King's Day Hats

I must have found these somewhere 2016.  In the colours of our Dutch flag, red, white and blue, but with the orange brim they are a typical thing to wear on the national celabration, King's Day. I photographed them in december to sell for the celbration in 2017. Without success. Yet I sold one on a market once, but forgot when or where. It can't have been on the free market on the day itself as shifting a few days earlier after Queens Day April 30since 2013, it had always been too cold for me and my friend to go for it. Sure thing is I got no more than €0,50.

With the day coming up this Saturday I dug up the remaining three and brought them to the thrift shop. Happy to make place. Though from moving around and storage their condition has slightly deteriorated, I saw one regular customer falling for their specialty. It's real straw, hand made, vintage and nothing like Chinese cheap plastic that is sold commercially. He happily walked out with two paying €1 each.

Now I'm going to post a Facebook message for the shop hoping the last one will go tomorrow. If not so be it. But the the sale made my day today.

Aeschynanthus Mona Lisa

Somewhere last summer looking for new vegetable pots I picked up one with a dried out plant from in front of the door just for that. Next day at closer look the pot wasn't that useful but the plant wasn't so dead yet. With two tiny green leaves in between the dry branches I poured some water in and left it in the yard where it was. To my surprise it started to grow quickly. In autumn I took it in in and by then it had grown by at least six centimeters. The munching away from the first growing leave by some insect didn't hurt aparently. Without further care to my surprise a couple of weeks ago I found something red sprouting from the center. Never in my lifetime I managed to grow or regrow flowers on a succulent!

About time to find out more. Lucky the name is on the pot! It turns out Aeschynanthus Mona Lisa does not want too much light, so just perfectly placed by my back window in my groundfloor apartment.

This is how the flowers, now on my plant still in development, in the end will look like.

Later on I will have to give it a bigger pot and fresh earth, but for now I must leave it alone untill it gets stronger. I'll add some soil on top, give plant feed and remove the dry branches. And then hopefully it will become like this: an abuntlantly growing hanging plant.

Electronic Or Electrical Waste

Two bags full of old electrical appliances or e-waste, by experience I guess up to 15 kilo's, ready to go to recycle shop. Will make me only around €1,50, but with added bonus points, to redeem later for cash. Seems like a lot of work for peanuts, but it's not that bad. There are a possibly working tuner and milk warmer, but I don't even take the trouble of testing, then making product photo's and waiting for an unsure sale. The amount was collected in just four days, not that I find that much all the time, but it takes me ten minutes to walk the bags hanging from my bike handlebars to the shop and it's a sure fire direct payment for 80 % real trash: two broken chease sandwhich makers, a printer, an out of date dvd-player and two ancient keyboards. And I just picked this up on the way to or coming back from groceries.

With the other things they take, plastic and textiles I manage to get up to €15 a month. That adds up to other things, better than I did sometimes in the past just relying on selling usable trashed goods.

Rolling Weekend Bag

I refound this when making space in my tiny storage. I don't remember how long it had been there or why I didn't put it on line before. I never took it to a market, maybe because it would take too much space in the car (but I could have filled it with other things) so most likely I found it after my friend and I stopped the markets.

Funnily like the wall shelves it didn't do anything in the first 16 week automatic renewing period, after manually relisting it went within a week at €10.

Had to ship it, always a bit tensive what customer finds, because on pics I filled it up but in the box the soft material was all crumpled up. But she gave me a very nice review, top sale!

Bauhaus Simple Elegant Wall Shelves

 

These modern slim shelves are from a German hardware superstore and I suppose not for sale in The Netherlands. How they ended up in my street is the big question. They look kind of Eighties but are for sale in Germany. Just the title Dolle Katana generated no interest and the ad expired after 16 weeks. When manually having to relist I decided to ad Bauhaus and voila, just about a week later I sold one of the shorter ones still packed. €5 off my grocery bill! Waiting for more. If the unpacked ones don't go they will be donated to thrift shop.

If you are in Holland see ad here.

Dumpster Divers

A while ago I created a Facebook page for my blog, to see if my once fairly well read page after years of silence could get me some new followers. So far not much result, but never mind. What strikes me is that when I go to the account I get to see so many suggested pages from dumpster divers in the USA. Now I'm not unfamiliar with the phenomenon since even I started blogging in 2006, but I'm still totally amazed. I just can't believe what perfectly new stuff just gets tossed away. And most likely from shops that just get rid of the unsold that way. It get's handled in a different way in my country, which I know from working in retail counting stock. Not that it helps the amount of unsold unwanted stuff getting less. Pity the posters don't talk about what they are going to do with it or how or where where they sell it. Keeps it kind of vague and unsatisfacory for me to look at their foto's or films. Pic from DumpsterDiveKing.

But anyway, have a look at this random choice of some of the most active posters:

https://www.facebook.com/DumpsterDiveKing

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557513762458 (SaltyStella)

https://www.facebook.com/TheCurbsideJunkies

IKEA Vestmarka Spring Mattress

I picked this up from in front of my door (example pic from website here) months ago but failed to put it on my bed. Lack of energy and the proper moment to put the old mattress directly back in trash. That was ready to go. A hard foam, once good as new but with holes in the fabric and not so clean anymore. On top my bed frame is 90 x 200, but the mattress was 80, so not fitting well. 

I never looked the new IKEA up until just now after last night finally doing the exchange. Must say the surface felt a bit hard, in comparison to the padded layer of my old one. I kind of feel the springs but it doesn't disturb me. And I'm not unhappy about the firmness at all. Now looking at the reviews some people seem to be dissappointed. Well, what do you expect from a €89 product? Possibly that's why it was tossed away practically unused. But then that's money I didn't have for something badly needed. I'm very happy for now. I slept well and didn't wake up with any neck or back pain, what a too soft bed would definitely do.

Now it's a matter of waiting how long it will last before I can say anything about the quality (beside comfort) of this cheap product. Affordable is not necessarily bad. But IKEA could have made the padding a bit thicker.

Apart from that my cats appreciate the extra 10 centimeters, sleeping beside me all night!