Showing posts with label garage sales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garage sales. Show all posts

Monday, July 11, 2016

Beach comes to Scottsdale


Bins from storage.  Aren't they a nice decorating touch?  To the left is a window frame that I redid with pics of the kids.  That will be coming soon in a picture where you can really see it.  A project that was easy and super fun.  


One trip to storage on Saturday yielded 8 plastic bins of beach stuff. My plan was to unpack at least half of them on Sunday and finish today.  I know I need to reduce my collections.  Anything I do not use will be in the fall garage sale.  It is time to reevaluate all of this stuff.

Longaberger baskets from the last garage sale.  I need to sell about 200 more

Our yard looks bedraggled from the heat so I need a spark of color indoors.  You can see the couch with bright pillows that really brighten up the place.  The mantle is redone with generic, Mercury glass,  which will take us 'til fall arrives.  I am sure you are laughing and thinking there is no fall in Arizona and you are right, so we go by the calendar not the weather.  It could be in the 90's on Halloween.  But that does not mean that we don't decorate. 

In fact,  stay tuned for Halloween....I have a neighbor that goes so over the top on her yard decorations that there is a line of cars driving by each night.  She puts out thousands of Halloween lights and decorates her entire yard.  A few of us join in on the fun, but that will be a post for October,  so please follow me and you won't miss anything.  It really is amazing.

The costumes selected by the girls in 2014.

A word about a Halloween tradition that is super fun and needs to be thought about in August.  When our eldest Grandson was one year old,  I asked if I could pick his Halloween costume.  Every year from then on, as the kids were old enough, we have spent time pouring over the catalogs with the kids to choose costumes.  It is something special between Ya-Ya and the four Grand-kids.  I actually received a teaser catalog yesterday.  I know it seems too soon but we looked at it with the Grandsons already and will look at a bunch of catalogs together before the selection is actually made.  I would love to make the costumes, but I still have a full time job so I don't have the time....maybe someday.

Back to redoing decor for beachy theme.  The guest bedroom is right off the foyer and you see it as soon as you walk into our home.  So it changes often.  The base quilt is all white so it is easy to change up the pillows, throw a different quilt at the bottom of the bed and voila the room is redressed for a different season.  One of our sons is moving and is using our house for home base until the mover gets the stuff to their new house.   I did not get pictures before they arrived with suitcases and the boxes of stuff that they did not want the movers to take.  So it might be a while before there are any guest room pics.  

The guest bathroom is also easy to redo.  Towels and a couple of decor changes and redone for the next season.  The black and white base colors work really well with loads of different accent colors.

Thanks to my dear cousin for reminding me with this gift.  It is one of my favorites.

Just a tiny change with a towel to make it look like beachy colors.

The dishes in the kitchen are already beachy so I just need to redo the table and a couple of shelves and we are ready to go.

One of my biggest challenges is the dining room.  The table is quick.  Change the runner, redo the tablescape, no big deal.  The tough part is that several years ago I had a shelf built about 12 inches from the ceiling that wraps three walls.  I need to climb a 10 foot ladder a whole lot of times to redo that shelf.  I keep reducing the number of things I put up there but it is still a lot of work. 
I have not redone the dining room yet as you can see- It is a pile of Americana that needs to be packed for storage and put away for another year.  I wish I had helper to pack it away and I have not climbed the 10 foot ladder yet to redo the shelves.  Maybe tomorrow???


Our family anthem is American Pie by Don McLean"...........I knew if I had my chance I could make those people dance and maybe they'd be happy for a while".......please dance with your kids.
A look at one of my kitchen shelves.

As I tell the Grand-kids, have a song in your heart and a dance in your pants....more on dancing later.  Please click follow on the blog.  I appreciate that you are taking a look and spending a few minutes with me and my loved ones.

Coming soon; more beachy decor, a three year old pastel birthday party, my top five, and my bookshelf

Love, Ya-Ya

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Just Do It

I am in a whirlwind of activity,  just like every other working Ya-Ya of four Grandkids and four dogs.  The fourth of July has passed and now I need to figure out if I should remove all of the Americana décor and switch to beachy or just hang on until Labor Day and go straight to Fall.

A little about my goals and aspirations:  to always put family first.  I am the keeper of the family traditions, the record-keeper of all of the events, the decorator of the family home.  For the second half of 2016,  I will blog, learn calligraphy, downsize my collections and always be the one to count on to record the family events.  I actually print pictures and use them.  Shocking I know.  But when there is a school project due tomorrow, I always have the pictures needed of that family member or place that we have visited together.

I have been advised by a "master" blogger to just start blogging and it will evolve over the life of the blog.  She said to write about my passion.  I have several but at the top of the list are the Grandkids and our home.  I love to plan parties and go over the top with decorations, specialty cakes, cookies and favors.  We just celebrated my five year old Granddaughter's Birthday with a "Doctor" party.  The cake was a Doctor's coat with her name on the pocket, cookies with a red cross, pretzels with frosting to make them look like a thermometer. I will share party pictures in the future, so stay tuned.


I am a master tablescaper, home stager and party planner.  I do not cook but want to learn so there may be a few cooking experiences outlined in the future.

My husband wants to downsize.  The house is filled to the brim with my collections of baskets, yarn (I knit), crafting supplies, photos and on and on.  I have held two hugely successful garage sales in the past two years in an attempt to get rid of stuff and start the downsizing process.  The first sale netted $5000 and the second $2000.  I am planning another one for late fall.  We live in Scottsdale,  AZ and it is just too hot to make any attempt to sit in your garage and sell stuff in this heat.  I have mastered the art of having a good sale and getting traffic, so watch for this one in late fall.


What to expect in the future:
  • Pictures of our home, which changes many times per year
  • Party ideas and events
  • Travel and traditions
  • Downsizing and getting a house ready for sale (a few years down the road), including how to host a sale and actually make money
  • What I am reading, crafting and where I am traveling



As an avid reader,  I am always looking for a new book.  I like the light,  beachy reads as my favorite place to read is on the beach (Coronado, CA) or floating in the backyard pool.

What I am reading now:
Summer at Oyster Bay by Jenny Hale
The Little French Guesthouse by Helen Pollard
By the Numbers by Jen Lancaster
I just finished:
Destiny Unleashed by Sherryl Woods
Those Summer Nights by Mandy Baggott
Here's To Us by Elin Hilderbrand

What I am making: I am currently knitting a baby blanket for a baby boy.  I thought it was a girl so I am almost finished with the girl blanket, just need to weave in the ends.  But I checked to make sure I was doing the right gender and I was doing the wrong gender so I finished that girl blanket and just started the boy blanket.  I guess I need to listen closer next time.  I am not as scatterbrained as I may seem, this baby-to-be is in Denver and so I do not see the Mom-to-Be.  I asked and I thought my brain registered the right gender but it did not work.

Later this month: A family birthday party, Beach décor at home, Getting ready for the beach vacation