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!

  

2017 Favourites

For the last entry of 2017, I wanted to feature some of my favourite and best finds of the year. Even though this is a long post, I still had to skip lots of finds because I just didn't have the time to keep up with the blog this year. So by cramming it all into this last post, I can get 2017 out of the way and have a fresh start for 2018.

2017 was a bit of a challenge weather wise as it seemed to rain constantly on my garbage days ruining so many good pieces. I found that once again this year there just hasn't been as much garbage/waste as in previous years. I don't know if this is because of the economy (fewer people moving, and more saving/re-purposing) or if people are actually being more consciously aware of waste, and donating or recycling their goods. 

I was also rained out of 2 town wide garage sales, and missed 2 due to health issues and relatives visiting. I held one garage sale at my home, and planned on another one for the fall, but we were hit with surprise construction on our road. We had to follow a huge detour for 3 months which would also have deterred many garage salers. The road finally opened up just before the holidays, but I heard it will be closed off again for 3 weeks in the spring to finish the work.

I had set myself a goal this year of at least breaking last years total ($4260.80) and trying to hit the $5000 mark. Despite all the set backs this year, as of this entry, my total is $5109.05. I'm hoping to do just as well next year :)

So on to some of the better finds of the year...

A Little Tykes Play Set

All from one spot was a huge collection of Littlest Pet Shop Toys and some very well kept Monster High dolls.

From else wear, an adorable Disney Princess furniture set. Inside the bins were 2 unopened princess puzzles

This beautiful driftwood lamp by Bombay

Brand new skates, still in the box

 In a clear bag full of papers, I spotted this carved duck and promptly rescued him.

All of the following was thrown out once a staged model home sold...

 From another pile, an entire Christmas Village

and some animatronic Christmas figures as well...

This one has Santa snoring while the Mrs does some knitting

This Santa from another pile was still in the box with his styrofoam packing. The price on it says $74.99, with a red sale price of $69.99

A large hanging wooden wrist watch clock

An amazing antique chair. I pulled up to the curb to save this just as it started drizzling. So glad it didn't get ruined by the rain.

Underneath you can see the old strapping they used when it was made. 

A fantastic mid-century chair. I love this colour so much, and it reminds me of a chair my grandparents used to have in Holland, so it was a definite keeper.

A tea set with 24k gold detailing

 

A small play kitchen set

 A mid-century Gibard dresser

A small statue that represents family (I think)

A teak mid-century Renel art piece

An older slow cooker that works perfectly fine as you can see by the chicken I ended up cooking in it

Some of many kids bikes all in excellent condition

Complete small kitchen appliances

 Electronics

Skylander figures for the Nintendo Wii system

This small bench was originally beige, but it looked bleh. The metal was in excellent shape so I knew if I recovered it, it would look fabulous! :)

 Thomas the Train toy bin

Warm mist humidifier, still in the box and working perfectly

A really cool and colourful mid-century needlepoint

And this painting

A solid wood table

and these adorable vintage side tables

Car ramps

An older Pfaff sewing machine. These things were built to last an it still ran perfectly.

Wood carvings signed by P.E.Caron. Apparently they are quite collectible. You can read a small history bit here: P.E. Caron

On the back is also a stamp saying it was hand carved by the artist, and the people who bought it wrote a note that they had purchased it at Expo 1967

 A bin full of LED Christmas lights

Funky retro foot stool

An Ikea Trofast storage system. The colours coincidentally match my bathroom, and I had been looking for something to store all the kids bath toys and stuff, so that's where it went. A perfect fit :)

This canvas print is painted to give it texture. It still has the protective plastic bumpers on the corners and you can see the price tag that is stuck on the back through the upper left corner.

 I can't believe someone would also throw out this cool faux marble statue and pillar

Here is what it looks like put together

A cute kids play desk from the late 70's

A Sophia & Sam lap desk for books, tablets, or laptops with a little lamp. It looks completely unused. I found the same one at Wayfair.ca for $89.99

A beautiful little mirrored cabinet.

This thing looks like a helmet worn by music group Daft Punk, but it's actually an ionic hair dryer. At the curb and not a thing wrong with it!

An ergonomic desk chair to help keep your back and posture straight.

A beautiful mirror

I found a bag containing 120 DVD's. Some of these are box sets, so there's actually more than 120. There's a few loose bootlegs in there, but everything else in the cases are real and in perfect shape.

A dog carrier with 2 little coats that were stuffed inside

I also decided to check out a dollar store dumpster after one of my runs which fell a few days after Halloween. Inside I found boxes full of unsold stuff. You can see some of the things on the left that got wet because after I pulled it all out, the skies opened up and it torrential poured on me. I got completely soaked.  I ended up donating everything :)

This wreath was still in it's kind of beat up packaging. The snowmen have the logo of my husband and son's favourite hockey team on them.

Once I got home I put it right up on our door. It had the honor of being the first Christmas decoration we put up for the year :)

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And now my top 3 finds of the year...

At number 3 is this beautiful antique torchiere floor lamp. I almost didn't see it, the shade was just popping out from a discarded couch, and it just barely caught my eye as I drove past, so I quickly turned around to check it out. How it didn't get smashed or broken is a miracle, as all their junk was just haphazardly thrown into a pile at the end of the driveway. I'm guessing the couch happened to cushion the lamp as it was tossed. I couldn't find the exact model online, but some of them are quite pricey on ebay.

The old original cord





The shade is just gorgeous with a nice intricate little border. The shades alone sell on ebay for quite a price as well.

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My next great find for the year came as a little surprise in an old bag. I had stopped at a pile and saw that there was a lot of neat old stuff being throw out, stuff like 1950's car parts, old sewing stuff, and some old religious knickknacks. I was tossing stuff in my car when I came across an old tattered bag.  I curiously looked inside and saw some old wooden blocks, and a few toys. I just threw it into my car and didn't look at it further until I got home and dumped it all out in a box on my kitchen floor. This is how it looked when I dumped it:

 Right there in the middle was this super cool old wind up tin toy.

I knew tin toys were collectible, but I wasn't sure on the value. I looked this one up and didn't find an exact value, but I did find this one which is estimated to fetch around £150 - £200. That's about $255 - $340 CAN or $200 - $270 US. I'm hoping this one will be worth as much as it's in great condition!

 

 

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Lastly, my number one find of the year are these fantastic mid-century nude pastels. They are signed by L.R. Batchelor, a Canadian illustrator whose work is included in the national archives of Canada. He did mainly historical scenes, illustrations for children's books, and has military and world war II illustrations at the Canadian War museum. 

I brought these to a local "Antiques roadshow" event to have them looked over and confirm that they were from the same artist, and to see if they had any value. I had no idea on the value because I couldn't find anything of his for sale online. I figured maybe they were worth about  $50-$75 each. The appraiser was quite interested in them as nudes were not the artists usual subject. 

 He checked them out quite thoroughly with a loupe, and he agreed that the signatures definitely matched up.

The signature on one of the nudes :

 and an example of the signature on one of the war sketches:

There is some "foxing" on the paper which is due to the fact that acid-free papers were not in use back then like they are now. However, he said this didn't really bring down the value that much as nudes are always valuable and in demand. He said that if they were well framed, he would have them in his shop for between $350- $400 each. Wow!


And with that, I wish you all a fantastic new year filled with great finds and treasures of your own :) Happy holidays, keep your eyes out for treasure, and happy picking!