Thrifty Thursday #64

The features this week are going to be short and sweet because hopefully,
at the moment, I am lying on the beach enjoying the sun and sand!!


Creatively Living used old insulators to make this beautiful coat rack.
I just love the colors she used!

House Made Home put board and batten on the top half of 
her wainscoting....what a cool idea!

Fancy Frugal Life shared a fun {and simple!} idea for a patriotic dessert!

Anyone else remember Orange Julius??  Semi Homemade Mom 
recreated a Strawberry Orange Julius....YUM!!

When I Get It All Together refashioned an old white oxford into 
this stylish ruffle front shirt!

I've been wanting to clean my jewelry and Everything I Love and Enjoy 
linked up this DIY jewelry cleaner recipe.....I can't wait to try it!

Fourth of July is coming sooner than you think and woohoo!  the letter 4 is
sharing these FREE {and adorable} party printables with us!

Tales of a Trophy Wife is inspiring me to go grab a pattern and try 
my hand at this Anthropologie knock-off skirt.

Once again....great projects everyone!
If you were featured this week, feel free to grab one of my buttons!

Here are some very simple suggestions for the party:

1. Please become a follower of Thrifty Decorating.

2. Be sure to link to your POST and not your blog.

3. Please copy and paste my link button somewhere in 

your post or blog so that others can link back.

You can also party with Johnnie 

at Saved by Love Creations!

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 ...

Thrifty Thursday #63

It was yet another week of amazing projects at Thrifty Thursday!


I'm not a coffee drinker, but I realize that the rest of the world is....so this 

K-cup storage idea from Chipping with Charm is practical and adorable!

The View From In There used bleach to create these patriotic napkins.  

What a great idea!

The Space Between shared not only this amazing rooftop pallet bed....

....in that same post she also shared this pendant light idea.

House Made Home made this beautiful dining room table using pallet wood.
I may be trading kitchen tables with someone so that I can make one of these!

Are your kids feeling the summer heat?  These sponge balls from 

It's Overflowing will provide hours of summer water fun!

Babblings and More took an eyesore around her house...cinder 
blocks....and turned them into a usable sandbox!!

Finally, here's a fun summer food idea from The Crafty Blog Stalker....corndogs!

If you were featured this week, feel free to grab one of my buttons!

Here are some very simple suggestions for the party:

1. Please become a follower of Thrifty Decorating.

2. Be sure to link to your POST and not your blog.

3. Please copy and paste my link button somewhere in 

your post or blog so that others can link back.

You can also party with Johnnie 

at Saved by Love Creations!

Read more ...

The post that keeps getting spammed....

I've been getting hammered with spam and it has revolved around the following post...

I'm pretty sure it's because the post had the word *patriotic* in the title, so

around Memorial Day, I started getting up to and sometimes over 100 spam comments a DAY!

I had a break for about a day and now it's starting again.

So I removed it from my past postings and am reposting here....

Enjoy and hopefully the spam will slow down!

Yesterday, I showed you how I took this old ugly sign that was in the way...

and turned it into a Rustic Flag....for FREE!!

When my hubby cut my wood for me, there was about a 5-6 inch 

scrap leftover that I didn't want to throw away.

Andy, over at Poppies at Play, has been making very fun patriotic 

crafts and printables and she offered this one for free! 

It is part of a set of 3 and she also has the vinyl available for purchase! 

I haven't quite figured out how to do printables....I know that you need to somehow send it to a photo processing place....some day I'll figure it out!

Instead, I copied the picture to my desktop and inserted it into a new word document.  I resized it and printed it out.  At this point, I was interested in the numbers and not the printable.

I cut out my numbers....originally, I had tried to find a similar font on dafont.com, but I was overwhelmed by the choices.....I don't function well when I have too many choices!

I wasn't concerned with cutting the numbers out exactly....am I ever???  I knew that I was going to sand them. 

I painted my board red using a dry brush technique that I talked about in my Rustic Flag post....

I traced my numbers with a pencil and painted them in with white paint....my hubby was over my shoulder saying, "Don't you want to use a lettering brush?" No....it's supposed to look rustic!!

I sanded down my letters, added a little "somethin', somethin'" twine and went over it with tea-dye distressing ink.....it was still missing something.

I cut out a free-handed star and painted 3 blue stars, sanded and distressed them.

I love my little piece of wood scrap that turned into a patriotic beauty!

What do you do with your wood scraps?

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Vinyl Giveaway for Summer Stackers

Do you need a crafty project for the summer?

Jill at Utah Vinyl is giving away the vinyl for these summer stackers 

to ONE Thrifty Decorating reader!!

I think that I'd paint my wood blocks a bright yellow or 
turquoise!  That would look so cute against the white lettering!


Every Monday, Jill offers $2.00 vinyl deals on her 
FB page, so be sure to go over and "like" Utah Vinyl and check out her great deals!


While you're there, tell her that you were sent by Thrifty Decorating!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What color would you make your blocks?

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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?

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Bamboo Tomato Stakes

I have seen this idea on many blogs.  Carolyn at homework made some

from bamboo stakes and twigs, but I wanted mine to be free and I

didn't have stakes and none of my trees are big enough yet for twigs.

With free guiding my creativity, I called a friend who had a neighbor with a bamboo patch,

I asked her if I could "borrow" some of the dead plants and she grabbed some for me.

At first, I tried cutting the sticks with small pruning shears....didn't work.

Then, I tried a hand saw....still didn't work, so hubby hauled out the miter saw....perfect!

After I cut all the pieces, I just tied the corners with string.

I already had the jute twine, so the whole project was free!!

Now my goal is to not kill my plants!  I have more of a painted

thumb than a green thumb!!

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