National Thrift Shop Day

Even if you are a thrift shop shopper, you might be oblivious to the fact that August 17, 2015, was National Thrift Shop Day. Yes, I do believe that there is a holiday for everything.

With the spirit of the holiday, I thought you might find this infographic, which is based on Canadian shopper data, from Value Village interesting.

A few interesting tidbits from this chart are the fact that 76 percent of shoppers who visit have shopped thrift before and 33 percent of shoppers visit a thrift store monthly.

The most popular answer to the question, Why Shop Thrift is that it is cost effective followed by the fun fact that it feels like a treasure hunt.

What celebrity would you like to thrift shop with? I would LOVE to shop with Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise and/or Adam Levine. Not sure what we would shop for but that part is unimportant and obviously, they don't appear on this chart so I'm embellishing.

Do you shop thrift and if so, why?  Finally, who would you like to shop with?

You never know what
I might have in store for you!
Brenda

Quick Links:

Inforgraphic from Value Village.
Check out my Pinterest board, How to Sell on eBay.

The Great Glebe Garage Sale

Another year, another wonderful day at the Great Glebe Garage Sale in Ottawa. This year my husband went with me. We were there bright and early and had found a cart full of treasures for my eBay store by 10 a.m.

A cart is a must since the Glebe sale is a huge neighborhood sale at which you must park your car and walk and, if you are really going to shop and not just to soak in the atmosphere or people watch, you definitely should take something to help you carry around your treasures.

This year I was thrilled to find a Big Hug Mug. It's a mug that I have written about on this blog before and one that was, just a few months ago, selling for up to $100 on eBay. However, due to the natural laws of supply and demand, this mug is now more readily available on eBay and therefore, much less expensive.  If you are curious about what all the fuss is about this particular coffee mug, you can read my original post about the Big Hug Mug here or if you are looking to buy one, you can check this one out on eBay by clicking here.

The items I found included a vintage talking Garfield that has never been removed from the box, a couple of new Lego sets and a new pair of leather Reebok hi top sneakers that, if they fit, are destined for the feet of my grown son rather than my eBay store.

We loaded our finds into the car and headed for the FarmTeam Cookhouse & Bar, who is no longer in business, where we were early enough to choose a wonderful street-side table on the patio from which to enjoy breakfast and do a bit of people watching ourselves.  The fact that the cookhouse created a special menu for the day is testament to just how crazy busy the Great Glebe Garage Sale is. 

What a wonderful day out! I hope you did something fun this weekend, too!

You Never Know What I Might
Have In Store For You!
Brenda





Quick Links:

Buy this Big Hug Mug on eBay.

Visit Treasures By Brenda on eBay.

The Pitfalls of Shopping For eBay

The danger with being an eBay seller is finding too many great items that you want to KEEP. I won't be the first nor the last eBay seller to buy something and want to keep it but last week I had a fantastic shopping day that yielded more than the average number of items that I would like to have in my home.

The images in this collage are but a few of the 'finds' I had last week.  They're all great candidates for resale but some of them will not be resold.  Can you guess which items I want to keep and which items will be placed on eBay for resale?

The large pictures of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Drame in Paris, France are signed prints by Ortiz Alfau and quite sellable on eBay.

The stained glass window is very, very nice. So nice, in fact, that it was gathering comments as I was headed for the checkout with it.

The hat is unlike any I have seen before. It is a LEATHER baseball cap from the Toronto Maple Leafs. How cool is that?

The skates are actually a wall hanging designed to hold keys or whatever else you might need to hang up. It's an unusual piece and the cashier chuckled after realizing that these flat Montreal Canadiens 'skates' were not really skates at all. 

The red Cars jacket is an adorable item from the second Cars movie, Cars 2, by Disney-Pixar. It's a winter coat done in a leather-like fabric designed to make it look like a real racing jacket and it is new.  

So, have you guessed which items I will keep and which I will part with? 

Friends and family will know that I love travelling and have been to Paris, France, which makes letting go of those pictures difficult for me even though I have a number of paintings and pictures that I have yet to hang. 

Friends might also know that one of my favorite colors, as evidenced by the walls in my kitchen and family room, is a warm, ochre or amber yellow, which is much like the color in this handsome piece of stained glass, making it another difficult piece to part with.

The bottom three items that is the leather hockey hat, the Montreal Canadiens wall hanging and the Disney jacket are nice items but definitely not subject matter that I am interested in and, therefore, will be sold on eBay. 

Of course it is probably a good thing that I am interested in keeping the LARGE items, since they would definitely pose a challenge for shipping from within Canada.   

Would you be tempted to keep any of my treasures?

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda
You never know what I
might have in store for you!

Quick Links: 

Visit my eBay store.

I Bought A Rock at the Great Glebe Garage Sale

May 25, 2013 dawned a beautiful but cool Saturday morning with a blustery north wind. It marked the umpteenth time I've been to the Great Glebe Garage Sale and, as always, I totally enjoyed myself.

As an eBay seller, I shopped for treasures for my eBay store but, given the difficulties of carrying purchases around an entire neighborhood, I shopped in a very limited way.

While I am always happy to come away with an interesting find or two, the Great Glebe Garage Sale is really more of an opportunity to be outside and enjoy a lovely part of the city on a beautiful summer day than it is a serious shopping day.

This year my university-aged son dragged himself out of bed at 7 a.m. so that he could see what all the fuss was about and I do believe he enjoyed himself, too.

We parked far outside the Glebe and set off in hunt of treasures. Driving within the Great Glebe on garage sale day is, in my opinion, a mistake and of course taking the bus doesn't work either if you are a shopper.

I was looking for any of the sorts of  treasure you'll find in my eBay store with due consideration to the fact that anything I purchased would have to go in my small wheeled cart and be pulled around all morning.

My son wasn't looking for anything in particular though we did determine midway through our morning that he could use a new griddle since he's the pancake expert amongst his friends at university and that he was interested in an inexpensive Nintendo 64 to replace a broken one that belongs to one of his house mates.

My first purchase was a small and lightweight rock, which is shown in the photograph on this page. Okay, maybe it was not so light but it was an impressive piece of Newfoundland that the vendor was asking a whopping .25 cents for. How could I leave it behind?  I didn't and we had a chuckle as I placed a 'rock' in the bottom of my cart.

Of course, it didn't take long to fill my cart once I'd purchased a couple of wooden Korean masks, a toy soldier Wilton cake pan, a giant bag of Thomas the Tank Engine Duplo, a large Walt Disney snowglobe and a sealed Mickey Mouse World's Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle. In due course, you will find all of them listed in my eBay store.

Once my little cart was full, we hiked back to the car and put my purchases away returning once again to the Glebe in search of sustenance.

Stopping for lunch a bit early proved helpful as we were able to score a patio table right on Bank Street. We enjoyed our lunch at the The Farmteam Cookhouse and Bar while watching hoards of happy shoppers pass by with their purchases.  I'll never forget the young man struggling with bicycle, skis and a shiny silver...mannequin.

Have you shopped at the Great Glebe Garage Sale? What did you think? Did you discover any hidden treasures? Or maybe you have a favorite neighborhood sale of your own elsewhere?

You never know
what I might have in store for you!
In this case I can offer a little piece of Newfoundland.

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda

Quick Links:

Find treasure in my eBay store.