Perks of a Yard Sale

A few weeks ago I cleaned out my old bedroom at my parents' house. This room was lived in by me for about 14 years so it had accumulated quite a bit of things that never made the journey with me when I moved out.  I cleaned out every nook & cranny and trashed quite a few items.  I had tons of clothes, jewelry, toys, etc. that I didn't discard though.  I usually donate my unwanted (still good condition) items to Good Will but this time I decided to try and make a buck or two.  I had motivation for making some money because of an old window that I had found at an antique store a while back that cost more than Cory wanted me to pay for it.  When I suggested that we have a yard sale he said if I made a good enough profit he wouldn't mind me purchasing the old window.
Our parents joined in on the sale to get rid of some things as well (we color coded the items so we knew where the money went to).  We had a great turn-out and made out pretty well.  I kind of wished I had priced my items a little higher but I put them pretty cheap because I wasn't sure if they would sell.  We only had a few things left over that we took to the Salvation Army.
Now, on to the "perks" of this yard sale.
Now, don't be jealous but while I was cleaning and getting ready for the sale, I found my old Jem & the Holograms paper dolls!  Does anyone else remember Jem?...I know you do, Ashley ;)

I remember playing with these dolls at the first house I lived in.  I thought they were so cool.  Do kids still play with paper dolls?  Here were my favorite outfits.

And below are the few paper "earrings" that came with the dolls.  They resembled the characters' earrings and  had a hole cut in them that you could tie a string in and loop it around your ear.  The pink star was like Jem's magical earring.  

 I was stoked to find those old dolls.
Another good thing from the yard sale was I got two new-to-me picture frames.  Mom was getting rid of two rose prints that she had for a while and I wanted them.  Since I'm her daughter she gave them to me for free:)
I really liked the frames because they matched a mirror hanging in my dining room.

I replaced the rose print and matting with new matting and some bird prints that I got from an old calendar.  Here is one of the bird prints.

 Now on to the main perk from the yard sale: the old, overpriced window (which we got the lady to come down on the price-whoo-hoo!)

I had been looking for something unique to go over my mantle since the day we bought our house.  I searched online and many stores but never found anything that I really loved.  Well, when I found this window in July I knew that it was exactly what I wanted.  Last year I saw this blog where a lady turned a lead glass window into an antique looking mirror.  I really liked it and looked for cool windows for a while but never had any luck until I ran into this one.  I just love the circles!

 I decided to try the blog's tutorial for my window.

I got this Looking Glass spray paint from Hobby Lobby.  It's rather pricey for spray paint at $11.99 but is cheaper than replacing the glass from the window with a mirror.

After Cory & I cleaned the window we then taped the edges with painter's tape.  

Then my handy, sweet husband spray painted it for me.  

And here's what it looks like now.

The spray paint doesn't give a very clear mirror appearance but I wanted the look to be cloudy and old looking.  If we ever get tired of the mirror look, then we can easily clean off the paint.  It wiped off with some Windex when we had a little mishap.  The window is only sprayed from behind so don't worry I can clean the front of the window/mirror without taking the paint off.
As for the wooden frame I decided to leave it alone for now.  I cleaned it and scraped a little flakey paint off but thought it would look more "shabby chic" if I didn't paint it.  Who knows, I may change my mind one day.
Anyway, those are a few of the good things that came about from our yard sale last week.  It always feels good to get rid of things and to make a profit on it is even better.  Although I am pleased with these results it will be a while before I have another sale.  They can be a lot of work!
I hope everyone has a pleasant week. :)

Lamp Revisited

Today I decided to change up the lamp that I painted a while back (here). Here's a picture of what it looked like before I did anything to it.

If you look closely (or maybe not that close) you can see that the lampshade is a little stained. This happened during "the flood". This shade was resting upside down on top of a box and the water started to work it's way up.
I thought we had thrown the shade away but I recently found it in boxes that were stored at my parents' house. We had been using the shadeless lamp while we've been working on the house and I was planning on getting a new shade for it sometime soon. I'm so glad that I found the old shade so I could try out covering it with some fabric.

First, I used painter's tape to cover some of the cord and the light bulb socket. I forgot to put tape on the switch, which is something that you probably would want to do if you paint a lamp.
I spray painted it "Peek-a-boo Blue".
As that was drying I started to work on the shade. Now, the process I used may not be the best, but it got the job done. Also, I didn't come up with the idea of how to do it. I've seen quite a few tutorials on other blogs and pulled different ideas together. I don't know the sources because it was a while ago when I saw them.

Here's what I did: I got some wrapping paper and rolled it out with the wrong side up so I could see better. I placed the lamp shade on its side and starting at the seam where the shade is glued together I marked the top and the bottom of the shade with an "x".
Then I slowly traced a line on the bottom edge while rolling the shade until I reached the seam again.
Then I lined up the seam with the top "x" and did the same thing with the top edge. It looked like this:
Then I used a magazine (was too lazy to get a ruler) to connect the x's to make a straight line.
Then I cut the pattern out of the paper and wrapped it around the shade to make sure it would work. Yes, I used Christmas wrapping paper. :)
Next I put the pinned the pattern to my fabric and cut it out.
I'm sure you could use various adhesives but I chose to use this Elmer's multi-purpose spray adhesive because that's what I had here.
Spray generously on the wrong side of the fabric.
Then roll you lamp shade onto the fabric. Make sure you smooth out the wrinkles quickly.
I rolled it all the way around and left a little fabric up.
I folded it over to create a clean line and then I hot glued it down.
Then I hot glued a ribbon starting at the seam and gluing as I went leaving half of the ribbon hanging over the edge.
After I glued the ribbon all the way around, I turned the "hanging" ribbon edge over to the inside of the shade and hot-glued it down.
In hindsight, I should have used a little thicker ribbon, but I had this ribbon already.
Here it is!
Since I already had the lamp, fabric, ribbon, and adhesive, this project only cost a little over $2, which was for the spray paint. It also took less than an hour. Not too bad. :)