Update 10-13-2011

Oh my gosh! I've neglected my blog yet again. Surprised? Me neither. But I've been insanely preoccupied with going to school, working, mantaining the remnants of my social life, and starting my Etsy shop.

Speaking of which, I'm addicted to buying and selling vintage now more than ever. I decided that I did, indeed, want to run my own shop badly enough to dedicate the time, money, and energy it requires. The whole experience has completely revolutionized my outlook on life and my view of myself.

I'm not 100% confident in myself yet, but I've seen a huge improvement. While setting up my shop and selling for a month or two, I had to learn to trust my gut, pat myself on the back when I'm right, and learn from my mistakes when I'm wrong. And I've made a lot of mistakes (most of them dealing with shipping...ugh!), but for some reason messing up makes me want to try even harder at succeeding the next time.
I've got way too many thoughts about everything that's going on right now (selling online, trying to start a business, changing my major, anticipating my mom's remarriageat the end of this month..the list goes on), but there's only so many hours in a day. Still, I feel like writing about starting a business will hold me accountable to actually doing it. And even if I decide now is not the time (though I'd hate to get to that point), I think it's important I document all of this now so I can go back one day and remember this time in my life.

I'm known to over-analyze things...can't you tell??

I'll stop here for now. Soon, I plan to start a new blog that isn't as scattered as this one about thrifting, vintage, selling online, crafting, life, whatever.. But for now, Ima go get me some food and go to sleep!

So tell me...How are things going for you guys? What's new in your life?

Cheers,

Dani

Brain on Overdrive

July is officially over, and the start of school is taunting me from a close distance, but I'm busting tail until then. I'd like to be relaxing the whole time, and that's what I had planned to do, but my mind and my body have a dysfunctional relationship and won't let me sit still.

My brain not only switches to ON mode when I wake up, but also to Crazy, Overanalyzing, Get-Stuff-Done, Sleep-is-for-Chumps mode. It's great that I'm getting stuff done, but I want to be lazy like every college kid should be during summer. Instead, I've been working several hours each morning for the past two weeks to sort, clean, and price stuff my family and I are getting rid of for a garage sale. I am DETEERMINED to have everything ready by this weekend. I'm sick of the piles of clutter that have built up around the house and garage. Silver lining: My mom said I can use all of the money made this weekend for text books. Oh, happy day! It'll make the sting of book costs a lot less nauseating.

I've also been scraping cheap, poorly-applied purple tint from my car windows. The lovely people who owned my car before me must have thought it was a good idea, but I'm not so thrilled with bubbling and cracking tint. I can only do a little at a time because it is so hot and humid outside, so it's taking me weeks to remove it. Just a little more to go..

My other project of these past few weeks has been a little more rewarding and enjoyable. Buying and selling mid century decor has been incredibly tough, but I made two sales this past week! Didn't make a huge profit since I messed up the shipping a little, but that's better than losing money, right? Anyway, I'm getting better at calculating shipping, so hopefully my prices will be more accurate and I won't have to keep dipping into the profits.

It's amazing that I've been able to write this much considering how fidgety I am right now, so I'm not gonna press my luck. I'll stop here for now. I'm going to try to write soon about my favorite store for buying vintage items. It's bizarre, disheveled, and unconventional, but then so am I.

Oh, before I forget, I am able to see comments on my site (and appreciate them very much!), but I can't comment on other blogspot blogs for some reason. That's usually how I reply to people, but now I can't. I guess I'll be switching to replying in the comments on here from now on, but I am still going to look at everyone's blogs and TRY to comment if I can. If not, just know I'm still reading your posts and commenting on them...in my head..? Okay, bye for real this time!

Later, gators.

Itch for Kitsch

Hey guys!

I've neglected this blog terribly, but I'm going to try to revive it. I've been on a thrift store binge for the past two weeks, and consequently, I have accumulated a bunch of clutter. Of course, some of the clutter has proved profitable, and for that I'm thrilled (and relieved). I bought a leather polaroid camera case for 59 cents and it sold last week for $14.99. You can bet I squealed with joy.

I have more stuff listed on my Etsy shop, Itch for Kitsch, but I am eager to find more vintage and retro things to sell. I want to learn a lot about buying and reselling and maybe, just maybe, one day run my own brick & mortar antique store one day.

I told myself last night that I was going to stay away from the thrift store until next week, but I should have known I was going to wake up the next morning and go. Hum. But I'm telling myself it's okay because I found some fun, kitschy stuff and I had a conversation with a sweet lady who also thrifts for fun and encouraged me to thrift more. She has unknowingly become what clinicians refer to as "an enabler."

I have several vintage vinyl records to list in my shop, as well as some other small items, so hopefully that will tie me over for a bit. I'm getting antsy because I've only had one sale on Etsy (2 on another venue), but things are supposed to pick up as it gets closer to Christmas.

I will try to post some of my recent finds (w/ pictures) within the next couple of days. Stay tuned :)

How is everyone's summer going?




"Ghost of My Braver Self"

Peace, love, and Cornbread

Hello? Anyone still out there?

Man! It's been a while since I've logged in. My computer kept crashing, and I found out there were several viruses on it. The guy who fixed it said that there are some viruses disguised as Adobe, Flash, and Javascript update prompts. Greeeeat. I always update those things. Guess I'll have to be more careful next time.

Remember all of my second-hand finds I nerded out over a couple of weeks ago? I found moreeee. Turns out I have a slight obsession with the thrift store, and it seems relieve stress for me. I don't want to end up on Hoarders: Buried Alive and have to be treated for compulsive shopping, but I don't think that's going to happen. I've actually set up my own little online shop where I can sell my thrift store finds for some extra cash. College girl needs textbooks/gas monies.

It's always been a secret wish of mine to buy and sell vintage/unique items. I had told myself for so long that I couldn't make it a reality because I don't know enough about what sells and what doesn't. I'm really hard on myself. Like, brutal. I mentally flog my self-esteem on occasion. Why? Probably the combination of being female and a chronic worrier...and living at home through college... But now, after a few sales and some awesome finds, I'm beginning to gain a little confidence in myself.

And this is the part of the post where I am going to shamelessly promote my listings.
My booth on Bonanza: http://www.bonanza.com/booths/WideEyedFinds
Yardsellr page: http://yardsellr.com/yardsale/Dani-Beach-258876

I have pretty much the same items on both pages, but Yardsellr is a little easier to use, so I have that set up as an alternative. If you wanna be super fantastic and help me promote, let me know and I'll find/make a badge. Or, a simple tweet or mention in a blog post would totally work :)

You know how I used to sign off my posts with "Peace, love, and hugs,"? My boyfriend kept teasing me about it by saying it before one of us left, but he would mix it up and say, "Peace, love, and flying pigs.. or whatever!" Then he got me a shirt that says, "Peace, love, and cornbread" in bright colors (we are in the deep south, remember). I thought it was pretty cute, but I dunno, maybe you had to be there.

Tomorrow, I'm going to ride horses and to an antique shop in an itty bitty town about an hour away. What have you guys been up to this summer?

Peace, love, and cornbread,


Dani

Update 6-20-2011

Hey there. I have been out of town for the past week, so I hadn't spent much time online. I often find myself wanting to blog about something or another, but I quickly dismiss the idea because I don't necessarily want people I regularly interact with to read it. It's quite discouraging. Because of this, I am considering starting a blog on which my identity is hidden so that I can write freely about anything and everything. If you would like to follow it (and, of course, I do not know you outside of the blogsphere), let me know and I'll message you if and when I create it.

Until then, I'll find things to post on here that aren't too lame. Bear with me :)


-DB

Update 6-4-2011

Just so you guys know, I have been reading some of your blogs, and I have stuff to comment about floating in my head, but Blogger decided to put the kibosh on my eagerness to interact with fellow Blognerds and will not let me post a comment to anyone's posts. After I click the post button, I am redirected to the login page, which, upon logging in, takes me back to the CAPTCHA nonsense. After several rounds of post-login-post-login, I decided to wait until Blogger doesn't suck.

Until then, I will be working on craft projects, going second-hand shopping, couponing, fishing, and looking for other random-but-fun pursuits.

Second-Hand Dreams

Where HAS the time gone? It's escaping way too quickly. Tomorrow is the first day of the summer semester for me, so I'm a bit anxious, I'll admit. Going back to school still kind of puts my nerves in a tailspin, even all of these years after kindergarden. And it doesn't help that the one class I'm taking this summer is astronomy. WHEN AM I GONNA HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT OUTERSPACE?? (probably on one of the many days that the world is supposed to end, 2012 at the latest, as a kamikaze meteroid destroys the planet).

I went to Barnes & Noble recently to find a good book (something I rarely have time to do anymore, but I was persuaded by a gift card I received), and I randomly found a book called Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach. I'm sure the book's subject and my interest in it reflects poorly on my character, but I'm willing to take that risk. I've always had an interest in pathology and forensics, so this book had me hooked. Roach discusses her visits to cadaver disections, body farms, crash test labs, and the likes where she discovers what happens as bodies decompose and also what happens as a body undergoes traumatic experiences like fires and crashes. Morbid, yeah? It's written in a very honest, comedic, yet respectful way, and I think that's what I like most about it. Anyway, check it out, or don't. I won't judge you either way, girl scouts' honor.

I've done a lot of thinking lately, and I've realized that I put myself down quite frequently for just about everything. I have often avoided my passions because I didn't consider myself "good enough" at them. I'm not a big fan of the phrase "Follow your dreams" because it's painfully cliché, but it's a concept of been toying with for the past couple of days. Specifically, I've realized the extent of my love for things vintage, antique, and ecclectic. Just today I spent an hour and a half at the thrift store (before 9am. Early bird gets the ceramic worm from 1967, right?). That wouldn't be so crazy had I not gone to the thrift store the day before as well. But I was eager to find some projects to work on, so I went back to look at everything with fresh eyes and a new perspective. I found some incredibly unusual items, and I can't wait to jazz them up.
Here's some of my favorite items I've found on past second-hand adventures:



Hopefully I will have some pictures up of the before and after photos of today's purchases. We shall see.


"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later."
-Mitch Hedberg