

State Print Giveaway

The gals over at eighteen25 are doing a fun giveaway for a Free 8x10 State Print designed by Jenna of Q.A. Design. Since they have received over 200 comments there will actually be two winners! Yay! I hope I'm one. I would love to have either the Utah one where my husband and I were both born (same hospital 4 months apart) or Nevada where I live and all my babies were born!

I love giveaways and both of these blogs listed are fabulous!

This week's Best sales

I sold a few othes things, but these are the best sales this week. All were purchased at Goodwill and all sold on eBay!

This baby I had to list several times but it finally paid off. It's a piece of Danish pottery by BJORN WIINBLAD. I thought perhaps they mightve thought it was an ash tray or something but it's actually a collectible piece. I purchased for 49 cents - sold for $12.99

Girls 4T dress from B.B. Collections - purchased for $2.99 - sold for $8.99

Bebe Jeans size 26 - purchased for $8.99 sold for $12.99

Chocolate!

Walgreens apparently has a Chocolate deal that as a chocoholic, I think everyone ought to know about!! I heard about it on my fav coupon deal site Hip2Save.

Deal Scenario:
Buy 4 packages of Hershey’s kit Kat Bars 8 packs $1.50 each
Buy 3 packages of Hershey’s Reese’s 8 packs $1.50 each
Total = $10.50
Use the in ad coupon which will make each package $0.99
Pay $6.93
Get back a $5 Register Reward
Final cost ONLY $1.93 total– just $0.28 per 8 pack!
As far as I know, it really can be any combo of Snickers, Butterfinger, Reeses and Kitkat.

I have got to go get some today!

Redbox Free rental!

"LIKE" Redbox on their Facebook page today, June 21st, and you’ll be able to snag a FREE rental code!
This code will only be valid on June 21st and expires at 11:59 PM Central; Promo code is valid for the first night of rental only and does not apply to Blu-ray discs or video game rentals. Keep in mind that the promo code is NOT valid for online reservations.

I got mine and will FINALLY be watching Avatar! Another reason to be blissfully happy that somebody gave me a big screen a couple months ago!

Fathers Day Fun

The eighteen25 gals have

done it again! I love their site!

And it isn't just because I knew these gals in high school, which I can attest to the fact that they are as awesome as they seem! Their creativity makes me smile. They make things that I can actually do! They bring crafting down to my level. And that's good! 'Cuz I'm a crafter at heart.

So anyway back to Father's Day, This gift for dads is too much! Go to their site to see the full tutorial. I'm going to make it a family tradition in my home! Think of how fun it will be to look back over the years at all the fun drawings and notes (which can be written on each paint sample bock).

Goodwill Hunting

I've been Goodwill shopping, or as I fondly call it Hunting for a couple years now. It's been exciting to find things that are of good worth and sort of recycle them by getting them out of the thrift store and back into hands that will use them. I'm kind of a go-between gal. And because it makes me some extra cash I really love it!

It started back when I fell in love with the kooky NBC comedy The Office. I think they were well into the second or third season and Target started selling stationary items in their $1 aisle featuring the cast and some of their funny quotes. I bought a few for gifts and for myself. I then decided I would check on eBay to see how much I could score the 1st & second season dvds for. Lo and behold some of the $1 items were selling like hotcakes and not just for a dollar! For $3 and up. I thought to myself here's an opportunity for me to make some extra cash (it was around thanksgiving and Christmas shopping was still undone). Well as things at retail chains go in cycles, Target started clearancing out their $1 stuff. I scooped up a bunch of things for 50% off. I started selling on eBay and was doing well. Then about a week later I was at Target and noticed there was a 90% off sale in their $1 stuff but no more of The Office so I asked a sales clerk about it. She said that they donate their stuff to Goodwill when they are done with it. This was something I'd heard of once before and thought it was very valuable info. Especially when about a week later I hit the pay dirt at a Goodwill with a huge crate full of my Office stuff. Over the next week, I hit every one of the 8 stores in Las Vegas and scooped up as much of The Office memorabilia as possible. Great this is that they sell Target $1 aisle items for only 33 cents a piece. From then on I was hooked!

Over the years I've bought and sold tons of different items at Goodwill. Most of The Office stuff sold very quickly, and I've gone back and forth between selling in groups and individual items, depending on the demand. I've also sold pottery, cake pans, collectibles, clothing, party supplies, toys, you name it! In the early days/years I was really good at keeping records. You really should, in order to find out what your profits are. There are eBay fees, Paypal fees, s&h fees, and all that jazz. Lately I haven't been as good but I think I just need to do some streamlining, maybe a spreadsheet.

I recently found a wonderful site called My Dear Trash and am so thrilled that others are out there having good success and loving the adventure of it just as I am. She recently posted about being contacted by Goodwill. I am happy to know that they too are supportive of this kind of recycling. It really is helping all involved. In this economy everyone can benefit from it.

I thought I would start a blog to showcase some of my deals as well as add in some of my other favorite hobbies. I love couponing, bargain hunting, crafting, and blogging. So here's to a new fun adventure!