I love garage sales

Every Saturday in LA I get to go garage sale shopping with my grandmother and her friends. I have a ball every time. I have picked up many doily's for different projects, tons of fabric scraps for a textile notebook, and even a brand new tennis racket for my brothers birthday. But last week I had a really fun find. cashmere. At one small garage sale I saw a small table with some crafty things on it. There was a oversized joann bag filled of fabric. fluffy fabric. And I instantly thought of this-

http://yellowsuitcasestudio.blogspot.com/2011/10/wool-sweater-blanket-tutorial.html

The lady had felted a bunch of cashmere and wool sweaters to make headbands with then gone in a totally different direction. I bought they whole bag for 1$ and created these.

The softest blankets you could ever had make of felted cashmere with a variegated pink and purple blanket stitch wool trim.

Curbside Upcycle

On one of my first days here in LA I went for a walk around my neighborhood. I just wandered and I saw a perfectly good chest of drawers up on the curb in front of a house. Well I am not used to the custom here, but I ran home and asked what this could possibly mean. They assured me that if something was on the curb, it was free. Oooo now my hunting begins! I picked up the desk and began my crafting.

Now I made a big mistake and did not take before pictures. The dresser was a 30 year old black dresser with dings and dents. It had original round wooden hardware, but two were missing. And one of the drawers bottom had split and broken through. It was solid wood, and it had cute decorative paneling on the left and right sides. First I stripped the top of the dresser and gently sanded the all the old paint. 

 

 I knew I wanted to sell it, so the hardest task for me was picking the paint. You'll come to know that I am addicted to red, and so I couldn't resist. These are the changes I made
- repainted knobs and dresser-                   $15
- reinforced all the wobbly stuff-                  $0
- Two brand new top knobs, metal-            $10
- 4 coats of a barn red on each drawer     $0
- Replaced the bottom of one drawer       $10
                                                            I spent $35 to fix it up

 

Listed on Craigslist 3 times and it sold for $80.

That is a $45 dollar profit