As each of the boys has grown and we've cleaned out their too-small items, I've put them giant storage containers in the attic. On the outside of each container, I write the size and season of the clothes inside. This system worked well, because once the next-younger boy in line got to the next size, I could pull down the container, and "go shopping" in the hand-me-down box.
But Micah is our youngest. And now he's wearing a size 10-12. That means I have boxes of still-good clothes from three months up to size 8-10 in the attic. And no more sons to wear them. Most of my friends' kids are the same ages as my sons, and my cousin who recently had a baby has a girl. I could just donate all the clothes to a thrift shop, but I've covered a number of giant consignment sales, where Moms have made some pretty good money selling their children's outgrown clothes. And each time I cover those sales, I've said to myself – and to Amy Brenholts, my videographer – I really should try it myself. So that's what I'm doing. Whatever doesn't sell will be donated to charity, so it seems like a good deal all around.
I signed up to participate in the upcoming Just Between Friends sale in Oaks, Pa. The sale takes place April 15-18, 2010. Just Between Friends also has an upcoming sale in Reading, Pa. from April 29-May 2, 2010. And they have a sale in Glen Mills, Pa., from April 9-11, 2010. Another giant consignment sale will be run by The Clothing Tree in Richlandtown, Pa., from March 12-16, 2010. You can see what a sale like this looks like by checking out this story.
The first step in getting ready for the sale was to pick the best of the Spring and Summer items in my hand-me-down containers. The sales won't accept anything that's missing a button, has even the tiniest of stains or other imperfections. Basically, any item I wouldn't want to buy myself, I put in a donation pile. Fall and Winter items have to be held until the next sale. The rest, I readied for pricing, by hanging them on hangers and sorting them by size.
The next step is pricing. When I signed up for the sale, I was given a consigner number. I used this to log onto the sale's tagging software. It was really pretty easy. For each item, I entered the size, a description and the price I thought it should sell for. Once I entered about 40 items, I printed out bar-coded price tags, which I pinned on. I'm considering getting a tagging gun, since the safety pins were a bit difficult to handle, but since I'm trying not to spend too much on this little adventure, I may just gut it out. So far, my only monetary expenditure has been $15 for cardstock to print the price tags on. (Regular paper is too flimsy). I had plenty of hangers and safety pins at home.
It has also taken a fair amount of time. But all those clothes weren't doing me any good up in the attic and I'd have to sort through them before donating them anyway, so I haven't found that overwhelming. I have about ten more boxes to go through. My hope is to sort, hang, price and tag one box each weekend between now and the sale.
The sale does have a tagging service, so that you can just gather up your items and another Mom will price them for you. In return, you get a smaller split of the price.
The sale also takes items like baby gear (I've already given that away) and toys. Although I definitely have toys that I could sell, I don't want to take on too much, so I might wait and sell toys in the Fall/Winter sale.
I'll keep you posted on my efforts, and, of course, I'll report on how the sale goes and what my take is when it's all done. In the meantime, go to the websites I've listed if you're interested in selling, tagging, or just shopping once the sales begin to get all the information you need.
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