More from the carport...

Back when we first started blogging we did a post about picking up some furniture off the side of the road and out of a dumpster. :) Here is one of the pieces I got off the side of the road for free. It has been sitting on my carport looking like this for over a year!

I had this bird house that has seen better days but I loved the shape so the party motivated me to paint it and get my husband to stick the roof back on!
I had a can that looked like this.... So after practically everything got a coat of spray paint, it turned out like this....
For now I am storing kitty food in the white can and want to get some letters to put on it.

Speaking of kitty food, my Sweet Girl and I were at a yard sale and she heard the people talking about how they were giving away kittens. She made a beeline over to the people and announed loudly that she wanted a kitten too. After a cell phone conversation with Daddy and his "okay" we brought a gray kitty home from the yard sale. :)
Sweet Girl named him "Bil". Why one "l" you ask? Because when she sounded Bill out to spell it, she spelled it "BIL".

To see more of my carport makeover go here.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

~Victoria~

A party and a yard sale/thrift store makeover

Christina here: I am linking this post of Victoria's up to Thrifty Thursday over at Leigh's place

and Thrift Store Thursday over at Holly's place.


Victoria had a great time getting her carport ready for her Sweet Girls 4th birthday bash. She has a second post that I am linking at the bottom of this one where she shows another makeover that she did to get ready for the party. Hope you enjoy and make sure you head on over to Tales from Bloggeritaville and Homebody for some more great thrifty finds.

A party and a yard sale/thrift store makeover
by Victoria


(photo by Christina)

This past weekend we celebrated my Sweet Girl's 4th birthday! I have been working hard to clean up and decorate my carport for an outdoor party. I browsed through my yard sale and thrift store finds to find decorations and put together her party. I was really pleased at the "new look" for very little money!!!
The butterfly I bought a couple of years ago at Lakewood (boo hoo it is not there anymore), the seeds sign was a Kirkland's clearance find and the purse shaped birdhouse a Belk's clearance find.

My potting bench was $10 at a yard sale and the chalkboard a $1 at a yard sale last weekend. The glass drink dispenser for $2 at a yard sale and 25 cent candle holder spray painted with Glacier Blue paint.
Tray was a dollar at a yard sale and found the napkin holder recently at Goodwill for a little over a dollar. Both were coated with my new fav color spray paint which is Krylon's Celery Green. White milkglass vase was a GW find as well and the flower pot a yard sale find.



For the tables I used pink tablecloths of various sorts and zinnia's from our "garden" in a clear glass bottle.
We have a little room off of our carport which is where I stash yard sale finds, flower pots and various other outdoor items. It has been extremely unsightly as of late so I hung a yard sale sheet up to block the view and make things more pleasant on the eyes!


I used the fitted sheet from the set over a plastic tablecloth on the food table.
People, even my streamers came from Goodwill! I always buy crepe paper streamers whenever they have them because I figure we have many more birthday's in the future (Lord willing) and usually I can find several together for cheap!
For entertainment we had water balloons (100 of them go fast!)...This pool I bought at a yard sale last weekend. It was a good deal and great for the birthday party. Unfortunately, our yard is sloped and we had trouble with the pool. My husband built a platform from plywood and 2x somethings at 10pm Friday night and was able to make it work! YAY! The kiddo's LOVED it!

Here's where the pictures get good, due to them being taken by my fabulously talented sister, Christina!
I'll show you more as the week goes on. I still have a few more finds on the other side of my carport (click here to see more of her carport makeover) and her cake to show you. :)


Head over to Rhoda's to see more great yardsale and thrift finds.

~Victoria~

Friday night giggles...

I laughed out loud reading Meg's post about our recent trip to the N Ga mountains. We hit all the thrift stores and yard sales we could find and found a few cute goodies along with the scary ones she shares in her post. If you need a good laugh check it out!

Check out the lampshade I found. We just HAD to take a picture of it! It was HUGE!

Did ya notice the white plate in my hand in the picture above? I also found a platter for $1.50


I love the cracks in it...it reminds me that we don't have to be perfect ourselves to have beauty.

Okay and before I sign off for the night/morning (it's now 1am!), check out the giveaway over at Frills, Fluff and Trucks! Me thinks you will like it!!!

~Victoria~

Ironstone and shelves

I ran in Goodwill the other day on my lunch break and happened on a wonderful find! An ironstone sugar & creamer! They were in beautiful shape and get this...$1.51 a piece! Can you believe that? Our GW has ugly dinnerware marked for WAY more than that! I was SHOCKED at the price. Of course I snatched them up as fast as I could.

These were perfect additions to all the other white pieces I have been picking up here and there for my new open shelves in my kitchen. I am in LOVE with the shelves that my FIL and husband built for me!

I just put some odd and ends on the shelves as they have not been fully painted but I couldn't wait to try them out!

We have slowly been remodeling our kitchen and so far I am LOVING the transformation. As I've mentioned before, we live in a small 70's brick ranch and have an itty bitty kitchen. Recently we tore out the cabinets that separated the kitchen from the dining area so we installed these shelves to help make up for some of the missing cabinet space.
I would do it again in a heartbeat!

~Victoria~

Happy Father's Day!

(Sweet Girl with Daddy)

I thought I would give a "shout out" to all the Dad's out there that read our blog. Oh wait...there aren't any. ;)

I remember growing up thinking my Dad was a human playground. :) He would swing us, flip us, jump us and take us for horsie rides on his back. Most importantly, my Dad told us he loved us each day and still does most every time I see him or talk to him. I love you Dad!

(Papa and Sweet Girl)

My own husband became a Father the day before Father's Day in 2005. One thing I always knew about my husband is that he would be a great Father and from the moment Sweet Girl was born he proved me right.

I am so thankful for my Daddy and for Sweet Girl's Daddy! Celebrate your Daddy today in one way or another.

~Victoria~

A Little Patch of Garden

Herb Garden off of my carport

Squash plant just off carport

For years I have had a flower bed off the side of my carport and each year I plant a tomato plant or two and various herbs. This year I branched out and we also have a raised bed so that we could grow more veggies.

Tomato plant nestled in beside my Tea Olive bush

My point of this post (yes, I do have one) is that even if you do not have enough room to have a real "garden", plant a tomato or squash plant in with your flowers and enjoy it!

My Sweet Girl and I picked 2 baby squash off our plant the other day and she was sooo excited! She and my husband do not like squash so I tried cooking it a different way.

I sauteed the squash in a small bit of butter (or you can use olive oil). Add in some herbs (in this case basil, oregano & sage from my herb patch) and salt and black pepper to taste. My two non-squash eaters fought over the last of the squash!!!

One of the biggest joys of gardening this year is to watch my daughter go from plant to plant to water them or see if it has grown and if it has fruit on it. Yesterday she picked our first ever blueberry and ate it! She & I also shared a tiny red raspberry. The experience has been precious and oh so much fun!

Kimba's having a garden party. Jump on over there to see some other garden inspiration.





Victoria

Six Unimportant Things That Make Me Happy

I have been tagged by Melanie Elissa to write down "Six Unimportant Things That Make Me Happy." Make sure you go over and check out her blog and don't miss this post where she updated a Goodwill chair. You know how I love makeovers.

Without further ado...

Six unimportant things that make me happy.

1. A Saturday to myself while the family took in a movie, a trip to the bookstore and other various and sundry things.

2. My hubby's grilling anything. He is such a marvelous cook. (well, he's not unimportant, but I am still very appreciative.) Tonight we are having a quick meal of chili slaw dogs that we didn't get to grill on Saturday. Sure they are just hotdogs, but over charcoal they are always better.



3. The flowers in my yard and the buds bursting forth on a plant that has been dug and carried from the home that my parents lived in when I was born. I thought this one had come from my grandmother, but my mom told me yesterday that it came from a home in South Atlanta that they were caretakers for in the early 1970's.

When they bought their first house they dug some cuttings and it grew in a flower bed by our front porch while we were growing up in GA. My parents moved to another city in GA just before I married and took some with them, an now I have cuttings that grow in my garden, also in GA. Soon a few pieces will make a trip to Amelia in OK. How cool is that.

A bloom about to burst on a yellow daylily. These were my husband's grandmothers.

An altromeria plant that was given to me by someone I worked with during our second year of marriage. She was a master gardener and had a beautiful yard. When we bought a house, I dug it up and carried it with us.

Butterfly weed dug out of a ditch in front of a friends property over 12 years ago.



Chaste tree that I bought for our yard after seeing one on a trip with my husband to Barnsley Gardens almost 11 years ago. It is like purple saliva on a tree.

photo taken by my daughter Chloe

My orange daylilies after a rain. A friend and I had permission to dig these up from an old homestead after the property was sold to a commercial developer.

photo taken by my talented husband

I love the history of my plants---can't you tell.

4. My camera---though I'm sure some of my family wishes that it wasn't always around. : )

5. A gallon zip loc almost full of roma tomatoes from a neighbor

6. bug spray to keep mosquitoes at bay. Even just a few years ago, I would not spray the toxic stuff on myself---now I am just not willing to be eaten by mosquitoes anymore. Most of the less toxic stuff doesn't work on me---so I use "off" most of the time or stay inside during mosquito hours.

I would love for any of you who would like to do this tag. There are so many things in our lives to look around and be happy about. Let me know if you play along. I would love to read yours.

Happy Monday!

Christina

It's Thursday....

and you know what that means...

Time to show off our thrifted treasures and join in with Holly at Homebody for Thrift Store Thursday,


and Leigh at Tales from Bloggeritaville for Thrifty Thursday.



The chalkboard above was $1.51 at Goodwill ... who has enough chalkboards???

I mentioned that we had a yard sale two weeks ago at my in-laws and their neighbor decided to have one as well. Of course I had to head on over and check out what she had!


I was instantly drawn to this picture but not as much to the $10 price tag. At the end of the day she walked over to see how we had done and I asked her if she still had the picture. She did and she took $5 for it!

I actually gave it to one of my sisters to hang in her bedroom but if she doesn't hang it by July 1st, I might get it back and try it in my living room. ;)

Now, I'm off to the mountains for the weekend!

Victoria


Christina here...

I also have a few finds to show this week.

I paid $2.00 for this little box/shelf/whatever it is. It has a tortoise shell look to the bamboo and wicker. It would also be pretty painted white. Mmmmm.


My taste in art is very broad. I love traditional and contemporary. I found this very contemporary piece at a yard sale for $5.00. My son (almost 13) wants this in his room. I'm still deciding.



Here you see my more traditional side. Paid $5.00 for this traditional landscape. It has beautiful colors and such a calm scene. It is dirty and dusty, but will clean up nice. I will probably paint the frame or at the very least make it darker.


Yet another in my broad range of art taste. An old black and white photograph found at a yard sale. My hubby and I actually found this during our first year of marriage at an estate sale---some old, old, fun stuff. It has been put up for a long time and forgotten about. You can see some of the others that we found that same day in this post. I am a huge black and white photography fan. I remember clearly getting my first Ansel Adams calendar when I was around the age of 14.



My sister in law gave me two magazine subscriptions for Christmas and today was a magazine day!!! I love the idea of a fresh, thick magazine waiting for me at the end of the day. Does this count as a thrift find??----They were a gift so, I didn't have to pay for them. Thanks, Michelle!!!!


Off to look at some of your Thrifty finds! Happy Thursday.


Christina