Vintage map and Aki's pink guava cake

I'm always surprised what type of art my son likes. At the last estate sale I did, this map was there. I sent him a picture and to my surprise he said yes. It's a good thing I have a big car because it barely fit. I'm driving it up in the morning after I pick his favorite cake the famous Aki's pink guava. We plan his birthday celebration around when I can get the cakes. :) 

Experience VS Google

 

The prep for this week's estate sale went pretty fast. The family didn't leave a lot in the house. It's not really enough items to make it  worth doing a sale. Estate companies make money on what is sold, so there has to be enough there for people to buy.  They had already filled a dumpster and a storage unit.  Plus they had already donate away a lot of little stuff. 

The furniture that was left was really nice but the resell value for dark wood is limited. All the original artwork was also very nice but I could tell they went with a color palette that matched the furniture. Still very impressive but limited market for oversized artwork. The flat file cabinet in the garage is super cool and I hope it finds a new home. If I had the space for it, I would dragged it home! 

Side story. The gold and silver guys stopped by to check out the silver. They check it out and confirm what it is and then make an offer, 75% of spot.  If it can't be sold at the sale for more, she will sell it to them. I really don't like that she's using the guys to test the silver and get a baseline of the value but then not selling it to them. OK rant over. 

One of the guys saw what he thought was dutch silver (didn't know that was a thing) on MaxSold. Since you can't actually see it in person it's a risk. The sellers listed it as silver plate because they also didn't know what that mark meant. He took a chance got it for $32. It was what he thought it was. Scrap value was over $800!  Really wish I had a picture but it's already been processed. Experience (not Google) knowing what your looking at does make a difference!

Estate Sale Kit

At the last estate sale I cut my hand on a piece of broken glass. Couldn't find a bandaid anywhere. A customer came up with an unopened first aid kit from somewhere in the house and said I should take proper care of my cut. I decided then and there I would put together a kit with all the stuff we need at a sale. Gloves, trash bags, pens, tape etc...  Before as we're setting up, things are all over the place. If we're not paying attention, things we need get sold!

Accidental Halloween Decorations

These are solid brass candle sticks that haven't been processed yet. While I was "buzz fly" cleaning my printing table in the garage, I put these pumpkins on top of them to just get them out of the way. Thought it looked cute so I hot glued them together. After the holidays I'll peel off the glue and sell them off. The weight of the candle sticks will keep them from blowing over. 
 

Side tracked - tea leaf salad making

What do you do when you have an empty jar?  Well, I make tea leaf salad dressing. It's one of my favorites but you have to let the dressing ferment for two days. Today I was doing what I call the "buzz fly" cleaning technique. It's not the most efficient way to work, but it does get get you moving. Start something in one room but when you walk into another room you start a different project. :)

I was emptying the dish washer and when I saw I had a jar that was the right size for the dressing. While everything was simmering, I moved things around in the garage, making more space for my bleach and sun printing. Doing back to back estate sales and auctions, things started piling up on the table. I have a string of witches hat out on the front porch waiting for me to hang them up but first I have to get the giant spider down from the attic. Neighbors think it's way too early to put up Halloween decorations, which I agree with. Going up and down the narrow attic stairs is always scary and I need to psych myself up to do it. So I just went for it. 

 

Life of a Reseller

Last week I dragged this cubby to the store right after the auction. I mean I drove it directly to the store as is. Dusty and museum gum all over it. It was cleaned up and used in the Day of the Dead display before the store even closed! I really like the mirror backing as it keeps it from being too dark. If the store wasn't going to use it, I was going to fill it with handmade coffee mugs or all those cut crystal pieces I got at the auction. I'm always looking for display pieces for my booths that I can actually lift and move myself. When I want to change up my displays, I have to be able to sell them off. 

This latest display piece is for sale higher than I would normally do because we want it around until after the holiday season. I know at some point it will get replaced with something different. Have to keep my booths looking refresh!

Recycled Ghost 2026

I like having a craft project to work on when I'm dog sitting. I'm not a tv watcher, even if I could figure out all these high tech screens that you have to use several remotes. Something I don't understand is why you need two to three remotes to work one TV!

After seeing crafters posting about making glass lamp shades into ghosts, it inspired me to give it a try. I had this milk glass vase in my booth at CCB for awhile and I knew it would make a great ghost. It was the hat part I had to think about. I drafted a pattern after watching a few videos and just started stitching. I did run out of orange thread so I hope I have more in my stash at home. Plan to add a small spider hanging from the top of the hat. Best part is I have just pull off the eyes and turn it back in to a vase after the holidays.  It just cracks me up. :) 

Life of a Reseller - Processing

I washed my car yesterday and of course it rained last night. It was totally off my radar to check the weather report! My car was so dirty I couldn't take it anymore, it needed a bath. 

I just now getting through my last auction and estate haul when a friend had several boxes of things for me. These sewing thimbles were part of it. Not a big money spinners and very hard to display in my booth. The first thing I look for is gold or silver, there were none. Then I ask any of my friends who collect them if they want any. After all that I pull the ones I find interesting to sell for $5. The rest go into a grab bag. 

I also tackled all the costume jewelry that's been all over my very large coffee table. That took over 5 hours! Jewelry really isn't my thing as there are way too many moving parts to know. The processing and tagging alone take a super long time. 

It took about 8 hours to process everything in the box below. It's headed to the store at some point today. 

 

Day of the Dead Inspired Sugar Cubes

 

Inspired by the Day of the Dead sugar skulls, I tracked down this candy mold at the dollar tree. I do add brown sugar to my morning coffee so I thought why not make fun little sugar cubes. Didn't really know if it would really work so I did a test run last night with just regular sugar. At the last minute I decided to add food coloring just to see what would happen. The the skulls turned out super good. All you do is add a little water. You want the sugar to look be a sandy texture before pressing them into the mold. The tombstones didn't turn out but everything else looks great. Going to try it with brown sugar tonight then add it to my coffee bar. 

Life of a reseller

I guess last year these beaded purses were trending as the hottest things to buy. You Tubers were buying them up like crazy, wanting  them for content. I wanted to find this sushi bag out in the wild but there's no way I was going to pay $40 for it. I just took a picture of it as proof I found one. :)

Back before the pandemic Tuesday Morning was the place to go for craft supplies. I watched resellers fill shopping carts with everything in the crafting section. There were also You Tubers posting videos on what was new and their hauls. One employee told me that most of what these content creators were getting would be returned in a few days. Yeah that's a thing some resellers do. If it doesn't sell they return it to the store. Happens a lot with high end clothes. 

So I was wondering if this was the same thing happening with these purses? The purses are cute but not really functional and the quality is very low. I'm now looking for the "rare" sardine can purse just for fun. :) 
 

Getting that Halloween Vibe

A friend gave me several empty magnum size wine bottles. None of them were really fancy = $$$ wine, so I kept a few to turn into Halloween decorations. The signed bottles went into the store to see if they have any resell value.

The original plan was to paint the glue red. Since these will be seen from a distance, maybe I'll go with a multi-color look or just keep it as is. Now on the hunt for creepy hands holding a wine glass. :) 

Life of a reseller

Booth fillers

Crystal glass doesn't sell well and most resellers will pass on it. This auction lot ($30) was all vintage glass, with some of the pieces glowing green. It even had some of the big names like Waterford. It was an impulse buy that I should have passed on. This lot was right in front of the auctioneer stage, so I had to wait until the auction was over before I could pack it up. That alone should have been enough to pass on it.  The last half hour there was no one in the audience other than me, but an auction rule is not to walk in front of the auctioneer. Because it's not a money spinner, I put everything that would fit into the dishwasher. Still takes a lot of time to tag and get it into the store.