I love you, Goodwill

Today I headed to Goodwill to scout out some new clothes for spring. We are going on a little vacation later this week and I wanted to see if I could find any great deals. Boy, did I! I really need to go to Goodwill more often. I bought 9 pieces of clothing for myself for just over $30. I decided to dedicate this blog post to showing you what I bought. Perhaps it will inspire you to consider thrifting for clothing for yourself. It takes time and patience to score good deals at Goodwill. Don't be discouraged if you come away with nothing. Go back again. Sometimes I find nothing to bring home and sometimes (like today) I find a bunch of great stuff. Below you can see many of my new clothing items hanging in my bathroom.



I was absolutely thrilled to find a brand new (tags still on) MUDD coat for $5.49. It is tan-colored "suede" with a fleecy lining. A perfect transition coat and I really needed one. I also found a cute white cardigan sweater with tags still on for $5.49.



One great thing about Goodwill is that they always have some of their clothing on sale for 99 cents. Today it was green-tagged clothing. I bought this royal blue Starter running shirt for 99 cents.




A pair of shorts and a paisley knit blouse (I LOVE it!) for $3.49 each (I think).




I debated about the flowered top on the left. It has a matching cami with it. They are made from kind of a crepe material. I was a little afraid they look "little old lady", but I know that the trend this season is florals. I felt much better when I saw something VERY similar at Target today. I think I can pull it off........and for $3.49 you can't beat the price. The green knit polka dot shirt was also $3.49.




This blouse was 99 cents and will be great to wear to work.

This olive green knit top is a really flattering fit on me, I discovered. I wished they had it in many different colors, but that usually doesn't happen at Goodwill. When I got home I found a hole in it, but it was in the seam and I quickly stitched it closed on my sewing machine (which was already up and running since I was up late..........1 AM.......working on a project last night. I'll reveal the project soon!). Good as new! And it was $3.49 (I think).

OK..............admit it! You're totally impressed with my thrifting bounty. Now get out there and run (don't walk!) to your nearest Goodwill. Drop me a line and let me know what great things you find, 'kay?

My Halloween treat

When the boys and I went to my parents' house to trick-or-treat on Halloween night my mom surprised ME with a paper bag labeled "Happy Halloween" and "Merry Christmas". I was surprised and delighted to find a little autumn teapot and two matching teacups inside. I had seen this at my favorite local thrift store and had left a shameless hint about it in this post. Just like with the chicken quilt, my mom came through! Thanks, Mom!! I love them so much!





The lid of the teapot has a cute little acorn-shaped handle. So adorable!!

Halloween Crafting.......I love it!!

You know, it's been a while since I've created anything. I really get a great sense of satisfaction when I make something. So I'm feeling pretty good right now since I've managed to create a few fun new things this weekend. This morning I woke up and read my Google reader and saw these great Jack-o-lantern jars on Chasing Cheerios. I immediately decided that I wanted to make these with my two boys today. I had one jar and my mom had one.........so once I picked up the extra one from her after our morning basketball game (with my youngest son) we were good to go. These were really easy and fun to make. Please see the tutorial on Not So Idle Hands for details about how to make these. I added green curling ribbon to the tops to make pumpkin vines but otherwise I followed her tutorial pretty much exactly. I didn't have any black tissue paper so I just printed the faces through the links on her blog and cut them out and Mod Podged them right onto the jars..........just the printer paper. It worked fine. I stuffed my candy corn lights into them and they look really cool on our "harvest" shelf.



(Sidenote: I hadn't "discovered" the Not So Idle Hands blog until today. I love finding new blogs. I am really wanting to try her tutorial for making your own gummy candy.)



The Jack-O Jar on the left is my youngest son's. He really didn't do any of it. He wanted me to do it all. He chose the face he wanted but I did the work. The other one is my oldest son's jar. He is 8 and did most of it himself. I just smoothed out the Mod Podge a little for him and put the face on.






The other thing I created this weekend was candy corn treat bags to give my boys for Halloween. I don't usually give them anything for Halloween, but I saw this tutorial on The Crafty Crow and thought these bags were so adorable I couldn't resist. They were SO easy to make. I plan to fill them with candy corn along with a little honeycomb pumpkin. I found these little honeycomb pumpkins at my favorite local thrift store for 50 cents each. When I was little I loved those fold-out honeycomb decorations. Since my mom was a teacher it seemed like she had a lot of these in her classroom. I don't think they're sold much anymore. I was happy to find these and I think my boys will love them.

(Sidenote: In addition to finding the pumpkins on my thrift outing, I got 2 "new" pairs of shoes for fall/winter for $17 total. I would have had to pay more than that for one pair if I had bought them new. I was really excited to find those bargains. I also saw a teapot with autumn leaves on it and a matching teacup that I LOVE. I've seen it several times in that store but so far haven't been able to bring myself to buy it. If it's there the next time I go in.........maybe I'll splurge on it. It would look great on my baker's rack.........and I would love to use it during the fall to hold my tea. Sorry for digressing.)

Chicken Quilt

This is a great story (and it's true!). About a month ago I saw a really cool chicken quilt in my FAVE local thrift store. It was completely handmade. Machine-pieced and machine-quilted, but not mass-produced. Anyway.........it was really neat and I wanted to buy it, but it was marked $20 and I never spend that much for any home decor for my house, especially not in a thrift store. I told the store owner, Pauline, that I loved it but that I was going to think about it. If it was there the next time I came in, maybe I'd buy it. If not, then I wasn't meant to have it. Pauline said that's the philosophy of her daughter, Terry, but that she herself has learned that if you love it, you'd better get it because chances are it will be gone when you come back.

A few weeks later I stopped in with my boys and headed to the back where I had seen the quilt. Of course it was gone. I told Pauline I wished I'd bought it but that it probably wasn't meant to be mine. Just a few days after that my husband and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary and were dropping the boys off at my parents' house so we could go out to eat. Before we left my mother handed me a bag with our anniversary gift and card from her and my dad. Well.........you have probably guessed by now that the quilt was inside it! It was one of the best surprises I've ever had. I had forgotten that I'd told my mom about the quilt. She also loves quilts and I knew she would enjoy it if she was in the thrift store. So now it's mine. I love it. I still have to hang it up, but I have just the place for it. It will always remind me of our "Chicken Summer 2009" and my surprise anniversary gift.

Wrapped and Ready

I know many of you have been following along on my posts about the Christmas Book activities I'm planning to do with my boys during the Advent season this year. If not, read this post to get an idea of what we're doing. You can also click on the category label "Christmas Book Activities 2009" and that will allow you to read the posts about each individual book I've selected.

This afternoon I wrapped all 15 books in Christmas wrapping paper. My two boys were right there in the room with me, so I wasn't trying to keep it a secret. They did ask me what I was doing and I told them I was getting something ready for our Advent activities this Christmas. (I think they thought that was a little weird since it's still summertime.) I had pre-determined the order that I want to do the books this December. Remember that since I found it too difficult last year to do a planned Advent activity every day from December 1st-25th, I only selected 15 books for our project this year. So...........I decided which order we'll read the books in and made a master list. I wrapped all the odd numbered books in red polka dot paper and the even numbered ones in green printed paper. Obviously you could use whatever you have. I happened to have a lot of each of these papers left over from last year. And the little OCD person inside me insisted that they be wrapped so every other day was a different paper. Gotta keep the inner princess happy you know! Then I used some little white stickers I had and labeled each book with a number. We will open them in order, read the book inside and make the corresponding ornament project. My next step is to find and organize all the ornament materials so I'll have them ready. I'll post about that once it happens. I'm hoping that will be SOON!

I placed all the wrapped books in order in a wooden book box my dad made us. We have several of these and they are awesome! Then I stashed it in a closet and smiled to myself that I have planned ahead for ONCE IN MY LIFE and won't be scrambling to pull this together after Thanksgiving.

If you are interested in this project but don't want to tackle it with 15 books, think about a Christmas book you already have. If it's one on my list, you could even use the same ornament idea. If not, do a Google search and you'll probably find a cute idea to go with your chosen book. Just plan ahead to do one book and activity with your child this season. Chances are it will be a very special memory for both of you. And doing just one is just FINE!

We will be hanging our "book" ornaments on a separate tree. Just this morning my mom called me from a garage sale to let me know she had found a tree for $3 and should she buy it for me? Um.........YES, please! So she did and it's in my basement now. It's bigger than what I was thinking.............it's actually about 5-6 feet tall. But I think it will work just great..........and you can't argue with the price. If you aren't out there thrifting by now after reading all my thrifting posts, then get going! There are great deals to be had!!

Great thrifted finds

Friday and Saturday were great thrifting days for us! The boys and I hit up several garage sales on both days. Sometimes we go and don't come home with much. And that's okay! But it's always fun to find "treasures" for a great price. Our best find of the weekend was a tabletop water fountain. My oldest son has been wanting an outdoor fountain, but we've had to explain that we don't have an extra $200+ to buy something like that. Imagine our surprise and excitement when we walked into our first garage sale on Friday and saw this little tabletop fountain for $2. It works just fine. My sons love it. Later on the same day we found the copper tray it is sitting on for $1. It makes a pleasant, peaceful sound, although I have caught myself looking around to see who left the water turned on!!





I am NOT a very good photographer, but I was pleased to find the wicker chicken basket below for $1. I also bought the 8 green floral napkins inside for only $1.50.

I bought this cute "farm-themed" plate for 25 cents. I have been collecting different plates to hang on my soffit, but haven't hung them up yet. Just one of MANY to-do projects yet to be completed.

We bought this Ker-Plunk game for 75 cents. I love getting new games for the boys at garage sales. They can be so expensive to buy new at the store. Today we bought the game Elefun (not pictured) for a quarter. It is so cute. It has an elephant who blows butterflies out of its trunk and you have to try to catch them in little nets. The boys LOVED playing that many times today.

All summer long my oldest son has been hoping we could find a snowcone maker at a garage sale because I had told him we couldn't buy a new one as they are too expensive. A few weeks ago we found a manual ice shaver for 25 cents. It has worked pretty well. However, today we found this totally cute snow-cone maker for $1. I LOVE this little guy. He is so cute. We tried it out today and used some homemade snow-cone syrup I had made using a super easy recipe from Skip To My Lou. Honestly, it is fairly difficult to crank the ice with this. I did it, but it would be too hard for the boys. Still.......I love the retro vibe and really love the colors...........red and aqua look so awesome together.

Here's a close-up of Mr. Snowman's tummy. :0)

A sneak trip to the thrift store today..........

..............after I got my hair cut...............landed me this set of three cool metal signs. It was a fun trip to my favorite store because when I pulled in the parking lot there was only one other customer car there and it was my friend, Amber's, van. So that was cool. We always talk to each other about going there, but have never ended up there at the same time. I was disciplined in that I told myself if there was nothing I loved, I wouldn't buy anything and I had to limit myself to the amount of cash in my wallet which was $8. This sign set was $6.50. I liked the colors of it and thought they would look great with my newly redecorated living room/dining room/kitchen.



Now one of the words "lives" on each of my top three shelves of my baker's rack. I think the colors in them will even look okay when I change out the items this fall to more seasonal things.

Thrifted goodies

I haven't been going to thrift stores as much lately. Since we started the chicken coop, we've been investing our money there as well as some home repairs that we are getting done this summer. So.........I'm supposed to be "watching the checkbook". However, I wanted to share a few things I haven't shared here yet. Today the boys and I ran several errands and did make a quick stop at Goodwill to pick up something I needed for a 4th of July project. I wore a skirt that I had purchased a few weeks back at the same Goodwill. I got the skirt for $3.49 and it's so cute and summery. I had to take a photo of it into our hallway mirror, so the quality isn't great, but you can see that it's a summery yellow print with a "jaunty" polka dot "ribbon" just below the waist. I've been wearing skirts this summer quite a bit. It was one of my 40th birthday goals to wear skirts more. For one thing, I HATE to wear shorts unless I'm working out. I just don't like the way they look on me and I haven't worn them for a few summers. And skirts are much cooler than capris, which is the only other thing I wear out and about in the summer. Plus, if you watch TLC's What Not to Wear, Stacy and Clinton have said many times that skirts are much more flattering on most figures than shorts. I totally agree. The A-line skirt like the one I wore today is supposedly one of the most flattering types of skirts for many different figures. Since I'm a mom of 2 boys, I also like the fact that skirts make me feel more feminine in a testosterone-driven household.

The metal AUTUMN tealight holder (you can put tealights behind it) in the next photo is one my mom bought and gave to me (THANKS, MOM!) at a garage sale we went to last weekend. They had this marked as $5, and neither my mom or I would pay $5 for it at a garage sale. I told my mom to ask if they would take less, which she did, and she got it for $3. I guess it never hurts to ask. Honestly, I usually don't try to barter a price at a garage sale myself. I usually just walk away and don't buy the item if I think it's priced too high. I try to really price things to sell when I have a garage sale. It's the only way you can truly get rid of things. If I have something that I want more for, I try to sell it on Craigslist.

The AUTUMN sign will look great on the baker's rack I bought this summer at a garage sale. I'm trying to collect items (inexpensively) to decorate my baker's rack for each season. I bought the little pumpkin pitcher below (it's only about 4 inches tall) at Goodwill today for 59 cents.

And this pumpkin tealight holder was also 59 cents at Goodwill. It is amazing how many very cute seasonal decorations you can find for a steal at Goodwill.

This little bunny statue was $1.99 from Goodwill today and will be put on the baker's rack next spring.



And finally, my original intent in going to Goodwill today was to pick up 2 pairs of blue jeans for a 4th of July project. Today blue tag clothing was 99 cents, so I made sure to pick 2 pairs with blue tags. Since I'm using them for a craft, it didn't even matter if they were mens or womens or what size they were. Tomorrow I'll show you what I did with them. I got a Ralph Lauren pair and a pair of Levi's.

Thrifty footwear

Now I know all you regular readers are aware that I LOVE shopping at garage sales, thrift stores, and Goodwill. If you've been reading a while you may also remember that one of my goals when I turned 40 was to dress cuter and wear more skirts, jewelry, cute shoes, etc. So I thought you might enjoy seeing 2 really cute new pairs of shoes I've recently acquired. First up is a pair of LifeStride slides that I bought this week at Goodwill for a whopping $3.99. They are SO cute. I was thrilled to find them. I am working on sewing a cute skirt to go with them.







I think the little butterfly detail is really cute.





The other pair is this pair of white Nine West slides that I bought at my fave local thrift store for $7.00.





I kept trying to wrench my leg to the side and take a photo where you could see the cute little kitten heel, but I didn't like how my ankles looked in the photos. (I know, so vain!) So I just slipped one off and plopped it on my nightstand.






For $11 I bought 2 pairs of shoes...............less than half what you would normally expect to pay for one pair. I'm telling you, people, thrifting is the way to go. It's so fun. You should try it if you haven't already. Don't be discouraged if you don't find something great every time. Just keep it up and you'll be amazed at the bargains that await you. Just this morning, for example, I went to a bunch of garage sales with both my boys, my mom and my cousin. At the last one I found 2 waterers for baby chicks for $1. I would have paid much more for those at the local farm store. It was very serendipitous to find them just when we're getting everything ready for our chicks to arrive. I also bought a plate that I didn't like that much for 50 cents just so I could use the attached plate hanger for another plate that I want to hang in my kitchen. I can guarantee you that I wouldn't have been able to buy a new plate hanger for 50 cents.

Well, that's all for now. I'll be sure to share more great finds as I find them.

More home dec projects

I finally have a few more home decorating projects completed and ready to share. First up, I bought a white wicker frame at Goodwill last month for about $2. I knew immediately that I wanted to transform it into a chalkboard for my kitchen. Below you can see how it looked when I started. And may I add that my grass looks amazingly lush and green in this photo? Wow!

I went to Home Depot and had a very nice guy in the lumber department cut me a piece of thin MDF for the backing of the chalkboard. Did you know they will cut wood to measure for free? I asked the guy if he charged anything per cut and he said, "Just a smile." Well, that was easy. He told me he had waited on a really grumpy lady earlier that day. So I was really nice to him. Although I would have been nice anyway cuz I'm just like that. :0) Anyway, I spray painted the frame Colonial Red and the piece of wood with chalkboard spray paint. I used only 2 coats of the chalkboard paint, I think. I cured the chalkboard as recommended by rubbing a piece of chalk all over it prior to first writing on it. It doesn't erase quite as well as I would like. If I use a damp cloth, it cleans up pretty well, however. Below you can see it on my kitchen wall next to two framed chicken prints. DH just hung these for me last night. I have more plans for this area and big plans for the outdated heart shelf. Hopefully I'll get those done soon so I can share.

See how it's kind of smudgy? Maybe I should have sprayed more coats of the chalkboard paint. If you've used it and have suggestions, please comment.

I printed the chicken prints on white cardstock on my computer. The images are from The Vintage Moth. This is a really cool blog that has tons of public domain images that you can download and print for FREE! I bought 2 frames at my fave thrift store. One was already black and I sprayed the other one. Voila! Nearly free artwork!

I bought this plant holder for around $8 or less (I can't remember exactly) at my favorite local thrift store. I've been wanting to spray paint something with Rustoleum Green Apple and this was the perfect project.

Below is my finished planter sprayed with Green Apple. I bought a coconut liner at Home Depot and added the flowers. This is now hanging on the wall of our home just outside one of our entry doors. I love it! I think it looks so fun and fresh with the apple green paint.

Now, on to the bathroom. The next two photos are the "before" pictures. My bathroom has been pretty much the same and pretty much boring for several years.

My laundry is in the main bathroom. You can see my clothes drying rack and laundry basket complete with clothes............just keeping it real!!



I posted a while back about this "hairy" little nightlight lamp that I bought at my fave thrift store. Now it is at home on my bathroom counter.

I decided to continue my "French country" decor into the main bathroom since it is in the hallway right off the living room/dining room/kitchen. Keeping the same color scheme and using the same fabrics will provide continuity throughout my home. So, I used leftover fabric from my living room/dining room/kitchen transformation to make a custom shower curtain for our bathroom.

Below the window where I previously had a basket of rolled towels on the floor and my clothes drying rack, I added a little shelf that I scammed off my parents. My dad actually made it himself MANY years ago. It was just sitting in their garage and my mom let me have it when I asked. She's nice like that. I was thinking about painting it, but I think I actually like it as is for now at least. I bought some new towels to go with the new decor. I actually really needed them because my old ones were starting to fray. I also bought a new clothes hamper. My old white plastic one was torn and cracked and really needed to go. I placed the clothes rack in the space between the wall and the washing machine. It's amazing how these little changes have completely transformed my bathroom.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this little white basket that I found to put rolled washcloths in. I bought it at...........my favorite local thrift store for about $3. LOVE. IT. The fact that it has chicken wire is really awesome since I'm going to soon be a CHICKEN FARMER!! ha

I have several more projects in mind for the bathroom/laundry room. Hopefully those will get done soon too so I can post.

I made a little trip to Goodwill tonight while DH took my boys to a high school baseball game. I haven't taken photos of my "treasures" yet, but I'll try to do a post about them soon. When I go without the boys, I like to take time to clothes shop. I found 3 new tops, a new skirt, a totally cute new pair of sandals, a little white apple and a fall tray for my baker's rack this fall. SCORE!

Gosh I love thrifting!! You never know what you'll find.