Ronald McDonald House Sale 2011

Now kids, before we jump right into the RMD sale, let me show you a few things I got at a sale a few weeks ago. It was a church sale that I'd never been to before (!!). I believe it was "Our Lady of Mercy" which is a lot better than "Our Lady of Eternal Sorrows and Sad Orphan Kids Out In The Snow" which I'm sure is a very happening parish around here somewhere. It was a rather sizable sale and I ended up getting a lot of good things for my Etsy shop. I only bought two things just for me, though.

Now, just in case you are looking at this chick and thinking that you could use a little Pepto Bismol to accompany the stomach ache that comes with staring at this shade of pink for too long, let me just enumerate the ways in which this pink easter chick rocks. 1- Pink, 2-Yarn, 3-Chick, 4-Wearing a hat, 5-The hat has flowers, 6-craft, 7-felt, 8-price (50 cents!!) 9-Yarn (yes, it counts twice!) and finally 10-Pink Yarn Easter Chick Craft Wearing a Hat with Flowers in it and having Felt Wings which are so adorable and the whole thing makes me want to cry with joy. I'm glad you see it my way.


See? I told you that you'd find pieces of silver (these for 25 cents each!) if you kept your eyes open! It seems like I find silver spoons the most. (Ooh! Silver Spoons!) Which is kind of ironic if you think about it since, you know, not everyone is born with one in their mouth, supposedly.

I'm currently knee deep in stalking this blog. Her paper flowers are swoon worthy, I'm telling you. I got all kinds of inspired and did a craft project! That hasn't happen in ages and I'm loving the result. Looka this! Wowzers. Can you believe these were originally coffee filters? Yeah, I know, right??

OK, I'm done with the catch up stuff. Now it's time for the main event. The Ronald McDonald House Sale. It only comes once a year and it's like Christmas, a marathon and a really great one night stand all rolled into one. Let me start by saying: Holy Crap. The line this year was worse than I've ever seen. Stretching on into oblivion. Everyone and their mother's dog donated this year, must be. Honestly. And it was raining. It took us 25 minutes to get in the door from where we were in line. It "stretched all the way to Terre Haute!" Wish I would have gotten a picture for ya, but you know how I get. The husband texted me just as I was entering the building, admonishing me to please "not buy anything back that you just donated". Smarty pants.

As I'm sure you surmised from the name of this post, all the money from this sale goes to the Ronald McDonald House Charities. It's amazing. People donate all of the items and then come back and buy other people's items and it must be a huge sum of money because it goes on for four days. Everyone knows it's best to donate and get your golden ticket to the pre-sale. Wednesday night. 4-8 pm. I learned my lesson well. Bring a snack and wear a tank top. It's so hot in there, no matter what it's doing outside. Hundreds and hundreds of panicked people trying to get the good stuff before other people get the good stuff. We all assume we have the same idea of good stuff. Obviously all the people are headed straight to the holiday decor made out of yarn, plastic and glitter!

I started in the Christmas section even though I really wanted to start in purses. The sale was in a different location this year and wasn't set up in it's normal pattern. So, I just had to go with the flow. I'm awesome at that, so it added another layer of stress/sweat. All told we were there for three and a half hours. I had rope burn on the inside of one of my hands from carrying a heavy bag with raffia handles. I didn't get to see everything/area. Then we gathered just down the road from the sale site at Rohrbach's for dinner. It was amazing. I came away with less than $30 worth of items in two giant bags. Let me show you:


Adorable Santa head mug with tiny candle: 25 cents, white ceramic teapot $3, vintage pepper shaker $4. I've been looking for just the right teapot all summer long. Turns out basic white is the perfect one for me.


Shazam! I must have been the first person in the Easter section! Because otherwise, obviously, these guys would have been snapped up. Look at that cute little couple of bunnies in the yarn basket. I mean! Come on now. It's been proven time and again that I can't resist yarn nor felt. If I was a super hero they would be my Kryptonite. Along with glitter. And plastic. 50 cents. The ceramic bunny pulling the egg cart (which is actually a legitimate antique stamped "Germany" and doesn't have yarn, glitter OR plastic) was 50 cents. Tiny plastic flocked chick, 50 cents. The corn handles are for the husband. A quarter for the whole set!


OK, now. Firstly I'd like to say that the little nudie angel isn't for me. It's to add to Sarah Mae's disturbing herd of freak babies. $1.50, which is too much to spend on a nude angel baby, but you do these kinds of things for your friends. The tall red one is for...I'm not sure yet. I sort of want to keep her, maybe? She's just so original and adorable. I can't find a maker tag on her anywhere. Her shoes and socks are molded plastic. $1.50 Now, the Christmas-ish mouse and baby I vaguely remember holding in my hand and being all kinds of distracted by the amount of things I still had to look at and the amount of things I already had ready to purchase. It was in this existential crisis that I must have put the mouse in my bag to purchase. I was totally surprised to find her in there today when I finally unpacked. 25 cents.


Goblet for a friend, $1. Set of 7 gold drink glasses for a newly married couple, 50 cents each. Plastic deer for a friend, 75 cents.

The first piece of my Boushh outfit! $1.50

And for all you fans of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia...AN ACTUAL KITTEN MITTEN! $1.50

Ronald McDonald Sale

Apparently it's nearly November. I'm not sure how that happened so fast. I guess we just kept super busy. My butt print is starting to fade from my spot on the couch. It's making me nervous. I need some good couch time, stat!

We (Me, HB, Alicia and April) went to the Ronald McDonald House sale two weeks ago. It's also called the ABC sale, for what reason I've yet to comprehend. All of the workers are volunteers and all of the money goes to the Ronald McDonald House Charities. You know how a good cause gets me, every time! Plus, if you donate goods to the sale you get to shop a full day earlier than the general public! We always donate. We always get dibs. This is the first year that we were shopping only for ourselves. That made it a lot easier and less stressful.

I headed to holiday first, where they were playing Christmas music. It was set up much nicer this year in that you could go around either end of each row. The rows were not butted up against a wall this year. So, there were less deaths. I found some amazing plastic foliage. Blue plastic poinsettias and leaves with blue glitter, pink plastic metallic sheen holly and silver metallic plastic ferns. If these colors don't make you want to cry, I can't help you. Because there is no help for you.

You will also see one eyeball ornament and one pumpkin ornament. These were a quarter each and covered with those tiny clear beads that look like ice or glitter. The middle vase is also new. I believe it was 50 cents. I bought two bags of plastic foliage at $2.50 per bag. Let's take another look, shall we?


Ahhh...that's the stuff. What could be better? Oh, that's right. Flocked white paper holly with red berries and multi-colored glitter. That's what!! It came in one of the bags for $2.50. Amazing. I'm going to have to hide this from certain people, lest it disappear on me. I know that some of you are thinking, "Sweet Jesus, I'd steal it just to put it out of it's misery." To you I say: Phooey. This shit is awesome. And you're probably just jealous. Or maybe you were never hugged as a child.

Boom, baby.


The large frame was $2 and the smaller was $1. I also found this other nifty wooden frame for $2 and some gorgeous milliners flowers for $2.50. The small bunny doodad was $1. I wrapped it up all nicey-nice in tissue paper and brought it down to my Easter storage bin, moved some bins out of the way, lost my balance and smashed the cute rabbit with another bin. I think I might be able to save it with some super glue action.

I saved the best for last! I wandered into the purse section without direction or a sense of real hope. I stumbled upon some gems and if there had been less people in that small area, I would have looked at every last one of them and probably come home with a carload full of purses. I believe the white patent leather purse was $1 and the crazy 60's daisy clutch was too. The other tiny white clutch with speckles was 50 cents as was the aqua and gold glasses case which I am most certainly using as a tiny clutch. Note to self: Next year start with purses.

Nick and I participated in the First Annual Rochester Tweed Ride. It was a gorgeous fall day, not too cold at all and no rain! There were around 30 people there, dressed in varying degrees of commitment. Who do you think won Most Dapper Chap? That's right! I'm married to the most dapper chap. He was certainly dapper. The only one wearing actual knickers. (that we made from ladies pants) Unfortunately, he had to stop to sell some pape's and soak a few scabbers for Crutchie.


I settled on a skirt and jacket and the hat was the belle of the ball. I like the jacket quite a lot and may wear it in real life. I wasn't wearing heels, however, so avert your eyes. Try not to look directly at the cankles. They'll turn you to stone.


This weekend we are doing both the Dome Sale and the Craft Antique Co-Op. On Saturday. A marathon of sale-ing. But sometimes, you just have to take one for the team. The 'team' in this case being your ill concealed addiction to sales.