Yard Sale Signs... total innovation

Not to get your hopes up when you read the title… when you think of innovation you think of Thomas Edison, Alexander G. Bell, Eli Whitney (who by the way is my great great great 13 times down the line cousin…) Henry Ford, etc…

But I was pretty proud of the burst of innovative-ness I had this past weekend. We planned to have a yard sale… LOVE yard sales by the way. It is seriously an awesome way to make fast cash in T-Town. Where I’m from you’re lucky if you make $5… here though people are serious about yard sailing…

So everyone knows that to have a successful yard sale you have to advertise. I put an ad in the paper (which I unfortunately left off the date and time… oops). I figured I needed to put signs out- which I usually do really last minute (like morning of last minute.) I went to get supplies and WHO KNEW that fluorescent posters cost $3.99 EACH! Now really in the grand scheme of things $3.99 isn’t much, but it was the principle of the matter that I needed 4 signs and this $3.99 posterboard was going to turn into more than $16! Hello…. my point is to make a profit. Oh, and I also needed stakes which would run about $1 each (I only needed 3 of those though).

After picking my jaw off the floor of the poster board aisle, I figured there HAD to be a better way. I perused the office supply aisles and came upon FOLDERS… in neon (well, bright) colors! Genius!! And at $0.77 a pop, the price was right. And these aren’t the cheap, glorified cardboard folders… they are plastic and durable… trust me, I’m a teacher and I know a good folder when I see one.

I figured I could open the folder, and attach the stake with a staple gun, and be good to go. I rushed home to put my idea into action and it came together perfectly. Also, I planned to do all this Thursday night but we seriously had a lake wind advisory, so I figured it wouldn’t be a good night to see how my signs did- even if the folders are durable.

Here is how they looked:

I opened the folder, laid the stake down (and the stake had an adhesive strip on it), and I was even able to attach the brad from the folder in a hole that was pre-drilled in the stake. While I planned to use the staple gun to attach it to the stake, we were out of staples- so I had to go to plan B- spray adhesive. It worked beautifully and the signs held up through Friday night and all day Saturday. You might notice that when we hammered the stake in the ground the plastic folder ripped, but it didn’t compromise the sturdy-ness and it didn’t happen to the other 2 signs I made.

All in all we made $225 in 1 day and sold 2 big ticket items (our beloved kitchen table that was recently replaced by an amazing $25 deal round table, and my old bed). I think my signs did the trick (or at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself of)… and they turned out really cheap… and they are reusable!!!

**UPDATE: These signs lasted us 3 years and we had at least 2 yard sales a year! Totally worth the "investment" and not having to make signs before each sale!

Here’s an update for how I am doing on the 5 things I wanted to accomplish this month:

1. His 10 year HS reunion <—– this is this coming Friday!
2. A yard sale
3. Finish my bathroom project (painting glossy stripes on the wall) <1/2 way done- the hardest part is for sure over.
4. Do some Christmas planning/sewing/ 2 year party planning. We were blessed to have our anniversary, Lman’s birthday, and Christmas all fall in the 10 days before Christmas… talk about chaos. <–I have invitations and Christmas cards waiting to be ordered as soon as we get our family pictures CD from the photographer!
5. Hopefully squeeze in some time to go to a pumpkin patch.

So far so good! I feel great about getting so much accomplished this month and it’s only half way over! Here are some pics from the pumpkin patch! It was more like a hayride through the pumpkin patch, but he loved it.

Oh that little face is just SOOOO squeezable!