Show & Tell Saturday

It's time for another Show & Tell Saturday! 

This week we have a good friend of mine from back in Texas, Darcy

Hello everyone! My name is Darcy. Robin's blog inspired me to get out one Saturday morning. I am going to share with you my experience and what I found. 
I decided on Friday to go out to the garage sales on Saturday. I looked up sales on Craigslist and made myself a map to kind of follow and help me not get lost. Oh, and lucky me, all of the garage sales listed didn't start till 8am! I can remember having to go out before the sun was up, but for some reason around New Braunfels everyone likes to sleep in ;-)

That morning as I was getting ready to leave and my husband Ryan was asking me what I was going to look for. I told him I was just trying to get some school clothes for Rylan and maybe some small decor items. He said, "Well, go find me an espresso machine."  I said OK and kinda laughed it off.  I wasn't planning on spending my morning trying to find a espresso machine, lol.  So, I started on my little journey and went to the closest sale on my map (the one that was supposed to have the right sized little boy clothes), and they didn't have anything outside yet, so I just drove around the area for a while. I went up to the first sale I saw, and voila! There was an espresso machine with all the parts and pieces sitting in a box!  The lady said it worked, but she hardly ever used it. $5 later my dear husband had an espresso machine! Major wife points ;-) I looked it up online and you can buy them on Amazon for $35-40. I'll take my $5 one.

After that I went to all the other sales on my little route, dug through A LOT of clothes and only found 3 shirts for Rylan out of all those sales! Apparently no one sells many clothes that are 5T/boys small. 

 There were tons of cute baby clothes that almost made me want another baby... almost. So I was so frustrated after going around and not really finding what I was looking for and decided to detour through one last neighborhood before heading home. I nearly missed the last garage sale because he had no sign and there weren't any cars around, but I quickly pulled over.  The guy was selling lighting fixtures and other smaller home appliances.  I picked up a rubbed bronze, 3 bulb vanity light with the covers and lightbulbs all included. He said he was trying to sell it for 35, but said to make him an offer as it was getting hot and he wanted to pack up. I offered him $20 and he took it! I Can't find the exact one online but similar ones with less design than this one are 60+ on Home Depot or Lowes.  

I Also bought a pendant light that was part of a pair he wanted $40 for, but I only needed one.  He wouldn't go any lower than $15 for one, but looking back I bet I could have bought the pair for $20. Oh well.

 Over all, even though I didn't find the boy as many boy clothes as I had hoped I count it successful day. I can't wait to get my lights up, and Ryan has already used his espresso machine and loves it! I will definitely be going out again!

August 4th 2012

I am a little late on this post and it's past 12:00a.m. so I am going to make this as short as possible. Here is what I found last week!

I got two bags of swim diapers for FREE! I asked the lady how much she wanted for them and she said, "oh, you can take them." SCORE! Swim diapers are something I have never had to buy in the store. I always find them at garage sales. I collect them throughout the year and hold them back for summer.

I also bought this humidifier for $5 dollars. We have one but it's nice to have two just in case both my kids are sick. Here is one that is really similar for $49.99.

I bought this E for .50 cents. I am not sure what I will do with it but I am sure I will figure it out!

Some how all my pans have disappeared! I bought these for .50 cents a piece. They are not great pans but will work till I can find something better.

I bought these little soccer cleats for Jaysa for $1. 

I also bought all of these bubbles for .25 cents a piece. My girls have already had a blast with them.

I found a lot of kids clothes this week.

I spent a total of $12 dollars on the clothes in this picture. I got 2 pairs of shoes, 2 swim suits, 3 outfits (shirt with matching bottom), 2 shirts, a cardigan and a dress!

I also bought a workout tank and a black sweater for me for .50 a piece.

I bought all of these clothes for $11 dollars. I paid $3 for the white GAP jacket and a $1 for everything else except the little gray sweat pants. The lady threw those in free because I showed her that they had a tiny hole in them. They will be perfect play clothes!

I also found a lot of jewelry this week. I spent $10 dollars on 2 bracelets, 5 pair of earrings, 2 rings and a feather hair clip.

I love the colors of these bracelets!

Always love me some feather earrings!

Love these colors too!

OTHER AWESOME DEALS

How cute are these for a little tweens room?! I really like the one with the crown. The lady wanted $4 dollars a pillow but she was willing to go down on them.

I have this exact jungle gym for my girls. I bought it for $15. This one was $10!

This lady was selling her BKE jeans for $3 dollars a piece!

Here is another lady that was selling her brand name jeans for $2 dollars a piece! Garage sales is such a great way to find cute brand name clothes for dirt cheap!

I really liked these barstools and was so tempted to buy them but talked myself out of it. They had three of them and wanted $40 for all of them.

This kids bouncer looked like it had never been used. They lady said she paid over $100 for it and used it once or twice. She was selling it for $35.

This light weight umbrella stroller was $15. Here is almost the same one for $40.

Here are some banana chairs for $10 a piece. They even have the speakers in the sides.

Does anyone know how expensive these snow sleds are? They around $30 dollars!!!! CRAZY! This one was only $3. 

Here is a water jug for camping. They wanted $10 for it which I thought was a little high but worth trying to talk them down to $7.

Front Porch Makeover

We bought our house almost a year ago now. I LOVE almost everything about the house...ALMOST. One thing that I really hated about the house was it's curb appeal. The inside was AMAZING, a true diamond in the rough but the outside was seriously the beast of our beauty. The outside has a desert landscape which really bugged me. I am from Texas were the grass grows green so to have desert landscape was a real bummer for me. However this is not going to change and I have learned to love it and it's benefits of low maintenance. We also HATE the color of the house. It's a plain white stucco with a grey colored roof. Here in St. George a white stucco house doesnt stay white for long because of the red dirt and sand. The lower half of the house starts to turn a burnt orange. Our plan has been to paint the outside of the house and add some rock to the bottom half of the house but that will take a lot of time, money and energy so to help my curb appeal problem I started with the simplest project, the front porch. I am amazed at the difference it has made! My house is so much more inviting now! Here is my before picture.

Oh, this is so sad. How ugly is my door?!?! This was actually the second time I have paint my door. The first time I did it a yellow and navy blue....total FAIL! I am sure my neighbors thought my door was the eye sore of the neighborhood! Even the paint on the door frame is ugly and chipping off!

Here is my after picture

 

I chose a Clark Kensington Santorini blue, a Mark Twain house yellow and a good old plain white for my color scheme. I made my wreath from a wreath bought at a garage sale for $1 and some greenery bought on a Walmart clearance for .60 cents a stem. 

 I used about 15 stems and wired them on with craft wire. I had a good friend cut out our last name in vinyl and use some white scraps of fabric to make the fabric flowers on the sign next to our name. The total cost of my wreath was $10 dollars.

I also finally got my front porch bench made! Does anyone remember when I bought this little twin headboard for $3 dollars at a garage sale?

Well here she is now!

I will have a tutorial on how we made the bench later this week!

I also used this awesome frame my mom found at a garage sale for $3 dollars. I painted a thin white piece of wood and went at bought some stencils letters and numbers from Lowes to have a piece of stenciled art to go in the center of my frame.

 I also made my first pillows!!!

I used a white canvas for both of these pillows. For the one with the yellow flower I cut a 4 inch strip of fabric and painted it yellow. From there I followed a tutorial I found HERE to make the rest of the flower. For the small pillow with the F, I found an F I liked online drew it on paper cut it out and then traced it straight on my pillow. You can also just print out the letter you want and trace it on there but my printer is broken!

Here is what I used to decorate the left side of my porch.

The pot I bought at a garage sale for $3 dollars. I really didn't want to put real flowers in it because I discovered that I have a black thumb and can't keep anything alive so I placed a large moss ball that was used at the wedding inside. The box that my pot is sitting on was also bought at a garage sale. I can't remember how much I spent on it but it was only a few dollars Here is what it looked like before

And After!

 

I love seeing my front porch every time I drive up in my drive way! It make such a difference about how I feel about the outside of our house! I have also been getting compliments from the neighbors already! 

I am spending a few days at Lake Powell and the service is terrible here so I may be a little MIA this next few days. Until check me out on Instagram! Sorry I don't have the link you will have to search Garagesalesrus. I have have to sneak peek pictures of the projects I am currently working on! Hope you will follow along!

Alight Everyone! Here is what you have been waiting for! The winner of my Cricut Machine Giveaway is........ DRUM ROLL!...............

Jenny Crackedcorn

Congrats Jenny! I have contacted you via email! Thank you everyone for entering! I really do appreciate all of you and love your bloggy friendship! I hope you all  have enjoyed looking around and hope you will come back often to see what is new!