Garage Sales R Us: 2012-01-15

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Well Look at That!

WELL LOOK AT THAT!

Do these look familiar? I found these at the Boulevard Home Furnishings store, which is a pretty high scale furniture around here. These are just a little bit different than mine. The metal is brushed in gold and my wood base is bigger but check out the price tag on these!

I could not believe my eyes when I saw how expensive these were!

To be completely honest I like mine much better. I am not a fan of the brushed gold.

Here is a picture of mine.

When it Rains

WHEN IT RAINS

When it rains there is no guarantee on what you are going to find when you get out to garage sale. There are some days that I still get up and drive around to see if I can find anything and other days that I just decide that it's not worth it. Cold and rainy is the worst combination for garage sales. Your chances of finding anything are much more slim when it's cold and wet than if it's raining on a warm summer morning. Today was one of those cold and rainy days. Because of this weather many of the garage sales were canceled. I spent a total of $1.50 today. I remember one weekend a few years ago it was so bad that I spent .25 cents the entire day! If you are having one of these days don't keep driving around and wasting your gas! Go home! This happens every once in a while. Sometimes it's just not your day. Just keep in mind that if you do get out there on a rainy day your garage sale morning may turn into a scenic drive instead of a morning full of bargain hunting.

Our scenic drive this morning.

1/21/2012

Today we woke up and it was pouring rain. Rain puts a serious damper on the garage sales but we decided to get out there anyway and see what we could find.

ROBIN'S FINDS

I bought this little toy for $1. I found it at kmart.com for 19.99! Click here to see. Paisley has a birthday coming up so it will make a good birthday gift!

With Valentines coming up I want to put up a few holiday decorations around the house. Garage sales are the perfect place to find these decorations. These ones aren't the best but I think if I tweak them a little bit they will look really cute. I spent .25 cents on each.

OTHER AWESOME DEALS

Even though they are old these antique windows can still be pretty expensive! This guy only wanted $15 for these!

There are so many cute ideas using old windows. Here are a few I pulled off Pinterest.

I love the idea of using old windows in your home decor. I have my own old window project I will be getting started on soon!

Sesame Street DVD. I get all of my DVD's from garage sales and we have TONS! Lots of Sesame street, Barney, Dora, Disney. I don't normally pay more than 1 dollar for mine unless its one that I know Jaysa will love. When buying DVD's also remember to ALWAYS look at the back of the DVD to make sure there aren't too many scratches on it. I have made this mistake several times.

Tinkerbell dressup- $1. Sorry it's a blurry picture. If you have little girls you know how expensive dress ups can be. My girls have an entire dresser full of dressups I have found at garage sales. I don't pay more than $1 for them.

Ok. I know this is a pitiful picture. However again, it is so easy to find holiday decorations at garage sales! This was a really big wreath. It came up to my hips and is prelight. The decor on the wreath is ugly but with a little TLC it could look beautiful! I tried to talk my husband into this one but he said no. The guy only wanted $5 for it! We would have had to strap it to the top of our car cause it was so big.

I wanted this SO bad! I LOVE this antique bed. I really like the idea of making a bed into a bench for my front porch like this

BUT the guy wanted $90 for it. I asked him if he would go down and he said he would go to $70 but that is still too much for me. I got his number and asked him what he was going to do if it didn't sell. He said he was going to put it on craigslist. Maybe I will keep an eye out for it and see if he will go down on it later if it doesn't sell.

So for the entire day all I bought was the Vtech turtle toy and the Valentines decorations. I spent a total of $1.50. Wish the day had been better but I wasn't expecting much because of the rain. To make our bad garage sale day worth while we all went to breakfast!

Me and Jaysa

Paisley and C.J.

RE-STORE

We also headed to our local Re-Store, which is another place to find great deals. The Re-Store is like a D.I. or Goodwill but for building materials. Everything is donated and is pretty inexpensive. They have everything from doors and windows to

roofing tiles...50 cents a piece

bath tubs

LOTS of flooring

sinks

toilets

fans... These fans were all about $40

lighting fixtures....All lighting fixtures varied in price these ones were a little over $60. Still a little expensive in my opinion but cheaper than buying them new!

Just like D.I. the store is always changing so you have to check in every once in a while to see what they have!

DIY Wreath Tutorial

DIY WREATH TUTORIAL

I just finished my wreath for my fireplace and I love it!

Here is how I did it!

After finding out how much a fairly large wreath would cost I decided to make my own. I found this wreath at Tia Pan. I was so excited because it was exactly what I wanted but then I looked at the price tag. OUCH!

So to make it more budget friendly I headed to D.I. to see if I could find a wreath I could pull apart or one that had not been decorated yet. The first time I went I found this one for $2 and planned to pull the berries off and redo it. After getting the berries off I decided it was not big enough. Don't worry I have a different plan for this one.

So on my second trip to D.I. to look at wreaths I found this for $4.

This was perfect! I could could shape it to the exact size I wanted because it was just a twig vine.

Here is was I would have spent on my wreath base if I had bought it at the store.

So after shaping it I tied it in several places with craft wire like this

Now time for the greens. Sometimes you have to realize when finding a certain item at a garage sale isn't really all that realistic. I hadn't seen any garlands like the kind I wanted for my wreath at garage sales and I was not willing to wait to see if I would it in the future so I shopped around at several places online. I found a great website called Save-on-Crafts. This website is so neat. They have thousands of products to choose from that are about half price. I found a 9ft boxwood garland for $8.50 and was about to order it but decided that I would go check my local Michael's really quick before ordering. In the end with 50% off coupons and not having to pay for shipping Michael's was cheaper by a few dollars. However, I will be checking Save-on-crafts in the future when I need something!

Here is my garland. I attached my garland with craft wire the same way I tied my wreath together. I used 3 strands of box wood garland. My total for the wreath was just over $25. Much better than $120. I almost saved myself $100 just by making it myself!

Just so you have an idea of how big this wreath is I took the wreath off my front door and placed it in front of my homemade wreath. My DIY wreath is a 24 inch wreath.

After talking to a friend I found out she was tackling the same project I was! She went about accomplishing her project much different that I did so I asked if I could take pictures and post it on my blog.

Here is her wreath. I LOVE how full it is!

She also got her garland at Michael's and used 2 6ft strands.

She took a picture frame with a flat surface and glued styrofoam on it. She then cut of sections of the garland and stuck them into the styrofoam and used hot glue to reinforce them.

What I great idea! Once she gets it up I will take a picture of it and post it!

So now with my DIY wreath finally finished I can give you a picture of my entire fireplace set up. The fireplace its self I bought for $75. The decorative mirror with the metal embellishments I bought for $17 and the two sconces I paid $15 a piece for. All were bought at GARAGE SALES! In the center of the fireplace I wanted to do some of the bronze tin ceiling tiles like this...

but they were so EXPENSIVE! They were $20 a sheet! I would have needed 6 sheets, which means I would have spent $120 on ceiling tiles. Thats more than I spent on the fireplace it's self! So I started looking for a cheaper route and found paintable wall paper.

Here is a close up of my wall paper. I am not going to lie I was pretty impressed with myself. I was even able to give it a bronze look. I will have a tutorial on how I painted it a little later so check back soon!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Garage Sale Ceiling Fan

My fan is up!

C.J. put my fan up yesterday and we love it! It makes such a difference in our room! Here's a picture of the old fan on the left and the new fan on the right. Taking old and outdated fixtures out of your house is a great way to make your home look newer. It's also a great way to increase the value of your home! Garage sales can make this process easier on your wallet! This fan was brand new. We paid $21 for it. After comparing prices I found a similar fan at walmart.com for $89.00! I can't wait to get the two bathroom light fixtures I bought Saturday up too so you can see them!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

1/14/2012

We are right in the middle of the garage sale dry season, AKA winter. Depending on where you live the dry season may still have enough reward to make you want to get out and garage sale. In Texas where I grew up my Mom went garage saleing all year round. In other places where it snows or rains a lot garage sales are almost non-existant during the "dry" season. Here in St. George, UT it only snows about once a year so I am able to get out most weekends during the winter. However, every once in a while on those colder weekends I have had to learn to cut my losses and go home. This weekend was looking like one of those weekends. I got out at 8:00a.m. (garage sales usually start around 7:00a.m. but in the winter they usually start a little later) From 8 till about 9:30 the only thing I had bought was

a basketball for .50 cents

I finally decided that it was just not my week and started to head home. I stopped at one more garage sale on the way and found a few things that made my garage sale day worth while. These were also my Deal of the Day

DEAL OF THE DAY

It was a garage sale that a lighting company was having because they were going out of business. Since C.J. and I are planning on redoing all the bathrooms in our house this was perfect!

If you have ever gone shopping for light fixtures you know they can be pretty expensive! These were brand new and still in the box.

This light fixture was marked at $35

This light fixture was marked at $25

We also bought a new fan for our master bedroom

It will look much better when we hang it. This fan was marked at $30. These were all fair prices, not a steal like I had hoped but definitely fair prices. I found a similar fan on Walmart.com for 89.00. Click here to compare. I also looked up light fixtures. The closest thing I could find to the ones I bought was this fixture.

Which was $114!! and this is at Walmart!

My total for the two light fixtures and fan was $90. I knew I didn't have that much cash on me so I pulled out what I had...$63. A lot of times when i don't have enough money I will use a strategy I have seen my Mom use several times, but I didn't know if it would work this time. I went to the lady and said "all I have is 63 dollars....Would you take that?" To my surprise she said yes! So I got the two brand new fixtures and a new fan for $63! Thats a steal for how nice these are!

This company is also the same company I bought my huge chandilier from last time they had a garage sale!

I paid $350 for it. I love chandeliers! I believe that there are a few things that make a house look amazing and a big beautiful chandelier is one of them. I know $350 sounds like a lot but Check this out...

I found this chandilier on walmart.com. Similar in size, but I think mine is a much more elegant piece. This retails at 1,230!!!!!!! Click here to see the link. $350 doesn't sound so bad now does it?

OTHER AWESOME DEALS

here are some other awesome deals I saw that might have made your day worth while.

Single sconce $10. If you only have one outside light on your front porch this could work for you but what I like to do is put these up high on shelving nooks if you have them. I did it in my old house and everyone loved the way it looked. You cant turn it one or anything but it adds varitey to your decor.

Kids bike $10!

fan $40

Chandelier $60

I loved this big clock. So cool. They wanted $100 for it. probably not an unreasonable price but still too much for me. I actually might call the lady and see if she will go down on it since it didn't sell. I was looking on craigslist the other day and there was one on there just like it for $350!