My favorite thing (other than shopping) is being 'thrifty'. This can include trolling thrift shops, consignment shops, yard sales... or seeing something I like and being "crafty" and making it for my home.


Image One: shows two of the things that I made on the cheap.

The large wall hanging over my bed I put together with a large $5 frame I found at a yard sale, 2 yards of clearance fabric stretched and stapled onto the frame, and some acrylic paint. Once the fabric was stretched I simply painted a branch and bird. I believe all together this probably cost me about $12 bucks. Not bad! It was cheap enough that come winter, I can simply change the fabric/image and redo the wall hanging to match my duvet cover.

Wall decals are all the rage, and a super easy/quick way to dress up your walls. (Especially if you tend to change styles often, or are an apartment dweller and can't paint) Rather than spending the money on what I wanted, I downloaded some bird stencils online, spent $5.95 on a huge roll of black Contact paper at Home Depot, printed/cut out the bird stencils and outlined them on the back of the Contact paper. Once the birds were cut out, putting them up on the wall was easy. Not only super cheap, but they are easily movable. (on a side note, not only did I make birds, I covered some old storage boxes that now look simply marvelous in my living room!)

Image Two: No money spent here. While walking outside I found a very interesting branch. Since I felt that my home was a bit cold, I thought maybe a wee bit of nature would warm up the place. I took an old brass coat hook, screwed it into the wall and hung the branch on it. Ultra cheap and always a conversation starter.

Image Three: I had an old wooden dresser sitting in my pantry for ages. I used it for.. well.. junk.  You know, stuff you don't want to toss out, but it really has no special place to be put away? Anyway... twas pretty beat up. Stained, slightly dirty... definitely ugly. Being bored one day I painted it a deep eggplant/plum color, printed out several Hindu art images I found online, used a stencil that had some interesting shapes, and decoupaged it onto the dresser. Once the images were firmly in place I glazed the entire dresser and went over the edges of the images with a gold paint pen. I did purchase the paint, and the paint pen, so I would estimate that this project cost me a total of $10.

What's the point? Basically that it's easy to get caught up in whats new and glamorous. Spending money, especially online, is easy and somewhat habit forming. I find it far more satisfying to make something myself, or hunt down good deals, or even revamp old pieces.... plus... it's fun.

Here's some links that may help you get some good ideas!

To purchase on the cheap:
www.shopgoodwill.com

To get Crafty ideas:
www.craftster.org
www.etsy.com