Ah, the song said it so well. Whether you call it a yard sale or a garage sale is largely dependent on your region. Around here it bounces back and forth between garage sale and yard sale. But if you’ve ever watched Martha Stewart, up in Connecticut they call them tag sales.

Then of course in the mid-west they are sometimes called rummage sales, and churches frequently call them white elephant sales.

There are some definite advantages to actually holding your sale in a garage: you are sheltered from the effects of mother nature and if you’re having the sale inside you don’t have to worry about rain, which can be a problem in hurricane country! Plus you can set up ahead of time, and not have to worry about getting up at the crack of dawn to set out your merchandise. So a “garage” sale will keep you from singing the title line in that song, “Let’s call the whole thing off.”

Of course, one of the benefits to the shorter words like “Yard Sale” or “Tag Sale” is that they fit better on signs. And readable signs are important! So important that we have two articles about how to make good garage sale signs.

So whether you’re searching for maps to yard sales, garage sales, or tag sales, or if you want to advertise your yard sale for free, you’ve come to the right place!

• Print your signs on bright yellow or lime green paper. These nearly-neon colors stands out better than white and are still high contrast for easy readability. Download and use the signs I’ve included or type up the information in your word processor, then you can print on the bright paper using your inkjet or laser printer. Contrast is the name of the game, here. No dark colored paper!

Tip: laser printer/copier toner doesn’t run in the rain, so if you live in a rainy area and don’t have a laser printer, consider printing one copy of your sign in black ink on white paper and have it photocopied onto bright paper.

• Staple your bright, easy-to-read sign to cardboard for stability. Or, lacking cardboard, fold the top and bottom edges 1/4″ down, then 1/4″ down again–you’ll be amazed at the stability this
  adds to the paper.
• If you need to put a sign on a corner where you can’t plant a stake in the ground or tape it to a pole (in some areas you can be fined for attaching a sign to a pole), staple your bright sign to a large cardboard box. Put the box on the corner where you want it to be seen and load it with rocks or bricks to hold it in place.
• Look for unclaimed election signs and re-use these for mounting your garage sale signs. (In my area candidates have 9 days after an election to retrieve their signs, after that, they’re fair game.) These are wonderful because the ones they use here are made of wire and stick into the ground in a snap, no need for stakes & a sledgehammer.
• Arrows! Make sure you have a large obvious point on your arrows, otherwise it just looks like a line from a distance.
• If you live well off the beaten path, consider just using arrows for the intermittent signs (to tell drivers to keep going in the same direction–if they need to turn, use a whole sign so it doesn’t get missed). Print the arrows on the SAME COLORED PAPER as your signs so people can identify them easily. You can print about 6-8 arrows per sheet. (see above tip about arrows)
• Don’t try to put too much on your sign. “Yard Sale” (or whatever is typical for your area) on one or two lines, the date(s) & the times, the address is optional–it’s usually too small to read when printed on an 8-1/2×11″ sheet of paper anyway. Make the type as large as will fit on your paper. To avoid having to print signs with arrows pointing opposite directions, use a black permanent marker to draw arrows on the signs. (see above tip about arrows)
• Be polite and take your signs down after your sale is over.

These downloads are in PDF format:
If you need a reader, please visit Adobe.

Basic sign with the arrow pointing LEFT

Basic sign with the arrow pointing RIGHT

Sheet of Arrows