Apron Thrift Girl

hallowe'en giveaway

It seems like my life exists in boxes at the moment. Half of our packed boxes are waiting patiently in the garage until we move into our next purchased house. I keep reaching into a drawer for something in the kitchen only to realize that it is still packed. With fall slowly seeping into Northern California I realize that I have an itching to do some canning. My box of apples keeps reminding me every time that I am in the kitchen. Yet I can't think of a single canning item that is within arms reach. It's somewhere in a boxed marked with a sharpie that reads LTS (long term storage). I needed embroidery thread to finish my owl felting and found one single color in my craft box. How can that be? And embarrassing as it may sound, I can only locate three pairs of socks. I have to keep rotating them through the wash often in order to have a pair to wear. How did I not pack socks in our for the Rental boxes? Packing is such an odd experience.

I found a box a couple weeks ago with some of my etsy store items. Last year I listed some Hallowe'en aprons that I had crafted. It was only today when I decided to wear my own Hallowe'en apron to bake some cookies that I thought about doing a Hallowe'en Giveaway.

I kept the design very simple. Despite my blog name and obsession with aprons, I much prefer the less frilly type of aprons. In fact this design doesn't have a single ruffle, pleat or gathering. It measures 17 1/2" x 12 1/2". The apron strings measure 71 inches in total. If you would like to win this apron, please tell me your craziest thrifted Hallowe'en item ever. Mine has to be the leopard print pants that I'm currently wearing that has a waist that I swear goes up to my rib cage. While it isn't an out there kind of crazy, I feel just so silly in them. giving thanks to whoever decided for low waist jeans.

Have a wonderful and safe Hallowe'en.

a belated felted gift

The last time I was talking about friendship and community I was a feeling quite depressed. I guess it's that time where I can look back and laugh at myself, earlier than expected. Here we are a month and a half later and my calendar is more full than it's ever been. In fact I have to keep a calendar in order to remember all the places that I need to be. People in this community are very social and Dave and I are gifted with invitations to parties, wine tastings (a benefit of moving to wine country), apple picking pot-lucks, shopping excursions and even bi-monthly craft parties (Dave isn't rushing to join us when we craft). And it doesn't stop with just Dave and me, the children also have playdates and party invitations.  All four of us feel so blessed with the new friends in our lives. It has made the move and transition easier than we had expected. Well easier than I expected. Dave wasn't so worried. That isn't to say we have forgotten our Bainbridge Island (and beyond) friends (praise facebook) but we aren't sitting here crying in our coffee any more like I was the first month. Instead we are meeting at the flying goat at Railroad Square and having coffee together with friends.

This week we met at my house for a Craft party with other moms in the 4th grade class. It was the first time anyone has been to our house which meant I got to tidy up and prepare it for guests. It gave me an excuse to make some gluten free spice cake and bring out my cold press coffee. We sat on the orange sofas and crafted away. I think I did 35% crafting, 25% eating and drinking and 40% chatting but I did pull out an old project from over a year ago. I was making this for my friend H who bought a mid century modern house on Bainbridge.

I don't know how it somehow slipped away and hid during most of last year. I told H about it, eventually showed it to her but then I got into packing mode and into a box it went. I finished felting the owls and leaves at the craft party. That evening I water felted the piece to smooth it out.

During the last two days I stitched away and sewed the felting onto some delicious dark teal fabric.

Curtis Jere was my inspiration for this piece. The original piece is far too expensive for my thrift girl taste so I did the next best thing and borrowed the style and recreated it in felt. I printed off the photo and used that for my pattern.

It's kind of loose around the edges. I'm not a perfectionist at all when I craft. I like to get things done quicker than should be legal. When I watch my daughter craft I can see the same rushed style in her. oops. The important thing to me about crafting is to enjoy myself while I am doing it and have satisfaction when I am finished. I've seen my mother rip out miles and miles of yarn on a crocheted blanket. She'll find a mistake and it will annoy her until she has to go back and fix it. It used to pain me to see the hours of work that she would take apart in seconds. I'd look at a mistake in my work, make excuses on how unique the missed stitch was and continue crafting until I was finished. It's just the type of crafter I am. 

Are you a perfectionist crafter? Are you kind of like me where you just sort of ignore little mistakes and move on contently?

Shop Update - Vintage Ephemera

Ephemera is such a funny word. What it means is basically stuff to do with paper. Dictionary.com says it is to do with short lived paper items such as tickets, notices and pamphlets. They also explain how to pronounce it if you click on the volume button next to the word. It took me forever to pronounce it correctly. Although even when I do many people have never heard of the word and just look at me strangely. It sounds more like something I've contracted than something I collect. Wikipedia tells us that Ephemera is "transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved." Which makes sense since my favorite ephemera items are probably things that normal people would have thrown away.

The John Johnson collection of Ephemera is over 1 million pieces and is at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Johnson considered ephemera to be ""Everything which would ordinarily go into the waste paper basket after use, everything printed which is not actually a book …" 

I have a growing collection of paper bits. I adore paper, love the smell of it and especially love the feel of vintage paper between my fingers. My favorite kind of thrifting adventures include old houses full of boxes of paper that I can sort through and buy.

 

I have put together some Ephemera collections and have added them to my Etsy shop. I have put together 8 packets of hand picked items that I hope you will adore. I have packaged these up in cellophane sleeves and ATG labels in case you wish to give these away for holiday gifts. 

Every pack is different although most of these are on the same theme. Many include a handwritten letter from 1931, a vintage post card, vintage bingo cards and such.

I have a few more collections to add today as well as a some packs of vintage Christmas cards. I can't believe it is already the end of October and Christmas is just two months away. A Northern California Autumn is so deceiving after experiencing 6 years near Seattle. It was 75 degrees this week. At the end of October! How can that be so? This would normally be August weather and certainly not nearly November. And yet I have so much to do. Gifts to make, Gifts to buy (hopefully all on Etsy this year) and gifts to thrift.

part 2: what it takes to be a ReSeller

Fremont Sunday Market, Seattle 2009

Here is what I think is necessary to be a successful ReSeller.

It takes a lot of Drive. Over the last few years I have consulted six different people and helped train them to be booksellers. Five of them had the tools and the initial motivation. After book selling for anywhere from a few months to a year, they each came to the conclusion that book selling wasn't for them. One woman though did go on to become a successful bookseller.  She had the ideal amount of drive from the very start. She would share with me that she had traveled an hour to pick up a large collection of books on a weekday evening with three kids in the car. She had found the books on Craigslist. She had the gusto, the energy and the drive to find the books. She started about six months ago and is now selling between $2000-$3000 a month.

When I moved to Sonoma County I was terrified to see so many booksellers here. Initially I was rather deflated and came to the conclusion that my book selling days might be over. Once we were settled in our home and unpacked though I was able to place my focus back on ReSelling. I started planning my yard sale routes and waking up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays in order to be at the yard sales early. I thrift from 7:30am - 3pm every Saturday and also on Fridays in order to hit the estate sales.

Valuable items are everywhere in our thrift market but you really need to be there first in order to have the ideal opportunity to buy them.

It takes thinking outside of the box. Spread the word to your friends and family that are you a ReSeller and are always looking for inventory. Place ads on bulletin boards and on Craigslist with your want list. I'd suggest cold-calling people but that might not go down so well in our telemarketing loathing world. Check out discount shelves at any retail store. I've often come across something heavily discounted that I could resell for a profit. Find non-profit organizations and offer to Resell their donations for a consignment fee.

It takes family support. My husband didn't take me seriously in the beginning. I love the man to pieces but seriously he thought that I was shopping for a hobby. When I started to make money his views on my job shifted and he started singing a different tune kind of like this one. Saturday became my work day. The more that your family can understand this, then the easier it will be for you to thrift away without family guilt pulling at your emotional strings.

It takes being able to get dirty. Every job has a negative side or at least not the perks that most of us gush about with our friends when discussing thrifting. Three weeks ago I attended an estate sale in a house where the owners never thew a single item away.... or cleaned for that matter. The attic was full of boxes of vintage fabric and clothing that she had made and never used. It was dusty and rather foul. All of us up there were sneezing from the stale air. I got right into the thick of the mess though and started digging. Sometimes I used whatever I could find as a poker to lift things out of boxes in case there were mice or black widows. At other yard sales that are outside there are times when you have to kneel or sit on the damp ground. If you are a ReSeller who likes to keep clean then it's going to limit where you can thrift. I've been in a damp basement before with only a penlight. It was there that I discovered a bunch of sterling silverware at the bottom of a rotting and unpleasant smelling box.

It takes nerve.  And anyone that knows me is familiar with the fact that this isn't my strongest character trait (although I'm working on it). If I had more nerve, I could do far more negotiating with sellers for a lower price. I could even ask for a bulk purchase (for ex. buy all the books for $20) and although this is a sensitive subject in the thrifting world, I might be able to get in early for a sale. I don't though. I still wait in the car until opening time unless someone else can smooth talk their way in and I follow meekly behind.

Thrifting is about opportunity and these needed attributes are really what you must find in yourself in order for opportunity to show itself to you over and over again. And it will.  And you will be surprised.

a tease of hallowe'en

Lately all of my photos that I try upload to Etsy have been too large. I can't seem to change their size easily in MS Pictures so I started playing around with them in Picnik. And then I found their Halloween tools (I did upgrade from free to $4.95 for a month because of them....how unfrugal is that?). Cerys is partly inspired by Sally, and by one of my favorite songs sung by Katethegreat19, an incredibly talented musician.

 

The teeth need some work but I think Keiran looks cute as a troll like scary thing. 

Sydney and me about to cause some trouble.

While Hallowe'en always offers an opportunity to be frugal when hunting for costumes and candy, this year we decided to spend a bit more money on treat side of the holiday. We live in a more populated neighborhood than last year and expect some trick or treat foot traffic to make it to our door. I didn't want to hand out healthy sesame treats or organic apples in fear of the sneers and I didn't want to hand out conventional sweets. I wanted to offer both a treat that is sweet and delicious but without too many chemicals. I happily found these at Trader Joe's on Sunday for $2.99 a box:

And they look wickedly deletable in our cauldron....

part 1: ReSeller Tools

Thank you for all of your fabulous questions that you have left this week. Ironically I had planned to write this post on Tuesday but I had so many books to list and so many orders to process that today is the first break that I have had all week to sit down and write.

"How do I know if something is valuable?" was the question that so many of you had asked. When I started ReSelling most of my purchases were by instinct or by hope. I didn't have any tools except what you might consider common sense. And that didn't even work a lot of the time. What I did do was bring home boxes and boxes of junk that I thought had to be valuable. I mean it was sweet, old stuff. How could someone not want it. I mean I liked it...right? I would come home, research it and when it was worthless would I cram it into my already packed basement to deal with later. This is what made our move so complicated last year. I had to spend nearly every day dealing with this accumulation of other people's cast offs because I had a crazy idea that it was valuable. Some of it was very valuable though so I wasn't always wrong about my purchases. But I was wrong a lot.

Years later I have come to realize that to be successful in ReSelling I had to have proper tools both at home and out in the field. My goal in business is not only to enjoy what I do but also to make money.  I'll be honest with you, I love money. Part of the reason we live frugally is to have the choice to spend money where we wish to which usually happens to be Waldorf Education and food. These are two of my favorite things in life. I love vintage cheese, adore sweet expensive wines and crave at least a pomegranate a day every Autumn. And we won't even go there with my love of Anthropologie and Etsy. A few years ago our money was getting very tight. The children's school tuition was going up as they left pre-school and entered Kindergarten and grade school. I needed to earn money and I had the choice of going out and working for someone else or creating a viable home business. Of course I chose the latter since I don't do well with having a boss, unless it is someone like shape shifting Sam Merlotte. 

The thing about this business like any other business is that we need training or education in our field. I kind of consider myself a self-taught ReSeller. I search for ReSelling information on-line, at the library and from magazines. Even eBay has a simple way to look at completed auctions on any subject so that you can get an idea of what sells and what doesn't. Knowing what doesn't sell is equally if not as important as what sells.

Some of my favorite resources are:

-Kovels Antiques Free Newsletter

-Skip McGrath's Newsletter

-eBay Establishings Email List

-Atomic Ranch Magazine

-Miller's Antiques & Collectible Books

When I started to sell more and more on eBay, I went to Yahoo Groups in search of an email list that could help me with my new business. I found eBay Establishings and it changed my ReSelling life forever. It was there that I discovered that I could buy a 1970's children's book at a thrift store for .81 cents and sell it on eBay for $30.00. I still remember my first auction where a book sold for this price and I was completely shocked. Julie Anna, who started the email list is someone who I consider my mentor. She seriously changed the direction of my life.

Julie Anna shares a lot of free information on the email list, as do the other 2,319 members. There are lots of newbie members who ask very basic questions but there are also many successful sellers there who share their top monthly ebay Auctions.

If anyone is interested in selling children's books, then I highly recommend subscribing to Julie Anna's monthly email list of 50 valuable titles. I used to print off every list, add a photo next to the title and take a binder with me when I went thrifting. I would study it for hours. My most valuable book that I found from her list was a vintage Charley Harper illustrated book, The Giant Golden Book of Biology. I sold it for $400.00 on eBay after buying it for $18 at an Antique store in Grants Pass, Oregon.

What I'd like everyone to ask themselves is what do you want to sell? What is your area of expertise? I didn't even know that I wanted to be a bookseller. I knew that I loved books and that my Great Grandmother was a bookseller but it never crossed my mind to do that myself. I started to realize early on that I had a knack for it but I still felt a bit blind. I started to read websites like Bookthink to get every bit of information that I could about how to buy and sell books. I went to used bookstores and looked at the most valuable books there in order to try to recognize these when I went out and scouted.

When my friend Jacki introduced me to Mid Century Modern, I started going to the library toand look at books full of designer furniture from the 1950's-1970's. Part of the skill of ReSelling is recognizing a valuable item that you have seen before in a book, magazine or website. I visit Hi + Lo Modern as often as I can and I really study the items there so that I might find them at a yard sale. These items are often at Estate Sales, wealthier neighborhoods or Scandinavian settlements. Not always of course...there really aren't any set rules of where you can find a treasure. Visit expensive Antique stores or go to high end auctions. Look at what is selling and how much people are paying for items.

Educating myself in the value of items is part of the job that I love. I crave research and learning about new things. This is what makes the job so interesting. If I get tired of Mid Century Modern, I can switch to an entirely different genre. There is so much to learn about everything. In fact, as I have mentioned many times before, this job is perfect for a what Barbara Sher calls a Scanner.

I never leave home without this collection of tools. Here is my book scanner which scans book bar-codes to tell me whether a book is worth buying or not. I upload new date every week from a subscription that I buy from A Seller's Tool. People either love or hate scanners. I even have opinions about the scanners that I see on steroids in this area. They are like piranhas and shove people out of their way and leap over tall piles of books to get there first. I consider myself a stealth scanner. I don't really like to use the scanner in public and tend to be cautious and shy about it and above all polite. But I need to know what to bring home and what to leave behind. I pay $25.50 a month for this service.

I also find that my iphone pays for itself ten times over every month. I picked up a Sodir convection oven from a rummage sale for $20 after typing the name into Google and clicking on the Shopping button. This is the info I saw which told me to buy it. The model I bought is valued at around $850. I still have it and am very tempted to keep it. When will I actually go out and buy an $850 convection oven for myself?

I have recently signed up for Terapeak, a rather expensive but valuable tool for doing research. It lets you search for items on ebay that have sold in the last 90 days. eBay only has a 14 day search on their site. It can give you an idea of sold items but not a clear picture. I've only been a member for less than a month but already it has helped my ReSelling. I now know how to price items using the Buy It Now feature because I have the over all eBay value of an item. At the end of the day, an item is only as valuable as someone is willing to pay for it.

The iphone (or other smart phones) can let you search on eBay, Amazon, bookfinder and Terapeak. I'll be honest with you, it can be tricky trying to research something at a yard sale. Sometimes I'll memorize a name, go back to my car, research it and then go back and buy the item if it is worth picking up. If I'm at a rummage sale I'll just type in my search and while it loads I'll continue shopping. I especially do this with expensive, big ticket items. I still gamble on things if the price is cheap and if I have a gut feeling that I can sell an item either at my own yard sale or on Craigslist.

I also carry a jeweler's loop so that I can look for gold and sterling. Gold is currently selling for $1047.05 an ounce. The loop pictured in the above photo was purchased at a yard sale for .25 cents. In Sonoma County there are many gold hunters and they are so quick to whip out their loops and start looking for gold, especially at estate sales. I try to stay out of their way.

I found these in the last month. The gold is 14K with 4 opals. I found it in a bag of jewelry for $1. I didn't know it was there until I was home. I bought the bag because of the faery dust necklace and hadn't seen the gold. The sterling napkin ring was .25 cents at a thrift store and the sterling comb cover was .50 cents at a yard sale. These valuable metals are everywhere, you just have to be persistent in your search for them. My goal is to uncover a small gold bar in a dusty and dirty basement one day. I have  had a few dreams of doing this and am so disappointed when I wake up to discover that it was all in my head.

I carry a measuring tape and mini screwdriver. Neither will make me rich but they are very useful when you are at a sale. One of the services I offer on my website is a thrift personal shopper. I carry a notebook of items that clients are looking for. Some of these are very size specific which means I need to know the exact size of an item before I purchase it. With my phone I am also able to send photos and call the client in order to verify that this is the item that they want me to purchase. 

The last tool in the photo is a pen light ($5.00 yard sale). It actually has a red laser light, a black light and a LED light. I don't use the red light except to amuse the cat, the black light it useful when looking for diamonds, vaseline glass or other collectibles and the LED light is great for dark nooks in an attic full of vintage books and old fabric.

I use an Ott-Lite ($15 thrift store find) mostly when I am listing books. I need to describe every flaw that is visible in order for the potential buyer to see what they are buying without a photo. The Ott-lite is a favorite among my bookseller friends.

Un-do is probably the least eco-friendly thing I have in the house. But it takes off labels like a charm. Peanut butter or oil work well too but I like how Un-du evaporates to nothing and it doesn't leave an oily residue. Plus peanut butter could be dangerous if you are selling an item to someone who has an allergy. I mostly use Un-Du for labels on book covers. I'll warn you it gives off some serious fumes so you may wish to use a mask or better yet, use it outside. 

The little electric eraser might seem like a silly gadget to buy, but it is perfect for erasing both pen and pencil marks from books. A clean book can add quite a few dollars to the price of a book.

As you can see, some of these tools were purchased 2nd hand. I didn't buy them all at the start. If any of these tools interest you and money is tight, just put them on your radar next time you are thrifting. Or search for them on Craigslist or ebay. It took me a couple years before I could even think about spending that much on a cell phone. I had another phone and could get limited access to the internet but I found it so frustrating because it was very hard to work. I'm a believer that time is money and I wasted so much time on that little cheap cell phone. 

When we are frugal it is sometimes hard to spend money. It's a business though and in every business you need to invest in it wisely. That doesn't mean buying Amy Butler pillows for a chair in your office. I own a Zebra thermal label printer which cost me over $400 new. I even sigh thinking about the cost now. I purchased it after I sold some large items on eBay. I was tired of printing out labels on my printer, cutting them out and taping them on. Now I print them off in 3 seconds, peel off the backing and stick them onto my package. I often sell 10-15 items a day and I don't have time to waste by dealing with paper, paper cutters and tape. I want to be efficient because efficiency makes me money. It also gives me time to thrift and list more items. The right tools will help you bring in more money.

I'd love to hear what next step you wish to take to help you become a successful ReSeller.

Next up: Part 2 The Business Side of Thrifting:    What it Takes to Be a ReSeller.

the business side of thrifting

Many self-help books out there today suggest that the job you search for is something you feel passionate about. Which led to me spending the first ten years after I graduated wandering around aimlessness trying to figure out what I wanted to do. When I took those silly tests in high school which were supposed to throw out some perfect job for me, I still remember looking at the answers and thinking "really?". I can't even remember the careers that were suggested, I just know that in my heart that they were not for me. Which led me to going to college without a real purpose. 

Sold for $118

I guess a positive side of wandering through jobs is the experience that you pick up or should I say the stories you can share when you are at a pub and you've had too many mojitos? Some of the jobs that I have dabbled in have been: au pair, fast food slave employee, home care assistant, police report translator, railroad track data entry person, grave digger and then those silly (to me) network marketing jobs where I sold overpriced things to my friends (I dearly apologize for that period of my life). They were all intriguing for awhile especially the Welsh jail where I spent 3 months but never ever once experienced a report with a gun incident. The most violent was a butter knife. None of these jobs gave me a single hint that this is what I really wanted to do in life.

 

Sold 4 of these tiny pots for $49

It wasn't until I was in my 30's and I was selling outgrown baby clothes on eBay that I discovered the thrill of auctions. Yesterday we were talking about this video on our drive back home from the beach. I had mentioned what a buzz it must be and Keiran asked me what I meant by buzz? I mentioned how his sister felt when she climbed to the top of Bald Mountain on a recent school trip or when I get to a rummage sale and find out that I'm the only bookseller there in a sea of valuable books. It's an inner thrill that leaves you legally feeling high. I also discovered that I was able to find things at yard sales and sell them for a higher price. This was the start of my career as a ReSeller. Two years ago I worked part time as a ReSeller and made around $34,000. The benefits of this type of work are endless but some of the most important ones are: being here for my children when they need me, earning money doing something I truly love and recycling unwanted items and giving them a second (or third or fourth) life. It's a strange job to explain though. I can say I'm a thrifter but people don't really comprehend what I mean. I can say I'm a ReSeller but that too is a bit vague. I cringe at the thought of saying I'm a dealer although I guess that partly explains it. 

Sold for around $350

I thought I would share with you a 5 part series on the Business Side of Thrifting. Part 1 I will discuss the Tools of a ReSeller, Part 2 What it Takes to be a ReSeller, Part 3 Research, Part 4 Customer Service, Part 5 Passion.

Sold for $78 Etsy

I'm curious if you have any questions about ReSelling. If you do, you can leave a question in the comments and if it fits, I'll answer it during the next week or so as I discuss each part. I want to share with you the ins and outs of ReSelling and not just the fun side of thrifting. It can be very hard work. Yesterday on a Sunday morning, I dragged the family out of the house quickly, drove 30 minutes to a small town near the Russian River and bought a bunch of stuff in the wet mist to ReSell. I often get dirty thrifting as I scrounge through boxes on the ground or sort through bookshelves in a dusty attic but I don't mind the dirt. And I adore what I do. 

odd collections

It's no secret that we are collectors. Books have been written on this need to collect. If I think to only my small circle of family I know that my mom collects Belleek, swans (she tries to avoid the tacky ones) and Lilliput Lane houses. My dad collects anything to do with trains, trolleys or boats that tragically sank, clocks (although usually tacky ones like an Elvis clock with swinging legs) and old cars although only one at a time. My oldest brother collects (I think) pipe stuff & military books. My middle brother collects things to do with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and fantasy/science fiction books. None of these are too strange or out there but they definitely reveal a hint of their personalities. Collections can help define who we are. Overall we pretty much like ourselves and we want to be surrounded by things that we love. 

Susan Pearce has written books about collecting and why we collect. She did a survey in England asking people if they consider themselves collectors. 66% of the 1500 people described themselves as collectors. Susan thinks that part of our need to collect goes back to our hunter & gathering days. She also implies that we are human and like shiny and bright things. That kind of reminds me of magpies.

I can't think of a time when I didn't collect. I had my sticker collection which I counted often. I not only had a book collection in my teens but I took the time to catalog and count the books when I couldn't sleep. I even counted how many pages I used to read. Obviously I wasn't a cheerleader and would have fit well with the Glee crowd before the cheerios descended on them. I can see myself in my daughter as she begins her own collections. She is obsessed about anything to do with Elfquest. She's asking me to bring home crystals, bows, rocks, necklaces made from bone and animal pelts. Even when she insisted on buying a scary looking fox pelt complete with head and paws I reminded myself that she could be asking for plastic Hanna Montana stuff made in China instead.

Sometimes all I need to do is bring home an item once from a yard sale and my collection begins. I don't always even know that I've started to collect it until my eye catches another item at the next rummage sale. This is what happened when I bought this box.

I was drawn to it because it reminded me of Waldorf with it's curved wooden edges and the fact that it is from nature. I found it up on Bainbridge Island right at the beginning of my Mid Century Waldorf shift that I was making in the house. It also reminded me of something Wharton Esherton might have hand crafted. 

I fell in love with it but again, I didn't realize that I was on the brink of collecting little boxes until I moved to Sonoma County and found this artistic box.

And there began the collection. I saw another one last week but they wanted $25 for it at a high end rummage sale. Okay so I'm guilty of collecting these things but I'm not going to go overboard, especially on price.

I admit that I bought a somewhat ugly box too. I felt so guilty about it though that I gave it to Keiran who now keeps his collection of shark teeth in it.

It's actually not that offensive it just needs a sanding and oiling. It's very simple and Keiran loved the gift.

I have no idea where my little box collection will take me. Maybe at my own estate sale people will chuckle and make jokes at my expense when discovering the hundreds of boxes lining my bedroom walls. We've all been to those estate sales where a collection has truly grown out of hand. I mean really, how many collector plates is enough?

I do adore collecting although as I have learned the art of purging, I have been a bit more careful in what and how I collect. Instead of buying every single vintage dish out there, I narrowed it down to Ben Seibel. Instead of every linen under the sun, I've dedicated my collection to mostly Vera. I try to now buy items that were made well and reflect both my interest in Mid Century Modern and Waldorf Education. Waldorf defines nearly everything about me. I want my house to show that. When I went to a Yogurt shop in Sebastopol a few weeks ago I noticed that a Waldorf painting was on the wall. When I mentioned it to the teenager behind the cash register she proudly told me that she went to a Waldorf school when she was younger. You could probably walk into most houses and immediately tell a bit of the personality of the person by merely what they have chosen to surround themselves by. It's the beauty of collecting and sharing a little of what is inside of us.

I don't know if my boxes are the oddest thing that I collect but I would love to hear what your weirdest collection is or maybe one that you have witnessed at an estate sale.