Thanks for the feature

A huge thank you to Apartment therapy for featuring my $10 desk makeover.  I was so shocked to come across it being featured when scrolling through my reader.  If you are interested check it out here.  I was a little taken back by some of the comments, but I guess you have to take the good with the bad.  Thank you guys for always keeping it positive around here :)

Happy Friday!  I'm going to take advantage of this beautiful fall weather and spend some time outdoors!

  

Happy Fall Y'all!

If you haven't figured it out yet, you'll soon realize that fall is my favorite time of year.  I love pretty much everything about it, the changing leaves, the cozy cable knit sweaters and riding boots, the pumpkin spice lattes, heck pumpkin anything!  Since it's my favorite time of year, I always do a little decorating for it.  Nothing extravagant just a little something to put that fall mood in the air.

This year I recycled most of my decorations from last year but tried to use them in a new way and added a few new things to freshen it up a bit.

There's a mini before and after involved in this fall mantle.  I found this HUGE picture at Goodwill for $9.99.  I thought that was a great deal considering the size of this thing.  I spraypainted the frame gold (it was already gold but needed some freshening up) and then used some chalkboard paint where the picture was.  The picture was printed on a MDF sort of material so I just painted directly over it.

and now the mantle all together,

I added a fun fall poem to the chalkboard too

I added some orange glittery pumpkins courtesy of the Target Dollar Section (although they were actually $2.50, not bad)

So there you have it.  Next up, decorating the front porch.  Do you love fall as much as I do?  do any decorating for it?

in case you are wondering:

silver pumpkin & gourd - Homegoods

Orange glitter pumpkins - Target

large silver candlesticks - Homegoods

Glass candlesticks - thrifted

orange tealight holders - thrifted

chalkboard - thrifted

Double Mirror Madness

If one mirror is good, then two must be great right?  Well, I'm hoping that's the case in my master bedroom.  Remember this mirror my mom found for me for a few dollars?  Well, she happened to find a few more for me that same day.  She found this pair of mirrors for $2 each.  When I saw them my first thought was to put them in our master bedroom behind the nightstands, and that's just what I did.  I've been loving that look for a while and figured I'd give it a try for $4.

So as always we have the before...

and the after!  Just a little white paint to gussy them up....

"His"

"Hers"

It really opens the room up, even more so than I thought it would.  Not too bad for $4.

For more information on my master bedroom or the projects in it, click the picture on the sidebar.  I haven't updated it with these new pictures yet, hopefully that will happen soon.

 

anthro inspired mirror

You may remember the story I told you about finding a mirror while running my half marathon?  If you don't you can check it out here.  Basically it was $5 and I couldn't pass it up.  Here's a reminder of what it looked like before.  The glass would be considered in poor shape to some but I really liked the aged patina it had on it.  Reminds me of anthropologie.  

So, Before....

And after, I went for a more distressed look to go with the weathered glass.  Pardon the poor staging, I was in a hurry.

love those details and that patina....

So, off to the booth it goes1

I love it when a plan comes together

Occasionally you have those aha! moments where you get an idea and it actually works.  This was one of those rare moments.  It all started with this little fan.  I bought it on clearance at Homegoods for $7.  The tag said  it was originally $69.99 but the base was missing, it was just the top part.  It's kind of odd, I wonder where the base went?  Anyways, that's besides the point.  I was drawn to the red clearance price tag (what is it about that red sticker that makes me feel like I need to buy it) and the fact that it was originally $69.99.  I just knew I could make it work and here we are over a year later and I finally figured it out, sometimes it takes me a while folks.

So, for now, just ignore the little bit of gold you see in this picture.  Just look at the black part, the fan part.  That's what I found for $7.  Nothing too fan-cy ;)

Now, here we are a year later and I found this table lamp combo at Goodwill for half price on the 4th of July.  (I know this story is so random) and I thought I could remove the top half and use it as an end table in my office.  Wrong!  I could get the top part off without breaking the glass.  I thought it was just money down the drain when I had my aha! moment. 

Why not use the bottom part of this table lamp combo for that fan. It was very heavy (which the base of the fan needed to be so it wouldn't fall over, especially when the fan was on) It was perfect. Who knows what made me think of the fan after all this time but I drug it out of the back of the garage and low and behold it fit, perfectly. I drug my husband outside to witness this amazing thing that had just occurred. He wasn't nearly as impressed as I was.  Now, the base just needed a little black spraypaint to make it all come together.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Tray-chic!

This project started with a plain jane tray from Goodwill.  I loved the lines of it and it was a nice solid piece of wood.  I started sanding before I took this picture, but there was a lovely little picture in the middle.  Probably worked in the 70's but not so much for today.  So, I did the usual and covered it in a coat of white spraypaint.  Next, I took a $2 decal from Hobby Lobby that I found on the clearance aisle and dressed it up a bit.  Total cost for this project was around $5.

Before...

After....

Recovering a Lampshade

Recovering a lamp shade is no new idea, but I'm always amazed at what a difference it can make for a small amount of money.  Most of the time you can find lampshades at thrift stores for a few dollars, especially if you don't care about the color or condition of the fabric covering them.  In this case it doesn't matter because you are going to cover it anyway. 

I found this shade for a steal but it wasn't in the best shape so I decided to recover it with some fabric.  The fabric was a great deal from Garden Ridge.  I think it was on sale for $2.50 for 2 yards.  It's hit or miss there sometimes but I've found some steals on upholstery fabric.

Before, the shade looked something like this one from Target, only not so new and pretty

I just followed the basic steps I've shown you before...click here for a tutorial

and ta da!

off to the booth it goes...can you believe it's Fall already?  I'm so excited!  Bring on the pumpkin spice lattes, apple picking, and decorating, I'm ready!