Summer Yard Sale, Part 1: Prep

One of my summer goals was to coordinate our neighborhood garage sale and have one myself.  In coordinating the neighborhood sale, I contacted neighbors interested in the sale, advertised on Topekagarasales.com (my favorite site for finding garage sales) and Craigslist.org, and, the focus of this post:
MADE SIGNS

I am of the firm belief that signs are key to a successful yard sale.  And there are right and wrong ways to do signs.  They should be bright with big letters that are easy to read from the road.  I decided on this cheap, easy method of sign-making that I picked up from a friend in Lawrence:

Step 1: Gather materials

• brown paper bags
• brightly colored signs with info printed on them
• packing tape
• weights for bottom
• newspaper

Step 2: Tape the signs together
Trim up the signs and use the tape to affix them to both the front and back of the brown paper bag.  (My niece helped me with this part.  She very proudly told me she was learning to use scissors! :)
**NOTE** I chose to draw the arrow in myself once the bags were made.  I'm sure you could mathematically figure out how many you needed pointing this way and that way, but this seemed easier to me!

Step 3: Place some sort of weight in the bottom.  We used landscaping rocks from our back yard.

 Step 4: Stuff the top with newspaper.  We used some from my dad's voluminous stash.

Step 5: Staple the top together!

A few other notes about signs -

1. Be sure to place them in prime locations.  I made nine signs for all intersections around our neighborhood.
2. You don't want to place your signs until the morning of.  If you are against early birds don't place your signs until you are ready to receive customers.  (Seriously, there is nothing more irritating than following a sign to a garage sale only to hear the people say, "We don't open for another half an hour." Then don't put your signs up so early!)
3. Take your signs down immediately upon closing your sale.  It's courteous to remove your signs when you're done so people aren't driving around looking for a sale that no longer exists!