Apron Thrift Girl

ReSeller's February Listing Challenge

  

Are you ready to accept and take on the ATG's - ReSeller's Listing Challenge starting February 1st?

After reading all of your comments I thought we'd open up the challenge to any venue where you sell 2nd hand items. I also heard that some of you had different goals to reach in regards to the number of items listed during the next 28 days. We each can choose our own goals whether it is 20 or 200. Just make sure to say it out loud and share it with us. This challenge is meant to motivate and inspire each other.

My listing challenge will be 100 Buy-It-Now items for my eBay store. That doesn't include unsold auctions that I relist as a BIN item. I mean items that I list that will go straight in my store. I'm going to try to list at least 4 a day, all month long.

Although not officially in the challenge, I also plan to continue to list 7-day auctions, list at least 30 books a week on Amazon and really try to list at least 25 items on Etsy during February.

Are you going to join ATG's ReSeller's Listing Challenge?

Here's what I'd like you to do in order to take part in the challenge:

1. Comment and tell us your Listing Challenge Goal.
2. Add a link to your ReSelling Venue/Store. (optional)
3. Begin to List your items - don't forget to tally up your listings since items hopefully will start to sell.
4. Grab a Button and spread the word. We want to motivate & inspire.
5. Check in every Tuesday until March 1st. Share your progress in the comments.
6. Share your link every Tuesday to show us how busy you've been. (optional)
7. On March 1st, share whether you've reached your goal and if you wish, share how many of your Listing Challenge items have sold.

I'm going to send everyone that takes part of our challenge (you must check in every Tuesday to qualify) a list of "50 ReSelling items to Search for When You Thrift." This PDF list will include hyperlinks, item name and the price the auctions sold for. This list will includes items that you should be able to find as you go thrift scouting for inventory.

Here's your ATG's ReSeller's Listing Challenge button:

I've shared with you my goals, now I'd love to hear yours.

Thrift Share Monday - Vintage Wonderment

 
1970's floral case $1

Sunday morning I found myself opening up the classifieds just in case there were any Sunday sales. Not only was there a sale but it was in my neighborhood. Keiran and I drove over there to wait the hour until the sale opened. We were blessed with the sale opening a half hour early. Four of us (and Keiran) were able to shop to our hearts content. It was a thrifter's dream.

Included in this price happened to be all the sewing supplies.

Keiran and I must have done 5-8 sweeps (includes one circuit through every room) of the house. Each time I found something that I had missed before.

Vintage Down stuffed chair $10

One of the benefits of our rental's 1950's 34 foot long living room is that there is ample space to fill it with thrifted furniture. I've had no problem doing so either. This is going to be my new writing chair when I'm working on my blog posts.

 
Elffie our corgi has been eying this chair all afternoon.

Cut glass salt & pepper shakers with sterling & enamel lids made in Norway. $1.00 for the pair. I found these on my last sweep through the house.

I asked to buy these vintage shoeboxes at an estate sale on Saturday in order to store crafts in them. I was so surprised when the woman running the sale said I could have them for free. Don't you love the colors. When I thrift I often will look at boxes, especially the vintage one. My goal is to have my entire studio full of vintage boxes of craft supplies vs. modern plastic storage bins.

I picked up a full set of these dishes. They aren't marked and I've never seen this pattern before. Do any of you recognize it?

Vintage Pendleton Throw in original box, new old stock. $2

Everything below the banner is available for purchase in Little Shop.

Mod Flower Necklace for sale here.

1970's Mod Cloth Napkins can be purchased here.

Small Wooden Toadstool Candles Holders are waiting for you here.

Mod Cloth Napkins can be bought here.

The largest collection of vintage pipecleaners that I have ever come across. They can be purchased per box or as a lot.

Did you go thrifting this weekend?

Thrift Share Monday celebrates the Art of Thrifting. As a community of readers and bloggers we are able to connect through the process of buying second hand, selling and sharing.

Don't forget to check Her Library Adventures and her Flea Market Finds share.

We Thrift  - We Share

Here are some guidelines if you would like to join Thrift Share:

• Your Thrift Share Monday blog post should include your thrifted finds from the weekend.
• Create a blog post with photos of your items.
• Link your Thrift Share Monday post back to Apron Thrift Girl.
• Link to your Thrift Share Monday post on Apron Thrift Girl using inlinkz below.
• If you participate with Thrift Share Monday regularly, please add this button to your side bar so that we can build our Thrift Share Community.

Resources, Sponsors and Updates

Yesterday my 8 year old boy was home sick so I tried to do some light work in between playing games with him and reading stories on the sofa. What came out of his sick day was the Apron Thrift Girl's Thrifter's Resource List. This list contains links and helpful sites that came from my computer's bookmarks tab. While it's a somewhat small list, I've been building it for the last 6 years. These are my top favorites sites that I frequent often if not daily. I'll be adding to the Resource page as I come across new sites and pages. If you have any suggested to add please drop me a note. I'll check out your suggested link and see if it's a good fit. What's your favorite thrifters resource link?

Sponsorship

With the help of my sweet Brit husband, we finally put together a proper Media Kit for sponsors. With February just around the bend I wanted to share with you options on becoming a sponsor on Apron Thrift Girl & Little Shop. You can find detailed site metrics and info about ATG on my Sponsors page.

Here are some sponsor choices for you:

Ad Format/ Pricing

□ Apron Thrift Girl Signature Sponsor

Prime placement at top right hand side above the fold.

(1 space available)

150 x 200: monthly rate is $40.00

 

□ Apron Thrift Girl Platinum Sponsor

Placement on right hand side under the fold.

150 x 100 monthly rate is $20.00

Minimum purchase of 2 months.

 

□  Apron Thrift Girl ~Little Shop Boutique~ Sponsor

Placement on right hand side under the fold at Little Shop boutique site.

200 x 110 monthly rate is $10.00

Minimum purchase of 2 months.

□ Apron Thrift Girl Peak Viewing Sponsor

Place your name onto Monday’s peak viewing post. This is branded “Thrift Share Monday” and has 20% more viewers than any other day.

Your name and logo will be in a linkable banner at the top of the post.

Monthly rate is $100.00 

 

□ Apron Thrift Girl for a day

A sponsored blog written by Selena about your product or service.

Rate per post is $100.00 

 

 

 

Facebook

Yesterday I asked readers on facebook if they would be interested in posting photos to the ATG wall of thrifted finds that they have questions about. The feedback was very positive so we are going to test it out. The posts from ATG FB will still be just ATG posts but if you go to the ATG page, you'll be able to see photos from readers from time to time. Some people wish to take part in Thrift Share Monday but they do not have a blog. This is an opportunity to still share with our fabulous thrifting community. So if you have a thrifted item that you are stumped about please post a picture and ask if anyone knows anything about it.

Have a fabulous Thrifting Weekend. See you on the other side for Thrift Share Monday.

the ideal find - precious metals

 
The ideal find - precious metals

Today around 2pm my head was hurting, my neck ached and my jaw was doing strange things which told me that I had spent too much time on the computer since Monday morning. I had listed a lot of inventory and was keeping up with my goals but my body told me to take a break and get out of the house.

I decided to relax and do a bit of thrifting. Once I arrived at the store I began to look for inventory. I found a couple Breyer horses, some vintage patterns and some clothing. I also picked up a couple bags marked "craft jewelry" to play around with. I like to take apart jewelry and use the findings to make other jewelry or to use in fiber arts.

Once I arrived home, Keiran and I sat down at the table to separate the usable items with the not so nice jewelry. It was Keiran who spotted the gold bracelet above. It turns out that it was a 14K gold bracelet from Italy. He was so excited once he realized that it was gold.

We discovered these in the scrap bags as well.

All three are marked Sterling.

Precious metals are very valuable and I am always searching for them. I turn every item over that might possibly be sterling. Every gold colored piece of jewelry I pull out my jeweler's loupe and search for any words/numbers that might let me know that it's real gold.

If you see a scale that weighs "grams" at a garage sale for a few dollars I recommend picking it up. When I resell sterling I try to take a photo with the item on the scale that includes the weight. This gives a bit of confidence to the buyer that they are buying the weight described in the auction. The gold bracelet weighs just about 4 grams of 14k gold.

You can check out the current price of gold at Goldprice.org.

You can visit this site to see how to calculate the price of scrap gold.

If I did the math correctly, the scrap value of this bracelet is $100.18. It's too beautiful to scrap but it's fun to see the value of the metal itself. If you do come across antique jewelry or coins and want to sell it, you may want to get a few estimates. Gold scrap dealers might give you less than a coin dealer or antique jewelry store owner. I don't know this side of the business too well but I did read this advice on another site. 

I've mentioned this before but a ReSeller's tool that I never leave home with is my jeweler's loupe.

I take this with me every time I go out thrift scouting. There are so many jewelery, pottery and signed art marks that are hard to see. It also helps if you are determining if a piece of art is original or not.

I have another Jeweler's Loupe to give away. If you'd like a chance to win this simply leave a comment. I'd also love to hear if you've ever found anything precious like gold, sterling or diamonds. Please share your story.

I'll draw a name next Thursday. Good luck.

Collect Share - Little Letters

Saturday I went by the post office to check my mail and I found this amazing collection of letters waiting for me from my friend Shara. When I was at her home a year or so ago I spotted these in her incredible collection of vintage craft supplies and nearly went faint. Shara moved in November and now is living in Arizona but remembered how much I adored this vintage set of letter. This is probably one of the most fabulous gifts that I have ever received. Thank you so much Shara!

Each little envelope has different size metal letters.

I'm so excited to add them to my collection.

My letter & number collection is somewhat small. I really only started collecting them when I moved to California. I didn't go to many estate sales in Washington and I never came across vintage letter collections.

Of course I was very inspired when I saw Cathe Holden's post about her collection of letters and numbers in December. Her collection is swoon worthy.

Some of my letters are modern but nearly all of them are from yard sales. These are designed for scrapbooking.

I found these at a yard sale in Santa Rosa. They were nestled in a drill bit box and were $1.00. I love how they are dimpled.

These were designed by Amy Butler and the only new purchase in my collection.

Modern glittery letters from a yard sale 50¢.

I picked up this vintage stamp set shortly after I moved to California from an Addison Endpapers backroom sale in Oakland. They were $15.

Do you remember when I picked these up? These are tiles that can be pushed into a board so that you can build titles for your 1960's slide-show.

Collections are like scrapbooks the ones that I don't do. I can look at my collection and it reminds me of sitting at my typewriter when I was in my early teens with a plate of toll house cookies by my side. Every evening I would sit at the typewriter and I would push the letters and they would appear on my paper and my story would start to evolve. To my young mind is was rather magical. I finished my first book by age 15 and was so proud that it was 88 single spaced pages long. It's a silly story about a young girl called Alisha McGill. She goes to camp one summer and falls in love with horses and a boy named Kit. Remember how many stories and books in the 70's and 80's involved a summer camp?

Writing, letters, numbers and collecting are simply a reflection of who I am. That is what collecting is about. It's a little window into our passions and our soul.

Do you Collect anything that you have blogged about recently?

We Thrift - We Craft - We Share

Here are some guidelines if you would like to join Collect Share:

• Your Collect Share post should include at least one item that is 2nd hand.
• Create a blog post with photos about your recent addition to your collection. Or write a post that features your entire collection.
• If possible, give us some background about what you collect such as where items are made or who designed them. We'd love to read about why you collect and when you first started collecting.
• Link your Collect Share post back to Apron Thrift Girl.
• Link to your Collect Share post on Apron Thrift Girl using inlinkz. There will be inlinkz on every Collect Share post so that you can add your photo and link back to your blog.
• If you participate with Collect Share regularly, please add this button to your side bar so that we can build our Sharing Community.

 

ReSelling - Why I Reopened my eBay Store

No matter how few or how many sales I attend every week, not a weekend goes by without someone muttering the word eBay from their lips. Half the time it seems to be said with a negative connotation. I can sort of relate. Sometimes I love eBay, sometimes not so much.

Right now eBay and I are getting along quite nicely. During the last 60 days I've had $1318 in sales. If I include this weeks auctions the tally is $1490. I hear the grumbles from dealers in line who complain that nothing sells on eBay and the fees are too high. I usually silently carry on their conversation in my head and tell them that they might consider listing items that notoriously sell and make sure that they get a high enough price for their item by listing it at the minimum price that they want to sell it for. There is a formula with using eBay that can work and that is able to bring in a nice profit.

I personally feel that one of the secrets to being a successful ReSeller is to continually change what you do. Three months ago I wasn't selling shoes. Well maybe the odd Danskos and such but now I'm thinking that I'm a part time shoe seller. After my Estate House of Shoes adventure, it has put shoes in a completely different light for me. All of the sudden I am noticing shoes everywhere.

I picked up this pair for sale on Saturday for a few dollars. I listed them* today and have an opening bid for $19.99. I had no plans to be a shoe expert but once I realize that there was money in shoes, my eyes became open to them. I spend a few minutes a day researching shoes to understand what sells and what doesn't.  **store was just opened today and isn't quite finished

Each week when I am scouting for inventory, I come across a new genre of things to ReSell. Every week I get a small dose of a ReSellers education.

I debated over the last couple of weeks about whether to reopen my eBay store. As I've looked around the house and garage I've noticed that I must have 20 boxes of inventory to be listed and I immediately felt overwhelmed. I really need to clone myself and put Apron Thrift Girl 2 to work. I'd go out thrifting while ATG2 listed books & inventory. Later she could do all the bookkeeping while I took the pictures. We'd be a great team.

Of course there is only one of me and probably just one of you. We have to somehow stay motivated and efficient. Week after week I buy more than I can ReSell. I don't always mean too but it just happens. It's like going to the grocery store on an empty stomach. You naturally want to buy everything that looks delicious. At garage sales there is nearly always money on the table waiting for us. How can I leave something behind that I know I could ReSell for at least 4 times the asking price?

I simply need to list more items every week. The best motivator I could think of was to fire up my eBay store again. The monthly fee is $15 but the typical listing fee is 20¢ instead of 50¢. Because I'm frugal and try to spend money wisely, if I'm going to pay a monthly fee I want it to be worth it. I want a full store of Buy-It-Now items. I want the pressure of that fee to weigh down on me so that every morning I can think about how many auctions to list that day. This morning after I had listed $490 of inventory on Amazon (and was ready to quit for the day) I continued on and listed auctions and BIN items on eBay. The motivation was fabulous. I recently started a new listing system which I'll share with you in the next week or so. At the moment it is working for me.

Would anyone be up for joining me for an eBay Listing Challenge in February?

You don't have to have a store to join us and you can list auctions rather than BIN items if that is your preference. Typically sales slow down in February so I thought I'd fill my store in preparation for Spring when the sales pick up again.  We can either all agree on a number of items to list during February or we each can have a personal goal. I was thinking of 100 items. That is an average of 5 items a day Monday through Friday.

What do you think? Would you join in on an eBay Listing Challenge? I'd love to hear your thoughts on how this would best work for us all. The goal is about motivation, a lot of listings and of course heaps of sales.

Thrift Share Monday - Silver and Gold

There isn't much that makes my heart beat faster than finding silver and gold at a garage sale. This weekend I found both! The gold I didn't even realize was gold until a few hours after I had purchased them. Cerys has been pleading to get her ears pierced. We've compromised with me looking for screw back and clip on earrings for her. I thought these moonstone earrings would be perfect until I looked at them and realized that they were 14K gold. I paid $10 for the pair.

The same thing happened with these two. I bought them in a collection of vintage craft supplies. It turns out that the thimble is sterling and the rule is German Silver which seems to be something that people collect.

Keiran and I went to a fun rummage sale on Saturday morning that had a lot vintage board games and vintage children's books. We bought 3 bags worth of items in the morning and returned right before they closed and filled another three bags (at quite a reduced price). I hadn't noticed this game in the morning but took a better look in the afternoon. It was only when I opened the box that my nostalgic heart smiled. I couldn't believe that it had been there all day without someone buying it.

This is one of my all time favorite games as a young child. It's funny because I don't ever recall seeing the box but when I saw the inside I remembered it instantly.

I usually pick up vintage games because even if they aren't worth money or are damaged/have missing pieces I can either sell them as art supplies on Etsy or use them myself. It wasn't (again) until I arrived home that I discovered that some of the images used in this game were taken from "house of cards" by Charles Eames.

Because the Charles Eames name is on this box, it could mean the difference between a small sale and a large sale. This set appears to be somewhat rare. I found a conversation on Etsy about a crafter looking for this very set but not having much luck. I can't find any completed auctions with the words Memory Game & Eames. I'm going to do some more research before deciding what price to start my auction at.

The artwork on these tiles is fabulous.

My absolute find of the weekend though had to be this book. It's a first edition/first printing of Fox in Socks by Dr Seuss and it is complete with dust jacket. You can read about the first edition points on this very helpful blog, Picture Book Collecting. I have been looking for a 1st edition Seuss book for years. Now to decide how best to sell it.....

Here are a few items that I found this weekend that are currently for sale in my Little Shop.

Vintage Copper Stencil Letters & Numbers set. Available in Little Shop. This set features both and has a clever design where the letters and numbers fit together. You can purchase this set here.

Small collection of vintage crochet hooks & other various needlecraft needles available here.

Vintage Owl Book Plates -still sealed. They are from the early 1960's.

Did you go thrifting this weekend?

Thrift Share Monday celebrates the Art of Thrifting. As a community of readers and bloggers we are able to connect through the process of buying second hand, selling and sharing.

We Thrift  - We Share

Here are some guidelines if you would like to join Thrift Share:

• Your Thrift Share Monday blog post should include your thrifted finds from the weekend.
• Create a blog post with photos of your items.
• Link your Thrift Share Monday post back to Apron Thrift Girl.
• Link to your Thrift Share Monday post on Apron Thrift Girl using inlinkz below.
• If you participate with Thrift Share Monday regularly, please add this button to your side bar so that we can build our Thrift Share Community.

thrifting - coming home empty handed

Thrifting doesn't always mean coming home with a van or car load of fabulous finds. I do often show you the highlights of my thrifted life. I share with you my best finds every Monday, I share selling experiences and I share many of the highs that I experience. Like anything in life though there are ups and downs even with Thrifting.

Yesterday I dropped the children off at school and drove an hour south to the little town of Tiburon on the bay. I signed my name on the estate sale sign up list happy to discover that I was #5.

The view was absolutely stunning. From the front porch I could see the Bay Bridge and a sweet view of San Francisco. It filled my heart and there was a moment where I felt so alive.

The sale was advertised as Mid Century Modern. Once inside though I realized the house was quite sparse with items. Many of the MCM furniture pieces and lamps were far outside of my budget. I should have bought a gorgeous teal blue pottery lamp but at the moment I just don't want to spend $85 on something that I might be able to ReSell.

To sum it up:

I spent an hour driving to the sale.

I spent two hours waiting for the door to open.

I spent 20 minutes in the sale.

I spent an hour driving home.

I left with only this book (to sell on Amazon):

and a Matroyska Doll Salt & Pepper set.

which is available here.

Other than that I came away with nothing. I stopped at a Salvation Army in San Rafael but wasn't really able to find anything to buy.

The day felt wasted. I arrived home and complained to Dave. He in turn told me "you don't play, you don't win."

He was right. This is what I do when I thrift every single week. Last week I did so well at the estate sale on Saturday.

This sale in Tiburon could have had an entire bookcase full of valuable books. Any sale could mean buying inventory that could sell for thousands of dollars.  Sometimes I make the right choice, other days I'm just off my game.

I have personally done very well in my ReSelling career so having a day with little purchased is just an occasional aspect of the job. Rather than crying in my coffee, I simply put it behind me and got busy and listed another auction and did something productive.

And as Scarlett once said, "after all, tomorrow is another day."

ReSelling - How to Organize Your Photos

 
Vintage Mod Shelf Liner (heading to Etsy soon)

Organizing photos in a computer might be pretty basic information for many of you. Lots of people are born organizers. I do pretty well organizing closets and the pantry but my computer is often a mess. Currently I have 18,000 emails in one account and 10,000 in another. Did I just admit that? I have the best of intentions to answer them all or go back and action certain ones but time gets away from me. My work photos used to be a complete mess until I came up with a strategy a year ago when I bought Photoshop Elements. Since I had a new form of photo editing, I found it to be the perfect chance to become organized.

I use a lot of photography in my day to day work day. I take photos for:

• Apron Thrift Girl
• Flavorstitch (although currently on hold while I figure wordpress out)
• eBay
• Etsy (2 different stores)
• Little Shop
• Craigslist

I decided to make things a bit easier by creating a Folder that I call ReSelling. Included in this Folder are these Sub Folders:

• eBay
• Flavorstitch (Etsy Shop)
• Little Shop
• ATG (Etsy Shop)
• Misc (Craigslist & local email lists that I sell on)

Often I have hundreds of photos every week so I decided to divide up the year by months. Now my eBay folder includes these sub folders:

• October (previous to October I was storing photos on another computer)
• November
• December
• January 
• Listed (I move photos here once they are listed on the ReSelling venues. I keep them anywhere between 3-6 months in case I have a customer that has an issue with something, albeit a delayed one.

Within the January sub folder (of the eBay folder) I have these folders currently:

• January 4
• January 6
• January 9
• January 17
• To Be listed

I decided to add the actual date that I take the photos so that it can hopefully trigger something in my memory as to where to find the photo when I go to edit the pictures. I often will take photos on one day but may not edit them until a few days later. Once they have been edited in Photoshop Elements I rename and place the photo in the To-Be-Listed folder. Does this make sense?

When I go to list my auctions in InkFrog (auction listing program) my photos are very quick to find and upload. The photo above is a set of Wool Carders by Clemes and Clemes that I listed today. When I edited the photo and saved it in the To-be-listed folder, I renamed it Clemes. When I upload my photos all of them are in alphabetical order in the folder which makes it super simple. I found the three photo titled Clemes (and Clemes1, Clemes2) and uploaded them into this auction.

A ReSeller usually leads a busy life with scouting for inventory, cleaning and preparing items to sell, taking photographs, researching, editing photos and listing items to sell. We need to streamline this process and not get lost in our computer searching for a photo. This little system has saved me hours of work and frustration.

Do you have a photo storage solution to share?

ReSeller's Excel File - Buy Link

Thank you for so much interest in the ReSellers Excel File.

I created a page at Little Shop about the file that includes a Paypal Buy Now button.

Or you can make your own ReSellers Excel file following the tips in this post.

ps. Little Shop has some new items today. I'm beginning to sell some of my favorite things.