A Belated Spring Yard Sale Report

Yes, it's the beginning of July - and I haven't posted a single Yard Sale Report for this year yet!

Fear not, I *have* been out on my usual yard saling adventures. With the cold spring we had, I really didn't get started until the end of May. And despite the fact that I've hit a substantial number of sales this season, I haven't come home with much. These days I'm pretty picky about what I'll buy, even at yard sale prices, as the more I declutter, the less desire I have to bring something into the house that just ends up accumulating dust.

That being said, I do enjoy the "thrill of the hunt" enough to continue digging around in boxes of random stuff on people's driveways on the slight chance I will unearth something wonderful (I still adore the vintage glass candlesticks I found wrapped in paper at the bottom of a box at an estate sale 4 years ago).

My first find of the season was at a church rummage sale:

The final 3 Harry Potter books, in pristine hardcover, for $1 each. This was perfect timing as my older son was just ready to start Order of the Phoenix. These put a big smile on his face!

At the same rummage sale, I also picked up these in-brand-new-condition books for my gift cupboard (50 cents each!):

 At the same sale, I also picked up a new-in-the-shrink-wrap kids' DVD of magic tricks for $3 (not pictured - it's already been gifted!!)

A few weeks later, I picked up this beautiful, coffee-table-sized book on herb gardening for 75 cents:

Since I am on a never-ending quest to expand the number of herbs growing in my garden, this is a welcome addition to my library (and I admit that I spent a significant portion of a Saturday afternoon leafing through it on my porch!)

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I scored all 3 of these items at a fundraiser yard sale:

Handwoven basket (to become the new trash can in my office), 25 cents; beach mat $1 and single-serving stainless steel Thermos $2.

Grand total: $11 for 10 items, or $1.10 per item

July's looking like it's going to be light on the yard sales for me; I have 2 Saturdays where I'm doing demos at the Farmers' Market, plus we'll be on vacation for part of the month, too. So it may be a while before my next yard sale report appears - rest assured that I'll be back eventually with another update!

Have you found anything great at a yard sale lately?

 

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A Mid-summer Yard Sale Report

It's been much longer than usual since I shared an update of my yard sale finds. It seems the Yard Sale Gods have been conspiring against me for the past few weeks, and either there haven't been any good sales to check out, the weather has been uncooperative, or I have had something else that I've absolutely had to do on Saturday morning.

Nevertheless, I have managed to score a few good deals and I figured it's time I got around to sharing them!

First up is this wintery-themed story book, which I picked up for 25 cents. It's already tucked away in my gift cupboard for Christmas giving.

 I found some more adult-oriented reading material later on. I knew this book on the history of four of Hamilton's heritage neighbourhoods would be right up my husband's alley, as he's a huge Hamilton history buff, so it was totally worth the $2.00 asking price. I debated saving it for our anniversary (September) or Christmas, but in the end I just gave it to him straight away and he pored over it for hours and hours that weekend :) I think we'll be doing a number of the walking tours from the book, lots of fascinating details about so many of the buildings!

It's been a while since I succumbed to my basket addiction, but at a neighbourhood moving sale I couldn't resist snapping all of these stylish containers (two baskets and a wooden box with some nifty curlicue detailing) up for a total of $2.00.

At a church rummage sale, I stumbled across something I'd been on the lookout for since just about forever (well, okay, maybe not quite that long, but it's definitely been a while!):

 A Pyrex loaf pan, for which I paid 50 cents. I have one, but two is much better so I can bake two "normal" shaped loaves of bread at once (rather than one normal and one round loaf, which is what I have been doing). Yeah, I know I could have gone and bought one on sale at any number of stores, but where's the fun in that? :)

My final find was 4 of these Ikea baskets for $2.00 each. I have 4 of the taller version of these baskets (which we incorporated into the storage unit we built in our front entranceway) and this size of square basket seems to come in handy for so many things that I snapped them up. My 13 year old son claimed one as soon as he laid eyes on them, so I'm sure they're all going to be put to good use.

That's it for my latest round of yard saling adventures!

Grand total: $12.75 for 10 items, or an average of $1.28 an item.

Have you made any great yard sale finds lately?

A couple of things I wanted to let you know about:

1. I'll be blogging sporadically for the rest of the summer as we're going on a family vacation for a week and then I have a friend coming to visit from Albuquerque for 10 days in August!

2. You can catch me at a few live appearances in August: I'll be on CHCH Morning Live on Tuesday, August 6th at 8:20 a.m. EST discussing my book and budget menu planning service, and preparing a couple of simple, inexpensive and tasty recipes using local and seasonal ingredients. I'll also be doing demos in the Community Kitchen at the Hamilton Farmers' Market on August 24th and 31st (more info will be available HERE soon).

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Yard Sale Report: The Second Half of May

In my area, May and June seem to be two of the best months for yard sales and I have hit quite a few in the last two Saturdays!

Here's what I came home with last weekend:

A pair of polar fleece gloves that fit me perfectly, a full container of bamboo skewers, and a beach mat all came out of a free pile (and you all know how much I *love* free piles!!) At the same yard sale I also found the silicone basting brush for 25 cents and the yoga book for 50 cents.

This morning I hit so many sales that I lost count because there was a huge street sale over on Beulah Avenue (an annual event) plus a few other sales in that area piggybacking on the main sale. I've been going to the Beulah Street Sale for probably close to a decade and for the first time ever, I left empty-handed. Ironically, after spending a good chunk of time pedaling all over Southwest Hamilton, the only items I purchased this morning were at a couple of sales right around the corner from me!

I was thrilled to find another stainless steel coffee mug, very similar to the one I picked up earlier this month, for 50 cents (now hubby and I will each have our own!) I also scooped up four kids' craft books in brand new condition to add to my gift cupboard for another $2.00.

Grand total for the last two weeks: $3.25 for 10 items or 32.5 cents an item

Have you found any great yard sale bargains lately?

Yard Sale Season Is Here!

At long last, spring has decided to grace us with its presence here in Southern Ontario. We've been enjoying a well-deserved string of gorgeous, sunny days and of course when the warmer weather arrives my thoughts turn to two things: gardening and yard sales! I've gotten out in the garden a little bit and plan to spend a bunch of time out there in the next few days, so a garden update will be coming soon.

Right now I have the spoils of my first week of yard sale shopping to share. There was only one yard sale running in my neck of the woods today and at first I thought I was going to strike out. Most of the merchandise was kids' games (a lot of which looked like they'd been tucked away in the basement for 20 years) and older dishes, mugs, etc. It was not well sorted or displayed, though (many items were in boxes, wrapped in paper, making it next to impossible to tell what was in there!) When I hit a sale like this, I tend to dig around a bit (especially if I don't have a lot of other sales on my list for that day). I will often find things other people missed because they just did a quick scan of what was clearly visible.

In this case I ended up with the following items:

Three of those woven paper plate holders and a stainless steel mug; I paid 50 cents for the lot!

Now anyone who knows me is wondering why the heck I bought those paper plate holders as I never, ever use paper plates! The answer is that sometime last fall I read that these work well for drying herbs and I thought I'd give it a try. My plan is to dry small amounts at a time over the course of the growing season, rather than trying to dry large amounts all at once in the fall (which I somehow never get around to doing!). The stainless mug is going in our camping kit; we do have a set of 4 stainless mugs but they are quite small and this one will probably hold over twice as much coffee :)

Grand total for the day: 50 cents for 4 items, or 12.5 cents per item.

As I mentioned near the end of last yard sale season, I'm probably going to switch from weekly yard sale reports to 1-2 reports a month, depending on how many sales I'm getting out to and how much stuff I find - this will also free up some time for me on produce exchange days, keeping me a bit more sane! I will still file them all under "Weekly Yard Sale Reports" so they're easy to find.

Has your yard sale season started yet? Have you found anything great?

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Where Have All the Yard Sale Reports Gone?

I know many of you that look forward to my weekly yard sale reports are probably wondering why there haven't been any for quite some time. In fact, the last report I posted was way back on June 30th!

I have still been getting out there most weekends (although there have been a few rainy Saturdays) but I've been coming home empty-handed. Last weekend I hit seven yard sales and didn't bring anything home, and that's been fairly typical of what's been going on in yard sale land for me all summer. At this point in my life, I'm pretty discerning about what I choose to bring home. In another month, both of my boys will be teenagers and the days where I'm in the market for all those "little kid" items so readily available on the yard sale circuit are long gone. We also don't need much in the way of general household items. I have a few specific items on my wish list (such as more cast iron cookware) but there are not that many things I'm on the lookout for. I always keep an eye out for men's clothing (especially now that my boys are wearing men's small sizes!) and giftable items to stow in my gift cupboard (meaning stuff that's in brand new condition and that I genuinely believe someone on my gift list will love to receive). Other than that, and my weaknesses for baskets, books and Pyrex cookware, there are not all that many things I am apt to hand money over for right now.

What all this boils down to is that this is everything I brought home since my last yard sale post:

And I actually found all of these items on the same week in the middle of August:
A "make-your-own-lip balm" kit for $3.00 (which ended up becoming a birthday gift for my 11 year old niece) and 6 plastic Mason jar lids for 10 cents each (these are hard to find and are very handy when you're using Mason jars for general food storage purposes). I also scooped up a blender for $3.00. You may recall that our trusty old Osterizer bit the dust after 20 years of service. We hadn't been able to find a suitable secondhand replacement and finally broke down and bought a new blender a couple of months ago (on sale for half price, with Canadian Tire money). Unfortunately, we have been less than thrilled with it, and the base (the part that holds the blade) has already cracked. Yes, I need to check to see if it's still under warranty, but when I saw this Cuisinart one I figured a backup plan for $3.00 would be a good thing (it actually runs quite well and I like it better than the one we bought new - argh!)

I'm hoping there will be a resurgence of good sales for September and October (I often do some of my best yard sale shopping at this time of year) although I may decide not to do another report until the end of the month unless I find something particularly fantastic.

Grand total spent: $6.60 for 8 items or 83 cents an item.

P.S. If you're reading this in your email or news feed, I wanted to make sure all my local readers know about my upcoming book signing and presentation. It's on Wednesday, September 12th at 7 p.m., at the Westdale branch of the Hamilton Public Library. I'll have copies of my book available to purchase for $15. I hope some of you will be able to join me!

Weekly Yard Sale Report: Short and Sweet

Yard sales on long weekends can be hit-or-miss - sometimes it seems like everyone decided to hold a holiday weekend sale, other times the selection is sparse. This time out it was the latter. I hit four sales, all of which were very quiet, and came home with:

Three children's books ($1.00 each), which are going in my gift cupboard. I found all of these at a single sale and didn't find anything else interesting in the rest of my travels this morning.

Did you find anything interesting this weekend?

Weekly Yard Sale Report: Crazy Busy Saturday Edition

For those of you who might have been wondering, yes I *did* go out on my usual Saturday morning yard sale rounds yesterday - I just didn't have time to blog about it! It was also the first exchange of the 2012 season for the West Hamilton Produce Cooperative, which I coordinate. That means I was up to my eyeballs in fresh-from-the-backyard-garden produce, sorting, portioning and distributing the bounty amongst our members. And on top of that, our family had a big party to go to as well - the 40th birthday celebration for one of my closest friends, whom I've known since we were younger than my kids are now! So we were there from late afternoon till well after dark.

Fortunately, the yard sales running in my area yesterday were in a very compact area, with two street sales and another individual sale all within a few blocks of one another in the Southwest part of the city. I was able to hit them all within a short period of time and managed to find a few purchase-worthy items:

A clear glass vase with a funky "bubble" texture (25 cents), two IKEA baskets that are a match for a few I already own and could use more of ($2 each) and a very practical "Lug" bag for $11. The bag was a bit on the spendy side for me, and at first I wasn't sure if it was worth it, but I'm already really glad I bought it. I packed it up full of stuff to tote along to the party we attended yesterday, and it has so many handy pockets and pouches it was easy to keep everything well organized. I'm planning on using it as my portable book marketing office, as it will easily hold a few copies of my book plus all the accompanying marketing materials. I also have it on good authority from a couple of friends who shop retail a lot more than I do that these bags cost around $65 new (plus tax) so I did get myself a pretty good deal!

As for the most interesting things I saw that I *didn't* buy this week, there were quite a few to choose from at one sale I stopped by, including these shields:

which my boys would have LOVED to have on their walls when they were younger but would not exactly fit into the "cool" category these days :)

And this fine specimen:

I'm not sure who this guy is but I just had to take a photo of him! I don't think my husband would be too impressed if I dragged this home and plonked it in the living room.

Grand total for the day: $15.25 for 4 items, or $3.81 an item

Did you find anything great this weekend?

Weekly Yard Sale Report

This week was everything the last two Saturdays were not: warm and sunny and perfect for checking out a few yard sales. I ended up hitting close to a dozen this morning and although for the most part they weren't particularly noteworthy, this sight on Strathcona Street more than made up for it:

 I'm certain this must be the most yard I've ever seen in one place outside of a yard shop (heck, I think I might have been in a yarn shop or two that didn't have this much yarn!) Unfortunately, it was all acrylic and I'm mostly a natural-fibre kind of gal so I didn't buy any of it.

I did, however, make a few small purchases on my rounds this morning:
 

A cute snowman magnetic dress up toy (25 cents), a Simpsons comic book ($1.00), an origami book (25 cents) and a navy blue Columbia T-shirt for my hubby (50 cents). The snowman toy and the origami book are going into my gift cupboard. The comic book I'm saving as a surprise for my 14 year-old-son to tuck into his bag when he heads off to camp 4 weeks from tomorrow.

That was the total haul for today!

Grand total for the day: $2.00 for 4 items, or an average of 50 cents an item.

Did you find anything great this week?

Weekly Yard Sale Report (or Lack Thereof)

 Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For the second Saturday in a row, the weather was less than auspicious for yard sale shopping. It rained all morning and while I bravely ventured out to one indoor sale, I didn't find anything worth buying (although I did get plenty soaked on the way home).

Instead of coming home and writing another informative installment of my How to Yard Sale Like a Pro series, I decided to curl up in bed with a hot cup of coffee and a good book. Sorry gang - here's hoping the yard sale gods will be smiling next week!!

Did you find anything great this week?

Weekly Yard Sale Report: Southwest Yard Sale-o-Rama

Today was a big day on my yard sale calendar: the day of the annual Beulah Street Sale. This street in the southwest part of Hamilton has run an annual sale for so many years that it's become a tradition for a large number of local residents to stop by and hunt for bargains.

This event is such a big draw that a lot of other folks in the area piggyback onto it and run their own yard sales on the same day. So there were an overwhelming number of sales to check out today, even for a seasoned yard sale shopper like myself. The good news is they were clustered together in a very tight area, so I didn't have to do a whole lot of riding around to hit a fantastic number of sales (there were so many I didn't even try to keep count!).

My first stops of the morning were to check out a street sale plus another yard sale in my own Westdale neighbourhood. I bought these two books for 25 cents each:

The puzzle book will go into our "camping entertainment" stash, and the paper book is going into my gift cupboard.

Then I rounded up the family and we all headed over to the Beulah Street Sale (and hit up a bunch of sales on Dundurn South on the way over)..

I've never come home empty handed from this event, and this year was no exception!

 We found: a pair of hockey pants for my 12 year old son ($15), set of 4 drinking glasses ($2), book on how to make handmade books and journals ($1), dinosaur block puzzle (going in my gift cupboard) ($1), clear glass engraved bottle (50 cents).

On Beulah I also found The Mother of All Free Piles and after rooting around in it I came up with a huge armload of stuff:

 Those of you who've been reading my yard sale reports for a long time know how much I LOVE free piles :) I found so much great stuff in this one I was a bit embarrassed to take it all. The woman running the sale insisted that I take as much as I wanted from it as she just wanted to get rid of it all (she even went and got me a big bag to hold everything). Yep, every single item in the photo above was out of that free pile: Four Christmas baskets, two packages of cellophane basket wrap, a Christmas wine bottle wrap, a package of gift tags, a package of Christmas stickers, a package of cheesecloth, a package of elastic ribbon, a Christmas dishcloth, and a cute little salt and pepper shaker set (they're going to be our picnic/camping set). Nearly everything is still brand new in unopened packages! I was running low on wrapping supplies after last Christmas, so this has significantly replenished my stash.

The salt and pepper shakers up close - they're only three inches tall. So adorable! And hopefully, functional, too.

The rest of the family had had their fill of yard sales by then, so they headed home and left me to check out the rest of the sales on my list on my own. I headed over to Stanley Avenue to check out a couple of sales and found:

A pair of size 10 knitting needles (25 cents) which I'm hoping are big enough to experiment with knitting T-shirt yarn, and a pack of 20 Christmas cards ($1)

From there, I headed towards home, hitting up a couple more sales on Charleton and a street sale on Linwood without buying anything else, although I found the coolest thing I *didn't* buy today on Linwood:

This is a sheet music cupboard, but I can think of a lot of other great uses for it. I had to restrain myself from buying it, but I really don't have anywhere to put it right now (and we've got enough furniture waiting for an overhaul at the moment, so I don't want to add more until we've dealt with what we've already got!)

I also passed by St Joseph's church in my travels this morning...

...and got to meet fellow Hamilton blogger Tamara of Tea for Three (and one of her adorable daughters). I even bought something from her yard sale, but I won't tell you what as I'm sure she doesn't need everyone in the Blogosphere knowing where she lives :)

Grand total for the day: $21.25 for 25 items, or 85 cents an item

(If I remove the "big ticket" hockey pants from the equation, it works out to 26 cents an item for the other 24 items!)

Did you find anything great this week?

Weekly Yard Sale Report and Southwest/James North Wanderings

It's the long Victoria Day Weekend here in Canada and I don't think the weather could be any nicer! It was a perfect Saturday morning for hitting the yard sale circuit on my bike and I had eight sales on my list to check out.

Since I have a lot more local readers than I did many moons ago when I started these yard sale reports (and thanks to CBC Hamilton it's not exactly a secret that I live in The Hammer so my "blogger anonymity", if I ever had any, is totally shot) I've decided it would be fun to add some more local references to these posts. So, non-local readers, I love you, too - you just might not always know what I'm talking about, but you might get to know a lot more about the city I live in :)

I started off the morning at a sale on Aberdeen. I didn't buy anything there, but working my way towards Locke Street I encountered this little fellow on the porch:

I then headed slightly northeast to check out a sale on Herkimer, and scored this beauty:

A Lagostina Dutch oven - the holy grail of cookware. I've been dreaming of finding a good quality Dutch oven at a yard sale for years, so to say I was excited about this find would be a slight understatement. We recently had to throw out a pot we'd been using for 20 years (my sister-in-law was going to throw it out all that time ago and we managed to get two more decades of regular use out of it). This is a more than worthy successor to our expired pot, that's for sure.  I paid $4 for it and went (very) happily on my way!

This particular yard sale was located right in my old stomping grounds. I lived near Queen & Herkimer for several years, in this place:

It's nearly unrecognizable from the time I lived there. It used to have a green stucco exterior, and I'm pretty sure that large evergreen tree wasn't there when I was. I guess a lot can change in 15 years :) We lived in the main floor apartment on the right hand side of this semi-detached house.

I headed further north and backtracked a bit west to get to a sale on Dundurn north, where I didn't buy anything. Making my way further northeast, I happened to spy this:

Was someone hoping to do their grocery shopping at Victoria Park? Maybe they can come back a bit later in the growing season and barter for some veggies from a member of the Victoria Park Community Gardens. I'm not even sure where that cart would have come from as there are no grocery stores in the immediate vicinity.

Here was the scene at York and Bay just after 9 a.m. this morning:

 Is EVERYONE at the cottage? By the time I made it home I concluded that everyone that's still in the city was either hitting up yard sales (they were all doing a brisk business), strolling down James North, or exploring the Waterfront Trail.

From York and Bay I wove my way towards the James North area. I stopped to check a sale on Bay North, and while I enjoyed a stimulating conversation with the proprietor, I didn't buy anything. My next stop was a sale on MacNab North, where I found these:

I got these spoons for ten cents apiece, which I think is one heck of a deal. The smaller spoon in the middle (I'm told it's a jam spoon, and it will look right at home serving up our homemade jam from a Mason jar) is definitely real silver and I'm pretty sure the larger ones are, too. They need a bit of cleaning up, but I've been meaning to polish our silver (inherited from my hubby's grandmother) for ever and a day anyhow, so hopefully this is the incentive I need to finally get the job done.

I then made a stop on Mulberry Street, where I found the coolest thing I DIDN'T buy this morning:

A selection of retro frames!

By then the day was really starting to heat up and I was starting to run out of steam, but I pressed onwards to check out one more sale on James North before taking the Waterfront Trail back to Westdale.

The view from Burlington and Bay this morning:

After making it back to my own neck of the woods, I stopped at one final sale where, miraculously, I didn't buy any books even though they had a ton of them.

That pretty much sums up this morning's adventures!

Grand total for the day: $4.30 for 4 items, or an average of $1.08 an item.

Did you find anything great this weekend?

Weekly Yard Sale Report for May 12, 2012

It was a fabulous morning for some yard sale shopping and I headed out bright and early this morning to check out the bargains. There were only three sales running in my area today, and as it turned out both of my finds were made at my first stop of the morning, the sale right in my neighbourhood.

Here's what I came home with:

 I couldn't resist this metal basket ($3.00). I'm hoping some day I might actually have "backyard fresh eggs" to put in it; up until then I think it's going be pressed into duty corralling our flip flops by the front door for the summer.

At the same sale, I also found this slightly worn-around-the-edges but still sturdy rocker ($5.00). With a little TLC and a new paint job, it should be pretty easy to restore it to its former glory. I'm not sure where in the house it's going to live yet, but it's quite comfy so I want to find it a home somewhere where it will be used regularly.

Grand total for the day: $8 for 2 items, or $4 an item

Did you find anything great today?

Weekly Yard Sale Report for May 5, 2012

This morning I braved the brisk and windy weather to hit 5 yard sales and a church rummage sale. Most of the sales weren't very exciting, but one fantastic find made all that riding around worth my while:

I have been searching for a new, larger lamp for my bedside table and this one's a beauty! It was marked at $15 and I got it for $10. This is no IKEA lamp, either. It's solid as a rock - in fact it's so hefty I decided to weigh it and it came it at just under five pounds! I've already installed it in its new home and it looks fabulous. I had nearly bought a couple of other lamps last yard sale season, but I'm glad I waited for this gorgeous one to come along. It's a lovely classic style and so well made it should last a lifetime! I'm guessing this lamp must have been at least $75-$100 new, and it's still in perfect condition so I got a great deal. I'm really looking forward to having much better lighting when I'm curled up with a good book at bedtime.

I also found these at another sale:

Three childrens' books/activity books (25 cents each) that are going in my gift cupboard.

That was it for the morning. I will be basking in the glow of my new lamp for quite a while I think!

Grand total for the day: $10.75 for 4 items, or 2.69 an item.

Did you find anything great today?

Weekly Yard Sale Report for April 28, 2012

After a long morning of cycling around, this is going to be a very short report. 

I hit one church rummage sale and two yard sales plus another nonexistent sale (the one that cancelled last week advertised again this week and did not run it AGAIN!). I rode quite a bit outside of my usual yard sale shopping boundaries to attend the rummage sale, whose ad promised that it was "giant" and that they had "1000s of items". Well, as it turned out, it was just an average-sized rummage sale and I only ended up finding one item worth purchasing (although if the guys in my family had smaller feet, I could have picked up a few pairs of shoes and boots at great prices).

What I walked away with was this:

A T-shirt ($1.00) that will either become my husband's or son's, depending on who it fits better and who likes it more :)

I struck out at the other 2 sales I checked out - at least I got some exercise!

Grand total for the day: 1 item for $1.00

Did you find anything great this week?

Weekly Yard Sale Report for April 21, 2012

I finally had a couple of yard sales to hit up this week, but it turned out to be an anticlimactic start to yard sale season. One of the sales turned out to be cancelled (the weather was cold and overcast, but not rainy, so I wasn't too impressed that they chickened out - especially after paying for a newspaper ad!).

I did manage to find a couple of items for my boys at the one sale that was actually running:

A National Geographic documentary on how actual historic events relate to The Lord of the Rings (both my boys are huge LOTR fans and also enjoy learning about world history) and a book of logic puzzles which should come in handy for our camping trips this summer!

I paid a total of $1 for these two items.

Grand total for the day: $1 for two items, or 50 cents an item.

Did you find any great deals this week?

Yard Sale Report for September 10th, 2011

I know it's been a while since I've done my typical Saturday yard sale report. I've been out making the rounds, I just haven't found anything lately and given how busy I've been, I haven't bothered to post my reports of empty-handedness.

Today was a particularly fine day for yard sale shopping. It's warm and sunny (after a week of rain) and there were quite a number of sales to investigate since there's a street festival going on in a nearby area of the city and lots of people decided to piggyback off of it and run yard sales this morning.

I was out hunting down bargains for most of the morning and came home with the following:

 

Two small zippered toiletry bags for my boys to use for camping trips and sleepovers, which I purchased along with a Klutz book on paper quilling ( brand new, never used with the original $24.99 price tag still on it) for $1.00 total! The book will be going into my gift cupboard for one of the girls on my gift-giving list.

I got the two packages of small Christmas gift bags for 25 cents each (I use a ton of these for food gifts), and 4 sets of 12 seasonal note cards (one for each season) along with an Anna Nalick CD (in the next photo) for $7.00. I've been intending to start writing more letters again (they are so much more fun than email!) so having the note cards handy should help me to actually make that happen.

 

 I finished off the morning with a couple of other finds: the basket was 25 cents and will go into my general basket stash (it may end up getting used for a gift basket). The (hardcover) book was $2.00 and is for my older son (it's the sequel to a book I just handed him to read last week!) The glass pitcher was in a free pile just down the road from a yard sale and I couldn't resist it :)

Grand total for the week:  $10.75 for 13 items, or 83 cents an item.

Did you find any great bargains this weekend?

Yard Sale Report for August 13, 2011

All of you regular readers of my yard sale reports will probably remember that I struck out last week. Fear not, this week I got my yard sale karma back and came home far from empty handed!

My first find of the morning was these old-fashioned prints of ads for Mennen's "toilet powder" and Pears soap. They are printed onto metal rather than paper and will be perfect in my bathroom (I've been looking for decorative items for my bathroom wall for the last 5 years since we redid it - I never dreamed it was going to take me this long to find something suitable!) I paid $3 for the large one and $2 for the small one.

The two pairs of pants are for my hubby, who seems to have a special knack for getting stains on light-coloured clothing! I hope they're going to fit him - I decided to take a chance since they were $2 each and are good quality pants (one pair is Tilley brand). He hasn't been around since I got back to try them on, so I have my fingers crossed :)

Later on in my travels, I found a few more treasures. The set of stainless steel stacking mugs was $3 and will be perfect to add to our camping equipment stash. I got the ladybug garden ornaments at the same sale ($5 for the set) and the mesh strainer and tea ball got tossed in for free. I didn't notice til I got home that one of the ladybugs is missing an antenna. I'm wondering if it got broken off in my bike pannier on the way home, as normally I'm pretty good about noticing those sorts of things - I'll go rummage around in the bottom of the bag and see if I can find it later on. My last find for the day was a CD of relaxing classical music for $2 (good to throw in the CD player on days when my nerves are a bit shot!)

Grand total for the day: $21 for 11 items, or $1.91 an item 

(counting the mug set as one item)

Did you find any great bargains this weekend?

Yard Sale Report for August 6th, 2011

Today's yard sale experience can be summed up in one word:

STRIKEOUT!

I had only two yard sales on my list when I headed out this morning, and managed to find two more along the way. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything worth purchasing at any of them, so I came home empty handed - I think that may be the first time that's happened this season.

Hopefully, I'll have better luck next week!

Did you find anything great this weekend? Please tell me all about it!

Yard Sale Report for July 29th, 2011

Things were pretty slow in yard sale land today, as I expected they might be, since it's a long weekend. I had only four sales on my list to check out today, one of which turned out not to be running when I went by. I did find another unadvertised one along the way to investigate, though!

Despite it being a slow morning for sales, I did come home with a few things:

A decent quality backpack for $1.00 (I pick these up when I see them for cheap enough as my older son has an uncanny ability to destroy them), two heavy-duty 9" Wilton cake pans for 50 cents, and an oil cruet for 25 cents. There's a similar set of cake pans on Amazon for just under $15, and I've often seen this type of oil cruet selling for $8-$10 (although I've never been able to figure out why they're so expensive!) so I was quite pleased with these finds.

Grand total for the day: $1.75 for 4 items, or 44 cents an item

Did you find any great bargains this weekend?

Yard Sale Report for July 23rd, 2011

Whew - here at long last is my Saturday yard sale report. Between a morning out treasure hunting, running today's produce cooperative exchange, getting some laundry on the line and squeezing in a trip to the pool to cool down and a last minute dash to the library before it closed, today didn't leave any time for blogging until right now!

It was *almost* too hot to go out riding around on my bike checking out yard sales today...but not quite! Surprisingly, given the heat and the fact that it's prime vacation season, there were a good 8 or 10 sales running in my area.

Here's what I found:

 

3 kids' books for $2.00 total, a funky stainless steel stacking canister set which I bought at the same sale as the Stargate DVD for $3.00 total (I'm thinking the canister will be awesome for camping, we'll probably cover over the coffee/tea/cocoa labels with homemade ones for whatever we decide to stock it with; we've been planning to start watching the Stargate series on DVD but I  wanted to see the movie first - our library didn't have it so I figured I might as well grab it when I saw it this morning). I really liked the pattern on this glass vase so I couldn't resist it for $1.00 (most of the time I use Mason jars for vases, lol). The church I bought the vase at was giving away those cool cloth drawstring bags for free and I'm sure they'll come in handy for a variety of uses.

 

My big find of the morning was this twin comforter with matching pillowcase that I picked up for $8.00. It's in really good condition and I was pretty sure my 13 yr old would like it. New bedding for him has been on my "to buy" list for a while so I was pretty excited to stumble on this ensemble. The timing of this find was perfect as a local department store is having a clearance sale on bedding this week and I was thinking of checking it out as I've hunted around for ages without finding anything suitable. He was quite impressed with my find, by the way, so score one for mom's thrifting skills (I figure it never hurts to impress your teenagers with your frugal abilities!)

Grand total for the day: $14.00 for 9 items or 1.56 an item

Did you find any great bargains this weekend?