Dropcloth Ruffle Pillow

Using THIS as my inspiration, I used dropcloth to make more neutral {inexpensive!} pillows for my living room chairs.

Remember the before.....

Here's the after.....

Instead of buying new furniture, I spent about $35 on a 12 x 9 dropcloth

from Home Depot.  

It took 3 packages of drop cloth to recover 2 living room chairs and 6 dining room chairs.

The cute basket on the left was from Goodwill....$4!!!  Don't you just love a great deal!

HERE's the tutorial for the Faux Grain Sack pillows.

Now to tackle the couch......

Read more ...

Faux Grainsack Pillows

I love dropcloth! It is just so inexpensive to decorate with!

Recently, I have been continuing to work on my family room furniture.  It's about

10 years old and the fabric is falling apart!

Armed with drop cloth, heavy-duty needles and a tutorial from Miss Mustard Seed,

I began recovering my chairs.

Marian's tutorials are amazing and I successfully neutralized my room, but I was still left with the "coordinating" floral pillows.

So using the same technique that I used here with my dining room chairs....

......I made myself some pillows.

I'm thinking about making some red-striped pillows to get ready for Christmas!

Read more ...

Distressed Chalkpaint Corner Hutch

I shared earlier with you about my first experience bidding in a silent auction and 

how I had to outbid a sweet little grandpa for this hutch....

She was a beauty wasn't she!  I had some friends scratching their heads as to

why I was nervously bidding on this piece, but I had a vision!

And here's what I saw in my head....

My photos don't really capture her in all of her glory, but she IS a beauty!

I made my own chalkpaint and painted and distressed her.  

I even added a topcoat of Annie Sloan's wax.  

The round knobs are just spraypainted with black spraypaint and I bought inexpensive

black handles for the drawers at my True Value hardware store.

I took the glass out of the doors and went to my shed for some chicken wire which I just stapled right to the back of the doors....cobwebs and all!  

I mixed up some more homemade chalkpaint and using a sample can of paint, I painted the inside a pretty blue color.  I've been using sample cans more often for smaller projects.  

I realize that there are not hardeners in sample cans, but if the painted area is not going to get heavy wear, the DIY chalkpaint recipe helps it to hold up!

I've had some major scores recently at Goodwill and have been outfitting the hutch with white dishes.  I got the soup tureen for $5.00!!! Woohoo!!  

I think that I skipped out of the Goodwill that day!

Read more ...

Accessorizing the Dining Room

As my dining room is beginning to pull together, I am starting to accessorize.  I always seem to fall apart when it comes to accessorizing because of the cost.  Cute things usually cost money....money that I would rather put into crown molding or a gallon of paint.

So I decided to shop around my house...

The first thing that I found was this old crate that I made last year from pallet wood.

Truly, there was no real measuring involved.  I used a hand saw to whack apart the

pallet, lined up the closest shape to a rectangle and ask hubby to 

pound the nails.

The crate has been sitting empty until my hubby decided to have a "storm" party the

other evening.  We were under a tornado watch for about 8 hours of the day, so

he felt we needed to celebrate?

As we were sitting there drinking our Fizze soda playing {arguing over!} Uno Spin, I gasped and yelled..."No one throw away your bottles!!"  Yep....soda bottles that were headed for the recycling became filler for my crate.

The flowers were originally part of my spring mantel and I just ripped them apart

into individual stems....the whole project was FREE!!!!

My walls have been a bit more challenging.  I've been pinning plate wall ideas to 

my dining room Pinterest board.  One of the ideas that I saw was

to hang plates with a paper clip, felt and a glue gun!

I decided to try it.  I took my $1.50 Goodwill plate, a piece of felt, a paper clip 

and guess what.....it worked!!

 I just keep stopping in our local Goodwill and Thrift store and pick up 

white plates for $0.50 or so and add them to my wall!

I am determined to spend as little money as possible for as big a result as possible!!

I'd like to put up the chair rail before I show you an "after" photos!

Read more ...

Turn an Old Window into a Pot Rack

One of my posts that is frequently bringing traffic is how I like to decorate with old windows, so I decided to share my "how-to" make a pot rack with some updated pictures.

Sheesh!  Those old pictures are horrid!!

We had an IKEA pot rack sitting in a box for the longest time. When we first moved into our house over 6 years ago, I had purchased one, but was afraid to put it up and put holes in our new walls and ceiling.

I almost gave the set to Goodwill.....I think at one point I even tried painting it??  It was a miserable FAIL!  This was before I knew of the wonder of spraypaint!

Thankfully, we kept it because I was able to reclaim some of its parts!

The metal bars of the pot rack are from the IKEA kit....honestly, we never use the actual rails because my hubby is TOO tall.  At 6'5" he hits his head on the pots and that makes for an unhappy hubby!

Instead, I just use "S" hooks from the hardware store and hang the pots off

the cross pieces of my window....no injured heads that way!

To hang to the window from the ceiling, we also just used pieces from the hardware store.

We screwed eye hooks into the window and ceiling and then bought inexpensive chain and clasp at our local True Value store.  The hardware probably cost under $5.00!

It was a quick and easy project and because the window was free along

the side of the road, the total cost was under $10.00!

What have you made with old windows?

Read more ...

Gorgeous Gallery Wall . . .

Hello there, Thrifty Decorator Ladies!  My name is Cailan from Everyday Lovely where I share simple ways to make and find the lovely in everyday living.

Today I'm sharing with you a problem you might have to: I take a lot of pictures of my kiddos and I wanted a way to display current photos and be able to change them out easily.  But, I did not want to be continually taking off the backs of frames and centering pics, cleaning glass, etc.  

My solution was this Quick Change-it-Out Photo Gallery.

To begin, I dug out all the dusty frames I could find.  I wanted an eclectic look, so I collected both gold and silver with bronzy ones for some color depth.  If you had a really odd assortment it would be easy to paint them all black or a fun color for a unified look. 

I took off the cardboard backs, took out the glass and hung them up like so. 

Since the frames are just balancing on a nail (unless you want to add a sawtooth hook to the backs) I added some tacky gum (from Hobby Lobby) to make them stable.

When printing out your photos it makes all the difference if you add a white border.  You can do this with Picnik or at Walgreens online (called a "Studio" border at Walgreens).  This helps give the idea of a mat on the picture and makes for a more finished look.  I also ordered some 5x7 as well as 4x6's to add some variety as to size.

Because I had a lot of frames around (and they are pretty easy to find cheap at thrift stores), this project was really only the cost of the pictures and the $1.99 tacky gum.  I love being able to put new pictures up as soon as I get a fresh batch printed...which reminds me I need to take some fall pictures quick!

Thanks so much for having me Nikki - can't wait to see that basement!


--------------------------------

Cailan, thanks so much for visiting!

I just love Caillan's blog!  And right now she's running a giveaway!  So head over and follow Everyday Lovely for a chance to win some of this Lollia Handcreme!

And we (well, my lovely dad!) are (is) routing the trim today for the beadboard in our "new" basement!!


There are Target coupons available for all of these supplies.

Read more ...

View from a room....

{My view from the kitchen...}

So the problem with my kitchen is that you can see the entire first floor from it....here is one angle of the view....I'm standing right in front of my Craig's List table that I turned from this...

....into this....



I LOVE her!  (I call it a her...she's too pretty to be a he!)  To see how I did it....with SPRAYPAINT.....you can go HERE for the complete tutorial!

The hallway color matches the family room but has fake wainscoting......my first ever blog post....

The color in our "music" room is going to be changing.....I plan to do some board and batten in there and maybe even French doors!  Stay tuned!!

I may even (GULP!) try and paint our.....piano.......YIKES!!  I'm seeing her in a glossy black or chic white....

I've gotten enough affirmation that I can go green in the kitchen.....and I think that I just might try it!......The white beadboard backsplash is still "iffy"......I'd love it, but I'm not sure if it would break the color of the walls and cabinets apart too much.....

I'd like to try and actually put together a mood board to do this project....too many times I don't have a complete picture of a project before I start and then I end up slapping it together.....(honestly...I'm just entirely TOO impatient!! )

If any of you have done a mood board, would you let me know and include a link in the comments section.  Once I learn how to do one, I'll share with you how to put one together!

Read more ...