Spending $100

So, I have a $100 gift card from Christmas that’s burning a hole in my pocket.  Here’s the thing…I am having a hard time deciding between 2 things.  One of them in is in the fashion realm and the other is home decor.  What’s the better way to spend my money?

In the fashion realm, I really want these boots:

Source (please don’t buy them in a 6.5)

I have these exact boots in brown, and I wear them all the time.  Those are grey by the way.  So, I’m pretty sure that I would wear the grey ones too.  Plus, I’ve been on the hunt for grey boots for some time now.  The problem is that it’s already January, and I feel like I won’t really be able to wear boots much longer.  For those of you in cold climates, I’m sure you’re disagreeing with me, but in Texas our cold season is on its way out.  On the other hand, even if I don’t get to wear them much longer this year, I’m sure I’ll still wear them next fall and winter.

As for the home decor, I want this:

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Or maybe this:

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I think it would look really good above my fireplace.  And, if you need a visual, here it is:

I know this is trendy and I probably won’t want it forever, but I think it’s cute for now. 

So, if you were me, which item would you go for?  The boots or the ceramic animal?

Goodwill Finds

I felt like I hadn’t done any updating of our house in a while.  I wasn’t really inspired and couldn’t find anything I wanted, so there wasn’t a lot of activity around here.  I think I was using all my energy on recipes and Christmas gifts and whatnot.  Now that I don’t have that stuff eating away at my time, I am anxious to get back to home decor.

I decided to head to Goodwill because I usually have good luck there.  It was during one of their auctions so the store was pretty crowded, but people were congregating around the auctioneer.  This meant that I had free reign of the rest of the store.  I stumbled on some cowboy boots that I really wanted.  I tried to squeeze my foot into them, but sadly, they didn’t fit.  Which is pretty shocking because I wear a 6 or 6.5.  No luck though, so I continued on to the home goods.

I’m always looking for a birdcage because my friend Morgana has a plant in her kitchen that she put inside a little birdcage and I think it’s the cutest thing ever.  Well, I didn’t find a birdcage, but I found this instead:

I’m pretty sure it’s for candles, but I thought a plant would fit nicely inside of it.  As if it were fate, I also found little terracotta pots at Goodwill.  So, I brought them home too and re-potted one of my plants in it to complete the look:

Then, I hung it right in my kitchen window:

I also found some really great oval and round frames.  I plan to spray paint the two larger ones, and leave the little one as is. 

I think for the larger one, I want to use chalkboard paint to make it its own little chalkboard.  What do you think?

So, for a grand total of $12 I got all of these great things.  Oh, and one other frame that I’m already using for wedding pictures. 

Do you tend to have good luck at Goodwill?  What’s your favorite find?

Refurbished Wood

So remember when I was talking about wanting to make my own floor mirror and I made Sean carry discarded wood down our street?  Well, this weekend we finally got to work on it.  It’s not entirely finished because I need to figure out how to hold the mirror part in place, but I was too excited to wait, and I thought you all might have some ideas for what I should use to keep the mirror attached. 

We started with the wood and attached metal brackets all the way down to connect the boards together.  We just hammered them in place.  And by we, I mean Sean while the dogs and I watched:

So here’s where things got interesting.  The wood was split in one spot.  I was trying to be positive and pretend like even though there was a huge gaping crack, this could work.  Finally, I remembered that we own a circular saw, so I suggested that we just use that to cut off the unsightly part.   Sean grabbed it, cut it, and we were good to go.  Here’s the aftermath:

Iused a damp cloth to wipe off the wood. And that was it.  We were totally done.  Oh, right except for that part about attaching the mirror which I still haven’t done.   But before we could drag it inside, we needed to figure out where to put it.  I canvassed our house and decided that it would fit perfectly in our dining room.  So in it went.

And here’s Sean trying to hold the mirror in place so that I could snap a few photos:

He got tired of that gig and left me alone, so the mirror is sitting lower in this one, but you get the idea:

So, it’s coming together and I’m really happy with how it turned out!  Best of all, the entire budget for the project was just the cost for the brackets which were around $2/each and we got 3 of them for a grand total of $6.  But, I still need to find something to hold the mirror in place.  Any recommendations?

Home Embarrassment

So, there are a couple of things around my house that embarrass me.   And, I know you’re probably thinking, “Um…haven’t you been there over a year”?  And, yes, we have.  But for whatever reason I’ve done nothing to correct these items.  Finally, I decided that I was tired (enough of one of them) and needed to do something to fix it.  Up first, this beauty:

And because I love you guys so much, here’s a close up:

No, I didn’t make that.  But, I also didn’t take it down either.  To give you a little proximity on where this beauty sits, it greets you when you ring my doorbell while you’re waiting for me to answer.  Oh, and we don’t reserve this for just the winter, all visitors get to see it year round.  I know it has pine and all things winter in it.  However, not only does it have pine, it also has Fall leaves, you know so that it doesn’t have to just be used during the winter.  But I didn’t get rid of it any season. 

I think I was able to ignore it because we usually come in and out through the garage, so I didn’t really have to see it.  But finally I’d had enough.  The problem was that I wasn’t entirely sure what to replace it with.  Each time I went out, I’d search for something, anything to take its place, but I was never inspired.  I was limiting my thinking  to things that could fit in the basket rather than just getting rid of the whole thing entirely.  But, then I was at Target.  I’d gone for something specific though I’m not really sure what it was because I left with curtains and some other items, none of which I went in to get.  One of the other items was a replacement for the basket.  I stumbled on it in the candle section and I don’t think it’s necessarily for outdoor use, but hopefully that won’t be a problem. 

And, I know you’re thinking just stop rambling.  Ok, ok.  I got these:

I didn’t put a votive in it yet, mostly because I don’t think I’ll light one unless we’re having people over.  But, I’m happy with how they turned out.  I think they’re cute and hopefully they’ll be able to survive outside.   So what do you think?  Do you have any other suggestions for what I should put out there?

Baby Shower

So, I’m pretty sure I mentioned that my sister is pregnant, but I don’t think that I mentioned its with a baby boy!!  We are super excited!!  I have 2 wonderful nieces, but no baby nephew, so this is big news.  Anyway, it’s hard to believe that her due date is just around the corner, March 3rd.  Which means that it’s time to get serious about the baby shower.  I recently started looking for inspiration for a theme and I’ve come away with two ideas: elephants and tricycles.  This could only be surpassed by elephants on tricycles.  Ok, that’s probably lame.  But, I am having a hard time deciding between the two ideas, so I need your help.  Here are some of the tricycle inspiration ideas courtesy of Style Me Gorgeous:

In addition to the tricycle theme, she also added some alphabet themed items:

And adorable kid-inspired favors:

Cute, right?  I always loved anything with a vintage bicycle, so obviously I was going to be on board with the tricycle.  But, then I saw the elephant, also from Style Me Gorgeous and now I’m not sure what to do:

Hello, did you see that candy buffet?  I die.  Well, she had more:

And, if you’re not feeling cuteness overload with elephants, what about this invite from Rock Paper Scissors:

It mixes another one of my favorite things, bunting. 

So what do you think?  Do you like the elephants or the tricycles?

Preparing for Thanksgiving

So, you know that we’re hosting Thanksgiving at our house, and you might remember that we just got a dining table, but we have no chairs (I tried to insert links to these items, but apparently wordpress hates me).   Ok, so we have one chair.  In an effort to have seats for everyone, we were on the hunt for more dining chairs this weekend, but we were spoiled by our earlier finds, and wanted to find something in the same price range ($25/chair).  We hit up Goodwill first, but it was a total bust.  I was intrigued by the auction they had going on, but none of the items were worth bidding on. 

So, we headed next door to the Salvation Army and I found a great chair.  Sean is convinced that it’s not a dining chair, but I told him that he needed to think outside the box.  So what did we get?  This chair:

It has great nailhead detail, which I think you can see a little more of here:

This chair was $25!  I think it looks great at the head of the table.  So, what do you think?  Could it pass for a dining chair?

Also, since we’re preparing for Thanksgiving, I found a few things at Target, and used some of my leftover wedding stuff.  Here’s a sneak peek of our table set up:

More to come after Thanksgiving!

Holiday Cards

So, I’ve been really bad about holiday cards in the past.  I always relied on my sister to send her cards out to the people I would have sent cards to, even though she had her own family and children, and obviously my name was not included.  But now that I’m married, I thought that I should take that responsibility on myself.  Not to mention we now have everyone’s address and great pictures from the wedding, and our guests haven’t seen them yet. 

Well, Shutterfly has some great holiday cards to choose from and they’re offering bloggers 50 FREE holiday cards for blogging about them.  I’ve used shutterfly in the past for storing all my photos, and they’re easy and great to work with.  Not to mention they also have great holiday address labels, gift tags, and pretty much anything printable you need this holiday season.

So, I picked some of my favorite ones and would love to get your feedback on them.  Here are my top three:

So, I really like the one above and Sean says that it’s his favorite, but it says Merry Christmas, and not Happy Holidays.  I can’t change it either.  I asked some of my bee friends what they thought about sending holiday specific cards, and they had some great feedback, but I’m still not sure. 

So, my second favorite is this one:

I don’t have to worry about the holiday specific, but it’s still really cute.  And, I like the snowflake. 

So what do you think?  Which is your favorite?  Do you like the picture we chose?

This is a sponsored post and I’m receiving 50 holiday cards for blogging about this, but I was going to use shutterfly anyway. 🙂

Wooden Pallets

This past weekend I went to Dallas for some family time.  While I was there, I headed to the mall because really, there is no better mall than the one in Dallas.  I went into Anthropology and immediately was drawn to their housewares.  It wasn’t that it was anything all that new from what I’ve seen recently, but the decor had changed slightly and I was intrigued.  They’ve always done a great job of mixing pretty and rustic elements, but it was beyond that.  They started using wooden pallets to decorate with.  I see those things lying around in alleys all the time, so of course I immediately think that I can recreate this in my home. 

Here’s an example:

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They used the pallets to create shelves and display pretty dishware.  Genius!  Not only that, they also used them to show off some artwork:

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But my favorite were the shelves they recreated with the pallets to display colorful glassware:

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But the pallets weren’t the only wooden item loved by Anthro, wooden crates were also repurposed:

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This would be adorable in a nursery above the changing table (without the belts, bag and tights). 

Now to convince Sean that we need to pick up the random pallets we see on the side of the road.

Frame Wall

So after spray painting the last piece, I decided that it looked better in the dining room then in our entryway where it used to it.  This meant that I had a huge empty space, and it was driving me crazy.  Well, I always wanted to do a frame wall, but I just never got around to starting one.  I already had a lot of frames that I needed for the wall because before the wedding I scoured Goodwill for frames for all our signs.  I hadn’t done anything with them since the wedding, except put them away in a closet.  And, can I just say that Goodwill is the place to go for all types of frames.  The most expensive one I ever found was $4, but the bulk of them are about $1 or $2.  Also, you never know what you’re going to find in them.  One lady framed the cards she got from her mom, and the notes written inside those things were unbelievable.  I felt guilty reading them, but I read them nonetheless. 

Anyway, I started things off slowly with about 5 frames, but then my OCD to finish the project kicked in, so I started framing random crap.  Sean asked me what the hell was inside a few of them, but I think they look pretty good. 

Here is the start of my frame wall:

So, it’s not done yet, but it’s a good start.   Now it’s time to actually find frame-worthy stuff rather than dig up stuff in my closet.

Garage Sale

So, I was bragging about my bargain weekend yesterday, but what I didn’t tell you is where I found everything.  Well, a local non-profit in Austin, the Settlement Home, has an annual garage sale to raise money.  And, this is like no garage sale I’ve ever been to.  People come in droves looking for a sweet deal in the huge convention center type location the sale is held.  They have a wide variety of items to choose from, but my eye was on the furniture.  Within 5 minutes of being there, I found something I wanted.  But, I get anxious in new situations and I wasn’t really sure how it all worked, so I milled around for a while before I finally got the courage to go up to one of the volunteers to let her know that I wanted to buy something, and to ask her what the process was.   She wrote my name on the ticket and told me I had one hour to pay for it before it would be back on the market.  Phew!  That was easy enough.  So what did I find?

This (don’t mind Molly’s tail in the corner of the picture):

For $25!  Score! I was hoping to find more chairs to complete my dining room vision, but there wasn’t anything else I wanted.  Until I found the best find there, my brand new hutch!  I’ve been lusting after 60’s style furniture for a while now.  I’m always on the hunt for a dresser that fits this image, and finding something for my nearly empty dining room was even better.  When I flipped over the price tag, I was shocked.  $40??  Seriously?  That’s it?? For this?  I had to leave it momentarily to make sure it was ok to buy.  I was terrified that some vulture was going to swoop in and steal it from me, and Sean was in the book section.  I tried calling him on his cell phone, but no luck.  So, I took my chances and walked off to get him.  Not even 60 seconds later, I walked back to a lady buzzing around the hutch.  No!!  But, thankfully she walked away.  Sean went and flagged someone down to let them know we wanted to buy it.  While he was gone, that same lady came back and was really disappointed that we were buying it because she was just about to do the same. 

Ok, so enough chatter, here it is:

It has regular sets of drawers on each side, but the middle opens up a little differently:

I decided it’s a good spot to store wine:

Ok, so the question is, do I paint it?  Initially, I thought there was no way I was going to have it sit in my house as it was, but once I got it in, I thought it looked pretty good on its own.   If I were to paint it, I was considering grey.  I still want to do a wallpaper wall behind it.   So I’m conflicted.  What do you think?