Thrifting around my Home

I've been doing some work on my blog and so I have to go back and look at it a lot. And I was pretty sick of looking at that big red fish monstrosity from my last post!

So I thought I'd show a few things around my house that I've found while thrifting. I love thrifting. It's like therapy to me. I can spend a little time and find something that's unique and usually doesn't cost very much. The danger is doing it too much and ending up with a lot of junk that you don't need, or bringing home stuff that really belongs in the trash. But so far, no one has told me my stuff is really ugly. What do YOU think?

Almost everything in this cabinet came from a thrift store. And I was happy to find the coffee filter wreath. I added my own burlap bow. I think I might try to add some more filters to make it fuller. These are pottery barn metal baskets. One was already white, the other I spray painted white to match. The basket and flowers are thrift store finds on two separate occasions. I thought they might like to be together.

I'm not sure what this rusty looking piece is but I love it.
  

The chicken came from a yard sale and the wooden stool and gold frame are thrift store finds.



this chunky family picture frame is kind of different, it commands attention.



This basket sits on top of my kitchen cabinets and I love it's texture and leather handles.

Thrifting is a great hobby for me, just like blogging and decorating my home.

Have a wonderful weekend!

A Rescued Canvas

I found this canvas at Goodwill.  What the fish? This thing is large and in charge!

But the price tag just couldn't be beat.  Yes please.

I didn't know what I wanted to do with it when I bought it but knew something could be made of it.
So today I decided to just do something  with it instead of let it sit in my "I'll get to you someday stash".  First thing was to paint over it and get it back to white again, like nature intended it to be.
Then I got out my letter stencils that I've never used.  If I had a vinyl cutting machine I wouldn't even be talking about stencils right now, but I don't.  So I am.

I mixed up some brown and black craft paint together and just applied with a foam brush.  Again, not really knowing what I wanted but just making it up as I went along.

I did know what quote I wanted.  So I just made me some lines with a straight edge and planned out where the letters should go.  I like how it looked, but it was too white.  So I added a little water to the paint and did a wash over the whole thing when the letters were dry.

And wiped it off with a paper towel.  .

 

The canvas naturally took the paint more saturated in some areas than others.  I like it that way, it gives it a more aged look.

And here is the finished canvas.

It fills the space on this wall in my bedroom.

One ghastly goodwill canvas rescued.

Fabulously Creative Friday

Feathered Nest Friday

A New Year!

My baby is starting Junior High this year.  The big 7th grade.  She's so excited and nervous.  She layed out her first day of school outfit last week!  We've packed and repacked her backpack I don't know how many times.  She's pinned school lunch ideas on pinterest.  Her only request for back to school clothes was a new shirt and some shoes.  But of course I had to get her more than that!  She's gone over her schedule and studied her new school map.  Starting at a new school can be a little scary.  But Isabelle has got it together.  She's got it going on.  She'll do great!

Here's to a new start and a new school year!

Updates to the master

I've added a few little details to our bedroom.  It still has a long way to go, there are a lot of things I want to add.  It's not a very big room at all, so I have to be selective in what I put in there.  So I'm always on the look out for the perfect things.  But wall space is something I can play with and it doesn't really affect the flow of the room.
I've had this empty frame for a while and decided to try it over the bed.  I printed out some of my favorite photos of us in sepia and clipped them to the wire that already existed.  I used teensy tiny clothes pins.  I noticed something kind of odd when I was hanging these photos: I'm to his left in Every. Single. One.  I wonder what that's about?

Then I saw these german glass glitter letters in Michaels.  They didn't have a B so I had to get two P's and turn one upside down. Whatever. It works.
It makes our room personalized. 

I

II

I added to our travel gallery wall from our last trip.  I just love this wall.

 

It tells a story of where we've been together.

 

A little chalk board art hangs on the wall opposite the bed.  I'm trying to get better at chalkboard writing.  It's not that easy.

I still want to change out the curtains and bedding, add some sort of soft seating and a cabinet or shelf for a TV.  It's fun to be a work in progress.

Teen girl bedroom makeover: part 1

My daughter Isabelle will be thirteen this year.  Thirteen!!  She wants her room to be more coordinated and decorated.  We've been working on it here and there.  Her big sister demanded she get rid of things helped her go through all her clutter.  Her walls are a very soft pale, barely there blue. Instead of paint the walls bright colors, we are bringing in colors in other areas.  She wants her colors to be coral, grays and blues.  We're on the hunt for the perfect bedding but in the mean time, we thrifted this large mirror and brought in a cabinet I had in another room.  We painted them both gray to bring them together.  I made this paper garland and we already had the tissue paper flowers.

 Also on the list are cute coordinating baskets or boxes for her to store her things inside the cabinet.

 

The girls are currently making some art to hang on her walls.  It's coming together and she loves it so far.

A Pretty little Pantry

You  know how sometimes it takes someone else's perspective to get you to see how better something can be?  Yeah that happens a lot with me.  I don't know if I live in tunnel vision or what.  But lucky for me, I have a sister who doesn't.  She proposed the idea of moving my food pantry to a bigger pantry that I wasn't utilizing it's full capacity.  So I invited her to come help me, and she did!!
She has vision.  I covet her vision.  She can see how it should be.  I have to be shown.  I'm sure there's a psycological term for that.
Anyway, I only got one before picture of the previous larger pantry.  Bad blogger.
As you can see, this is a walk in pantry.  See the empty space down there at the bottom where no shelves are??  That drove my sister crazy!  Wasted space drives her crazy. Again, probably something psycological.   This is what it looked like before, kind of a catch all modge podge space.

We cleaned out, got rid of things, drilled, made home depot runs, drilled and sawed, painted, shopped and shopped some more.  It was exhausting.  We were exhausted.  We did this in 24 hrs. minus sleeping time.  I'm elated, ecstatic, and excited with my new pantry.  Take a look.

 

No more wasted floor space.

 We hung this peg board to hang baskets, brooms,  and a step stool to maximize even more space.

 Cute corn cob mold and chalkboard for the cute factor.

 We found a lot of these smaller baskets at goodwill

We both thought a clock would look cute in there.

 

It looks so old fashioned to me

Here is the after of the pantry where I used to keep our food.  It's now used to store my paint, cooking appliances, food storage and even the dog beds.

We even had time to build a couple of shelves in my hall linen closet and organize it.  She's a whirlwind, that sister!  She keeps me on my toes and organized.
Being organized feels so good, like losing weight, but a lot easier.
Thanks, Bev!  Keep your visions coming.

Tuesdays Treasures

Happy Birthday America!

I wanted to do a little more 4th of July decorating than I normally do.  I didn't want to go out and buy things though.  I always love the look of a banner or pennant.  This paper banner was quick, easy and I used paper I had.  I put some flags I had into the wooden crate and hung the stars and stripes decoration on my old window.  4th of July mantle.

 

 

About a year ago I had my girls go get a pallet in my neighborhood.  They had quite a hard time of it because there was stuff piled on top of it.  I didn't know what I wanted to do with it at the time, so it just sat out by the wood pile.  Patiently waiting.  And then pinterest came to the rescue.

As soon as I saw a pallet flag, I knew that's what my pallet would become.  A couple of dollars in craft paint and about thirty minutes later.

 

 I really love it.  It brings my patio to patriotic life.  And if I get tired of the flag, I can always turn it over and plant a garden in it!   Thank goodness for Pallets and Pinterest.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Caribbean

Here's just a snippet of our Caribbean trip.  It was wonderful! We flew into San Juan, Puerto Rico which took pretty much all day. Here's some pictures of us in Old San Juan the next day.

 El Morro, the old fort.  It took over two hundred to build it. It's huge!

We boarded our ship and set sail for St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. We did a kayak and snorkel excursion there.  It was a lot of fun.

 

 Next stop, Barbados.  We didn't have anything planned there, so we just found a beach and spent the day there.  Beautiful!

 Look at all the colors of the Sea!

He'd be so mad if he knew I put this pic up.  shhhhhh.
I loved the colorful buildings, old churches and boardwalk.

Next stop is St. Lucia.  We did an island tour and really enjoyed getting a look at this beautiful island.

Then on to St. Kitts.  I think this was my favorite island because of it's beauty and it seemed to not have so much of the tourist attraction as the others.

Our last island was St. Maarten.  The dutch side is St. Maarten, The French side is St. Martin.  But it's all good.

We spent an extra day in Puerto Rico before flying home.  It was a wonderful trip and we had a great time!!  No broken planes, no night spent in the airport, no sun poisoning like our last cruise.  Just fun in the sun and relaxation.

 Don't worry, be happy!