Oscar Day

Hi Friends...Thought I would show you one of my ribbon racks. It's actually a pants hanger. I picked it up at the thrift store. I actually have a few of them. You can get them for around $1.

Another fun thing I found was some cute teddy bear salt and pepper shakers. I thought they would be great for my glitter.

OK...next up is an idea I got from a another blog. www.patchesofpink.com

I used the same punch but not as many punches in a smaller frame.

 I was thrilled to be able to make something that didn't cost me anything. The frames are from the thrift store (of course)

My Mom and I went to see THE KING'S SPEECH yesterday and on my way home I picked this basket up from Goodwill. LOVE IT! Better go get ready to settle in for the Oscars. Bye for now.

Lucky Day!

I walked in the thrift store and found the ink refills for my HP Printer. I have been printing so many pictures lately, I am going through ink like crazy. My printer has individual color cartridges so you don't have to replace it if only one color runs out. They sell at Target for $10.99 each. I got 12 for $2.50 each! Yee Ha.

I also found a better picture of the wall vinyl I put up. A wee bit better to see...

Wall Vinyl

I have been wanting to put up this wall vinyl design that I found weeks ago at the thrift store for $2. I have cut vinyl with my Cricut and put that up but nothing this large. This quote was made by Die Cuts With A View and came in a canister. Unfortunately, I think I know why it was at the thrift store. Although I followed the directions, it took me over an hour to get it "unstuck" from the paper. (Must have been old?) Anyway...I also have very textured walls which only complicates the process. Here's how it turned out....
Not the best photo. It reads, "We do not remember days, we remember moments".

Former Thrift Store Find

Hi Friends,

Although I found this a while ago, I never posted the picture. Was searching for a new comforter for our bedroom. I was tired of our drab earthy tone one. I struck gold when I was able to find this Laura Ashley comforter, bedskirt and sheets to match (along with pillow shams). Total paid $16. The sheets are the small cabbage rose pattern, the shams and comforter are the larger flower. LOVE IT.

I didn't realize that purchasing this would prompt me to NEED to paint my bedroom. I went with a very pale green to bring out the green in the bedding. All baseboards and trim are white. I actually was able to find another matching bedskirt that I plan to use to make throw pillows. I have always had plain bedspreads so this is a real change for me but is the only pattern in the room. I might use some stripe fabric in similar colors for other pillows.      



My sister is the one that got me so hooked on thrift store shopping. As long as I can remember, she has been a thrift shopper. After staying with her and finding such treasures, she had me hooked. I now RARELY frequent any other kind of store. Thanks Sis for showing me the ropes!

Happy 2011

Hi Everyone,

So much has been going on. I am sure EVERYONE'S life is hectic.

I know it has been FOREVER (actually about 2 months) since I posted. I plan to be more regular now that the only thing I have to do is paint and I DON'T HAVE A DEADLINE! Yay. Little by little I plan to paint the livingroom, dining room, kitchen, family room and entry. I am taking my time. The livingroom has a 16 ft. vaulted ceiling and I am NOT looking forward to climbing the ladder that high up and painting along the edge of the ceiling before I can roll it!

I had promised pictures and I finally got them loaded on my lap top and down sized. I think I will try to change the size of the pictures my camera takes so I don't have to do that every time.

 First off. Here are the pictures of our new floor upstairs and the beautiful job my husband did on our stairs! I fought him about doing the bathroom but I am so glad that we did. It looks wonderful!
Top of the stairs.....

 Bottom of the stairs

 Bathroom

 Top of the stairs. My husband also built the built-in bookcase. First attempt at woodworking!

 This was the absolute hardest part for him. The winding stairs. He had to weld wood slats together with glue and wood "bisquits" and then cut out the pattern. It was AWFUL! These 4 winders took more time than doing the entire flooring upstairs!

OK....now for a couple of great finds at the thrift store.

This is a nearly new Samsonite carry on. It has those kind of wheels that will roll behind you or roll beside you. It's awesome! $12 LOVE IT! Can't wait to use it when I go visit my Sis.

Next is a plate that I just love. It is meant to hang on the wall. Has a hanger on the back of it but you could also use it as a plate for yummy treats. $2  No chips or cracks either!

I hope whoever reads my blog realizes how important it is to back up the important files on your computer. I recently bought a 1 TB Western Digital external hard drive. I copied to it all my PICTURES, VIDEOS and DOCUMENTS. I would be sick if I ever lost those. Please.....if you haven't done it yet, get it done. It's very easy and you won't be sorry. I have a friend who recently had to replace her computer and if she hadn't backed up her photos she would have lost everything! She was so smart!

Have a list of stuff to get done today and have only scratched 3 things. Updating my blog was 1 of them so I can scratch one more.
Hope you all have a fabulous day tomorrow with your Valentine. Off to make goodies for my buddies at work.

Hugs and thanks for your interest in my blog.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Again it has happened....almost 2 months since I last posted. Unfortunately, I have not had any time in my craft room. I made NOTHING for Christmas. Working 5 days a week and then every evening and weekend around the house doing some much needed updates. I can FINALLY say we are finished. My whim of telling my husband that I wanted to take out the carpeting upstairs turned into a 3 month CHORE for both of us. We both ripped out the carpet. A nasty job I must say! Then I prepped the floors. Something I never want to do again. My husband layed all new wood flooring upstairs. All new baseboards. I did all the painting. Complete make over of 1 bedroom (a guest room). When we got to the stairs, I realized that laminate would not work so my husband went to Lumber Liquidators and purchased wood to cover the stairs. The part you step on is called a "tread" and the wood that supports it is a "riser". We chose to paint the riser wood and varnish the treads. The straight stairs were not a problem but we have 4 winder stairs and they were a nightmare. My poor husband! The good news is...he finished and it looks fabulous. We both learned so much. I will post pictures another day.

I mostly wanted to wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and hope you are able to spend some fun time with your loved ones. We are hosting our Annual Christmas Eve dinner with a group of about 33. Lots of food, fun and games. Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Until next time....

So Sorry....

I know...I know....I have been HORRIBLE about updating my blog. We have been so busy "doing stuff around the house". My post a few back of the laminate floor opened up a HUGE amount of work for my husband. Talk about things "snowballing" into other things! We are still working on the laminate floor. The bathroom is all that is left to be done. Then we had the issue of what to do with our stairs. We decided to rip out the carpeting. Down to bare ugly wood with lots of nails and staples. Can't do laminate on the stairs, don't want to do carpet. So...now we are doing REAL WOOD and recreating the stairs with new "treads" and "risers". It's a job and half since our stairs curve and we go from straight stairs to triangular shaped stairs. Quite the learning experience for both of us. Oh...did I mention paint? Now we have to repaint which presents the issue of "where do we stop". The stairway shares a common wall with the entry. What we thought would be a small paint job is now huge. We have 16 ft. ceilings in places that make it difficult to get to with the stairs. Every minute of the evening is spent attempting to put our house back together. Why is it that any job you begin starts out as an ant hill and turns into a mountain? We "hope" to be done by Christmas Eve when we have our large family of 26 over for dinner. I know it will all turn out great in the end but I will admit that it has been a ton of work!

I will post some pictures soon. I must do a before and after of the stairs. That may be awhile since we had to custom order some wood steps.

I love the color of my sisters walls in her house so she shared her paint codes with me and we had the paint "copied" at Lowe's. They are great for that! Put a few rolls of it on our wall and thought it was too light. Lo and behold, once dried it looks much better. I always forget that it gets a lot darker after it dries.

Also emptied out our walk in closet in our guest room that has mostly my daughters stuff she didn't want to move. Need her to go through it so we can throw out, give away what she doesn't want and reorganize. I think we could have come up with several Halloween costumes with what we found in that closet. (My kids have always been into dressing up for Halloween. Even now that they are adults!

OK...promises, promises. I will try to at least post some pics and updates on some of my finds at the thrift store. I was at Goodwill the other day and found a "sold" dresser that was EXACTLY what I have been looking for. It sold for $39. I was so ticked. Guess I missed it by a few hours. Oh well.....

Happy Halloween to everyone.