The way we were. . . .

Hello All,
just a quick little post while I am in the middle of working some more in my reselling storage shop.
Hubby helped me get some of the shelves set up and has cut some plywood for the backs, so they are no longer leaning and are ready to fill up with some $ making stuff.

I'm very slowly going thru the big to sell pile I sorted out as I was cleaning out the shop and trying to photograph and then list as I go. I know that its the slow way of doing things, but if I just put it all in boxes without taking photos of it first I don't think that I will ever get it listed. Hubby is a little frustrated with me becuase he thinks I should be done by now. However, the walls aren't ready for my room yet, so I figure I have some time. I'd rather get it organized first then have to try and organize later. As big as my sell pile is, I might not really need to go shopping or garage saling for the whole summer (that doesn't mean I won't though!)

Sorting and organizing has also been a slo process because there are a lot of items in here that have sentimental value. When I moved to Hubby's he had already lived here for several years and I was moving from a 3 bedroom house which I had all to myself, (for 10 years) to a 2 bedroom house. So, we ended up just putting all of my stuff in the shop and then I slowly moved my stuff into our house. It was an uphill battle, as hubby had a hard time letting go of some of his stuff to begin with.
It's been almost 7 years and now I feel more ready to get rid of some of my single girl stuff.  I've also been going through some of my granny and grandpy's as well as my other grandparents stuff and have been selling off some items I'm sure I won't ever use. I often get to be the dumping ground in my family, they want me to keep family momentos, but don't think about how hard it is for me to store them. So, I have been sneaking out a few things in the trash or selling them on the sly. I just can't keep everything! and I'm trying not to feel to guilty about it.

I got a message from ebay this week wishing me a happy 11th anniversary with them. It's hard for me to believe it's been that long.  So, I'll leave you with this. When I started out on ebay I was a single girl, and purchased a lot of items like this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270947356802n  which I am now selling. Time to let go of the single girl days and use some of the money to save up for the future.

so, now you know how I got my ebay name. luvredford
(although I also do drive a red ford so it works either way)

Off to more listing, organizing and photographing for me.

What did you do today?

Randomness. . .

Well, it's only Wednesday, but it feels like it's been a week. Teaching kindergartners after spring break is like teaching kindergartners on the first day of school all over again. How soon they forget everything you thought you'd taught them. 

So, here's a quick recap of my week so far.

real job #1
got end of the year evaluation this week- not what a expected- dealing with it the rest of the week using tissues, chocolate- using it to remind me why I need to work harder to be able to sell online full time and stay home!

real job #2 seems ok for once. All caught up on paying bills- which is when I usually discover I've totally forgotten something or messed something up very badly for my dad- praying this time I've actually got it right

little one- having allergy issues and readjusting to mommy going back to work, was heard screaming from time out this week, after pottying in his pants for the third time in 20 minutes-,"Please mommmy, don't sell my toys on ebay."

homefront:
house- complete ebay exploded in my dining room
power/internet- for the 5th time in the last month and a half, our power was off for a day and the internet dish was blewn off of the roof, love living in the boonies and the windiest part of the country!
(note this is said in a very sarcastic tone)
shop- still cleaning, and trying to organize, but there is enough room to now rollerblade in there on windy days
hubby surprised me by being helpful and bringing home some of my shelving from our storage in town. very sweet! now how do I tell him that he brought the wrong ones, and he also forgot to bring the pegboard backing, so the shelves, although mostly set up, currently look like this

And I think that the selling sisters, posted just for me this week-
something we could all use a little reminding of
http://thesellingsistersonline.com/

p.s. thankfully sales have been great!

Goals for the week

After reading apron thrift girl's post here a while ago I decided to see how much I needed to make a day to reach my goal of being able to stay home with little one or future other child (at least for a year or so)
When I divided it up I figured I needed to sell about $150.00 a day to clear my fees, make about the same amount I make full time and pay for insurance. That's actually not too bad when I think about it. I can do it!

So here are my goals for the week and a few for beyond:

this week:
have 308 items in ebay store, would like to get to 350 ideally, would be happy with 330 items
sell an average of 100 a day on ebay, plus other sites, hope to get 150-200
list 10 items on etsy
check out bonanza some more, possibly add that site to list
photograph 5 things to post on craigslist
bring home clothing rack from dad's office and hang up huge ebay clothing mess in dining room- make my hubby happier!

Summer goals:
have 800-1000 items listed in my store
finish cleaning out shop, move into ebay room, get inventory all organized, move rest of inventory from dad's office
get all of dad's filing done before I am no longer his secretary
clean my scrapbook room downstairs/set up a school/playroom for little one downstairs
sell $200 a week on ebay, 100-200 a week combo from other sites
save money to have some inventory purchasing money
garage sale as many fridays and saturdays as possible to get winter inventory
do better adding to my stockpile/couponing, as once school starts again full time for me, I won't have time
do a couple of road trips for inventory
spend some quality time with little one, the zoo? museum? possibly with some ebay spending money

I have a lot to do! But writing it down helps me. I will report back on how my daily sales goal is going.

making slow progress. . .

I'm getting ready to say goodbye to my Spring Break and head back to work on Monday.
I haven't been posting since I have been spending every spare second I can cleaning out my shop.
My hubby ended up taking a dump trail full of stuff to the dump today for a total of 1500 pounds. (about 500 was some of his stuff). I need to make sure that I never let it get that bad again!

Little one has been helping me out some by playing in his sandbox in the front of my shop where it's pretty easy to keep an eye on him. Also, he pretty much never stops talking, so I know if it gets quiet I need to go check on him. Hubby came a helped a few hours the last couple of nights. I kind of hit a brick wall towards the end of the week and was feeling very overwhelmed. It was good to have his help and get me going again. We now have enough room cleaned out for hubby and my dad to get the walls of the room up, hopefully before next weekend- we'll see how the week goes.

taken from the front of the shop, where my room will go

 No longer avalanche corner. It was full of mostly teaching stuff that I'm going to put aside for little one's "school time" this summer, or for when he's older. Lots of stuff to sell too!

This is from the back of the shop, where the yellow ladder, tv and wedding screens were in the last picture. The room is going to be about  12 feet wide and 20 feet long.

We had to take a lot of stuff and just stack it on the perimeter of the shop until the room is done. I'm not thrilled about that, but there just isn't time to go thru everything right now, so it will have to do, I have about 8 weeks until school is out and about a month before it will be too hot to work out there in the big part of the shop. Then we will get some shelves fixed and some new ones built and start organizing. I am ready for that, and for being able to stay at home on the weekends instead of driving into my dad's office to get stuff and find all of my ebay stuff easier.

Sales have picked up on all fronts this week. I had two returns on Amazon.  For some reason I have more returns on that venue than any other. I've decided to only sell new toys in the package on there, even though they look like new I seem to have people complain that they aren't. 

I also tried a few new thrift stores in my town this week- part of the plan I talked about here.
I found some great items at both of them. The first one I am a little ticked off at right now though, so I don't know that I will be going back. I found some starbucks mugs, and a few clothing items, although a lot of their items are way overpriced. I did find some books in their back room, about 80 of them that I was interested in. Since almost none of the books are priced (which I find totally annoying) I went to the front and asked how much. The girl (who was too busy talking to her boyfriend on her cell phone to talk to me for about 10 minutes) told me $1.00 a piece, which I thought was too high. They are older books that a lot people put in their free box at garage sales. So I asked her if I could get a better deal if I purchased all of them. She said she had to talk to her boss, who would be in later. So I went back a few days later and her boss told me that the books were $2.00 each- really snotty like I was lying about the previous price I was told, and then told me that she could "give" them to me for $1.50. I politely said thanks but no thanks and walked out. She sent one of her employees out to tell me that she could go as low as 1.14 each. Again I said no thanks. How did my deal become a higher price then when I first asked?  UGH. I'll wait and see if they go on sale later, if I ever go back there. Very disappointing!

The other store is a higher class store where a lot of doctor's wives and country club type people donate clothing. I haven't been to it in years, but I'm glad I went. The day I stopped by they were having a big sale. $4.00 for a paper bag full! I ended up spending several hours there and filled up
7 bags. Name brands including pendleton, tommy hilfiger, jones new york.I even got a couple of vintage coats that were originally marked $20.00 for about $5. I'm very excited about the deals I got. Not all of them are name brands, and they are mostly winter clothing, but I am going to list them anyway so I can get them put away. They are planning to switch everything in the store over to spring clothing this weekend, and I found out that their regular prices are still half the price of goodwill and other thrift stores in my area. I told them I will be back very soon. The only drawback is they don't have carts, which makes it hard to take little one with me. I'll have to take in my stroller or see if my mom can watch him for a little while.

Have a relaxing rest of your weekend. I'm planning on trying to get most of the bag sale clothing listed. My store has dropped to below 300 items again, I just can't seem to get ahead on listing, which is a good thing!

BIG mess revealed

ok, so here it is. I'll admit that these are pictures of my "craft room" after I've already put in about 12 hours of work on it and thrown away 2 dumpsters and my husband's dump trailer full.

I think you'll see why my blog is named Granny's Hoard. :) (although maybe I should call it my hoard!)

This is the view as you walk in the front door. I got this huge cabinet from the same store that was closing down. It used to hold the soda dispenser and coffee. It's really deep and is just the right height for me to work at. I think it will be great in my room with shipping supplies underneath and postal scales on top, with enough room for packing up orders. When I started cleaning a few days ago I could take about one step inside. My hubby likes to do the drop and run when I send him out there with something. :) As in drop the box as soon as you open the door and run away before your wife finds out.

 back wall from front door view. It's my furniture wall, or wall of furniture.  I have a lot of ideas for all of these chairs and other furniture. Painted furniture and chairs sell well at our retail shop, but we haven't been open very much lately. My mom isn't able to help as much as she used too. I'm thinking about just making it a seasonal shop and being open from Nov-Dec, February, Mother's Day etc. It's just too much work with my teaching job, little one, and ebay is much more profitable, soon I won't have to wasite gas driving there  (and less time away from home)

these are the candle screens from our wedding 6 years ago. Since our retail shop sells flowers and does other people's weddings from time to time, I did all of my own decorating. I found these at Hobby Lobby, they were a horrible bright turqoise. It took a lot of ivory spray paint to get them ready for the wedding, but they were beautiful. I was planning on renting them out for weddings from our shop, but haven't gotten around to it. I am thinking about just selling all of the wedding stuff on craisglist and just be done with it. This is where my new room will be from about the yellow ladder to a little bit to the right of this photo.

See why I need sturdier shelves? I got into too big of a hurry and told hubby they didn't need more brackets. I was very very wrong! So, now I have to take everything down, install another set of racks and brackets and then put stuff back up. Once I purge and reorganize this area it should be great for ebay stuff. I am planning on this side of the building for the ebay part and the other side for my craft stuff. One thing I always have issues with, what to store on the top shelf that's light and I won't need very often?  I'm too lazy to get the huge ladder out all of the time. And I'm really klutzy and usually just end up hurting myself trying to get something down.

 This is by the front door and where I plan on moving my amazon books and hopefully some toys also. I need to get some sheets or shower curtains to throw over the shelves to make sure they stay dust free. The wind blows a lot by our house and even our inside doors get sand blown under them.

This isn another view of where my new room will be, once I move all of that stuff.

Included in the pile are vintage roller skates, a band saw, tubs full of teaching materials,

Oh what have I gotten myself into!

Let's just call this one avalanche corner.

Looking at this in a photograph makes me want to hyperventilate.

It's mostly a lot of my personal teaching stuff that I can't store at school, and crafting supplies. Also a bunch of old doors my dad and I got at an auction for less than $1 a piece!

The plan is to put most of my crafting supplies on this side. Hopefully on the large H rack in the back, but we'll see.

So, there it is, my huge mess for all of blogland to see. (I'm offically mortified)

I'll probably post some more pictures tomorrow, and hopefully have some more progress to show. Hubby said he'd help carry some more trash for a while. That will help save me time and make it easier for me to still be able to stand upright tomorrow, tonight my back is killing me!

Wish me luck, and if I go missing, start digging in the avalanche corner!

I've got a big, messy secret

Hello all,
Please forgive me for not posting anything for 10! days.

I have a big messy secret I have been working on. Let me explain. . . .

When hubby and I got married 6 years ago, I left a four bedroom, paid in full house in town, to  move to the middle of the boonies to a 2 bedroom, only paid the mortage for 5 years house. But, it was hubby's dream to stay in the country so we did.

One perk of moving here was that he gave me his big 2 garage door metal shop to store my crafts in. (Really, he just didn't want all my junk in the house - He's clean like that)


I was very excited to have all of that room. However the first winter I realized how much it was not going to work. I was up until 3 am making crafts for a craft show the next day. It was about -10, and I had on about 15 layers and my paint was freezing instead of drying. There were other issues, bad shop lighting, H-rack storage to the ceiling that doesn't work so well for wives who are only 5 foot tall and have wimpy arms. It's just too big to heat and cool, and doesn't have storage for the types of things I do.

I've tried over the years to rework it and make it work and it just hasn't. The last time I stepped foot in there for more than 2 seconds was over 3 years ago, when I became pregnant with little one.

Since I have started back on ebay I have a new dream for my shop.  I do realize that I am very lucky to have the possibility of so much storage, I just need to make it work for me. It makes me sad to drive past the shop everyday and see so much possibility wasted.

So hubby and I have decided that I will make a little make shift room inside that is a smaller size to heat and cool. That will be my office for my computer, sewing machine, clothing, shipping items, photographing items and a place for little one to hang out with me.
In the rest of the shop we will install some shelving we bought last year from a grocery store that was closing and make some of the shelving I have more sturdy.  I will store all of my ebay inventory, craft supplies, and little one's clothes and toys until the next one comes along, in the larger area.

I currently have inventory at my house and also at my dad's office, which isn't working well at all. I'm never in the right place for the item I need, some Saturdays I have to drive 45 minutes to town to get something and come back home to ship it. And bless my dad for his patience of my having my junk all over his office.
Hopefully this summer I can get everything moved in and just ship from home, so much easier!

So, all of my extra time for the next few weeks (maybe months, I have a lot of junk to go thru)   I will be purging, cleaning, organizing and building. I will share some photos later this weekend.

Wish me luck!
and I'll show you pictures of it in progress if you promise not to turn me in to that Hoarders TV show. : )

Free Auction Listings. . . yeah!

Opened my email to find an email from Ebay. Free auction listings for stores March 8-31st. Just what I have been waiting for!  Auctions always help clear out old inventory and help improve my sales for the week. I can bring my weekly sales up by 30 or 40 items when I list auctions, but I hate to pay the bigger fees, they can really add up fast.

I will be listing as many as I can.
My goal is to try to get at least 10 new items a day, we'll see how that goes with my regular work schedule.

I went to the chriopractor yesterday with my husband (not to get my back adjusted- to shop at the thrift/consignment store across the street) It's in a small town about 20 miles north of us, and not a lot of people go there. I spent $68 and filled up the back of my SUV. Love that! I found what I think are some great deals, I'll post about later after I do some research and get some photos taken, I'm pretty excited about finding a new place to go. I went there one other time after they opened and scored a set of 1940's children's story books for $11.00. They ended up selling for $150.00. So, I'm hoping this place continues to go unnoticed by more people and I can find some more good deals.


It's off to list I work. . . .

Sales for the week

Things continued to be very busy for me this week on all fronts. All of my free auction listings ended on Sunday night and that really helped my sales. I'm hoping we have a free auction listing again soon.


I had 20 sales on ebay, two unpaids that both have been paid now.
Highlights from ebay:

steve madden loafers paid 2.99, sold for 24.95

Vintage Ski Sweater, purchased a couple of weeks ago at the .99 sale, listed at 19.95, best offer sold for 17.95

carrie allen watercolor jacket, purchased last week for 3.50, sold for 24.95

Elizabeth Arden Cat purchased for 1.99, sold for 14.95, the completed on similars ranged from $4-8, so I wasn't sure if this was a good purchase or not, but I'm happy with the sale, I think the darker background helped up the value of it

 

Amazon I sold two cars playhuts that I purchased at Target after Christmas for $4.00, they each sold for 24.95.

Total items for Amazon was 20 items, for about 130.00
lots of books I've had for a while, some pert plus shampoo, and some new kids toys

etsy was a little slow, but I had an order for 15 custom water bottles for about $100, another waterbottle order for 3,
these diet coke glasses

and a few other odds and ends.

I'm hoping the sales increase keeps up, and I get some more time to list this week. Things at school have been crazy busy, and will continue to be for the 9 weeks of school we have left.

Meet Lucy. . . .

she's the mannequin we've had at our retail shop for about 10 years.

Isn't she beautiful?

Usually at the shop we'd have her more covered up.

When I started using her for ebay photos I tried to fix her up a bit by doing this

then the other day I was walking by her and decided it was time to do something. . .

I started with some watered down tacky glue

and then started covering her with white tissue paper

I had to wait for a while for the glue to dry and I haven't had time to get back to work on her.
I think it's going to be a lot more layers before she is all done, but I think she is already looking much better to use for shirts, pants and more.
I'm excited for her to be all done so that I can show you.
I think that the white will showcase my clothing much better. Also, I think that Lucy will now be better to showcase shirts, pants, skirts and more.


On the sales front, things have been picking up a lot! I've been busy packing and listing as much as I can. My hubby and I plan to preview an auction tomorrow if the weather clears up. I have been to an auction before, but never for ebay inventory so we'll see how it goes.

Hope you have a great Friday.