10 Tips for an Effective Yard Sale!

Ready to make your sale a great one…here are a few ideas that will help!

1. Signage – make sure you have plenty & they are easily readable & visible – check out www.vistaprint.ca or your local sign company for inexpensive lawn signs (just don’t put a date on them so they can be reused)
2.  Pricing – price items – it makes it easier for everyone
3.  Be ready to negotiate – remember these are items you no longer want!!!
4.  Have lots of change on hand
5.  SMILE & BE FRIENDLY so you can SELL, SELL, SELL
6.  When pricing your items do so not according to what you paid for them but what they will sell for…
7.  Display your items to sell – remember many people just do a quick drive/walk by – make them want to stop
8.  Hang clothing when possible – rolling racks work wonderfully or set up temporary clothesline
9.  Have clothing clean, folded and set out according to gender/size – Do large readable signs for each section if one price fits all – don’t make people ask!
10.  Have rules that what doesn’t sell gets DONATED IMMEDIATELY – the idea of having a yard sale is to reduce the amount of stuff in your home and you have already decided to let these items go!

 

 

Spring – A time of renewal!

I so love Spring!

Yes it has its downside as the snow recedes and reveals garbage and work that needs to be done outside (if you are like me a gardener), but it brings new hope, a chance at starting over and making changes.

Looking out my back window to finally see the last bits of snow have disappeared inspired me that it’s time to blog again.

Since February, life has been busy with new projects to manage for my business clients, working with several residential clients to help them take back control of their space and dreaming of warmer weather days to get some more DIY projects completed are a few of the things I’ve been up to.

Seeing the changes taking place with my residential clients has been such a joy – them getting to have company into their home for the first time in two years makes me so proud of them because I know that it is mentally one of the toughest things they have done recently – besides hiring me in the first place.  Hearing from others that they have tackled and caged the Paper Tiger in their office.  Seeing a family getting to enjoy their space again as a family and having time and a clutter free space to play with their children.  These are some of the reasons that I so love what I do!

So I suggest that you tackle that project, clean out your closets, have a yard sale or donate/pass along those items in your home that you no longer love.  Spring is a great time to refresh and renew your space and your life…

Today is clean out your computer day!

Today is the day to take some time and clean up your electronic clutter and purge your paperless files and photos!

In today’s world of information overload it is just as important to clear out our electronic clutter and create systems to make life simpler, things easier to find and accessible when we need them! That is what being organized is all about.

So here a few simple ideas to make managing your inbox clutter easier, finding relevant emails quicker and making your life and those you deal with electronically better
Save time when sending/receiving email

•   use the subject line so recipient knows what email is about
•   change the subject heading when responding to reflect content
•   be clear, concise & to the point
•   stick to one major subject per email – one email per action item
•   be clear about what action you are expecting from the recipient
•   create a signature file that automatically includes your contact info at end of each email

Your inbox should only contain email that is waiting to be read or requires action. Use your email program to automatically sort incoming mail to preassigned folders

Photos

Take time on a regular basis to review your photos

• delete any blurry ones or the ones that you can quickly make a decision that you don’t need
• duplicate photos – choose the best one and trash the rest
• need printed copies, use an online service to immediately order them (anything from Shoppers Drug Mart to Snapfish are great options) and have them delivered to your door (one less thing to do)
• Photos make great gifts and there are so many personalized options to choose from – photo books are one of my favorites
• Create Category folders for your photos – start with broad ones – Family, Friends, Pets, Work, Travel, do a quick sort into the broad categories and then you can take each folder and separate them further at another time – each folder can be a mini-project to tackle when you have 15-30 mins (depending on the number of photos)
• The are great software programs (depending on the system you use) that let you tag your photos for easier search options – one such program for Windows is Windows Live Photo Gallery

The joy of organizing is being able to quickly and easily find what it is you are looking for when you need it.

Margie Villard,

Director of Possibilities &

Trained Professional Organizer

http://www.joyoforganizing.ca

Nursery Rhymes Part II

It’s a girl!

My beautiful grand-niece Calla Eilyne Marie was born in the early morning hours of Dec 31 – guess she was ready to party!  Congratulations to the proud new parents.

So this project had to be completed for her to enjoy when she got home from the hospital, not that she was likely to be out of people’s arms for any amount of time for the first little while. However nice to start getting the nursery ready!

My parents bought this cradle 25 years ago when my niece was born and so after that amount of time it needed a little TLC

All I had to do was give it a good cleaning using Natura Safe Prep which is a safe alternative to TSP & available at Home Hardware.

Then a few coats of black paint and voila. I use the Beauti-Tone Signature Series Cabinet & Furniture Paint in pearl which I love because it give the hardness of melamine with the soap & water cleanup, although I would suggest you use gloves!

Ready for baby to come home from hospital.

I was so excited when I remembered that I still had this blanket that my grandmother had made for my oldest son (21 years ago) and since one side is pink (the other side has cowboys) it would be perfect addition to the black & white themed room and forgot to take a picture without the blanket for the after picture.  More pictures to come of the completed room in a later post.

Nursery Rhymes….Nursery Finds!

My niece is having her first child and is creating a black & white themed nursery.  She mentioned that she was looking for a chandelier for the room and so I kept my eyes open for the perfect find!

For me perfection is often found is seeing past what you find and seeing what it could become.  So this is the journey of creating a custom one of a kind nursery light for my new grand-niece or nephew to enjoy for years to come.

As with many of my projects it started with a trip to the local second-hand stores and this beauty was found at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store in Charlottetown for a song.

Originally my first thought was to paint the frame black and then the lattice parts white or perhaps lime green for a pop of colour in the room.

So I took the lamp apart and gave it a good cleanup to start with (always an ideal place to start)

So off to the local Home Hardware store for their new latex furniture & cabinet paint.  If you haven’t tried this yet, you will be so amazed by it and the best thing is just a soap and water clean-up!

  

But then I suddenly had some inspiration to totally change the look of this light and bring it up a notch.

Each of the above panels were created using specialty paper with images printed on them, then cut out to fit inside of the frames and put back together to create the finished product. Which I love and am so proud of….

     

So next time you see something have a second look to see what it can become and then make it happen!

Are you wearing clean underwear?

Everyone remembers when they were young hearing their mother tell them “Make sure you are wearing clean underwear, in case you get in an accident”.

As I was preparing to head off to an off Island meeting this week and doing my usual pre-trip cleanup this title popped into my head and made me wonder how many people actually think about what impression their home gives to others when they walk through that door.

Well not that I’m wishing anyone any harm (that would be a whole different blog :0), but have you thought about what would happen if you were in an accident today or you had a sudden illness and ended up in the hospital?

Let’s use this scenario, you have a heart attack or stroke (happens to people every day) and you survive but you end up unable to communicate with your family/friends. I like to be an optimist and we’ll say this is just a short term thing and you recover. In this scenario you are most likely taken out of your home by a paramedic, they will likely have to try and find out what medication you are on and look in your medicine cabinet or cupboards to find this out. Then people will need to be contacted to let them know you are in the hospital. You will likely have to get someone to come into your home to collect some personal belongings and in all likelihood you may have home-care workers coming in to help with your recovery. All throughout this you have no time/ability to meet them at the door or to hide things in closets.  Tell me what thoughts are running through your head right now as you read this, how are you feeling? Have you broken out in a cold sweat at the thought? Nobody wants to imagine any of these things happening to them or to someone they love but this scenario happens all too often and my question to you is “How clean is your home’s underwear?”

Are you comfortable with someone having to come into your home (i.e. paramedic/fireman) or even a friend and see the condition it is in? Would you be embarrassed by what they might find as they are looking through your cupboards to find what medicines you are on? Can they easily find the things that you would have to send them to pick up for you? Would they know who to contact?

Many mothers that I talk to and work with say that they know where everything is, my response is usually but what if something happened to you, then how would your family manage?