Tea Cozies Part 2

Today I felt very lucky because I sold one of my old hand crafted pieces.

A week ago I met a lady at the thrift shop who was asking for a tea cozy. The model that fits over the pot and that you could put on your head as well, haha. The fun is nine out of ten guys that ever looked at my creations wanted to put it on their head. Coming to the point she needed it for a sketch to put on as a hat. Not finding anything anywhere she came to the shop. Well in ten years I've seen maybe two coming in. So I told her about my old hobby and promised to look at home at what I still had. Not really sure. To my surprise I found this one in the first corner I tried, including the pot but without the lid. Can't remember but likely broken at a market or transporting back from one. She came back today and was thrilled! I asked €5 and she offered €7,50. 

I stuck €1 on the pot and left it for the shop to sell.

Not much for my work, (imagine, I used to sell little flowers like this €2,50 a piece as brooches or hair clips) but on the other hand an item 15 years old is financially written off. And the thing is this was really made from unraveled curb found knitwear. 

Then when walking the lady out and wishing her success with the show I spotted the shop/volunteer coordinator and wanted to show him my item. What did he say? 'I want to see how that looks on my head!'

Now read more about my tea cozies here: https://trashcollector.blogspot.com/2010/01/tea-pots-and-tea-cozies.html

How I loved to design and make them. But it's just not a product people want. Sold one on Etsy, custom made. Soooo long ago. The model 'pagode' that I talk about in the post sold to my brother. Photo so old it's not in my laptop. Hopefully maybe still on a diskette. If I find it will show later. This one here I found in an old file called 'sold'. Just can't remember when or where!            

And then to my surprise I found this one. Same model, made for same pot, same material but with a knitted bow. Where did it go? I can't remember. But if file says sold it must have been sold.

Fashion Makes Things Move

Yesterday’s surprise sale:

Listed in the morning, by 4 pm ordered and paid for. It’s one of the last items of my current fashion clothing stock that I started listing like mad late January.

After the surprising sale of the summer dress in August I was very pleased to find a suitcase full of the coolest stuff across the street in October 2015, and more in bags later on, but I wasn’t looking forward to dressing up the doll and started on the easy things.

I had a few non-serious reactions on the hat, but after a couple of weeks an enthusiastic youngster showed up.

I gave the buyers really great deals on these scarves, but they all flew out within days.

A coat beyond repair went to recycling, but not before cutting the buttons off. Listed on Etsy and sold early February.

This whole batch made a total of only EUR 15, but that doesn’t matter. After a great start of the year, in the third week everything came to a sudden halt. Just nothing, total silence. I know to keep listing is the credo and it was time to dive into those bags. Fashion is good stock to have and work on in slow times and since that lull I sold over 10 clothing items which I will show later.

And then I wasn’t talking about the shoes yet!

Trash On Etsy: Leather Punky Cuffs

Last night I came home to an Etsy order. Yay! Always excited, even after almost ten years. I guess it’s the fact that it’s a worldwide platform, despite the humongous amount of sellers still exclusive, but mainly most of my sales are international.

Before I even looked I sensed it was this:

Another leather punky cuff, listed two weeks ago that came from the same bag of my co-picker as the door handles.

Because earlier in January I listed these two, from the same lot and they flew out as well.

I priced them USD 5 each, not a lot but according to the average on Etsy. Maybe not so exciting but I keep in mind: I had them at a car boot sale once, nobody looked and I think a EUR 2 or so would have been my most daring price.

The orange cuff went to the US, the other two to separate buyers in the UK.

Selling trash on Etsy, making USD 15 out of nothing, I say YAY!

Heart Shaped Christmas Tree Decorations And Bag Hangers

It’s the Season coming up so here’s some shameless self promotion!

I made these from a trashed cotton sweater and leftover cotton yarns my friend Judy found at the curbs at dog walking. Available on Etsy here.

But the same heart shapes adorned with beads are also great for key chains or zipper hangers and I discounted them to next to nothing! Please look here if you’re interested.

I'm selling the French fashion By LouLou bag as well, though it's not curb found. Let me know as it's only listed locally.

Trash On Etsy

Before I went on line locally with larger objects, I occasionally listed small easy shippable vintage and curb found items on Etsy. Not for big money but just to keep things going and every sale is one that adds to your ranking.

Now I’ve sold only two handmade items this whole year and I’m listing more and more vintage and supplies. Upping my prices too! It’s too cool seeing it all go overseas and why not make more money of it when the competition in hand made is just too hard.

Not all is really curb found – I have other free sources now – but here are some that I really picked from the garbage.

Somewhere 2007-2008 I found two flat boxes with tiny animal figurines. Quite primitive, probably from India. Priced by hand and likely someone’s flea market leftover stock. I listed the birds on Etsy as the package was, still covered in plastic. Sold fairly quickly but only at $5.

The slightly larger beasts from the other box had hang up wires and I kept them for crafting. Never happened and in the end I sold four at the indoor market place in 2013. The remaining six sat for ages on the lower plank of my coffee table. Finally got tired of looking at them last August, listed, sold $10 within days.

Which inspired to list more crafting supplies. I had dragged a horrible blue chandelier home years ago, spent hours cleaning and getting the beads off, created some earrings, not a success, sold the beads within a few weeks at $10.

Finally, also years ago, large cards full of completely plastic 1980s earrings picked up in an older part of town. Thought I’d sell them around 20 cents euro a pair at markets but people wouldn’t even pay that. Now listed on Etsy the first set already went for $2,50. That sounds poor but I think it’s ok for what they are and it’s a lot more than 20 cents!

Not the most spectacular examples, but these are fun for me and I would’t have sold the stuff anywhere else but on Etsy.

The Chair Lady Strikes Again

I’ve been following the big Ebay sellers blogs and they all complain about the slow season. Now I can’t compare because it’s since early August I started listing like crazy and it paid off, multiplying my usual peanuts revenue by five. September started off more or less the same, until a few days ago things seemed to have come to a halt. Then I had technical problems with Etsy, not being able to list anything…

I had started to write off my frustration here when emails and bids started to come in again and I sold two pairs of shoes and my xxxth set of chairs. I got so busy I had to leave the blog.

The morning after I dragged these in I regretted my enthusiasm a bit seeing the pretty bad state they were in. On top of the worn out upholstery one was a bit wobbly too. But the woodwork was still so lovely I hoped to find a new owner anyway, albeit at any price. Oh, hadn’t I promised myself not to bring in any more chairs? To my surprise they went after only five weeks.

Also to my surprise it was a to lady who said she loves DIY and things that look old and she bid three times the minimum I had in mind.  With that I’ve come to a daily average that’s even a bit above the one of August. It’s far from an income, but it does give hope. And Etsy was fine again this morning.

Talking chairs again I found an old one that didn’t make it to the blog yet. The fold up sort of fisherman’s stool was delivered to me by my trash picking neighbor. I listed it first in Fall 2012, my first active selling year but it had to wait till May 2013 to find a buyer. I had to look that up but I do remember it was a design student who bought the funny thing to study its construction.

Thrifted: Villeroy & Boch And Laurel Burch

I hardly ever buy to resell but here’s one exception.

I actually went to look for a teapot to design a cozy around, but all they had was an ugly thing priced 11 euro’s. Then to my surprise I saw the Villeroy & Boch coffeepot for only 2,50! Remembering we had the same shape pots when I was a little girl in the Sixties for tea and coffee in pale yellow and blue I couldn’t leave it. I’m not sure if mom had the filter top but possibly it remained in a cupboard - it was clumsy because you had to use a round piece of cotton cloth in it - after the handy paper filter bags with the plastic holders appeared.

Out of nostalgia I kept the set as a piece of décor for a long time. But in the end it got in my way so I listed it. To my disappointment the same brown Seventies pot was all over the place with the one exception that nobody else had the filter part. If only mine would have been one in those Sixties colours it would have been worth a lot more.

Still I managed to make a profit of nearly 10 euro’s. An elderly lady had broken her pot that she had used all her life and sent out her daughter to find the same model to replace it. For a not so collectible item I think it was the best I could do.

I did better on a pair of Laurel Burch earrings that my friend bought at 1 euro.  After finding out the designer is not among us anymore and her work is very sought after she gave them to me to list on Etsy. I did some research of my own first and found the cat earrings were doing around $35 on Ebay, but the exact same pair called ‘Siamese Cats’ was listed $50 on Etsy. So I put them up for $45.

Well, can you guess? Sold within eight hours! After taking off costs there was a bit over 30 euro’s left which my friend kindly split with me.

Earrings From Trash And Etsy Sale

Last time when I posted about my jewelry showcase I forgot to highlight some of the earrings I made from trash. Here they are.

A while ago I saw a pull up curtain I wasn’t interested in, but I noticed something shining half underneath. I found a chain and beads completely entangled in the pulling cord. So I quickly went in for a pair of scissors and just cut it off. The next morning it turned out to be a complete and intact charm bracelet, but I didn’t like it so I took it apart and made several pairs of earrings. All I needed was new fish wires.

Now I plan to turn that other old cutlery case into a jewelry box as well. After all bling sells better than crochet so most of its contents are now heavily discounted on Etsy. Check it out here!

Earrings

My friend rescued these from the trash in her part of town and gave them to me because one of the hooks was missing. Easy fix, simply attached two used but matching fish wires. Then listed the earrings on Etsy and sold them within a day!

Here’s another pair that I recomposed from two single cast out earrings. I had them on Etsy but you had to see them in person to fall for them, which one lady at the car boot market did.

False Hair Extensions

As I was looking for a way to display my hair accessories I dug up an old find: a thick bundle of cheap kinky false hair that the Surinam ladies in my country use for weave-ins.

It came to me in a loose braid that I redid more tightly tying it around the neck of my dress dummy.

Then turning it to the back did some experimenting yesterday.

But I wasn’t too happy with the all black background and the bottom plume where I clip the barrettes over a few strands of hair hung too low. Apart from the fact that the light in this part of my garden wasn’t cooperating.

I wanted to profit of the contrast of the white décolleté so today I tucked the top of the braid underneath the right shoulder of the jumper then swung it to the front on the other side.

Focusing on the left side of the doll, excluding her neck it just looks like she actually has a head with hair.

If you like my creations take a look at my hair accessories shop section here.

Knitting Again

I’m so happy I picked up knitting again and it feels good. I missed it, but I know I have to avoid purling because that’s what probably gave me the pain that forced me to stop and switch to crochet years ago.

But with these little bow projects there’s no need.

Also a complete bag in T-shirt yarn works up beautifully all knit.

A new stimulus to attack that enormous stash of knitwear still to unravel and T-shirts to cut up that I dragged home from the trash! Here are the red acrylic I used for my bows and some freshly cut tarn.

Now I’m so pleased because yesterday I sold my first knit bow through my Etsy shop…

and on top the lady also ordered a pair of my re-assembled earrings! First sale in months so I decided to celebrate with a coupon code for my recycling minded blog readers. Just type in LOOKWHATIFOUND and you’ll get 10% off automatically.

My Dress Dummy II And A Free Scarf Pattern

I still had to show you a better picture of my dress dummy.

Now before I give you the secrets of this lovely scarf let me tell you how I fixed the foot of the dummy. Well very simple: with a cast out old floor fan foot and an aluminium rod, probably a curtain rod. Stuck the rod in the foot and placed the dummy over it (she has a hole underneath, rod sticks through the whole body). Done!

The scarf is crocheted in a bow or net stitch consisting of 5 chains per bow, but you can vary that number as long as it's uneven. The stitch is most commonly used for triangular shawls or net bags, so I thought I'd do something different.

For this scarf I used the small batch of mohair yarn I bought at the Queen's Day Market in 2005. I used a hook number 3,5 (mm) or D (US). With ten bows per row I got a width of about 20 cm or 7.85''. But you can make this design in any gauge you like, make a swatch if you want to measure out the width exactly. The beads are plastic with large holes. A present from a friend who emptied her attic when she moved abroad.

ch: chain stitch

sc: single crochet

Ch 40 (or any number devidable by 4) + 5. Make a sc in ch 37 (so skipping 3 from the beginning point). * Ch 5, sc in the next 4th st. Repeat from * till end of row. * Turn the work, ch 5, sc under the middle ch of the previous bow. Repeat from *. Make as long as you like. Crochet one row with 3 ch (only first bow is still 5) instead of 5 to make a straight edge. Cast off and work in loose ends.

Fringes: thread 10 (or equal to the number of bows in each row) beads on your yarn. Start to work from the sc of the last row, * ch 10, pull up one bead, ch 1 around it, ch 10, sc in the next sc. Repeat from *. End in (not under, to keep it better in place) middle ch of the 5 ch bow). Repeat on other side. Note that you're working from the upside down here and your ending is in ch number 40 of your starting chain.

The non-crafty among you can purchase the scarf in my Etsy shop.

Trash For Stray Kitties

From all the books I find on the curbs there's a number I can't list in my on line shop because they don't have an ISBN or EAN number, either because they're too old or published by Time Life or Reader's Digest or such who for some reason don't have to publish under these official rules.

Which doesn't mean nobody is interested so I kept those apart for a long time, till a while ago I found an ad from a lady on a local website asking for books to sell on markets to raise funds for a foundation that neuters and feeds stray cats. We have several stray cats in the back who've been helped that way and are being fed by people at their own costs. I love cats and think it's very important to prevent more kittens from being born in the wild. It's really hard to socialize them and find homes for them. Remember Miene?

I contacted the lady and she was happy to come pick up the whole lot. I also love helping out such small foudations because I know they don't have any payed employees and every bit of my donation (even if it's not in cash) will go for 100 % to the good cause. I know larger worldwide organizations do good work and are necessary (WWF, IFAW and such), but think a part of your donation will always go to wages (and other costs).

When the lady came to my house she brought me some curb finds of her own, how cool! A vinegar and oil set in a rack and some magazines. Then seeing my work she told me she's a jewelry maker herself and later brought me beads and broken and deconstructed jewelry she had no use for. Most welcome!



Here are some necklaces I made using wax cords I got from my new trash picking friend. See my shop here if you're interested.

She may not sell all the books I gave her, maybe even just a small part. But if it's enough to neuter just one cat or buy some food I'm happy. What local group or micro-foundation do you have near you that you could help out in such a simple way?