Another Round of Thrifty Finds and a Makeover

I haven't posted a makeover in a long time and those are my favorite kinds of posts. It is just thrilling to see all of the wonderful things you girls do with your thrifty finds.

We found this basket a couple of months ago at Goodwill. It is large and very sturdy. I didn't remember to take a picture of before with the handle on.

While it was a great basket just like it was, there was an idea brewing in the back of my mind--This would be a great basket for my photography sessions of newborns and littles.



This is kind of what I envision with a newborn baby in it or a vintage look with an older baby sitting in it with just a diaper on. Sorry not a great picture, I was doing this quickly and the fur is overtaking the basket without something in it.

I'm pleased with the way it turned out and will enjoy having it in my house also.

We are joining in with Thrifty Thursday. Please head over and see all of the treasures that everyone has unearthed this week.





This picture was $1.55. The frame is a goldish bronze color and not attractive.


Here it is with a coat of cream paint. It's ok, but don't love it. I'm going to try it in black.


These candlesticks are going to get a coat of the same paint as the basket and frame above. I always find lots of iron looking things like these in my searching, but these were a little more unique with the little crystals hanging from them.


I found five of these chairs on a recent thrifting excursion. They were $35.00 total. That is probably thrifty to some and too expensive to others. The cane backs on the chairs drew me right to them. I put the one with the tag in my buggy and was stopped twice on my way though the store by people asking how much they were and telling me what neat chairs they were.
Here I am experimenting with color. My first thought was black, and then cream came to mind. I sprayed the upper portion of the chair just I can walk by it for the next few days and decide if it is going to stay that way or not. Does anyone else every have to do this?

These chairs could be wonderful in so many colors---red, lime green, yellow, pink. So many choices. The fifth one may get a coat of one of those fabulous colors and be used for photography.


Christina

Something Sunny

Hopefully no one will mind if I take a minute to brag on my hubby. He went by the store for me on Monday night and brought home to me these wonderful sunny yellow and green flowers. He does this from time to time. No rhyme or reason. No holiday. Just because. I love that. Thanks dear! You are so wonderful to me.


Aren't they incredibly cheery? Just perfect in my little thrifted pitcher that usually holds my kitchen sink brushes.

Speaking of sunny, I thought with mother's day coming up, someone might enjoy this delicious tasting salad. In our extended family we almost always have a congealed salad when we get together for a special meal. This recipe was given to us at my daughter's Girl Scout meeting a couple of weeks ago. They were learning about heritage and were to make a recipe that has been handed down in their family. We also tasted the recipes. This is delicious. I look forward to making it this year.

Pineapple Cream Cheese Salad

1 pint crushed pineapple
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt
cook 5 min.

Dissolve one package Knox gelatin in 1/2 cup water.

Add to hot mixture.

Remove from stove. Add one 1 large package of cream cheese to pineapple mixture.

Add a couple of drops of food coloring then cool.

Add 1/2 pint of cool whip. Pour into mold and let set overnight.

I can just taste the zing of the pineapple while I'm typing.

We will have some more fun finds tomorrow late in the day. Hope you have had a great hump day.

Christina

Thrifty Finds

Who doesn't love a thrifty fun find? Well, I'm sure someone out there doesn't, but they probably don't read this blog anyway.

How about this adorable chair that Victoria found for $3.00. I will be making it over and posting a picture sometime soon. The seat is covered with pollen from sitting on my porch. If you've never met up with pollen---It covers everything and makes people wild with sneezing and itchy eyes. Welcome to good 'ole GA.



I loved this old picnic basket. As with the chair above, it was bought mainly with my photography business in mind, but I do try to incorporate many of these things into my home because I lack a studio and storage.



Some great misc. white pieces. Love these!!


Two plate hangers for 50cents.



How about some soup?


Is this awful? I like it, but I'm also a little scared of it. : ) I will try to link later to a blog that made over something similar in a fabulous way. It is saved somewhere around here. Notice the fluer de lis on the top of the handle.


Some unique white plates for hanging.



New Ralph Lauren tennis shoes---that don't fit the person I bought them for. : (


My most favorite find and the best deal of all is a stack of six dinner plates for $2.72. I guess it doesn't take a lot to make me happy. I called Victoria and said, "I'm hyperventilating." Why was this the best deal? Well, because they are the dinner plates that go with my place settings of Mikasa French Countryside.

One sells for $12.99! This may very well be one of my best thrifting find to date. We had broken one of our plates recently and it is always great to have extra dinner plates.


Make sure you head over to Rhoda's blog, Southern Hospitality, for the Today's Thrifty Finds Party. There are some great things over there.

Linens part 2

Edited to add: We are participating in and Thrift Store Thursday and Thrifty Thursday usually hosted by Tales From Bloggeritaville, but this week while she is out of town you will find it here. Make sure to go visit these ladies and see all of the goodies that others have found. You may want to start here to see Victoria's first linen post.




Linens part 2 by Victoria

I did want to clarify a few things from my linens post the other day.

1) The coverlet that I picked up out of the "trash" was in a very nice neighborhood and I actually know the very clean lady that lives in the house. Just wanted to make sure you all know I'm not picking up nasty things out of the garbage and putting them on my bed. :)

2) My Goodwill doesn't typically have a lot of great items but after a dr's appt in a different part of town, I found a GW and they had all sorts of really great things. I have found, as many of you have, that you have to go often (weekly usually) and I check the linen bin each time I go. Most days I come away with nothing but sometimes I strike gold!

After my Dr appt I found this lovely pillow sham to use in my Sweet Girl's room. Again, hot water and I felt like it was good to go!

It added some interest and broke up the matchy matchy I had going on in here.

Now, I have always steered clear of pillows from GW because HOW do you wash them (unless of course they have a zipper cover)? I recently broke away from this trend when I spotted two of these darling round blue pillows and they were 1/2 off! What I did was look them over really well and sniff them. They looked extremely clean and smelled good and so I bought them. I put them in the dryer and also put them out in the sun for a couple of days before bringing them in.
I had to throw in a shot of the "spring" banner I bought at GW. It has lots of luscious glitter and the colors go perfectly in Sweet Girl's room! It was originally from Target and $9.99. I think I did pay $2.52 for it.

If anyone ever spies a little "George Monkey" in his pj's we need another one!!!!! I'll gladly pay you for it and shipping.

I love this room and the fact that most of her bedding was bought on clearance at Target as they discontinued this part of their Shabby Chic line. I had help from lots of family members who spied things on clearance at their Targets and picked up items for me. To see more of Sweet Girl's room and how the bedding has evolved go here. For part one go here.

Cheers,

~Victoria~

A thankful cake

Emily over at Chatting at the Sky is challenging us to take a moment today to celebrate the small things and see the lovely in our lives (in spite of the food stuck to the floor and the laundry piled high). :)

After I read Emily's post about what she would be doing today it challenged me to pay attention to things around me and especially moments shared with my 3 year old. I knew that today I would be at work and be busy from the moment I hit the door so my moment actually happened yesterday.

I told my Sweet Girl we were going to make one of her Daddy's favorite cakes (Lemon Poppyseed) for him. I explained to her as we were making it that it was not his birthday or any other special day ... we were doing it "just because".

Over the years when I've slowed down and thought about it, I've talked to her and told her how thankful we should be for Daddy and I point out all the things that he does for us. He works hard to provide for us, he protects us, he is not lazy, he keeps the grass cut, the cars running, he plays with her and so on.


Yesterday I did that again and called our cake a "thankful cake" and we talked about all that Daddy does for us. When I got done, I asked her why we made the cake and she said "because it's not his birthday and he tickles us". I thought she caught on rather well for 3 years old! :)


You see, to my Sweet Girl the fact that he plays with her and tickles her IS the most important thing in her world right now and that's why she was making the cake. I thought it was precious and I was so glad that I took the time to slow down and enjoy the process with her! It also reminded me to be thankful for "Daddy" and all he does for us and that's always a good thing.


My sister Beth always has dessert, whether it's cookies, cake or something else, under her pretty glass cake dome at her house and she is the one that shared this recipe with me. I LOVE cakes that use a cake mix and additional ingredients. They seem so much easier than scratch and taste so yummy.

Here's the recipe in case you want to make someone a cake today for no reason at all!

Lemon Poppyseed Cake

1 package yellow cake mix
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
1 cup plain or vanilla nonfat yogurt
3 eggs
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons poppy seeds

Combine cake mix and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add vegetable oil and next four ingredients and beat on medium speed for six minutes. Stir in poppyseeds. Pour into well greased bundt pan and bake for 40 min at 350 degrees or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool in pan for 10 min. Remove from pan and drizzle with lemon glaze.

Lemon Glaze
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Lemon juice

Sift powdered sugar into bowl. Add 1 tbsp lemon juice and stir. Add enough lemon juice until glaze if of drizzling consistency.


I encourage you to take a moment today and enjoy the small things around you. Put the laundry aside and go cuddle with the little one or call someone just to say "hi". Oh and in case you are wondering, Sweet Girl DID dress herself. ;)

~Victoria~

Let's talk linens...

Until recently I've never been one to shop Goodwill or Thrift Stores for linens. Ick, right? Wrong! There is very little that some hot water and All won't take care of! If it's stained, I'm probably not going to touch it but otherwise I'll consider it.

After Nester did a series that included fluffing up the Master Bedroom by adding fabric, I realized just how sparse my bedroom was in the fabric area.

I bought some Shabby Chic bedding on clearance at Target long ago but had never really been happy with the look of all of it. So...recently, I found these king size pillow shams at GW for $5. They are in great shape and a name brand (oooooh).



Then I found this bedskirt (also name brand - aren't I special?) at GW for $2.60!


I found this coverlet on the side of the road after someone finished up their yard sale and left the rest for the trash man. The little roses are not my style or colors but I picked it up to use for camping.

I quickly realized how pretty the reverse side was and that I could use it wrong side up to add some interest to my bed.

None of the colors necessarily match which was hard for me at first. I struggle hard against the matchy, matchy bug, however with counseling from Christina I've quickly come to love how all the colors coordinate and blend in a soft way. Now, I just need to find me some cheapo GW curtains and I'll be done!


Stay tuned this week and I'll try to share more pictures of my bedroom. It has just been painted so everything is not back in place yet.

~Victoria~

Favorite Things Friday

My house is TORN UP from some recent remodeling but I wanted to post a couple of my favorite things today.

This little vignette Christina set up for me.


My new library bag, bought for a quarter at a yard sale.

Love the way the color of these books pop.
My Father-in-law started a tradition several years ago of buying my Mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and myself a flower every Easter. We have received baskets of pansies, orchids, Easter lillies, etc. This year he included my Sweet Girl in his tradition and bought her this little pot of daisies. She loves them and insisted on putting them in her bedroom.


Wednesday, Sweet Girl and I had a picnic in the living room floor. We sat down to eat when she said "uh oh, we need a CENTERPIECE!" Really? My 3 year old is telling me we need a centerpiece!!! She ran and brought her daisies to add as our centerpiece.

Christina bought me this little plaque at Ross for $2.99. It was white which didn't make the center stand out. I spray painted it black to give it a little more definition.

My Sweet Girl dressed up to dance to classical music. She LOVES doing this! New Mommies, if you want your children to LOVE classical music, have it playing for them often.


Hope you enjoyed a glimpse into my favorite things. Go find a favorite thing in your house that makes you smile and enjoy your Friday!

~Victoria~

Laundry soap and kittens

So, what do laundry soap and kittens have to do with each other???? Nothing at all, but we have some of both today.

So, my dear hubby brought laundry soap home last week and neither of us can stand the pour spout built into the bottle. Btw, we do know that the bottle isn't suppose to sit the way it is in the picture. We had it on a shelf, but it just annoyed us both and still was drippy after we put the cap back on.



So enter this Limeade bottle and some spray paint.



Now, it becomes a bottle for dispensing detergent that we can both live with.



Yes, I'm weird.

Now, for the kitten part. We have a cat and kittens who have taken up residence on our porch.


We are not cat people, (don't panic yet) in fact having a dog is pushing it for my hubby. Until we found the kittens we were going to try to run the girl cat off, but as soon as we found the kittens hiding, we of course are caring and concerned for them and the mommy. So we now have four cats---until they are old enough to leave to good homes. They will have to all go--cats just can't just stay here---no ifs ands or buts. So how do I prepare them for a good home? Do I wet some cat food down for the babies as they get older. One of the kittens is more social. It came out of hiding and playfully licked the food yesterday, but didn't pick any up. The mommy is nursing them and they appear to be relativly healthy. Mommy was very glad to see food though, so she may not have a home elsewhere in the neighborhood.

Any advice??? Please be gentle about us not being cat people. They will be taken care of, but will have to go. I would guess they are about 3 to 4 weeks old. Guessing?????

Thanks girls!!

Christina