* Another great place to source... your own home!

During this past winter, the garage sales were hard to find and the thrift stores are getting pricey so my pile of items to list and sell on eBay grew very thin. I still have the inherited china in my attic but I am only ready to sell a few of those pieces here and there.

My "formal" living room is now my eBay store and photography studio. Although never used, it was decorated but as eBay started taking over, my furniture left the house, one piece at a time, and the knick-knacks went into cupboards.

One day as I was looking for something in one of those cupboards, I stumbled across a lidded glass jar that I used as a candy dish at one time. I have fond memories of helping myself to Hershey's Kisses from one that my aunt had on one of her end tables. When I was decorating my first house back in 1989, that glass jar was one of the items purchased to decorate my fancy living room. It used to contain Werther's toffee candy.

Anyway, I have been slowly building my research library and had recently purchased a few of the Gene Florence glass reference books. Since I didn't really like the candy jar that much, I took it out of the cupboard and sat down with my new books to see if I could identify the pattern. What do you know? I found it - the Elaine pattern by Cambridge Glass Co. I then looked it up on replacements.com (I use them for pricing strategies) and discovered that they called it an ice bucket (I later found out that it was actually a biscuit jar). Theirs was listed without lid for $219.00!!! Mine had a lid!!!

HAPPY DANCE!!

I started it at $99.00 and immediately got bids. The auction ended at a whopping $1338.19!

Who knew? My little nephew used to go into that candy jar all the time when he came to visit. After the auction was over, I was so afraid that when I took it out to wrap and pack I would find a major flaw. But it was in perfect condition (whew!), the buyer paid right away and was very happy when they received it.

With that kind of score, you would think that I would clean out every closet and cupboard in my house. I haven't done that (even a $1300 score can't motivate me to clean closets ;0) ) but last week I did sell some bedding that I bought a few years ago and never even took out of the package. My own dinner set was built by pieces I picked up each week at the grocery store over 20 years ago. I sold all of the cup and saucer sets last year. That dinner set is Churchill's Blue Willow made in England.

My closets and cupboards still need a good cleaning and spring is here so you never know. Happy hunting...