This blog is a record of my family, our adventures, and life as we know it. I named it after the movie "It's a Wonderful Life", because no matter what happens, good or bad, up or down, our life may not always be wonderful (or perfect), but it will always be a "Lacy Life", and that's wonderful to us!

Sunday, May 20, 2012

What a deal #2.

  We had a blast garage sale-ing last week at an all-city garage sale yearly event!  Imagine sales, sales, and more sales, in fact, so many sales than you can't even go to nearly all of them in a 2 day period!  We actually spent the better part of 2 days out there and didn't even get to nearly all of the sales, in fact, probably not even half of them.  We had a great time, packed a lunch and snacks each day, and had picnic's both days as well.  Without further ado, here is some of what I found...
  I was going to save the best for last, but I decided to show the best and most expensive thing first!  This is already being well used, as you can clearly see.  I did already have a organization system in place in the garage for the kiddos things, but not only was it overflowing and spilling all over the garage floor and making a mess, but it was also not as organized and easy as this beauty!  I paid $15, and retail they are about $90, I believe.  It's made of heavy-duty metal, heavy duty mesh, and canvas materials.  You can actually just remove those colored "bags" and close them up with the draw strings to take along with you to your sports practice, outdoor event, or whatever, if you choose to use it that way. 
  Someone had all of these crafting materials in a bag for just $2, and we will have use for most of what was in there.  Those wooden ornaments will be painted and handed out as Christmas gifts, that bag full of beautiful ribbon was totally exciting for the girls, as they will use them to decorate their tambourines.  The tape will come in handy for a particular child of mind whom I have dubbed "the tape thief".  I'll probably just give them to him, so he will leave mine alone for a while!  :)  And all those googly eyes will be lots of fun for us to use on homemade birthday cards, crafts, and, well,  just for the fun of it.  We've actually already used some of them on Mothers Day cards and birthday cards for family members.  :)
  Okay, so this might seem like a bit of a "mixed bag" of things, and it is.  I already have plans for the 3-ring binder dividers, as we need them for our homeschool curriculum, they were .25 cents each.  We also have a guitar case in the picture complete with a guitar strap inside for $2, which will come in handy for the children, all of whom play the guitar, and we have 4 guitars, and only one case.  There is laminating paper, which I paid .50 cents for the small ones, and $1.00 for the large roll.  I had recently had the idea of laminating some of my recipe cards, so that when they get messy from being near the cooking, I can just wipe them off, instead of having dirty looking recipe cards.   Currently, every time I look at some of my most often used recipe cards, I want to re-copy them because they look gross from food spills on them.  I often find myself wishing I could laminate other random things for our homeschool, so I know those will get good use.  As well, I'm pretty sure that the homeschool curriculum we use has the laminating paper on their supplies list for next year as well, so it's great to buy it for so cheap!  Those candle holders caught my eye, I really appreciate different and unique candle holders, especially at $1 each!  Then, when I am tired of them, I don't feel bad getting rid of them, because I didn't pay much for them!  I will put new candles in them and pitch those ones, but...aren't they pretty?... and they totally match my living room!

  There are some kitchen miscellaneous items, a tong, which always come in handy in the kitchen when serving food, for .50 cents, a small colander for .25 cents, which I often find myself wishing I had, a small glass Pyrex bowl, which I use almost daily for snacks for the kiddos for .25 cents, and those shakers, which I am going to use for my spices that I buy in bulk (and come in a plastic bags) and which I use often for .25 cents each, and then there are those squeeze bottles were .25 cents each and will come in handy for this homemade salad dressing I am going to start making, and for ketchup and mustard at picnics, which we participate in a lot of over the summer. 

  It may seem kind of weird to buy toiletries at a garage sale, but when you have a large family and you go through things such as lotion as fast as we do, it's a blessing to find stuff like that for a fraction of the cost.  As well, us ladies like to smell nice, and I am able to try out many of the "name brand" mall store and high end products for pennies on the dollar.  The brands that I found were all either "Bath and Body Works", "Victorias Secret", or "Mary Kay", except for the "Johnsons" baby powder,which always comes in handy, too.  I always check to make sure things look sealed and/or new and unused.  Pictured are 3 purse sized Bath and Body Works lotions, which just happened to be brand new and in some of my favorite fragrances, and just .25 cents each.  Also, there are 2 body sprays, one is Bath and Body Works and one is Victorias Secret, and both are in the scent of "Cucumber Melon".  These were not new, but will come in handy as a bathroom room freshener, and at just .25 cents and .50 cents each, they are cheaper than buying it at the dollar store!  Also pictured is a "Satin Hands" set from Mary Kay, which will be greatly appreciated by our designated dishwashers to get their dish-pan hands nice and soft again!  LOL!  These were a bargain at .50 cents and .75 cents.  The other 2 are a scented lotion by Mary Kay and a jar of wonderful smelling cocoa butter-body butter, oh that was a Kohls brand-oops!  These were .50 cents and .75 cents.

  Okay, so the thing under all of the lotions is a clipboard, which always seem to come in handy around our house.  Whether it's nature journaling or doing school outside or in the car sometimes, or using a clip board to keep lists on while out and about shopping or at a book sale, or coaching sports for the kiddos (my husband), it seems we find many uses for clipboards.  So I buy them when I find them cheap, I think that one was a quarter.  There is also a card game in there, which my family loves to play games, especially card games, which are portable and travel well, for when we have to go places where the kiddos might have to wait a while, I paid .50 cents for that card game.  Last but not least, there is a box of staples there that just happen to fit my stapler and I just happened to run out of staples a couple of weeks ago, and haven't have a chance to buy a new box yet, the staples were .50 cents.
  These last 2 pictures are of books and games.  Some of the games are educational, which really helps when learning, and they ranged from $2.00 for that Cadoo game, which will be great for Family Game Night at our house, and the Boggle game will be a spelling "school game" for learning, and there is a states and capitals game, which were each a dollar.  The license plate card game, for .25 cents, is our favorite game to play on road trips, and this will help us to remember which states we've found, and which we have yet to find, instead of MOM having to try and keep track for us all the time!  :)  More books include homeschool supplies, (map workbooks, critical thinking, reading practice, world history, Spanish, science) biographies, historical fiction, including a few books for me and a few books just for fun.  Those Mad Libs are great for developing English skills in the real world, where the children create their own silly stories by filling in words that are either nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.  They help children learn story telling, creating stories, as well as learning working definitions of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc.  Pretty much every book was between .10-.75 cents, except for that Reading Pyramids book which was $2, and a couple others were $1 each (over half of them were just a quarter at a church sale).
  Well, that's what I found two weeks ago at our once-a-year garage sale excursion to a particular neighborhood around here, I think I am garage sale-ed out for a little while!  But rest assured, I will continue to link up, because I have many other garage sale bargains I haven't yet shared from previous weeks, and I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the clothes I bought for my family from during THIS garage sale-ing trip either, so I will still link up and have plenty to share with you even if I don't go for a couple of weeks.  :)

Happy bargain shopping!
It's a Lacy Life

4 comments:

  1. I never thought of going sailing all day for a couple days and then not going for awhile. I might have to try your idea. You found some great books and that sports caddy is neat!!

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    1. Thank you for commenting, and welcome to my blog!

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  2. I used to have that exact same sport caddy! I used it for Laundry: Lights/whites and darks! It really was nice! Good find! I love finding stuff for my kitchen and yes, those candle holders totally match your house!

    Thanks for linking up friend!!

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    1. Thanks for commenting! It appears as if part of my blog post got lost, it kept doing that to me while I was typing! What am I doing??? I will have to try and fix that. I like the idea of using it for laundry, too! Great tip!

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