Apron Thrift Girl

**updates**

Bacon Covered Pancakes

Flavorstitch

Some of you may have seen the link to my Bacon Covered Pancakes recipe on Facebook yesterday. If not, here it is above.

It's funny but it took me only 2 days in the kitchen (sans Dave) cooking, cleaning, scheming, meal planning and singing to Pandora for me to feel inspired to write again on my Flavorstitch blog. If I had to look back at the time line, I slowly lost my motivation when we began to worry about Dave's job. I moved all that focus on earning money with ReSelling.

What I've most been surprised with during the last 10 days is that while my work time has been cut, I feel more organized than ever. It's almost as if my limited schedule has left me planning my days and hours with better intention. Hence me writing for Flavorstitch again. When I wrote my first post last week about Meatloaf, if felt so good to have an outlet in the late afternoon when the children are playing and Dave is still in San Francisco. It's just me, the kitchen, Pandora, food and my computer.

Flavorstitch isn't just going to just be about food but about vintage kitchenware, vintage design, health eating and life in the kitchen both present day and from the past. I hope you'll pop over to visit every now and then. I have a new button on the sidebar which Cathe Holden cleverly designed for me.

little shop

Another bit of news is that Little Shop has moved from a blog shop to a Shopenvy Shop. Little Shop became a little too much for me in the last couple of months. Each order I had to send invoices, chase people, be chased and other steps that proved very time consuming and confusing. I had planned to move it to my store at my ATG website. I already have it set up for zen cart but I find zen cart tricky. I can't seem to load more than one photo at a time. It was with great luck then when I saw Van's tweet about her new store at Shopenvy.

So far it is super easy to use, list and as Amy said, it's easy on the eyes. Now I wait for my first order. I'll give an update about Shopenvy in a month's time when I've had orders and I've seen the process from start to finish. I really like to understand a venue like this before I recommend it. Of course it's free so you don't have a lot to lose except for the time you spend on it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. And.....whoever places the first order at Little Shop gets a lovely goody bag of vintage delight. Think crafts, ephemera, and other vintage goodness.

Support

It's that time of the month where I look for sponsors for my blog. Do you have a product that you would like to advertise? Do you have an Etsy store that you'd like readers to visit? You can visit my Sponsor page for details about my demographics, stats and costs to advertise here on ATG.

I also have a tip jar which all proceeds go to supporting Apron Thrift Girl (aka - my house fund). ATG is really about sharing. I want to share with you how I am a ReSelling, how I thrift, how I balance (or not balance) life.

Even the smallest amount is a wonderful gift.

It keeps me motivated each morning when I sit down to write my posts.

Another way to support ATG is to use some of my Services on my website. What I love about what I offer is that most of these have a way of returning you some money. It's kind of self sustainable.

If you can think of other ways to support ATG then please contact me. I'd love to hear your ideas.

Thank you again to all of those who read my blog and for those that comment now and then and of course those that comment faithfully every day. I appreciate each and every one of you.

xoxo

Selena

Spring Cleaning - Inventory Overload

a Thrifter's Garage

If you happen to combine thrifting with ReSelling then you most likely suffer from some aspect of inventory overload. All it takes really is one great sale and an entire carload of freshly purchased items for your to tip the scales from organized to overwhelmed.

I tend to experience this every single weekend. I go out, I buy, I come home and I sigh when I add new inventory to old inventory. As I've mentioned often unless you are amazing and fabulous, it is very hard to list everything that you buy each week. I only have 4 work days before Friday hits when I'm out buying again.

This used to bring me down until I realized that my inventory was as good as having a savings account in the bank. When I needed money last May and this January, I dipped into my "inventory savings" and began to sell items. I had cash within a week of selling.

Yet there is still the ongoing problem of where to store everything and how to make the inventory cycle work efficiently.

My house and storage areas need to work like in a continual system where everything flows. I buy, I store, I sell, I ship. Right now everything is blocked up in any direction that I turn. My bedroom storage where I take items to photograph are overflowing. The garage is packed which means that I can't take things out there to store temporarily. My inventory closet is nearly full and there is inventory spilling out into our hallways. This means that the inventory in my office has no where to go except to fill my office which leaves my psychologically overwhelmed when it comes time to work. I need a tidy and neat office in order to work well.

So where does that leave me?

• I can stop buying (LOL)
• I can list faster and list more in a day (and never see the children)
• I can do some spring cleaning and get organized

My top choice had to be to get organized. The question I had to ask myself is where do I start? When everything is at a standstill it's really hard to know where to begin. If I go into the bedroom and see the overflowing bins of inventory to photograph I feel overwhelmed and yet when I stand in my office to figure out where to start I freeze up, turn around, leave and search for some ice-cream.

I decided to tackle my inventory with what I could get rid of first. I filled the back of the van with 10 bags and boxes of unwanted items to take to the thrift store. Next I filled 4 grocery bags with books and dropped them off at the used book store in exchange for book credit. This gave me a few gaps to start to move stuff around.

Here's my plan when I have too much inventory:

• Sell things quickly
• Give things away
• Pack away inventory in plastic bins with lids until I can deal with them (in the garage)
• Have a Yard Sale or two

I sort and divide items up into these boxes and bins:

• flea market to price
• flea market to sell
• eBay inventory (I'm planning to group things together like books, ephemera, kitchen, toys, crafts etc)
• Craigslist
• Etsy (sometime in the future)
• Thrift Store
• Yard Sale
• Consignment Store
• Used Book Store
• Amazon (books/cd's/DVDs)

My spring goals will be to be a vendor at the next Santa Rosa Flea Market and try for a yard sale in April to move some of the larger items like furniture that is taking space in the garage.

My friend Jacki has a yearly yard sale very August to sell her extra inventory, items that she is tired of dealing with or items that might not be a good match for selling on-line. Her sales are fabulous and are always a favorite for thrifters in the area. I used to love shopping her sale.

While having too much inventory can feel ike a problem, it's somewhat easy to move it quickly if you need to. Try to look at your inventory as your investment in your business, even when it is growing quickly around you. If you have a small home, research on-line on how to gain storage in small spaces.

Last fall when I had decided to put the brakes on eBay and prepare for my mother-in-law's month long visit, I packed everything up into bins and stuck it in my eBay corner in the garage. Just moving it away out of the house felt so therapeutic. When I was ready to start selling again it was easy to find a bin and get to work.

Try to be in control of your inventory rather than your inventory controlling you.

Do you ever experience inventory overload? Do you have any tips to share?

organizing buttons

Thrifted Buttons

There are two things that I run across every single weekend while attending Estate Sales. Buttons & Organizer Drawers. I usually try to find the craft room soon after I've entered the home and I'm always in search of vintage buttons. The little hardware organizers with the little drawers are usually hiding in the garage with a layer of 20 year old dust. They are often filled with screws, bolts and nails. My favorite ones have metal sides and are empty.

I currently store my buttons in this:

It's one of the oddest things that I've found at a flea market. Each of those drawers were full of metal things for teeth. I removed the metal things, gave them to an artist friend of mine and filled the drawers with buttons.

Each drawer is now completely full which left me needing another storage solution for my buttons.

My $3 Thrifted Hardware Organizer was the perfect thing.

Not only is it fabulous for storing buttons but when I divided them up by color I could spot them easily through the clear drawers. Couldn't you just see an entire shelf lined with these in a studio?

Where do you store your buttons?

ATG's Inventory System

eBay items waiting to be photographed

Friday & Saturday are my favorite days of the week when I am out thrifting. I usually bring home a lot of inventory in boxes and bags that I bring into my office along side one wall until I have time to begin processing them.

Here are the steps to my Inventory System:

1. Bring bag/box to the computer.
2. Books get a 1/4 of a mini post-it note with the price I paid for and then into a box of book inventory to list. (I list first thing Monday morning)
3. Obvious Etsy/Little Shop items go into separate boxes to be photographed. Same with Thrift Share Monday items. I enter the price I paid and item name in my Inventory tab of my ReSellers Excel File.
4. Items I'm unsure about are researched quickly and then placed in either eBay to be photo box, Etsy to photo box, Flea Market Box (priced then and there), Yard Sale box (priced then and there), or Little Shop box. Again, all items & prices paid are added to my Excel File. If I just don't know what to do with an item, I'll put a sticky note on it and leave it for later.

Etsy items ready to be listed

By this time hopefully all my boxes (plastic tubs) are full and ready to be photographed. I do try to take a lot of photos on Sunday so that I can begin to list inventory immediately on Monday morning.

The above photo is all of my Etsy inventory that has been photographed and is waiting to be listed. I took this photo last Sunday and the owl and two sets of silverware have now been listed. Etsy is at the bottom of my list currently and faces the most neglect. I'm hoping the Listing Challenge will help with that.

eBay Store items waiting to be listed

I've started dividing my already photographed items into store items box or live auction items box. This helps with the psychology of the work in front of me. Overall my priority goal after books is auctions on eBay. In this photo the brown boots and airplane model have both been listed.

eBay items ready to be listed in a live auction

I have a small metal shelf unit in my office that fits 8 plastic tubs mixed with banker boxes. This is where I store most of the inventory boxes. The inventory to be photographed is kept in our bedroom. It's not ideal but it's where I take all of my photos. It's the best light in the house and we have hardly any furniture in there so storing boxes is not a problem.

When it comes time to list I either bring the box to my desk or I bring out a few items to list at a time. This new system helps me because I can gage how much work I have to do during the week. I still buy more than I can list every single week. I'm considering selling at the Alameda Flea Market and maybe having a booth at a local Antique store. With the limited hours I have to work, I need to figure out another channel to market that is easier than me listing one item at a time.

This inventory system is working very well for me. My eBay auction box is empty this week. I also was able to refill my eBay store item box.

This is how I process and deal with inventory. Is yours system different? I'd love it if you'd share your own tips of processing inventory.

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?

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 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.

Making a Summer Schedule Part 2

The expression "the best laid plans of mice and men" has been going through my head during the last couple of weeks. When I had originally written the first part of my Summer Schedule post I had visions of planning the schedule during the next two nights and sitting down to one of the children's waldorf water color paintings and writing out our schedule. Somehow that never happened and for the first time in our lives we entered the whirlwind of summer. How can it be July already?

Cerys had circus camp for two week, Dave went to England for eight days and between all of that we are somehow at the 7th of July without a schedule. Are we coping? I think we are.

A few things are so very different than our life up in Seattle. It's sunny practically every day. We have so many more options, at least for me. When it's cloudy and cold in the summer I tend to hibernate and feel sorry for myself. Really sorry for myself. Here in Sonoma County we still feel that we are on vacation even though we've lived here for over 10 months.

I'm working from home which also changes everything. Cerys is reading all the time and Keiran is starting to play on his own more building bows and arrows and he's discovered his skill in making art sculpture from paper. Yesterday he made an ice skater but placing paper clips on his paper feet. Keiran then moved the skater around on his paper ice skating rink by placing a magnet underneath.

It's almost as if our unschedule is enough for us this year. We are all at peace doing our own thing. We come together at meals, we take outings out to the library and farmer's market but overall we all understand each others needs this year. We have a camping vacation planned at the end of the month. We are driving quickly down to San Lous Obispo and taking the 101 North to home. If anyone knows of some great campgrounds and thrift stores along the route, I'd love to hear them. I still think it will be a special summer for us all.

I'm hoping to start a project with the children this week. I picked up this thrifted Letterpress box for $5 from a sale. What do you all think of filling the backs with the vintage wrapping paper I picked up from the Christmas sale? Little rectangles of paper in possibly each square? Or just some of the squares. Next I plan on placing a little nail in each one and use the Letterpress Box as a jewelry display.

Do you think it would work?

Spring Cleaning

I spent most of yesterday in the warm sun. Dave and I enjoyed lunch out on the patio. I took two walks in the neighborhood. I worked on my Menu Planning outside and took in warmth and relaxation. I did a little work but mostly what I did was contemplated your comments, searched as to where my stress was originating from and I began to clean. I even took a nap which was nice since I have been waking recently at 5am.

I started cleaning the birthday mess in the living room, cleaned the children's craft table, worked in my office and later worked in Cerys' room. I realized that our growing mess and disorganized house was really starting to get at me. Eat away at me in some sense. I don't want to be a person who dies and has a headstone that reads "She who cleaned". I want the one that reads "she who thrifted" or "she who had fun." But there is something to be said for having a house that works. Laundry is washed, laundry is folded and laundry is put away. Yet at this point, there is no where to put it away because Cerys' room is a wreck. A creative wreck though. She has her american dolls set up and having a tea party and her desk has a multitude of paintings and art projects but the floor is littered with scraps of paper, glue sticks and buttons. She's so my daughter.

I began spring cleaning in Cerys' room and I can't tell you how good it felt. It took me 30 minutes to just clean her desk area. She could feel it too. She kept complimenting my work and telling me that she loved me. We filled one garbage bag and a recycle bag in the short time that I was in her room.

This isn't the one key to everything but it is a healthy start. My dream is to sell our house in the next month and buy a house the following month. I want to nest again and be able to hang pictures on the wall. We are here very temporary with boxes in corners and art work leaning against the walls.I think that adds to the challenge of cleaning the house.

I appreciate you all suggesting that I take a break from blogging. I may but I might also try to do quick posts with a photo. Less time consuming ones.

After we finish Cerys' room we will be placing her mattress on this newly thrifted bed.

I found it at this amazing church rummage sale for $15. It is an iron bed from England. (not pictured are the two side rails)

I love the little roses. It's more shabby chic than I would like but I thought it would make the perfect bed for Cerys. Right now her mattress and box spring are simply on the floor.

This will be a lovely little bonus for working so hard on her room together.

Are you spring cleaning? Do you start in a certain room? What's your best tip for keeping the drive to complete the entire house?

resolution organization

There are times when my work day is finished and it's time to pick up the children from school and I wonder what I did all day. Or more to the point did I do anything? I reach the end of the day and I feel that I've accomplished nothing. I usually try to work before the children wake up and in to the evening which can cause stress on the entire family. Finally I took a serious look at the time that I have to work in the day and realized that it is a mere 5 1/2 hours. It's no wonder I never get enough done because I have so many different tasks that I try to accomplish in such a small work day.

I adore January 1st. Each year I truly feel renewed and ready for some serious changes in my life. I spent most of the holidays nursing a cold and organizing my office/studio and took a break from blogging and bookselling (except for orders). My office was a mess after the retail chaos of December. I had so many book orders to ship, the two craft shows that I took part in and Christmas gifts to make. I'm not the tidiest worker either. It sometimes appears that a small tornado followed me around and left everything in shambles. Which of course drains me of very little energy to work because I can barely find a bare space on my table.

A week ago I decided to once again put myself on a schedule. I had to. I just couldn't work bouncing along from task to task on my own. Here are some of the things I work on daily.

• Blog (take photos, prepare and write)
• listing/packing books
• etsy store
• ebay auctions
• pricing/packaging for craft shows/flea market
• writing a children's picture book
• working on my fiber art
• ReSelling Consulting
• emails and the time stealing but very addictive and amusing Facebook

That is a lot of items to fit into a tiny work day. Here is the schedule that I am testing this week:

• 6am-7am write blog posts Monday-Friday (between these two is look after the children/take them to school)
• 9am-9:30am answer email
• 9:30-11:00am Open time (work on inbox, sort through thrifted items, package/price etc)
• 11am-11:15 snack
• 11:15-12:30 write auctions/prepare auctions
• 12:30-1pm lunch / business meetings
• 1pm-2:30 list books/media online
• 2:30-3:15 pick up children
• 3:15-4:00 prepare snack/start dinner
• 4:00-5:00 Pack and Ship any orders that have come in for the day
• 5pm Dinner

I used this new schedule and Monday and I could not believe how much more productive I became. In addition to this I also am keeping a very detailed calendar and a notebook where every thought of importance is written down. My nest planner is full of newly printed forms and I am using it for my to-do list, my menu planning and my shopping list.

Tuesday life got in the way when Cerys stayed home sick with a cough and threw everything off. Sigh.....but that is why I work from home. I want to be there for the children when they need me. I still felt somewhat frustrated that I had a planned work day that I had to try to forget was waiting for me.

I don't' know if being on a schedule would work for everyone but for my scanner personality it is perfect. This year I am going to be so much more productive and efficient.

My new thrifted ($45 from St. Vinnie's) craft cabinet is helping me keep better organized.

What are some of your organizing resolutions for 2010?