Making Good Use

This Year's Not Quite So Prolific Plum Crop

Last year we were inundanted with plums, this year the crops is not quite so prolific.

In fact, this tiny amount of plums that I picked in this morning is approx. half the total plums on the trees.  There were so few of them that I've used them to make a plum fool - there just weren't enough to have plain old stewed plums.

Luckily, there are still a few pounds of plum jam from last year's jam making session still stored away in the sideboard which should be enough to see us through this winter as well.  Mind you, one of the apple trees is simply groaning with fruit so does anyone have a nice apple jam recipe - otherwise it'll be apple sauce with everything!!

Et Pour Le Jeune Homme ....

Un tres chic French striped T-shirt - 50p.

And a fold-up scooter in excellent condition, for his imminent visit to Essex, £5.00.   We found a cheap scooter at a car boot sale last summer when my nephew was staying, but unfortunately that one had the handles jammed at the lowest height - which as my nephew is exceptionally tall for his age, made it near-on useless for him.  This one is in waaaaay better condition, is fully adjustable height-wise and folds up easily.  For a fiver it should make my nephew's stay a lot more enjoyable.

For myself I only found a small Molton Brown soap (love MB toiletries) and a bottle of Clinique makeup remover - I think they were both 20p each - and two books for resale.  There were LOADS of sellers at the boot sale this morning but many of them were selling baby clothes / toys so nothing much of use for me on those stalls. 

I'm pleased to hear that the reselling books post was useful for a few people, it's quite a pleasant way to make a few extra bob.

Reselling Books

Recently, I've had a couple of people ask me about reselling books, so I thought I'd have a go at writing down the things that work for me - with the hope that some of it may be of use to someone else.

I started reselling books on Amazon.co.uk sometime in early 2002.  P had very cleverly spotted that Amazon were starting up a facility for people to sell their second-hand books through the website and it immediately appealed to me - primarily at the time as a way of getting rid of some of the books I no longer needed.  For a while I only sold books I had previously owned myself but one day, whilst browsing in a charity shop, I had a 'eureka' moment and wondered what it would be like to resell books that I bought specifically for that purpose. 

In those heady early days, it was quite easy to make decent money reselling books via Amazon and at one time I was regularly making £50 per week from this.  Sadly, in the last couple of years those earnings have dropped dramatically - possibly because of the recession, but more likely because there are A LOT more people who are selling second-hand books on Amazon now and, naturally, the prices have dropped accordingly.

It's pretty hard to give a definitive answer as to what will be a good book to resell and what won't.  I would definitely say keep well away from any blockbuster-type paperbacks, or chick lit or anything that was featured on Richard and Judy's book club.  In theory, non-fiction books should be a much better bet and the more esoteric, or downright odd, subject matter the better.  Some of the books I've got listed on Amazon cover unusual subjects like Killer Whales in Twofold Bay, Islands of Europe, Lullingstone Roman Villa and Mathematical Programming in Practice - not easy bedtime reading that's for sure.

Childrens' books can also be quite good resellers - although, again, nothing that is too mainstream.  Look out for books that date from the 60s and 70s, there is often a good market in nostalgia for these books.  Condition is fairly important with them though as no-one really wants to buy a book that is covered in scribbles or has a previous owner's name scrawled all over the cover.

If I spot a likely looking tome in a local charity shop - but it costs more than 50p (and most books do these days) - I'll jot down the ISBN number and check it out at home to see if it would be worth buying.  Nine times out of 10 the answer is an emphatic no.  Obviously, this is not possible at a car boot sale or at a charity shop further away from home.  In those cases if the cost is cheap enough I'll take a chance and buy the book anyway - sometimes this tactic works out, sometimes not. 

Any books that are no good on Amazon, I'll check on eBay - sometimes what sells for £2.00 or £3.00 on Amazon can make a tenner or so on eBay.  If eBay fails too, I'll try Greenmetropolis.  You get £3.00 per book sold on Greenmetropolis although from that you have to take out second-class postage - if the book is larger or heavier than normal you can add more postage fees to the original listing.  I tend to only list on here if a) the book is really pretty small and b) I've paid very little for it, but it's a useful site to get rid of items that would otherwise end up being donated back to another charity shop and the £3.00's do add up over a matter of weeks.

Any books you do list (on any site) be scrupulously honest about the condition and state all signs of wear, and do flick through all pages to see if any passages are highlighted, there are notes in the margin or other obvious signs of wear and tear (something I have been known to miss in the past).  Rub out any previous prices on the book (usually written in pencil on the fly leaf) and if the old price is still visible, clip the top corner of the fly leaf off - but mention this in the listing.

Store books for sale somewhere clean and dry (there is nothing worse than the smell of damp, musty old books.)  I've got my Amazon-listed books in a bookcase in the dining room and my Greenmetropolis-listed ones stored in a large cardboard box (also in the dining room.)  Although I do wish we didn't have to live quite so cheek by jowl with my reselling stock. And, finally, if you do have any sales, package the book carefully - preferably in a padded envelope - so that it arrives safely. 

Goodness, that went on a bit longer than I expected - I hope its useful for anyone interested though.

Sunday Finds

I wasn't too sure if the car boot sale would go ahead this week as it was raining, finely but fairly persistently, when I first woke up at 7.00 am.  I went back to sleep for a couple of hours and by 9.00 the rain had pretty much cleared away.  The boot sale I tend to go to is one that doesn't start until 10.00 am (thank goodness, a lot of the others round here start at 5.00 or 6.00 am - quite why boot sales have to start so early is a mystery to me,) and we finally arrived at about 11.15.  There were loads of sellers and buyers again this week and I managed to find one or two useful bits and pieces.

An unused Portmeirion tea cosy for £1.00.  This will be destined for eBay eventually - probably sometime in the autumn,

A copy of 'Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day' which I've read a lot about on other blogs, so for 50p I thought I'd give it a whirl.

The usual range of toiletries.  A large bottle of Pecksniff's Sandalwood and Vanilla Bath and Body Oil - 50p.  This seems to retail for £7.99 so that was a nice bargain.  And two small Body Shop items - Mango Bath and Shower Gel and Vitamin E Moisture Cream - both 25p each.

A really lovely embroidered wool scarf for myself for the winter - 50p.  This should go very nicely with both my pink velvet coat and my black wool jacket.  I like buying winter things in the middle of summer because when I wear it in the depths of winter I'm reminded of the nice warm summer day when I bought it.  P got himself a really thick fleece-lined rugby shirt at a summer fete last year and every time he appeared in it during the bitter weather, I remembered how hot and thundery the day he bought it had been.

And an, allegedly, easy-to-fly bat kite for 50p.  I say 'allegedly' as I've never had a lot of success getting kites off the ground - not even when I was a child.  I got this for when my nephew comes to visit in a few weeks.  It might be entertaining one afternoon.

I know I had a few e-mail conversations a couple of weeks ago about the original Swedish TV version of 'Wallander.'  If anyone is interested, BBC4 is showing them from the beginning again (fear not, its subtitled in English).  They're on at 9.00pm on Saturday evenings and if you want to see the very first episode (screened this past Saturday) it'll be on the BBC iPlayer for a week or so.  They're excellent detective stories and I can't praise them highly enough - waaaaaaay better than Kenneth Branagh's interpretation.

Edited to add:  I've linked this post to Thrift Share Monday over at Apron Thrift Girl.

Loving the Thursday Boot Sales

Although the local Thursday Car Boot Sale is much much smaller than the one I go to on Sundays, and tends to have a lot more traders, I've been having a really good run of luck with finding useful and / or lucrative items there.  This week was better than ever as the weather, although a tad too hot for my taste, was good and there were a sizeable amount of sellers.  Amongst other bits and bobs I found:

 
Two new mini Lego kits for my nephew - a Star Wars Tie Fighter and a Steam Roller with driver.  These were £1.00 each and are being put aside for when he comes up to Essex for a visit in a few weeks time.

 
For 50p each, I got myself a travel-size bottle of Body Shop Olive Shampoo and a small tub of their fabulous Body Butter.

 
And two unopened pairs of vintage pillowcases.  The chap who was selling them said his mother kept ordering things from club books and never used them - when she died they found ottomans and boxes full of things like bedding and curtains, all unopend in their packets.  One pair are a nice cool cotton with a floral border and I'll probably keep those.

 
The other pair are really thick flanelette winter-weight pillowcases with a sweetly pretty pink rose design - I think these will be destined for eBay at some point nearer the winter.  I paid £1.00 per pair for these.

Also found were three plus-size tops (one still with the original Evans tag hanging off it) for £2.50.  They're all destined for eBay being a bit too large even for me.  Plus somebody was selling interesting books for 25p each or 5 for £1.00.  I ended up with 11 books and one audio book for £2.00 and a couple of them were good re-sellers on Amazon and a few more have been put up for sale on Greenmetropolis.  The rest will go to the charity shop next week.

On the way out of the boot sale there was a fruit and veg stall so I bought a HUGE punnet of plum tomatoes for £1.00 (now made up into tomato sauce to go with meatballs and spaghetti) and an iceberg lettuce for 60p (seeing as how we've pretty much eaten all the salad leaves in the garden for the time being.)  It was just as well I wasn't planning to pop into Sainsbury's as well as there was no room left in my shopping trolley.  Even though I had to run for the bus on the way back (so not a pretty sight!) nor the fact that one of my shoes had rubbed my little toe raw could dampen my enthusiasm for an excellent morning at the boot sale.

Ta-da!

So despite it being uber hot and sticky yesterday afternoon, I valiantly pressed on and, amazingly, finished off my patchwork quilt.  It didn't actually take me all that long to do in terms of actual hours cutting out, ironing, and sewing it all together, but in terms of time it's been hanging around for months - although I really don't know why.

 
It's a lap-quilt size, measuring approx. 44 x 52 inches (with each square being 7.5 inches square-ish), and I think that was probably a sensible size to try out quilting with.  Anyhow, the finished size was really dictated by the number of patchwork pieces I was given from Mum, topped up with a few pieces cut from bits and bobs of fabric I had around the place. 

 
Nothing new was bought to make the quilt (unless you count the uber-expensive Gutterman thread I bought in Southend at Easter - £7.00 for a ginormous reel - but, my goodness, what a difference it made to sew with some decent thread instead of the cheap cr*p I've used in the past.)  The patchwork pieces came from Mum, the purple leaf backing material had been knocking around for years in ye olde stash, and the wadding was cut from an Ikea picnic blanket I got from a charity shop a few years ago.

 
I used some white crochet cotton (a charity shop purchase a long time ago) to make a tie in the corner of each square, which I hope will be sturdy enough to keep all three layers tightly together.  The quilt has got quite a nice weight to it and should be wonderfully cosy in the winter.

 
It's a looooooong way from being anything like perfect but I do have to say, I'm mighty pleased with it - especially as it was made entirely from bits and bobs I already had - and the cheerful colours should really brighten up the darkest winter's day.

This 'n' That

The 'Coffee and Jumble' yesterday morning yielded a couple of dishes - one very small and china, and one very large and plastic.

The small china one is a little Carlton Ware dish which has a small crack across the middle.  It's really pretty and only cost me 20p so I wasn't going to worry too much about the crack.  It'd make a rather spiffy soap dish methinks, or a dish to hold sewing pins should I ever have a large enough table to sew on that I could actually keep the pins out of their tin.

The other very large plastic bowl cost me 50p and was bought with the express purpose of planting it up with yet more salad leaf seeds.  P and I have been eating vast quantities of salad leaves this summer and as I've long run out of plant pots to sew them in I've had to get a bit more inventive.

These ones are planted up in an old jam pan.  They're coming along very nicely, as long as I don't water them too much - a small water-logging incident took place the other evening but a quick tip out of the excess water seems to have sorted it out.  Originally, I was hoping to get some holes drilled in the bottom of the pan before I planted it up but somehow the opportunity never arose so I've just planted it up regardless.

The quilt is progressing slowly, yesterday I backed it with some purple leaf-print sheeting fabric which has been knocking around for years.  It must have come from a charity shop or car boot sale but I've no idea where.  I decided to go for the 'sewing it right sides together' method which Claire kindly suggested - thanks for that Claire. 

This Week's Boot Sale Bargains

As the weather was just right for a car boot this weekend - overcast, warm without being hot, and not too much wind - there were A LOT of sellers at the local boot sale this Sunday.  Unfortunately, not a lot of them were selling things I was interested in.   There were the usual table after table of baby clothes and toys, stacks and stacks of videos (most of them seeming to be of the 'Bridget Jones Diary,' Four Weddings and a Funeral,' and boxed sets of 'Friends' variety) and boxload after boxload of 'chick lit' paperbacks.  I managed to find one or two good things though.

For 20p a boxed set of vintage Ladybird 'Flash Cards.'  Not sure what on earth I can do with them but at that price I thought I'd buy them anyway.

Two rather upmarket shower gels - £2.00 for both.  I was informed by the seller that the Elle MacPherson body wash costs £18.00 new but, having checked it out on t'internet, I'm not sure that is strictly the case!  I know I could have bought shower gel in Aldi cheaper than this but I do like me some nice toiletries.

This little book from the 1940's, which is complete with all its patterns, for 50p.  There are some intriguing ideas in there, like making a Golliwog from an old swimsuit and a pink pig toy from an old vest!!

I also found a couple of books for re-sale on Amazon and two tops which I initially bought for myself but, having tried them on, I don't like 'em.  They might end up on eBay or maybe in the next bag for the charity shop.  So, all told, it wasn't too bad a morning for thrifting.

Edited to add:  I've linked this post to Thrift Share Monday over at Apron Thrift Girl.  Lots of links there to some amazing thrifty finds from the weekend. 

My First Quilt Top - Evah

I've just finished piecing together my first ever quilt top - and I'm pretty pleased with myself.  The majority of the fabric came from a pile of patchwork pieces of very good quality - Kaffee Fassett, Rowan etc - which my Mum came across in the bottom of her wardrobe.  No-one has any idea where they came from, or why they were originally purchased, but Mum passed them onto me.  Originally I was going to try and make my sister a patchwork skirt from some of the pieces, but quickly realised this was waaaaaay beyond my capabilities.  For weeks the patchwork pieces taunted me with their bright patterns, until I finally decided to try my hand at a patchwork quilt (albeit a rather small one.)

Apologies for the photos but there's nowhere with enough floor space in the house to lay it out flat for a picture.

Some many months later, I've actually got round to washing, cutting, ironing, sewing, and more ironing of the top.  A few more months (!!) may see the quilt finished. No, honestly, I have got a piece of fabric in ye olde stash for the back, have a suitable-ish blanket to use for the wadding, and have just found on the internet what seems to be a really simple method for putting it all together (we shall see!!)

Naturally, not all the squares match up fully but, after the disappointment of my cock-eyed knitted blanket,  I'm going to embrace the wonkiness on this project and just see how it all ends up.

New Bags

I've been the lucky recipient of a couple of very special new bags lately.  My nephew decorated this cotton tote bag for me as part of my birthday present.  The images were drawn using fabric-dye crayons and a whole lot of imagination.

One side shows 'Stripey' the parrot

And the other side features 'Whiskers' the cat.  Judging by the extended claws on Whiskers' front paws, my nephew used Mum's cat, Lily, as his inspiration!!  I think I'm going to use this bag for storing my knitting projects in.

The second bag came all the way from New Zealand, courtesy of Maureen.  It's been knitted from old supermarket bags, 'Pak'n'Save' to be precise, Maureen says.  This is a lovely strong bag and such a brilliant use of old plastic carriers too.  Thank you so much Maureen, it was a lovely surprise to receive it through the post. 

This bag will be just the ticket for holding 4-pint cartons of milk when we go shopping by car.  We like to keep the milk separate in it's own bag in case it leaks or spills and having this knitted bag will save having to get yet another plastic carrier from the supermarket to stand the milk in.