Junkin' for Gems - Week 2

I was very excited that my mom had last week off work. In case you hadn't already caught on, she's usually my partner in crime for garage sales. Sometimes my dad or sister likes to tag along and my husband won't go at all, so it's usually just us girls.

Anyhow, her having last week off work meant we could go on Friday instead of waiting until Saturday, which is a good thing. Sometimes I feel like we miss some of the good stuff when we have to wait until Saturday. I know it's true and it usually doesn't bother me since I can find some pretty decent stuff anyhow.

We had four garage sales on our list and managed to hit all of them in about two hours, which includes about 30 - 40 minutes of travel time to/between them all.

At the first, I didn't get anything for myself, but we got a few things for my dad. They did have a storage thing, but it was shelves and I'm really looking more for plastic totes and drawers, so I passed.

I forget if there was anything specific that drew us to the second one, other than it was on the way to the third. We were able to get a few wood things for my dad to craft with and I got two books - one for me and one for the kiddos at the nursery.

 $0.25

$0.25

The third one promised scrapbook supplies, which I was beyond excited for. If I'd had more money on me I would have bought all of it! However, I was able to get quite a few things that I think were good for the price and I'll get some use out of.

 $2

 

 

 $0.50

 $3

 $3

The fourth and final one promised fabric and lots of it. I've got a specific project in mind for some fabric so I wanted to check that out for sure. For those of you interested in the project, I'll put a little bit of it at the end.

$1

I don't think $10 was too shabby for all I got. Also as a bonus I got the containers that some of my dad's things were in. Score!

So a bit about this project. Sadly, a friend of mine from a miscarriage/pregnancy loss support group lost twin girls at 19 weeks. She is trying to organize a blanket drive of sorts to collect all sizes of baby blankets from the very, very premature to full term. She's encouraging friends and family to either make blankets on their own or donate supplies or money so that others can make them. Her hope is to donate these blankets to a hospital near her (either the one the girls were delivered at or another one, I forget exactly at the moment) on/around what should have been their due date.

As you know if you've poked around here or followed me on Twitter for any length of time, while I don't know her exact pain (does anyone really know the exact pain of another?), I do understand the heartbreak of losing a pregnancy. That alone has made me want to get involved and really, for $1 for some cute baby material I couldn't go wrong. Now I just have to make nice with the sewing machine.

Did you go Junkin' for Gems this weekend? Is there anything you can cross off your list? Feel free to comment about your finds and link to your post about your finds.

Junkin' for Gems - Week 1

This past Saturday my mom and I headed out for a few hours of garage sales before we had to be at a Mother/Daughter Tea for Mother's Day. Newspaper in hand, we'd marked off 3 or 4 we really wanted to stop at for something that caught our eye in the paper. Of course we were also open to checking out things that weren't advertised and/or part of our initial plan.

A quick drive by of the first one on our list showed not much. There was one table inside a garage and it didn't look to be full of much of anything. Perhaps all of the good stuff had already been sold or maybe they hadn't started with much anyhow. Whatever the case, we kept on a drivin'.

The second one on our list was quite a bit more fruitful. They had advertised Saturday as being 1/2 off day! I was able to score all of these finds for less than $1!

 $0.50

$0.05

And then it was on to the next!

We met a super cute older guy who was really into antiques. He had a bowl like one my mom has that was passed down from my grandma. He was able to give her a little history of the bowl, as well as tell her which other ones went with the set - she knew there had been at least one other in the set. We also found out that the bowl we use for gravy is actually the smallest bowl in the set - we didn't even know they went together!

Moving on. I was able to get this score at his sale.

$5

It's not as good as the one I currently have, but it has some functions that my current one does not. It'll make a great back up in case anything goes wrong with the one I have and it may become my dedicated filming camera. And how can you go wrong for $5?!  (I know it says $15 but he had it on a "everything on this table $5" table and said to disregard any price on an item unless it was lower than the posted price for that table.)

Our final stop was unplanned because we saw a nifty sign and a bunch of cars parked. We had also just decided to skip our last stop because it was too far away for us to be able to make it to the tea on time (say that 3 times fast!).

Apparently 4 or 5 families had decided to clean house and have a garage sale in order to be more green and eco-friendly. Hey it works for me! I was able to score some scrapbooking/crafting storage and a few things I'll use for making Christmas cards this year for less than $5!

 $0.50

 $2

$0.50

In total I spent less than $10 on all of this great stuff. I'm excited to get the drawers cleaned up so I can start putting stuff in them and hopefully clean up my mess of a craft space a little bit.

Did you go Junkin' for Gems this weekend? Is there anything you can cross off your list? Feel free to comment about your finds and link to your post about your finds.

Junkin' for Gems...An Intro

It's the first weekend in May and garage sale season is upon us! This excites me more than I care to admit. If you couldn't tell already, I LOVE a good deal and good deals are usually to be found at garage sales.

My mom and I usually hit up a few garage sales each summer. It's a hobby of sorts we picked up together when we were planning my wedding. It's amazing the things people are getting rid of and for cheap! But I digress.

I thought it would be fun this summer to play a game of sorts with garage sales. I'm in the process of compiling a list of things I'd like to buy this summer - from craft supplies to random house decor items - as well as putting together a budget for these items. My goal will be to purchase as much of my list for as cheaply as possible.

I won't be going to garage sales every weekend, but it's my goal to do a shop and tell of sorts each time I do so that you can see what I was able to get and how much I spent. Hopefully you'll keep track and play along all summer to see what good deals I can score and hopefully share yours as well.

As I said before, I'm in the process of putting together a list of "must find" as well as a budget. I'm aiming for 25 - 50 items and will then figure out a budget for the summer. I'll be posting the master list and budget within the next few days.

You'll find all the information about this in a link at the top of my page.

ETA: The master list and budget is now up and you can find it here (also by clicking the Junkin' for Gems  tab at the top of the page)

Will you play along?