By Jason Fitzpatrick, Lifehacker – April 25, 2010 at 03:00PM
It’s yard sale season and it’s a great time to buy entertaining essentials for cheap. Why serve your company on disposable wares when for the same expense and some yard sale hunting you could use funky china and retro glassware?
It’s that yard-sales-galore time of year again and a perfect opportunity to stock up on supplies to help you entertain this summer and throughout the year. Over at the design-on-a-dime blog I Like Merchant Ships, they’ve put together a list highlighting some of the great essentials you can pick up by shopping around at yard sales. Among their suggestions:
Mix and match dishes allow you to set an extra place (or five) without resorting to paper.
This $10 Meakin set [seen above] encouraged me to pick up blue-and-white in every pattern. White, of course, is always classic.
Napkins make any meal feel nicer. White goes with everything, but prints add fun to a basic table.
I paid 5-cents each for these restaurant napkins. I also pick up unopened packages of paper napkins to tuck in food baskets and meal deliveries.
Check out the full blog entry for tips on everything from budget friendly-seating to stocking up on throwaway containers for events where you might not want the hassle of hunting them down again—house-warming parties, funerals, etc.
Make sure to check out some of the previous resources we’ve reviewed to help you maximize your yard sale bounty, like Yard Sale Treasure Map and Gsalr. Before heading out you might also want to take a peek at the archives of our #cleveruses and #reuse tags to help you see yard sale finds in new light, like turning a beer cooler into a sous-vide cooker or a box of old slides into a privacy screen.