Rubbermaids

Can you smell that? Mmmm... spring is in the air! 

We've had a few lovely sunny days, and I have fully basked in them soaking up as much sunshine as possible. It's been such a rough winter, not only weather wise, but health wise as well (yes, I'm coughing as I type up this entry.) I am so happy to finally see some beautiful weather! 

This year isn't starting off so great garbage wise, so I'm hoping the early spring weather will turn things around. My sales have sucked as well. At this time last year I had already sold about $460 worth of stuff, and so far this year, I'm only at $215. Though I must admit, I haven't really been into it much this year because of the winter blues, so I'm going to have to up my game.

Here is a look at some of the stuff I have brought home so far this year...

I stopped and picked up these Rubbermaid bins at the curb, because I can always use the extra storage, and those bins can be pretty pricey. I quickly took a look inside to see if they were decent and saw they were chock full of Christmas items. I quickly took a picture as I was pulling and sorting everything out of them in my kitchen.

Most of the items got put into a box for the second hand store, but I did keep a few things to the side for myself or as garage sale items.

I kept the giant pine cones because I just love pine cones at Christmas, and the small little wooden spinning tops for my kids. The polar bear and Christmas tree decorations still have $7.99 price tags on them from Pier 1, so they will go into my garage sale bins.

Also among everything was a small velvet pouch which held a small wooden box covered with brass filigree.

Inside the box were pieces of Frankincense and Myrrh and it smelled wonderful!

Now if you are like me and have always heard of frankincense and myrrh, but never really knew what it was, there was also a small pamphlet inside explaining their origins. And now I know! :)

The largest bin contained  a bunch of garlands, all of them working. The top one changes colours and slowly changes from red, to a sort of yellow/orange, to green. I measured the middle one and I think it was something like 26 feet long, it was huge!

The bins they came in were marked "X-mas" with permanent marker, but I'll let you in on a little trick I have for that pesky marker. If you apply hand sanitizer to it, and let it sit for a few minutes, you can pretty much wipe it right off. You can see in the top half of the picture the marker is already starting to dissolve , and the second half is the same area after being wiped off.

At another spot I picked up another rubbermaid bin that was in fine condition. This one was marked "Air matresses", but there was nothing inside.

Looks good inside, I don't know why it was thrown out. More storage for me!

Here is my hand sanitizer trick working it's magic again...

Badda bing, badda boom, good as new!

Now the weird thing about that bin full of Christmas garlands, is that when I opened it up at home, sitting right on top was a lazy susan carousel. It was just totally out of place with all the rest of the Christmas stuff.

I had just seen an idea on Pinterest about putting one in your fridge to organize all your condiments and stuff a few days before, and had mentioned to my husband that we should get one because our system with a pull out basket was just not working. Low and behold, the garbage gods heard my request and provided! :P 

Here is what our mess of a fridge looked like before...Ug, I know, getting to all that stuff in the back was a nightmare!

and here it is now, thanks to my new lazy susan! It has been so much easier to get to stuff, I am loving it! I really had no idea where to buy a lazy susan, and low and behold, one was just pretty much just dropped in my lap! Amazing!

At another pile of boxes, I pulled out a few treasures...

2 antique bean crocks from the early 1900's

A duck terrine from France. These hold terrine paté and are apparently collectible.

This basically translates to "This authentic piece was entirely handmade. I offer it to you exclusively" Michel Caugant

A nice stretchy bathroom shaving mirror

I thought these old Visa signs were cool. They'll end up in my garage sale pile :)

These old fashioned snowmen were at the end of a driveway sitting right on top of their box practically screaming "Take me home!". I appreciate that the homeowner had put them out like that and didn't just hide them away in a garbage bag.

This is some kind of huge promotional cardboard beer can. I couldn't find anything like it online, but it seems Coors put out those weird looking capped aluminum beer cans around 2010.

A nice square pink lamp

Light bulb was included!

A nice wooden storage drawer

2 large bird cage candle holders. There were no glass votives in the holders when I found it, but as you can see, it fits my little plant pots perfectly! I like putting my plants out in the summer, but last year, raccoons came by and threw my pots everywhere ruining my plants. I was trying to come up with a solution, and once again, the answer was provided! I'll be hanging these from my porch and no pesky animals will be able to get to them :)

I'll finish off this post with some chairs that I picked up. 

I saw the homeowner put this child sized chair at the curb when I drove by, so I went into the nearest driveway to turn around and go get it.

I also grabbed this rocking chair on a slower night. I figured if I can't sell it quickly, I can always give it to the second hand store.

As you can see, 2 of my little ladies, Gracie and Tia, found it quite comfortable.

I also picked up this huge funky chair with a matching footstool.

I always work on the chairs I pick up making sure they are in decent shape and cleaned. I took this picture because I thought it was hilarious. After I cleaned the upholstery, I put a sign up on the chair saying it was wet so my kids wouldn't sit on it. As you can see, cats can't read, and even if they could, they're arrogant enough to ignore the sign anyways :P

That's all for this entry! Please feel free to subscribe or follow me by email (check out the side bar on the top right to do so), or share the blog with friends, or online! I'd love to get some more new readers :)

Keep your eyes out for treasure, and happy picking!