Recent Ebay Sales - 4/30/14

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't blogged in a few days. I went to the doctor's yesterday and my spinal stimulator trial is set for June 10. The trial is a small procedure done in the hospital. We are hoping this will help with my RSD knee pain.

We have started to look at personal care homes (sometimes called assisted living homes or nursing homes) for my father-in-law. He isn't at that point just yet but it is getting close. 

Here are some of this week's sales: 

1. Peruvian Connection sz XS knit sweater with a small flaw, sold for $35. 

2. Athleta slub knit top, sold for $27 to a buyer in Canada. 

3. J. Crew tweed mini skirt, sold for $20. 

4. Levi's blue men's pants, sold for $20. 

5. My last pair of colored men's Levis, sold for $20. I purchased a ton of these for 70 cents to $3 at TJ Maxx last month. Almost all of them went overseas.

6. Vera Bradley on the go in Mocha Rouge, sold for $40. (Thanks Mom!)

7. Vera Bradley for Uniqlo t-shirt, sold for $35. I purchased these for myself on the Uniqlo website for $20. I received them and they were too big. Resold for a few dollars profit instead of returning them which would have cost me shipping. 

8. Talbots pencil skirt, sold for $20. 

9. Ralph Lauren lot of 18 metal crest buttons, sold for $28. 

10. Aventura casual dress, sold for $20. 

11. J. Crew black tweed dress, sold for $20. 

12. Carole Little rayon skirt, sold for $20. 

13. New Larry Levine pants & jacket suit, sold for $38. 

14. Talbots butterfly silk skirt, sold for $25. 

15. Light blue plus-sized romper, sold for $20. Purchased for $2 at a local thrift. This thrift opened just 7 minutes from my home last week. It is super clean, cheap and organized but the brand names aren't the best.

16. Ralph Lauren yellow men's top, sold for $21.50. Purchased for $1 at the same local thrift. 

17. Population ivory knit long sweater, sold for $20. 

18. Brown Merrell used shoes, sold for $25. 

My average sale is still around $20-$21. I pay an average of $3 for my inventory. Thankfully there is no clothing tax here in PA. After ebay & paypal fees, gas and other deductions, I make about $13 per piece. Right now I am down to under 200 items in my ebay store. Yikes!

Zebra Party

One of my closest church friend asked me to help with a surprise party for her daughter. Of course I said YES! The theme was zebra print & hot pink. I made the cakes, cookies and cupcakes.

I forgot my camera and so I apologize for the blurry cell phone photos. 

Rosette cupcakes are SO easy!

Zebra sugar cookies & Hershey's kisses drop cookies

The birthday girl's gift: a gift card & fake stick-on mustaches which were a BIG hit

Taylor's cake

The cupcake tower was purchased on Amazon for $30
and it was trimmed in dollar store zebra ribbon

Chocolate fountain with marshmallows, strawberries, homemade pound cake,
potato chips, Oreos and pretzels. Yum!

The party was in our church's sanctuary

I wore black & white stripes to match the theme!
Thanks to the hubby who thought to take a photo of me before we ran out the door.

Recent Ebay Sales - 4/22/14

I haven't listed anything in quite some time and I am going to try to  fix that later today.

Here are a few of this week's sales: 

1. Ralph Lauren patch off a flawed jacket. It kills me to cut off the buttons & patch but they do better on their own if the item is flawed. The patch sold for $40. 

2. Calvin Klein ikat print dress, sold for $30. 

3. Puma emerald green ballet flats, purchased at TJ Maxx on clearance for $11 and sold for $30. Good thing these weren't my size or they would have been in my closet. Love them!

4. Moda International (Victoria's Secret catalog brand) smocked dress or skirt, sold for $20. 

5. Laura Ashley purple floral dress, sold for $45. A husband bought this dress to surprise his wife who gave up Ebay for Lent. How sweet!

6. Laura Ashley blue corduroy floral dress, sold for $40. 

7. Laura Ashley red corduroy floral dress, sold for $50. 

8. Yoana Baraschi turquoise skirt, sold for $37. Let's hope she pays. I'm a bit concerned about this one. 

9. Talbots brown linen skirt in a petite size, sold for $20. 

10. Too Faced eye shadow palette, sold for $30. I received this in my Popsugar Must Have box this month. I paid $35 for the box (I had a $5 off coupon) and so this paid for almost my entire box!

Also sold from the Popsugar box was the necklace for $15. So that means I basically got two tea towels (which are also for sale on ebay), a huge eco shopper tote (also listed on ebay since I use & love my Trader's Joes shoppers), a journal (also listed on ebay), fancy hand soap (it is going to be my secret sister's May gift) and a bag of trail mix for free. I love that! 

11. The brand "Be Bop" animal print plus sized top, sold for $25. 

12. Bare Escentuals Bare Minerals brush set, purchased from their website for $12 and sold for $20. The profits paid for a mascara & lip set for me. 

13. Ann Taylor LOFT black & tan wrap dress in a tiny size, sold for $20. 

14. Wen cleansing conditioner in pomegranate, sold for $25. 

15. Tracy Reese Plenty dress, sold for $35. This dress was originally sold at Anthropologie but not all Tracy Reese items were so make sure you check before listing. 

Baking (lots of photos)

This week has been busy. My father-in-law was back in the hospital. He was home for five days before we took him back. Thankfully he wasn't admitted. 

My knee is on hold for a few days. I have an appointment on Tuesday with my pain doctor. We are going to try a spinal stimulus trial which should be scheduled for the next few weeks. 

I have done a lot of baking this week and have a lot left. We dropped off cookie packages to our neighbors earlier this week. I have tried to do this for each holiday for the last 12 years. This year's Easter packages weren't as fancy since I cannot stand for any length of time. But I got them done!

Easter cookies - white chocolate macadamia nut sandwiches & double chocolate chip

Today I had one of my best church friends come over. Her daughter is turning 16 on Monday and it is a surprise party at our church. She asked me to help with the cupcakes. The theme was hot pink & zebra and I love how the cupcakes turned out. 

I found these on Pinterest - Divide white cake batter in two bowls and dye one hot pink. Then make chocolate cake mix. 

My friend had given me cupcake wrappers earlier in the week. I used 10 drops of the pink food color from the Neon dye.

Carefully spoon the batter in the cupcake papers. I did chocolate, then pink, then chocolate, then white, etc. Spoon each color in the center of the last so it spreads to the sides.  

I used a knife to drag through the mixture before I put them in the oven. 

The baked cupcakes were really pretty. 

They are a bit more time consuming but worth it for a themed party. 80 of them took me about 3 hours to do including bake time.

This was one of my earlier batches before I adjusted and put chocolate in between each layer so the white & pink were more divided. 

I used the Wilton 2D closed flower tip to make these rosettes on top. The icing went SO fast compared to baking them. You can YouTube rosette cupcakes to watch exactly how to do this.

My friend forgot to bring the shortening and milk today and so I made the icing from water, powered sugar and butter. They are SO sweet but we didn't have any other choice. My nearest grocery store would be a 1/2 hour round trip and I didn't have any choice.

After she left I made two cakes. One for her daughter turning 16 (Taylor) and another for her daughter turning 8 (Megan). 

This icing is also the powdered sugar and butter mixture. The kids are going to be bouncing off the walls!

The black stripes were from a tub of buttercream fondant I purchased last year at TJ Maxx on clearance for $3. It is easy to use and tastes much better than normal fondant. 

I hand painted the zebra with black Wilton food gel (thanks Amazon) and a tiny paint brush.

Megan loves the movie Frozen and I wanted to do something different for her. I am going to attempt an Olaf fondant character a bit later today but here is what the cake looks like right now. 

Before adding Olaf - scroll down for the finished cake

I iced the cake twice with white icing and then glazed the top to give it a frozen look. Mix two drops of blue with a bit of water and use a foam paint brush to paint on the color. 

Before adding Olaf

Thank goodness for buttercream fondant and cookie cutters!

Tomorrow I am going to make the gluten-free Easter egg cookies for children's church on Sunday. I am teaching ages 2-7 and we usually have about 40 kids in the group for the holidays. 

And then I am making zebra cut out cookies for Taylor's birthday. Stayed tuned for more photos!  

Update: Here is the (almost) finished Frozen cake. I have to re-plump Olaf's head since I squished it when I put a toothpick through it. But I can do that tomorrow.