These Boots Were Made For Walking

I am not what I would consider a trendy person. I have shirts hanging in my closet from when I was a sophomore. In high-school. Ten years ago. (Not that they still fit me, but that’s a whole different blog post.)

I am, in fact, initially resistant to just about every new clothing trend that comes along. I go through phases:

Phase 1

That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. I will never in a million years be caught dead wearing something like that.

Phase 2

Well, I guess it’s not so bad. On someone else though. I could never pull that off.

Phase 3

That. is. adorable. I would like to buy one in every color and style imaginable.

Sadly, by the time I’ve reached Phase 3, the trend is usually old news or on it’s way out. It’s happened with nearly every style of apparel you can think of in the past 27 years of my existence. Capri pants, 3/4 length sleeves, leggings, skinny jeans, jeggings, and now…boots.

I love boots. 

I am obsessed with boots.

If I wasn’t already married I might ask them to marry me.

Well, ok…maybe not. But you get my point.

Everywhere I go I see cute boots! Tall boots! Short boots! Gray boots! Brown boots! Flat boots! Boots with heels! Boots with wedge heels!

And I stare and I drool but I almost never buy them because….

*sigh*

…boots are expensive. At least to this thrifty mama they are.

And by the time they’ve gotten to a price I think I can afford, they are out of my size…or just out completely.

So I thought I would share with you some of the boots I loved but never got. Major “non-buyer’s remorse” here.

1. Elle Riva Wedge Knee-High Boots

Oh my lands, if these are not the most adorable boots I have ever seen. The ruffle! And the wedge heel! I walked by these practically every time I went to Kohls just to see if they’d gone on sale. Because, if you click on that link, you’ll see that the original price was $99.99. Sooo not happening on a stay-at-home mama salary. Then they went on sale for $29.99! I could totally do that! But -- “Sorry this item is no longer available”

*Sad face*

2. Rialto Soul Search Tall Boots

Also at Kohls. In black or brown. I loved them both.

Gone.

Sayonara, cute boots.

3. Target Merona Zanta Plaid with Roll Over Cuff Rain Boots

These ones absolutely kill me. Because they were on clearance in the store for $16.00 the other day! And they had every single size BUT mine! So I checked online…full price. What in the world? You’re killing me, Target.

Oh, well. One of these days there will be the perfect storm of cute boots, a killer price, and the perfect size. Until then I think I shall be revisiting these verses:

Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.  And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.  But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
I Timothy 6:6-10

Thrifty Thursday

My friend Londa always posts a thrifty tip every Thursday and today I’m joining her with one of my own.

Thrifty Tip Numero Uno

Shop the Dollar Spot at Target

Ok…so this probably isn’t news to most of you, I know. But it never ceases to amaze me the things I’m able to find there.

Remember how I went to the grocery store the other day and came back without a single thing on my list?

Well, that was partly because of my sleep deprivation but also partly because I got totally distracted by the dollar section.

That gift I got for my niece, Mykaela?

Dollar section.

Hello Kitty markers, stickers, and a coloring book, $1 each. I just tied the tulle around it to make it look fancy :)

And the thank you notes?

Dollar section.

They always have a great selection of cute blank note cards and I stock up. Obviously these can be used for more than just thank you notes. I love having a selection of cards on hand to send a note of encouragement to a friend or just say hey!

Some past purchases have included this apron for Lily:

 

and this glittery Christmas sign:

 

I’ve also gotten flash cards, snack containers, gift bags, decorative buckets, and so much more.

Anyone else love the dollar section as much as I do?

I Have No Idea What I’m Doing Here

If you would’ve told me a year ago that this summer I was going to tackle not one but TWO furniture restoration/re-doing/whatever-you-want-to-call-it projects I would’ve said you were crazy.

For one thing, I didn’t know the first thing about furniture restoration/painting/re-doing, etc. And really, if I wanted some furniture, why not just save myself the hassle and time and buy it new?

Well.

Maybe because there might come a day when I would need some furniture and I didn’t have the money to buy it new. Which is exactly what happened to us this past January when we found out we were expecting another baby.

We needed some furniture for Lily’s “big girl room” but we also needed to not spend an arm and a leg on it, so I started doing a little research and decided to tackle a couple of pieces of furniture on my own.

First up, a dresser:

This is the master bedroom before we re-did it this summer. And if you look waaayy in the left-hand corner of the picture, you will see the dresser I decided to paint for Lily’s room.

Sorry, that’s the best “before” picture I could find. Basically, it was just a plain, boxy, dark brown laminate dresser. Nothing fancy, but it was free.

Some sanding, a few coats of white paint, and new hardware and now we have this:

  It’s still nothing fancy, but it looks one hundred times better in her room than it would have had we not painted it.

I also wanted some sort of nightstand but again – no money to buy one, and we really didn’t have any extra nightstands laying around the house either. But then we had a garage sale and some friends of ours brought over a few things to sell. One of them just so happened to be this end table and I pretty much fell in love with it the second I saw it.

  I just loved the shape of it, but I wasn’t crazy about the color and I didn’t really like the hardware – and besides, I had no idea where I would even put it. So I told myself that I would put it on the garage sale anyway and if nobody bought it, then I’d ask them how much they wanted for it and take it off their hands.

I spent pretty much the entire garage sale holding my breath every time someone stopped to look at it, praying they wouldn’t be interested and miracle of all miracles, NOBODY BOUGHT IT!

By that time, I already knew that this would be a perfect addition to Lily’s room, so I paid them $5.00 and went to work. And now, here it is in it’s new home:

It turned out exactly the way I wanted it to!

But I mean it when I said in the title I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING. I mean, really. I’m a total amateur, and I was super nervous to take on two projects like this but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about DIY-ing, it’s that sometimes you just have to try. And maybe you’ll fail and totally screw it up and that’s totally fine.

But you also might just end up with two decent looking pieces of furniture to put in your little girl’s room that cost you a grand total of $5.00 plus the cost of paint.

Neither of these are perfect and I’m most likely not going to be making some sort of business out of restoring and selling furniture in the near future.

But you know what I discovered? It’s kind of FUN! I’ve already got two more pieces of furniture on my To Re-Do list, if I ever get around to it after the baby is born.

Before I end, I have to give some shout outs to a couple of people because without them I never could’ve gotten this done:

First, my cousin {actually he’s more like my second cousin once removed or some nonsense like that but for simplicity’s sake let’s call him my cousin} Mark for letting me borrow his power sander:

This seriously cut hours off my time. I love it. And I’m totally asking for one for Christmas.

And second, to one of my favorite DIY blogs Young House Love for their super awesome furniture painting tutorial. I pretty much followed their instructions to the letter, and if you’re looking to paint some furniture on your own, that’s where I’d tell you to go for advice.

***********

This post is linked to:

Thrifty Decor Chick’s Before and After Party

From Placemats to Pillows: A Before and After

Last week my bloggy friend Ali asked me,

“Hey whatever happened to painting your room? Pick a color or paint yet?”

Why, that is an excellent question, Ali.

EXCELLENT!

The answer is…no.

I’ve looked at some paint chips. That’s about as far as things have gotten on the paint front **hangs head**

But the good news is, we have made progress on our master bedroom re-do. Lots of progress, actually. The painting is probably the last major thing we need to finish.

And since today happens to be

I thought I would share with you a little before and after project that I completed not long ago for our master bedroom.

I mentioned before that I loved the idea of white bedding with green and brown accent pillows, and I had found a few pillows that I liked. They weren’t horribly expensive – like $15 per pillow or something like that. But when you want to buy more than one, well – that can add up fast and I really didn’t feel like putting down $45.00 just for pillows.

Then one day I was browsing the table linens aisle in Kohl’s and saw the cutest placemats – only problem was, they wouldn’t go in our dining room. And then, a lightbulb went off – I could make pillows out of them! For our bedroom!

I thought I remembered awhile back that Sarah did a post about making pillows out of placemats and it seemed fairly easy, so I snatched up a couple and took them home.

I am telling you right now this is the EASIEST project I have ever done.

I think it took me all of five minutes, no lie.

We had some pillows on the couch in the basement that were once beautiful but the years had taken their toll on them:

 

They looked like the right size and shape so I just unzipped the covers and removed the pillow forms.

Then I took my seam ripper to those super cute placemats:

**Note: To do this project you need to use placemats that are double-sided – as in, two pieces of fabric sewn together. Otherwise this won’t work.**

I just ripped out the seam on one end, stuffed in the pillow form, and sewed it back together.

EASY PEASY.

Here’s a picture of the finished pillows sitting on top of our new bedding.

I love them!

We’ve made several other changes to the bedroom since this picture was taken – I can’t WAIT until it’s all done and I can show you the final reveal!

I also want to get {or make} a couple of other pillows for the bed to fill things out a little. It just doesn’t look quite “right” to me yet -- but I’m not sure what shape/size would be best. Any suggestions?

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Today Sarah is hosting her monthly Before and After bloggy party and I’ve decided to link up!

{Ok, so technically the party was yesterday but, whatever. Better late than never, right?}

Do you remember a loooong time ago…like four months or so…I told you how I was working on a DIY project that involved a can of Rustoleum?

And I was all mysterious about what it was but promised I’d show you later?

And then I never did?

Remember that???

I didn’t think so.

Well I decided today would be the perfect time to reveal what we did.

First, a little history.

Our home was built in the nineties and evidently, gold/brassy type light fixtures were all the rage because we have them ALL OVER our house – both inside AND out.

Pretty much all of our light fixtures look like this:

{source}

And, my personal favorite *cough* the chandelier in our dining room looks like this:

Some people might like it, and that’s fine, but it’s just really not my style.

And then we had the light fixtures OUTSIDE. They looked something like this:

{source}

I would have loved to be able to trade those bad boys in for something more like this:

{source}

…but at $160.00…PER LIGHT? You’ve got to be kidding me! Not. happening.

{Suddenly all the brass is making a lot more sense…}

Still, even though my husband told me that nobody pays attention to what color your garage door lights are, I wanted to see if there was something I could do to change it.

Enter Rustoleum. Spray paint for metal – genius!

One can of Rustoleum Dark Bronze Hammered Finish

…was all we needed to turn this:

Into this:

We just took apart the lights, spray painted them, then reassembled.

It took us a few hours {including paint drying time} on a Saturday. And I only electrocuted myself once before remembering that we needed to turn off the fuse while we reattached the wires :)

The best part? I think it was something like $5.00 for that can of spray paint {and we didn’t even use it all!}

While we were finishing up, our neighbor came out and said, “Hey! I like your new light fixtures!”

And I should have just smiled and said, “Thanks!”

But instead I said, “They’re not new! We spray painted our old ones! FIVE BUCKS!!!!!”

I’m classy like that ;)

Vindication

Since I started staying at home our budget is much, MUCH tighter and I've really been trying to be more diligent about saving money, clipping coupons,and looking for good deals. It's hard work, and I'll be honest -- it gets old sometimes.

Anytime I need inspiration, I just head over to Money Saving Mom's website -- she is my Proverbs 31 woman hero. Seriously. Love her. And while I've got nowhere near the expertise that she does, I've been able to make some great strides {well, ok, maybe more like baby steps} towards being a "frugalista" if you will.

However. I'm just gonna level with you, when I go to the grocery store these days, it is a sight to see. I'm never without my binder full of coupons and my calculator and my meticoulously written lists, etc. etc. And if you don't believe me, then just listen to this conversation I had with the sample lady in Hy-Vee.

Sample Lady: Oh, hi dear, would you like to sample some egg nog?

Me: No, thank you, I'm fine.

{I pass by and then realize I forgot something and circle back past the Sample Lady again}

*******

Sample Lady: Oh hi dear, would you like to sample some egg nog?

Me: No, thank you, I'm fine.

Sample Lady: Oh yes, I asked you already. I remember you with your...binder...and everything.

Me: {cringe} Yep. That's me. Binder Lady.

Even MORE embarrassing was when I was in Wal-Greens and I passed by one of the managers. She gave me and my ginormo-binder a once over and then said smirkingly, "My, my that is quite the "SYSTEM" you've got going on there."

I'm sure my face was bright red. But you know what? I got my vindication when I checked out and paid a mere $.98 for over $30.00 of groceries.

Yeah. What's up now snarky Wal-Greens lady? What.Is.Up.