Apron Thrift Girl

Make Share

Adding a new twist to Apron Thrift Girl, I want to introduce you to Make Share. It's very similar to Thrift Share where I begin a post with sharing something that I made and you all get to finish the post by linking up and sharing what you have made. There's a few guidelines -

• at least one item used in your project should to be 2nd hand.
• Link your Make Share post back to ATG.
• Post a Make Share item that you made on your blog or website.
• Link to your individual post on the item that you made using inlinkz below.
• If you participate with Make Share regularly, I'd love it if you'd add this button to your side bar

Here is my first Make Share project. I first found some supplies in my craft cabinet: thrifted ceramic tiles, vintage anagram letters, thrifted magnetic tape and glue. Here is what I made~

I found this bowl of tiles at a yard sale waiting to be recycled and used. I paid $1 for all of them.

I purchased some anagram letters at a thrift store after I saw this post on anagrams. They are paper instead of wood but were perfect for this project.

I chose my tiles and gave them a good washing. Because they are used they do have flaws but I thought it added some personality.

I picked out the letters for the words that I wanted to spell.

I trimmed the letters and glued down a single letter on each tile.

I let them dry for around 10 minutes.

Normally the adhesive magnetic tape would have fastened smoothly but because the tiles are recycled, the back of the tiles were uneven. I decided to use Gorilla Super Glue to properly secure the magnet to the tile.

You could glue sections of photos so that they are like a puzzle on your fridge. I am planning to make both photo and letter tiles to give as gifts this holiday season. I am going to try to make as many gifts as I can with recycled supplies.

What did you make?

Thrift Share Monday - Sept 27th

Find of the weekend - Signed Owl Print by David Weidman $3.00

Our yard sale was a success despite the fact that we really didn't prepare for it. Seriously as standards of yard sales go it was pretty low if you consider how unorganized we were. I've been wanting this sale for a couple months now. An outside shed was completely packed and the garage finally got the point were it too was full. I wasn't even sure we were going to have the sale until Thursday night when Dave told me that we were having the sale. Friday afternoon I dragged boxes and bags out of the garage and organized them in rows. My two display tables were being loaned out by a friend and so I couldn't even really feature any items nicely. My goal though was to just get through the sale. 1/4 of the items were priced, most were not.

The sale wasn't a pretty one but we sold over $500 and we shifted a lot of things out of our house. That to me is success. Lots of items will head to Goodwill today because at this point our space is more valuable than saving items for a 2nd sale later in the year.

I didn't thrift on Friday but did pop out for a few hours on Saturday. I picked up 3 boxes of book inventory to sell and found the David Weidman print.

I bought it because I loved it. I had never heard of David Weidman before and was excited to find out that he is collectible. One of his prints sold on eBay for $95. I am keeping it though but it is comforting to know that it is valuable.

The weekend was exhausting. In fact I got rather sick yesterday afternoon moving boxes around in our 100 degree heat. I had to go inside after getting nauseous, a headache and weak. I'm still pretty tired and plan to take it easy today and just list books. It's something that I can do quietly and calmly.

Did you thrift this weekend? What did you find?

It's Rhoda's last Thrifty Treasures of the year. As I mentioned last week, I'll be keeping Thrift Share Mondays here at ATG all year long. Don't forget to come back next week to add your thrifty finds. 

preparing for our yard sale

And because we don't have enough to do, we've decided to have our annual yard sale this weekend. It's going to be on Saturday from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. and on Sunday from 9 a.m. - Noon. We have plans to hit the Handcar Regatta as soon as we close on Sunday.

If you are in the area and would like to stop by, leave and comment letting me know that you'll attend. There will be plenty of books, vintage goodies, furniture, lamps, pottery and much more. 

Have a fabulous Thrifting weekend,

Apron Thrift Girl

keeping track

Two bowls purchased at an estate sale

I have to be honest with you, keeping track of business expenses is tricky when you are a ReSeller. It's probably unique if you compare it to a lot of other businesses. Often you won't have a receipt for a purchase and you either have to remember how much you paid for it or write it down as soon as you can so that you won't forget.

I'm going to talk today about my first step of keeping track of my business expenses. I do have an excel spreadsheet that I will write about in another post. Today I'm going to discuss good old fashion file folders.

Here's my small collection for keeping track of receipts and numbers:

• Business Mileage
• Thrift Receipts
• Business Expenses
• Business Travel Expenses

Business Mileage - if I was the perfect business owner, I would carry a small book purchased from the store. I'm not. I usually write the mileage on the classifieds or my yard sale print out from the computer. Both have dates on them. I write the starting mileage and the ending mileage. When I return home I enter the data into my computer.

Thrift Receipts - I keep all of my estate sale receipts and thrift store receipts in this folder. This way I do have some record of all the purchases that I have made during the year. 

Business Expenses - I keep receipts from office supplies that I purchase, book purchases on blogging, antiques or that have some business related theme and receipts from subscriptions that I have on-line to do with ReSelling such as Amazon Pro.

Business Travel Expenses - I keep receipts from hotels, restaurants and cafes in this file when they have to do with a ReSelling or scouting trip. Next month when I travel to San Francisco to BlogHer Food 10, I will have all of those travel receipts to add to my file. I will also mark which business they are associated with.

It's really important to try to have a paper trail if you are ReSelling as a business.

Do keep track of anything else that I haven't mentioned? What's your top tip for keeping track of expenses?

A New Whole Foods Market in Santa Rosa

I'm doing a bit of juggling between ATG, my thrift blog and Flavor Stitch my food blog. I'm heading to the Blogher Food 10 conference on October 8th and I am currently adding a lot of content to Flavor Stitch and getting used to writing about food rather than yard sales. I simply love to write so to me it's quite exciting to have a new topic to focus on. I'm not going to ignore ATG but for a few weeks there will be some crossover posts and I may switch from writing Monday-Friday to a few times a week. Hopefully after the conference I can figure out what balance I need to look after both blogs accordingly. I hope you'll stick with me during the next few weeks.

I was invited yesterday to a sneak peak of the new Whole Foods Market at the Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa, California. The store is set to open Wednesday September 22nd. The day will begin with a bread breaking ceremony at 9:45 a.m followed by tastings, prizes, give-aways, and live music. 

I've written a complete article with photos about our exciting new store. Many of my future blog posts may be written from their free wi-fi cafe.

I'm planning on being there at the opening tomorrow? If you are local, will you be there too?

a sneak peak at the new Whole Foods Market

Thrift Share Monday - Sept 19th

You know it was a slow thrifting weekend when the best thrift purchase was actually a thrifty one rather than a thrifted one. North Coast Organic Concord Grape Juice was found at the Rohnert Park Grocery Outlet yesterday for $1.99 a bottle. It's pure juice rather than from concentrate and it is delicious over ice. I also found some non-nitrate, gluten free, no antibiotics Bacon yesterday at the same store for $2.49. A price unheard of for healthy style bacon. If I consider what I found on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, these by far were my favorite finds of the weekend.

My best thrifted purchase was this lamp for Keiran's room. I found it for $2.00. I also picked up a box of presents for my father who loves Trolleys but since he reads my blog I can't share any of it with you. But he is going to be very excited when he sees everything.

Friday I went out to an estate sale that actually turned out to be a foreclosed home full of honest to goodness garbage with a few tools in the mix. I went in search of another estate sale that didn't materialize and a block sale which turned out to be the same old yard sale with odd people who try to give me a full narration to go with any individual item that I pick up. I didn't even stop this time. I came home and worked on some changes to Flavor Stitch and tried to relax for the rest of the day.  

Saturday wasn't much better. In the end I went to a large sale in Windsor that consisted of 27 homes. It was there that I found the lamp and the box for my father. I spent very little and was home by 11 a.m.

Yesterday we had our first official rain of the season. Keiran and I had plans to go to the Flea Market in Santa Rosa but we decided to go out to breakfast instead at the Black Bear Diner since Dave left to Texas yesterday and Cerys was at a sleepover. I think this was a good move since this is how we ended up in Rohnert Park and at the Grocery Outlet.

How did you do this weekend? I need to live vicariously through you for this weeks Thrift Share Monday so I can't wait to hear what you found. 

You can also pop over to Southern Hospitality and check out her party. Rhoda is planning only one more Thrifty Treasure post for the year. I'm planning on running Thrift Share Monday all year since there are still fabulous finds to share from thrift stores, estate sales and garage sales. So feel free to keep on sharing here all year long.

gone fishing

I loved receiving a comment yesterday suggesting that I take a picture of me reading a magazine with the title "gone fishing." Well more to the point I'm going to thrift today. I plan on really trying to take it slow and make sure I enjoy the day with no pressure to find anything that I.have.to.sell.

Yesterday I spent three hours with Cathe, sipping coffee and discussing my goals and future of blogging. I left renewed and inspired. I picked up Keiran from his half day of school and took him to ice cream at Screaming Mimi's in Sebastool, followed by a visit to a thrift store.

We finished our day together grocery shopping. Two moments stand out from yesterday. The first is when we were eating ice cream. We were each on our own bench although the benches were side by side in a park in Sebastol. He said to me "I want to sit next to you and be closer." What a tug at my heart. The second thing happened when he was reading Martha Stewart Living on the ride home and he exclaimed "this is the best magazine ever!" Of course it was the Halloween edition which he is excited about. He's counting down the day on the fridge. Spending time with him yesterday was the perfect and needed reminder to slow down.

Cooking more is also going to help remind me to take it easy. I plan on spending a lot more time on my foodie blog Flavor Stitch and in the kitchen. Here's a favorite recipe of mine from my past Chicken Teriyoki.

Do you have a favorite taste from the past that you have tried to replicate as an adult? What is it?

a sewing nook

Monday, I began my first full work week since school began. I have an office an outer hallway, a closet and a corner in the garage full of inventory waiting to be listed. I have a ReSelling client in need of advice of where to sell items as well as a desire to have me and another woman sell many of her unwanted things. I have two children needing boundaries, chores, nutritional dense meals and attention from their mother. I have a blog and another blog needing focus, blog posts, photos and sponsors. Somewhere in there I have a husband and corgi with their own needs and at the very end of that long list I have myself to look after.

At the moment I do seem to be last on the list. From the minute I wake up until around 8:30 at night I work on the list above without much attention to me. After just two weeks of school I feel pretty exhausted, stressed and it feels like I'm hanging on by a thread.

I write about balance here at ATG probably a few times a year. Maybe more. I'm always searching for that perfect place where life is relaxing, full and without financial worries. I find it sometimes but then I start to pack on too much and life goes out of balance very quickly. First it leaves me feeling very stressed, then I begin to sigh out loud often and eventually my body starts to react. Last week I had an optical migraine and this week a stiff neck and hurting back. And I can't remember the last time I relaxed on the couch with a magazine.

I write these words not to necessarily complain. I just imagine that many of us have similar lives. This year we added a cello lesson and Circus Class and that has thrown our weekly rhythm into a mess. We are not your typical parents and usually don't have anything planned after school.

The positive thing about life becoming chaotic is that it's a reminder to slow down.

I made this little sewing nook at the weekend.

My goal is to wander into my bedroom when I need to take a moment to slow down. I want to begin with some holiday crafts as this year I plan to spend less on Christmas than ever before.

As a ReSeller our week is very different than most people. There really isn't a typical weekend and I need to find moments in those seven days to relax. This morning despite the hours of work that I have to do, I'm meeting a friend for coffee. Okay so we are going to talk about blogging but whenever I'm with her I feel calm and I laugh far more than should be legal. 

Life definitely moves faster down here in California than on my little island that I left 12 months ago. And while I enjoy life down here more, I'm not so keen to see it rush by. I'm going to double my efforts to slow it down to a normal pace. What does that mean? I'm not sure yet. But something has to change although my sewing nook and coffee with Cathe is a good place to begin.

Vlog Post - How to list a 4 minute eBay Auction

I thought I'd do something a bit different here at ATG today and offer you a Vlog post. I wanted to show you rather than write how easy it can be to use the eBay Selling App for the iphone. It can take me about 4 minutes, others may be even quicker. Here are eBay options for cell phones.

Just a heads up though....my experience with making videos is limited. I didn't edit it very much and yes there are some errors and hopefully some funny parts where I just sort of messed up. It's authentic and real though and hopefully helpful to you. Make sure to watch it in the tiny mode since the quality isn't the best. Now I just need to thrift a HD video camera. 

DiggersList

I discovered a website last week called DiggersList. It's very similar to Craigslist with a free classified ads. DiggersList is a place to post your unwanted building supplies, household appliances, home and garden and vehicles. It will even help you donate unwanted items to non-profits. They have even partnered up with Habitat for Humanity.

I love that it has a lot of personality, it's obviously being used by many people and that you can see Hot Picks for your area. You can follow the DiggersList blog and become a fan of them on Facebook. DiggersList has a presence in 34 states and I imagine it will continue to grow and grow.

I'm very excited to find another avenue to buy and sell items and especially to keep building supplies out of the landfill. Our next house is going to most likely need a lot of attention and I plan to use DiggersList to shop for doors, light fixtures and much more. Have you used DiggerList before? What did you buy or sell?