Monday, January 7, 2013

Move it over!

Just sparing a quickie moment over coffee to say that I've all but finished packing my craft room.  I was a bit sad that my stuff has to be boxed, but the clock is ticking, so all non-essentials need to go to the new house asap.

Sadly, craft items are "non essential", at least for now.  I decided to cease making stuff until either we get the new abode set up, or I tear thru the boxes, shaking until I find my pliers.  One or the other.  We'll see what happens first!

Other than this, I'm looking at the aftermath of my Reverse Birthday Party.  As I explained over on my BlogHer blog, I didn't want gifts for my day, just people to come over and have fun, and take stuff I didn't want or need anymore.

It was a BLAST!  Much wine and food made the rounds, and my load of stuff lightened a bit.  Awesomesauce/pants/emus/whatever.  I may do this again next year!  My MIL was intrigued by this phenomenon and wanted to know if I was going to do another.  I told her I'd have to delay, for the sake of our livers, but I'd consider it.

Technically, I should be selling every last item in the "free stuff" pile, since we need every penny we can get.  But I have to be realistic.  Not every item is ebay gold.  Not every item is yardsale gold, for that matter.  For most of this stuff, I originally paid (if I even bought it) a drastically discounted price, bought it used, repaired it, altered it, whatever.  Or just made it.  I have nothing that falls under the label of "treasure", except for sentimental value.

There's another wrinkle.  I've considered yardsaling the last of this birthday excess, which is mostly books and glasswares (cheap vases), baskets, etc.  I'm really torn, because I could probably make a couple of dollars.  But then I recall what happened last yard sale here (and my NEVER AGAIN! promise to myself)....People only bought really used, really worn items.  And I had lowballed every price, routinely offered discounts.  Nothing "nice" moved.  Something half used up, something musty smelling, something incomplete - sold!  Our neighbor and a friend bought most of the mugs, ashtrays, and vases I was looking to unload.

This fascinates me. Husband's grandmother noticed a similar thing at her last sale - a couple of people did actually try to buy her trash!  I don't get it...is this coming from those "storage wars" shows?  Were people purposely buying the crappiest looking things hoping to find something worth serious money inside?  I could have assured them they would not have been so lucky!  If I was sitting on something like that, I'd know about it!  Either way, I'm not sure I want to sit in the January chill all day and not get rid of anything.

Looking around now, everything's too "pretty", too new looking.  None of this would sell.  Books didn't even go last time I tried.  Books!  Can't wrap my head around that!  I suppose we'll just have to freecycle a lot over the next week, because I am *not* carrying these things with me.  We have enough to do.

At least my local freecyclers take books and glasswares.  I'm counting on them to pull through for me here!