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Hello friends,
Show was great however I got the creeping coughing crud last Wednesday and it’s knocked me low. I’ve been crawling out of bed ( or more precisely the chair in my bedroom because I can’t sleep lying down right now) to do my mailings and right back again. I managed 5 listings and that was a huge push, just so I wouldn’t have another week with a zero. UGH. I’ll share about the show when I feel better. Guess I burned the candle at both ends a little too much this time around….but it was worth it. I think. Ask me in a week. I’m not even going to throw down a gauntlet, y’all….just too damn tired.
Totally in show mode now but did manage a rather grand picking adventure (twice, even) which I will say more about later….but in the meantime I got 24 listings done this week. The next two weeks will be zero for me.
Hope everyone has a great week ahead!
Jay, I sure wish I could. The problem is time. We poked around for over an hour and only made it through about a third of the stuff. We couldn’t even get to the costume area because there was too much piled up in front and we didn’t want to overstep. There’s old glass front cases full of stuff. There’s old wood shelves behind the cases full of stuff. It’s a commitment to really dig in deep. Charlie found 3 old metal soda signs that he paid 3 bucks each for. The two vintage Xmas items I paid $3 for and will get at least $25 each on Ebay. I also bought an old wire laundry cart for five bucks that I will take to my show and ask $125. But she wanted $3 a yard for the fabric. I paid a dollar a bolt when the son took over. It’s a crazy good picking opportunity, especially if one could go in and just buy everything. But it would take time to box it and haul it and store it.
I load 2 26-ft trucks for the show on Tuesday, and after that I am over at the show from 9am to 8pm, every single day, until the 21st. And I have a long to-do list between now and Tuesday. It just isn’t possible. Trust me, it kills me that I can’t. This is an incredibly rare opportunity. I hope someone can go over and help her out.
Amatino…so sorry to hear about your woes. Sending you healing thoughts.
In show mode now. Managed 15 listings last week. It will probably be even less this week and next week is show set up so going into a dry spell now.
Happy Fall, y’all.
I missed the Monday posting somehow, the day got away from me. Ack. Things are accelerating on the show front but I still did manage to do 56 listings last week, but it shouldn’t count since I missed the day. Charlie and I did manage a fantastic bit of scavenging today while on the way to drop off packages at the Post Office. A local bakery that had been in business for 93 years had shut down and they were doing demo on the building to convert it to a print shop. Out front they had a dumpster and in front of the dumpster with a sign that said FREE…..
The NINE FOOT LONG BAKERY SIGN THAT HAD BEEN UP ON THE BUILDING.
I couldn’t believe it! That man is a BEAST for scavenging. Good thing we had a minivan, and it barely fit. Can’t wait to feature it at the show! (and I’m putting a hefty price on it too…it’s a piece of local history and I can’t believe they just threw it away!)
Hope everyone has a great week….I won’t be getting much listing done for the next 4 weeks…so have at it!
Getting my numbers in and then it’s back to work. I have two weeks left until October and my show madness.Last year I think I posted less than 10 items the entire month of October. I hope to do slightly better this year but there’s still going to be at least two, maybe three weeks with no listings at all.
I listed 75 items this week.
Here’s hoping everyone had a better week last week….and a great week ahead.
Hmmmmmm…it appears that some of us were in the glumps this past week, myself included. For me, I think part of it was realizing that it was the first week of September and all the Summer projects I didn’t get done. I have a LOT of pressure on me in the next few weeks, with my show rapidly approaching and some unwelcome news from Amazon FBA (that I don’t even want to talk about! Ugh!) and so forth and so on. The shining light of the week was going picking Friday and Saturday and finding so so so and I mean so much good stuff. Saturday Charlie and I kept going to sale after sale and finding boxes of treasures at each. It was unreal and so much fun. I can’t remember a picking day where I was still finding amazing things at 1pm, several hours after sales had opened. At that last sale I found a first edition Wizard of OZ book, and a box of vintage Christmas, including a herd of vintage reindeer. I was gobsmacked. I tell you this because I will say that it definitely improved my mood and inspired me to feel better about everything.
It’s funny how that works!
So what would work for you? A good book and some quiet time? Chocolate? A nice long hot bath? Hunkering down and doing something you really don’t feel like doing and then rewarding yourself afterwards? Lunch with a good friend who makes you laugh? Whatever it is, I wish that for you this week. Be gentle on yourself…this too shall pass.
(oh, and I listed 64 items. Sorry.)
Hey Vintage Treasures, you made your goal for the month of August, so yay you! Sometimes, that’s all the matters, right? I’m betting September will be a better month for you.
Very quiet nose-to-the-grindstone week for me. Organized a death pile bunch of fabric that was bugging me and it feels so much better to have it organized. Other than that, and going out picking yesterday morning (and finding tons of cool stuff for the show) it was list list list. 84 listings for me. And I shipped several boxes to Amazon FBA.
Happy September everyone….here’s hoping for a great month ahead for all of us.
Vintage Treasures your kind words came just at the right moment as I was having a rather challenging day! Thank you so much. Please do come for a visit! I’d be shy at first but then become my usual goofy self. I am sure we’d have loads to talk about. As would everyone in this group. We all live such different interesting lives.
Last week I was caught in the dilemma of both trying to be the coolest aunt on the planet and getting ready for my biggest show of the summer. My nephew is in awe of me after I introduced him to Stranger Things and we binge watched Seasons One and Two. It’s all he could talk about. But I was burning the candle at both ends, staying up until the wee hours trying to price and pack and so forth. It was a fun show yesterday but my aching bones today! We had to leave at 4am, as set up on the main street started at 5am. We finally finished unloading our rigs about 7pm, hot and sweaty, but with much less to unload. My most fun sale was a vintage pull-down schoolroom world map. Bought it for a dollar at a barn sale a week previous and sold it for a crisp hundred bucks. They go for a bit more than that on ebay but I really didn’t want the hassle of having to ship it. I was happy, she was happy.
All this to say that I managed 5 listings last week. I’ll be back more on my game this week.
How can it be the middle of August already? Argh! Hello all, I am posting early too as my 13-yr-old nephew arrives today for a week visit and I will be busy doing auntie things with him. This coming week will be a challenge, as we’re going to go on several adventures, including visits to the beach and a science museum so we’ll see what happens. Good thing I like to post late at night.
I had a good week and listed 57 items. I am trying to get more done this summer, as last year I tanked during the last quarter of the year and didn’t have good listing weeks…the most was a week I posted 19 items. My goal has always been 50 a week, so any I can do over that helps me later.
Amatino….come on up to Oregon! We’d have an amazing time together…I’d take you to estate sales and bins bins bins. It’d be a blast. The invite extends to everyone. 🙂
Vintage Treasures, my brother lives in Colorado Springs. It’s a gorgeous part of the country! Sharyn, best wishes in getting your daughter ready for college!
Hope everyone has a great week!
This is prime picking season for me now and had the most excellent weekend, with carloads of treasures found. I’ll stop going out the beginning of October since that’s the start of my busy season and won’t resume (other than the occasional bin binge) until March so building up inventory is crucial this time of year, especially with my big show coming up in October. Last weekend I found an 8 ft tall windmill that will be the centerpiece of our Farmhouse Christmas display at the show and that was quite a thrilling find….until we hit an amazing sale yesterday. It wasn’t even on our list!
We saw balloons and signs and decided to detour, and it turned out to be several sisters selling their grandma’s stuff. They hadn’t listed the sale on Craigslist, so we had the sale almost to ourselves and the whole dang yard was filled with tables and boxes and piles of stuff they hadn’t even unpacked yet. WELL. I love a good digging sale. Nothing had prices on it and both Charlie and I started piles on their porch, that kept growing bigger and bigger. There were quite a few boxes of fabric, but most were little bits and scraps..but I did make a stack of about a dozen pieces that were definitely vintage. My big pile of treasures cost me $23. When I got home I looked at the fabric and discovered that most of it was from the 1930s and 40s…which sells for good money. I listed it and within minutes, a piece sold for $45. And then two more sold. Ca-ching ca-ching. It was very exciting to have it sell so quickly!
We went back today to dig some more and I brought home a pile of vintage fabric twice as big as the first…..and have been on a listing frenzy. I had already done a fair amount of listing earlier in the week too…..so I listed 73 items this week. And have 21 Etsy orders to ship out tomorrow! Woot!
I am so sorry you had a rough week VT. I totally get the need for thrifting therapy. I do it too. But just think of how your sales are going to skyrocket in September when overall sales start picking up!
Congrats Sharyn and Amatino…you both are on a roll!
You ladies are hilarious! Sure, gang up on me and see where that gets you. 🙂 Everyone is forgetting that Sharyn came on strong the second half of last year and actually won the YEAR. I’m keeping an eye on HER. (grin)
I listed 26 items last week. I had a vintage flea market to get ready for, which took a bit of time. It was yesterday, in 93 degree weather and we were miserable, but trying to make the best of it. First time doing that particular show, and the customers turned out not to be our base. A bunch of lookie lou’s and bargain hunters. The booth next to us were a father/son team selling items they couldn’t sell on ebay. They had a $1 table and a $3 table, if that tells you anything. We did sell quite a few vintage books, which somewhat redeemed the day. A customer was kind enough to point out to us that we had a black widow spider climbing on one of our display tables. Ugh. Nothing like your scorpion stories, but still…I don’t do spiders well, and that’s a story in itself.
Amatino, just reading about the scorpion on your braid gave me the willies. So glad it didn’t sting you! I can see why you were compelled to spray the whole house the next day! And VT, I have a confession. Your scorpion story was horrifying (and that awful awful houseguest!!!) but it was also darkly humorous. I just had that image of you slogging your way to the pharmacy counter with drool dripping down your chin and it reminded me of a Monty Python skit. It’s a GREAT story. I am so sorry that it happened though, and that the effects were so long lasting. And I am also waiting to win one of those vacation sweepstakes you entered me into…..so funny.
Hope everyone has a great week ahead….no stinging/biting creatures allowed.
I love this thread! Kindness matters. If you’ve ever put on an estate sale yourself you know just how hard they work and they are already tired by the time they start the sale. I know they appreciate every little bit of consideration they can get. I certainly have, at the ones I’ve worked on.
It goes both ways too. I have left sales because the people working were so rude. A month ago I heard an anti-semitic remark by a worker at a school rummage sale and it upset me so much I left and wrote to the principal, expressing how offensive the remark was. To her credit she wrote back immediately and apologized and wrote a very thoughtful reply.
Thanks Sharyn!
You are so right….it’s much easier to list similar items. With the fabric I was able to copy a previous listing, scan the fabric twice (once with a quarter to show scale of print), measure it, weigh it and change out the title slightly (depending on color, manufacturer,and other differences), change a few tag words and done.
Easy peasy. And fabric is SO easy to ship!
