swap meet

Goodness! It's been so long that I was away from my blog that I forgot about a very important post I had! Several weeks ago I coordinated a swap meet with a few ladies and we had such a great time, and I wanted so badly to tell you all about it, but then didn't have time and it slipped my mind! (Granted, my mind is rather sieve-like...). Anyway, my friend Kate suggested that I have one, I had just read about some on a couple of blogs I read, and my sister Betsy offered to let me have it at her house (since she has MUCH more room than I do). So, since it seemed like everything was clicking, I decided to go with it!

I invited lots of ladies, but only 11, including myself, were able to actually make it. That was completely fine because it made for a nice little party and we all got to go home with some pretty stinkin' cool loot!!

Here's the way it worked. In the invite, we asked the gals to please bring at least 3 items to contribute. We did specify they had to be 'home-related' items. As everyone arrived, we displayed the items on tables in my sister's basement. We had quite the variety of things...from dishcloths to glassware, candles to cookbooks, furniture to silk flowers, pillows to a really cool Eiffel Tower!!
Upstairs we had party snacks and everyone just chatted until things were ready to get started.

Then we each drew numbers.
After everyone had a number, we went in groups of 3 (first being numbers 1-3 together, then 4-6, etc.) down to make our choice. Everyone was allowed to choose one item at a time, so it was kept fair that no one grabbed all the 'good stuff' right away. We kept doing this in rounds until everyone had chosen anything they were interested in.
(And no, these gals aren't about to have a cat-fight over their finds, it's just friendly conversation! :) )

Here's someone's pile waiting to go to its new home...
The 'leftovers' - things that no one had claimed - were either allowed to go back home with the bringer, or else we would box up and donate. (Originally we were going to give it to Goodwill, but we ask around, and since no one really cared what happened with the stuff they left, we actually decided to hang on to it and we are going to have a yard sale this summer and hopefully be able to raise the rest of the money Kaitlyn needs for her missions trip to Peru in July.)

We had a lot of fun, and I think everyone was pretty pleased, not only with their new treasures, but also to unload some stuff they had sitting around and weren't using! I guess it just goes to show the old saying is true... "one man's trash is another man's treasure!". There were several friends who wanted to come but scheduling didn't permit, so we are planning on doing another one, probably sometime in the summer. It was a lot of fun...sort of like getting together for a home demonstration of some sort, except 100 times better, because no one had to spend any money!!!

One of my new friends who I met through Facebook, via a cyber-school friend, which turns out, we share an aunt, (completely unbeknownst to me, because she has an uncle who's married to my aunt...got that?) took these pics and shared them with me so I could show you. (Isn't the web a wonderful thing??) Thanks Julie!