Friday, February 15, 2013

Beauty Budget Steal of the Week

 
 
Decorative Twine Balls
 
I was really excited when I found this bag in the Ikea clearance section. Normally, a bag of twine balls about half this size would cost around $9.99.
Twine balls: Ikea $1.99 (clearance)
 
They match our living room really well and now make for a wonderful decoration.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Bedroom Series Part 1: Pretty in Pastel

 
 
We're getting more settled into the house and more rooms are coming together! The first one that is finally completely finished is Ash's room. Most of the decor in her old room was stuff that coordinated with her crib set. We decided to do a whole new decor for her in this house. My sweet Hubbs let me take the reigns on it and boy did I have fun!
 
I have to say this room was a thorn in my side at first because I could not decide on ANYTHING... from a comforter to paint colors to a theme. But then a friend from church told me she was re-decorating her daughter's bedroom and asked if I wanted some of the things she was getting rid of. This solved my dilemma! I ended up taking some things that became the foundation for the theme of Ash's room and went from there.
 
Shortly after I found this inspiration photo on Pinterest. I LOVED this room and decided soft colors was the way to go.
 
houzz.com
 
 
The comforter I did finally decide on was the fairly close in color to the one above and the busy patter meant I could do a lot of other simple decorations around the room.
 
Comforter: JCP $99.99
Wall Scroll: Joann's Fabric $14.99 + 20% off coupon = $12.00

 
 
 
 This is what Ash's room looks like when you first walk in. These curtains are actually the curtains from my old room at my parents house. I'm glad I could breathe new life into them. I know this picture seems a little fuzzy but I had to use an instagram finish because the intial picture was too dark.
Curtains: FREE ( c/o my rents)

Phrases: FREE (c/o my church friend)
 
 
 
This rug was also a foundation piece for this room. I picked it up at Target long before the house was even close to being done. The pastel colors were perfect for the theme I was going for.

Rug: Target $7.98 (Originally $24.99)
 
 
The letter below was actually my inspiration for the letters I did for Ash. I used scotch tape for the vertical stripes to ensure a straight and bleed-free finish. I intentionally made my stripes different widths because I found I actually liked that look better. I free handed the polka dots on the letters I did. But if you wanted them nice and perfect, you could always use dot stickers or whole punch some colored paper and mode podge/ glue them on.
 
 
 


Inspiration photo: rosenberryrooms.com
Letters: Michaels: $2.99/ each + 20% off coupon = $2.40/ each
Acrylic Paint: $1.99/ each

Total: $18.98
 


I found some great pastel colored pots at Ikea that matched the room and the comforter perfectly.

Flowers: Already had
Ceramic Pot: Ikea $1.99 / each

Toal: $5.97

 I love this bookshelf. My dad made it about 5 years ago for J. But it doesn't really match her decor anymore so it has been passed down to Ash. The phrase "LOVE" was actually a little DIY kit. It came with the plain cardboard letters and then you could decorate it how you pleased with the stickers and decals it came with.

Lamp, flowers and basket: Already had
"Love" letters: Wal-Mart $4.00
Vases: Ikea $1.99
Green Petals: Michaels .60 cents (clearance)
Blue Shadow Box: Goodwill: $1.99



 
 
So these next few pictures are just kind of a comprehensive look at how the room came out when all said and done. Surprisingly, I didn't buy a whole heck of a lot for it. A lot of it I either already had, or was given which made me happy because it made decorating that much more inexpensive.
 
The only other thing I'm thinking about doing is spray painting that black frame another color, maybe a soft yellow. The black doesn't really mesh with the rest of the room. lol.
 


 
 
 
XOXO

 Jacqueline

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Color Me Organized


 
Button Up
 



 






My sweet little grandma gave me tons of buttons a year ago or so. She'd had a lot of these buttons for years and some of them even belonged to her mother.  I've had a hard time finding vintage-like buttons so I was happy to take these off her hands.
I had just been keeping these buttons in baggies but then I stumbled upon something I had pinned on pinterest awhile back. It's using an old spice rack to organize your buttons...... GENIUS! I've had this spice rack since we first moved into our last house and I hadn't used it in years. So needless to say the spices probably weren't very spice-y anymore.
 
 
I wanted to sort them by color and decided this would make for a great "busy" project for my girls. They were actually eager to do it; which I was grateful for because I did not want to sort all those buttons myself. 
 
 
 
After all the buttons were sorted, J got the added bonus of painting the tops of the lids to coordinate with what color button was in the bottle. It was win-win. My girls got a fun project and I got organization out of this whole deal.
 
 

 
 
This idea could be used for any small craft item really, such as stickers, small flowers, jewels, hair clips, etc.
 
OR
 
if you're a big into jewelry, you could spray paint and spruce up the spice holder a little more and use it as a way to organize rings, earrings and necklaces by color.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Beauty Budget Steal of the Week

 
 
 
These little white vases below are one of the items I scored at the Michaels Clearance bonanza. (sorry for the poor lighting.)  They came in a pack of 4 for the low low price of .39 cents, which equaled out to a little less than 10 cents a bottle. So of course I bought 4 packs and am now in the process of figuring out what to do with 12 of these adorable little bottles.
 
 
These bottles are quite petite so I wanted a simple but semi elegant way to display them. I found the orchids at Ikea and they were a perfect size for the bottles. While I liked the clean look of the all white (above), it didn't match our living room. So I spray painted the bottles in colors that matched better and then placed them on a simple white dish.
 
Orchids: Ikea $1.99/each
White Tray: Ikea $4.99
Bottles: Michaels 10 cents/each
Spray Paint: already had.

Total: Around $11.30
 
XOXO
Jacqueline