Garage Sale Success! UPDATE TIME!

Holy Cow was July exhausting! We priced our little hearts out, organized til the cows came home, and put on three consecutive weekends of INTENSE garage sales - all with extreme heat conditions! They say it takes a village to raise a child...well, it takes a small army to put on a garage sale, and I certainly couldn't have done it without the help of so many! To my parents, Joyce, Mary-Jane, Aunt Sarah, and Katie for their volunteered time, and to everyone who graciously donated so many great items - THANK YOU! I'm already working on pricing more items for our next round of garage sales, but we're not thinking about those until September. August is our month to regroup, recooperate, and re-price! (well, not re-price old items...just go through another round of pricing, you know!) =)

August proved to be quite profitable (although, looking at the amount of things we still have left, you'd never be able to guess we actually SOLD anything! haha). In total, I made around $3,600 just from the sales! Amazing, huh? I'm excited to see what our round of sales in the fall can do.

If you've been following my fundraising progress on the little side bar thermostat <----- (over there), then you'll see I'm slowly but surely making my way to my goal! My end goal changes every time I think about it, but what I've been telling people is that the program will cost me about $17,000, but I would like to have spending money for travel, and the ability to purchase a new laptop and iPad prior to travel, so I'd love to go above and beyond the $17,000 mark. To date, I have $13,090 set aside for my UWP expenses!!! A HUGE thank you to everyone who has helped me make it this far! I look forward to applying for UWP scholarships in the next month or so, and continuing to raise as much money as I can for this amazing cause!

Don't think just because I still have a ton of stuff to sell in the garage sales that I wouldn't still appreciate your unwanted items! Cleaning out the house? Find something you don't use/want anymore? Just let me know! We take everything from little knick-knacks to large furniture items! Thanks everyone! =)

True Life: I'm Living in Perpetual Garage Sale Crazy!

Finally a post with pictures! I feel like blog posts with pictures are MUCH more engaging and exciting! =) So read on, dear friends!

My life, besides teaching with Petite Musician and decorating cakes at Cold Stone, has been solely dedicated to garage sales as a means of fundraising for UWP. My word have my days been crazy! Either we've been pricing, sorting, organizing, weeding out our own house, advertising on Craigslist and Amazon, setting up the whole sale, or working the sale itself. NON STOP! But - every little bit is helping me! So far, I've managed to raise close to $3,000 from two weekends of sales! Now...even though we've sold some big ticket items, most of those sales come from .25 cent and .50 cent purchases! Now if that isn't a testament to how much merchandise we have, I don't know what is!

Perhaps I should just show you, instead! =)

These two aren't for sale. They're my help! =)

We just keep selling and selling! And when we sell stuff, we go in to the house and bring MORE stuff out to fill the void! And when we run out of stuff in the house, friends and neighbors show up with more stuff for us to price. I kid you not when I say this is an ongoing, continuous process! 

My mother says if nothing else, I have a future as a garage sale organizer. I just get a big smile on my face when customer after customer walks up and declares, "My gosh! This is the MOST organized garage sale I've ever been to!" What can I say? I like organizing by "department" so people know just what they're looking at! Kitchen - check. Sporting goods - check. Clothing - check. Children's toy - yup! Crafts, baby, linens, electronics. You name it, we've got it!

Come by our sales and see more of what we have to offer! =)

Help Wanted!

Unfortunately in today's economy, my plea of "HELP WANTED" does not result in employment with pay, but it does come with tons of appreciation, gratitude, and smiles!

As many folks know, my family and I are busy organizing and hosting garage sales to help earn more money for my UWP travels. The problem is, my work schedule keeps me tied up for a couple of hours Friday and Saturday mornings...the prime time for sales! And my dad has commitments at church this upcoming Saturday, so that leaves my mom kind of high and dry on her own. My fabulously hilarious Aunt Sarah will be flying in to town from Iowa to help out, but it's still difficult to manage a garage sale with only 2 people, especially given the heat we've been having lately! I don't want to leave them alone to such a huge task!

My plea is this! If any friends in the Denver area are wanting to help out my fundraising campaign but can't donate financially (let's face it...us college folk or recent grads aren't exactly loaded with extra dough!), would you be willing to donate your time by coming to work at one or many of my garage sales? Whether you could volunteer 1 hour of your time, or a day or two, we would LOVE to have more hands on deck to help out with the garage sale.

This weekend, I made over $2,000 to apply to my travels, so there is no doubt these garage sales are profitable...they just take manpower and a lot of dedication! If you are interested in donating your time, please contact me. I will forever be indebted to you!

Text me, call me, email me, facebook me, leave a message here! There are plenty of ways to get a hold of me! 

Also, if you have any unwanted items around your house, big or small, that you are willing to donate to my sales, please let me know! These garage sales wouldn't be possible without so many AMAZING, generous donations from friends!

THANK YOU!