Pictured Indy, me, and Mor Mor (my mom)

Welcome to Lynn’s Latest #15…

April 23, 2020
Watch for it every Thursday or every OTHER Thursday!
Volume I  Issue 15

 

Today is my nephew Zach’s 14th Birthday!  He is such an awesome kid and we miss him and his brother so much!  They are social distancing in Oregon with their Dad.  Hopefully, this will be over soon and they can visit us this summer. Fingers Crossed!  My sister would be so proud of you Zach!

So, it’s a new week!  How are y’all doing out there in sequesterville?  We are hanging in there, but we have had quite a few FUN distractions!

Speaking of birthdays, it was Indy’s boyfriend’s (Brandon’s) birthday back on April 6th when he turned….drum roll please….21!  We weren’t able to celebrate with him then, but knew that he would be in Ventura on Saturday, April 18th for our celebration!

Indy and I brainstormed on how we could make it super special.  We had recently celebrated both Emma’s and her 21st birthdays and let me tell you…they were epic!  But we weren’t being quarantined then.  Indy and Brandon met on the Pepperdine Buenos Aires Summer program last summer and one of their favorite places to go was a bar named Chupitos.

Indy and I decided to recreate Chupitos in our barn.  The “mini” barn is in our backyard and houses a bunch of my eBay overstock.  It was a mess!  I will now share some photos of the barn through the years.  Here is it before we moved in and I was showing it to Indy, Carmen, Noel, Houston, and my mom.

Here is the barn after I had moved in a TON of boxes and my friend Tiki Jason came to visit.  He and I have been friends for over 20 years.  How is that even possible?

Jason sells on eBay as TikiPugMusic.  Check him out!

Jason sells Hawaiiana, Tiki Mugs, and CDs/LPs.  Here is one of his recent scores!  Sold for $81.99.  I LOVE the background he uses to photograph his Tikis.

OK!  Back to the barn.  When the Woolsey fires shut down Pepperdine two Thanksgivings ago, I ended up hosting a ton of the Theatre kids at my house.  Here they are hanging in the barn.  From left to right, Joe’s brother (name unknown LOL), Indiana, Houston, Emma, Julian, Joe, Bailey, and Julia.

To turn the barn into Chupitos, Indiana and I ordered a ton of red mini lights and some LED lights that would change color for around the top edges.  We also cleaned it up A LOT with Houston and Emma’s help.  We also printed out faux currency from around the world and ordered clothespins.  It was a family project!  Here is a screenshot of what the actual Chupitos looks like.

Here is what it looked like before Brandon arrived.  Pretty fun huh?  Houston had had his train set up in the barn for the past two Christmases so we left it.  I think it adds to the festive vibe.

Before we get to the actual birthday celebration (which btw Brandon said was the best Birthday of his life!) let’s check out eBay for some more good news.  That “make offer” tool is still working like CRAZY for us.  I am so grateful for our eBay sales during this time of closure for the store.  I sent an offer for $250 on this patch box that belonged to my grandmother.

The buyer countered with $188.05 and I accepted.  By reading my grandmother’s code on the base of the box (I will never tell the secret formula), she had paid $44.50 for it in 1974 and purchased it from her good friend Martha.  For some reason, it is really comforting for me to see my grandmother’s handwriting.  Does that make sense?

But not a very good ROI on this purchase.  She usually did much better than that. I did some quick calculations and that $44.50 in today’s dollars would be worth $247.52.  So not too far off, but about $60 short of what it should have been worth with inflation…… In any event, the patch box is going back to Washington state where it had lived with my grandmother for many years.

Do you know what a patch box is?  I was hoping that one of my stories from my “100 Best” books would tell you, but no….I am going to share a story that talks about patch boxes, but I never explain what they are.  Darn it!

So here goes, a patch box is usually a small decorative box used to hold black patches.  These black patches were used much like a beauty mark on the faces of Victorian women to draw attention to their best features.  For example, you may put one close to your eyes if they are exceptionally pretty or next to your mouth.  Crazy!  Huh?

And now here is story #35 from “Money Making Madness” that talks about patch boxes (without a definition ugh!).

Time to talk about what is going on at the store!  Lots of cleaning, sorting, rearranging, pricing, and reordering all in anticipation of opening soon!  Fingers crossed.  We have also been working super hard out in our new “She Shed” putting together outdoor vignettes.  Again, for any of you out and about, if you time it right you may be able to drive by and take a peek from your car.  We will definitely be working on it this Friday.  Here is a sneak peek.  I LOVE the way it is turning out.

Here is another shot of some of our hipster outdoor furniture.  LOL!  Can’t wait to fill up those shelves with fun stuff!

Now for an update on that furniture that Peggy has been painting. I LOVE how this little cabinet turned out in Chateau Grey. It will be finished soon (waxed and hardware put back on) and priced in the store at $195.

Don’t forget that you can always order your paint supplies on our website, by text at 760-880-3535 or by phone at 805-628-3289. We are offering curbside pickup and free delivery in Ventura. You have no excuse to not start that project! LOL! Thank you to all of you who have placed orders! I really appreciate it!

Shop Annie Sloan Here
https://lynnsconsignment.ricoconsign.com/store/category/Annie%20Sloan?sort=HL

We will be fully stocked. An Annie Sloan order is arriving Friday. For those of you who haven’t tried her gilding waxes, I highly encourage you to give them a shot. They are incredible and the small tube goes a long way!

We also received an Iron Orchid Design order this past Friday.  We are now fully stocked on all things IOD, including all of their wonderful floral transfers.  Check some of them out here.  You can shop them online in our webstore here.

My mom and her friends haven’t seen each other in weeks so they decided to have a “sad” hour.  The opposite of a “happy” hour since they had to stay 6 feet apart.  Here they are (my mom, Anita, and Isabella) in Anita’s driveway having some snacks and wine.  Gotta love their ingenuity!

Let’s get back to eBay.  Seriously, that “send offer” tool has changed my eBay business for the better.  It is doing what “markdown manager” used to do for us in the old days.   Because of the increase in our shipments, and Cindy and me going in on Mondays to work, we are now slated to get our “Top Rated Seller” status back during our next review.  Whooooopppppeeeee!

With my new outlook on eBay (Thanks to Jordan Sweetnam new SVP of eBay) we had our first Queen’s Court call yesterday since we stopped doing them back in August of 2018.  More on that later in the ezine.  Crazy!  Here I am at eBay’s 20th birthday party back in 2015 with Jordan.

Thank you to all of you who watched Indy perform Live with Pepperdine! Here is more info about the show……

In a special performance hosted in collaboration with the Pepperdine University Office of the President, students, faculty, and staff of the Seaver College Fine Arts Division will unite Waves around the world for an evening of art, music, and fellowship. For one night only, the Pepperdine community is invited to come together to enjoy dynamic presentations of art history, theatre, guitar, and the vocal arts led by a lineup of Pepperdine’s best and brightest performers.

Here is Indy getting ready for her live performance. Check out how Emma is walking away with Carlos after the little guy gave her a good luck smooch. LOL!

Here is the title screen right before she comes on!

For those of you who missed it, you can watch it here.  She is introduced at minute 37:00 by Professor Hollace Starr.

Here she is doing her thing!  She cracks me up!

If it is too hard to wade through the entire Pepperdine Performance, they had her do a pre-recorded monologue just in case there were problems with the live feed. You can view that here.

Let’s share another eBay score, because, why not? I used the “send offer” feature again and it sure did work again. These sold for over $80! Check out these tumblers here. I paid $1 each. Now, that is a great ROI (Return on Investment), and thank you Grandma & USC for teaching me about that concept!

Don’t forget that we are still working on getting most of the store’s furniture up on the website.  This way you can shop from home!

AND in super exciting news!  We sold our first piece of furniture from the Website today!  Thank you, Amanda!

The website is looking awesome and when you click on an item it will tell you how many are available, and sometimes even the dimensions….check out the Furniture here.

https://lynnsconsignment.ricoconsign.com/store/category/Furniture?sort=HL

In my last newsletter, some of the links were not working.  I will share a corrected link here so that you can check out this Butch Cassidy and Sundance Sheet Music.  Did you not love that movie?

Raindrops

I love this new graphic!  Thank you, Robin!  How many of you noticed that there is a cat with ears in the C?

Here is Carlos just being his darling little self during his daily “cat nap”  LOL!

Here is Carlos chilling on Brandon’s Birthday presents….waiting for the Birthday boy to arrive!

Here is Carlos chilling in Brandon’s arms, once that Birthday Boy arrived!  Apparently, Carlos really likes Brandon :)!

OK!  Enough about cute Carlos….time to tell you how Brandon’s 21st Birthday played out.

Once he arrived, we had him open his gifts.  He got a lot of really cool stuff…including a crown and a birthday sash.  Before we took him into the “faux” Chuptias Bar N, we headed down to the beach to order take-out dinner.  This also gave us a chance to parade him around a bit in his crown & sash.

Once we grabbed our pickup/takeout dinner, it was time to take Brandon to the next Birthday “event”.  This would involve a blindfold and Houston driving all over to confuse him.  Houston and Indy did such a great job even stopping at red lights that didn’t exist and getting on the freeway.  We didn’t want Brandon to know we were taking him back to the house.  Here is Indy putting the blindfold on Brandon and Houston looking like a bank robber in his mask.  And we were in my dad’s car……awwwwww!  I miss my dad.  When he passed away he left his Mercedes Sedan to Houston.  I LOVE riding in this car!

Next stop, Houston dressed as a Bouncer and carded Brandon before his entry into Chupitos…now known as the Bar N.  Lol!  Unfortunately, even with the blindfold on, Brandon recognized Houston’s voice.

Here are the kids behind the bar making shots.  Sandy even stopped by to bring Brandon a present.  Soooo sweet!  We had Kamikazes, Lemon Drops and Irish Car Bombs.

The next event for Brandon was a pinata.  Indy and I bought it at the $1 store and filled it with a bunch of crazy candy.  Check out that swing!

Such a fun celebration!  And it continued the next day with Bagels from Bagelicious.  Then it was Slip-n-Slide time.  Our backyard has become a summer paradise (since we can’t go anywhere….like to the beach).

Carlos was soooooo freaked out by the slip-n-slide….can you blame him?  That he curled up next to me on the swing and took a little nap.  How cute is he?  He has to be part of all the festivities.  Love the harness that we got for him at the Wharf. I need to get in there and buy a bigger one since this one is getting too small.  However, the only color they had in Medium was Hot Pink and I just don’t see him as a Hot Pink kind of guy.  Do you?

The last event for Brandon’s epic 24-hour birthday shindig was for the kids to hop in the Jacuzzi.  I had bought this blow-up Jacuzzi a year ago for my nephews and we never got around to putting it together.  Houston worked on it for several days and I must say it is AWESOME!  We love it!

And that was a wrap!  Brandon headed back to San Gabriel and told Indiana it was the best birthday he had ever had!  Aaaaawwwwwww.

Sorry, but in the last ezine, the link to the Patagonia jacket didn’t work. So here it is again for you to check out.

Here is a photo of the store all cleaned up and ready for you to shop!  Can’t wait to see you all here someday SOON!

With so much time on my hands and eBay performing so well, we decided to bring the Queen’s Court together for a Zoom call.  I started the Queen’s Court back in 2007.  At one point we had hundreds of members who would post on the forums and meet monthly for a Queen’s Court voice-only call with Questions and Scores.  It is currently running as Queen’s Court Lite with the forums open and I am so happy about that!  Check us out on the Zoom Call that we had yesterday.  It was sooooo much fun to see these smiling faces. And so much better than a voice-only call!  I could even share my computer screen!

A lot of great scores were shared on that call!  Here is one from Marsha…you won’t believe what this wooden puzzle sold for and it got 16 bids.  Check it out!  Marsha bought a box of these old wooden puzzles (circa the 1930s) for not much money and hauled them from Pennsylvania to Texas.  With shelter in place, puzzles are a hot seller!

OK!  One last photo of Houston, Emma, and Carlos playing Corn Hole in our backyard oasis.  Seriously, this looks like a Ralph Lauren Home Photo to me….or am I delusional from sheltering in place?

One last potential eBay score.  When we cleaned out the barn, I found a HUGE box of Brenthaven computer bags.  Brenthaven is a Bellingham Company and their products are amazing.  About 10 years ago I bought $8,000 worth of their overstocks and have been selling them online ever since.  For some reason, I still had some left and I am excited to get them listed.  Here is one of them. Check it out.

Again…..A Happy New Decade from Lynn’s Consignments team to you and your family!   Just so you know, this will get better.  This too shall pass.  God has got this.  We hope to see you soon!

Pictured…Emma, Steve, Indy, me, Cindy, Joanne & Val! I Miss You, People!

Thanks for reading my ezines! I appreciate it….as always!

eBay with Heart & Design with Heart……Lynn

 

P.S.  All of the professional photos I use on Instagram, Facebook, and in these newsletters were taken by my friend Denise’s daughter, Jaclyn Sabo.  She is amazing!   To learn more about Jaclyn….https://www.jaclynszabo.com/

P.P.S.  If you have a friend who wants to sign up for this newsletter.