FABULOUS FINDS & FASHIONS

February 10, 2016January 31, 201610 Comments

Hi! I’m here today with some of my thrifty Goodwill finds. Sometimes, I actually find a bargain or two. Our Goodwill has some pretty wonky prices out there- sometimes, good, sometimes bad. Here is a good example. I had seen 2 of these Nate Berkus gold and white bowls, but they were priced individually at $3.99. I really didn’t want to pay that much, plus there were only 2.

I went back a couple of weeks later and there was a stack of 4 all being sold together. The price? $6.99 for 4. Um…something isn’t quite right there. 2 for $7.98 or 4 for $6.99? Yeah, I find that a lot.

My next find was even better! My daughter Haley is a huge Pirates of the Caribbean fan. Well, I’m not sure if it’s the movie or Johnny Depp.:) This book was sitting way on the top of the shelf. It was put out by Disney as a hardcover coffee table book and is priced at $50.00. The Goodwill price? $2.99! I can handle that!

The pictures are amazing! It shows sketches done by Disney artists, that depict scenes from the movies. There are also lots of storyboards. It is so cool to looks through. Here is a sketch of one of the ships.

Here is the artist rendition of Captain Jack Sparrow. I thing Johnny Depp decided on his own rendition!!!

My last bargain is a succulent wreath. I had read another blog where someone made one and she stated that you need about 25 succulent plants for the wreath. Well, even if I bought the plastic ones from the 99 Cent Store, it would cost me $25 just for the plants. This wreath was marked at $13.99, and it still had the Target tags on it. I figured that was a pretty good deal. I took it to the register and the cashier took 70% off because he said it was a Christmas item! What…! I told Lauren to grab the other one too and I got them each for $4.19! Thank you cashier!

I’m excited to be able to put this up for summer! Thanks for coming by today!

Ombre Painted Canvas with Starfish

February 6, 2016February 5, 20165 Comments

Happy Saturday!! We had an interesting week at school. Lice! Every year this comes up. Hopefully we kept it at just 2 kids and that will be the end of it. Next week will be Valentine’s parties and fun. The preschool buys heart shaped pizzas and the kids think it’s cool. We usually just order heart shaped pizzas at home too. I just buy a couple of little things for the girls and my husband and call it good.

I have a simple little craft for you this week. I found a pack of small canvases at Goodwill awhile back and finally decided to use one. I also picked up a couple of starfish at a yard sale and combined them with the canvas.

I guess I didn’t take any before pictures, but here are the paint colors I used. I had a white and a light blue. I also mixed some blue and white together to make a lighter blue that I could blend together on the canvas.

So I started with the white at the top of my canvas. Then I added the mixed blue and then the light blue. After each color was applied, I went over each color again and blended it more with the next one, creating an ombre’ effect. Here is the white and mixed blue.

Once the paint was dry, I added the starfish. I used tacky glue to attach them to the canvas. Here you can see the darker blue too.

Just the perfect little touch to remind me that summer IS coming again! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Valentine Pixy Stix Flower Vase & Blog Hop

January 27, 2016January 27, 201619 Comments

Valentine's-Day-Blog-Hop-Budget-Crafts

Hello everyone! Thank you for joining me for the Valentine’s Day Blog Hop! I’ve joined with 13 other talented bloggers to share Valentine’s Day crafts on a budget. Each blogger was given a budget of no more than $10 and challenged to create a Valentine’s Day craft using items from the dollar store or dollar section of their local stores. If you have budget Valentine’s Day crafts to share, please add it to the link-up at the bottom of this post so it can be seen on all of our blogs.

For my Valentine Budget Craft, I made a Pixy Stix Flower Vase. So simple too!

valentine mantel pixie stix flower vase 2016

I bought what I needed from the Dollar Tree and used some things I already had. Here is what you will need:

Pixy Stix or any other long candy- I bought 2 bags so I would be sure to have enough of red, purple and blue. $2.00
A tin can-I used some beans for dinner and cleaned the can and removed the label.
Styrofoam ball or square- I had some of these from Christmas, but I know I have seen square pieces at the Dollar Tree. $1.00
Silk Flowers-(2) Pink Tulips, (2) pinkish fuzzy ball things, (1) pink berry-$5.00
Ribbon-I had mine, but they had some cute designs at the store. $1.00

pixie stix flower holder tin can

I first sorted through my Pixy Stix and pulled out the colors I wanted to use. I put them into the pattern I wanted and then started hot gluing them onto the can.

pixie stix gluing the stix

pixie stix flower holder covered

Once my candy went all the way around, I pushed the styrofoam ball into the can.

pixie stix flower holder styrofoam ball

I used wire cutters to cut each stem of flowers off the big part on the end.

pixie stix flower fase silk flowers

I arranged them in the can by pushing them into the styrofoam ball. I placed a taller tulip in the middle and then placed shorter ones all around it. Next I filled in with the fuzzy balls and lastly, added the berries. I used the green spiky leaves that came with the flowers to fill in any empty spaces. After the arranging was done, I added a pink bow around the middle of the can.

valentine mantel pixie stix flower vase 2016

There you have it! A cute, simple and budget friendly vase! You could even fill it with those fresh flowers you are sure to receive!

If you are looking for more budget friendly Valentine’s Day crafts, visit these blogs for their creative Valentine’s Day crafts ~

Copy of Valentine's Day Blog Hop Update (3)

Share your $10 or less Valentine’s Day crafts on the link-up below and be seen on all 15 blogs! Have fun!

An InLinkz Link-up

Valentine Gum and Candy Basket

January 23, 20166 Comments

This post was supposed to happen this morning…but my computer just. would. not. cooperate! I couldn’t get anything to load and then it didn’t save my draft. So very frustrating! But I think it’s ready to work now! So here is my Corner News post! Today I am showing you a very simple Valentine craft-and it involves chocolate!

I had the little box already, and you could use whatever you have on hand or buy a small jewelry box. The gum and candy came from the Dollar Tree and I had the ribbon. The gum was packaged in pink, but when I opened it, all the individual pieces were silver. Oh well. I just went with it!

I started out by gluing all the pieces of gum around the outside of the box. This box took 20 pieces.

I ended up using 2 different ribbons. First I glued a wider black and white polka-dot ribbon around the box and then used the pink polka-dot one to tie a bow in the middle.

After that, it was just a matter of adding the candy! I had to fight people off in order to get a picture with the candy still in it!

Hope you have a wonderful rest-of-your weekend!

Our First Blogiversary

January 22, 2016December 29, 20157 Comments

It’s official! We are now One!!! I can hardly believe it’s been a year. I remember sitting with Lauren and telling her it would be fun to start a blog, but had no idea what I would do for it. The more we talked, the clearer it became and soon Lauren was joining me on this adventure. Then came the decision for a name. That probably took us 3 weeks! I recall Haley walking in and saying, ‘Are you still talking about a name?!’ Ha! Now here we are a year later!

Some of Pam’s favorites have included furniture make-overs, DIY’s and decorating. She also loved redoing Lauren’s room and finally getting the hallway painted! Lauren loved being able to show off her Paris bedroom and of course her puppy, Zoella! Just knowing we have to post something helps us be more intentional about getting projects done.

My favorite part of my room-the bed

Some improvements this year have included better pictures, at least I hope so! I am slowly learning how to take better and brighter pictures. We also had our first giveaway! It was so exciting to be contacted by ParrotUncle to give away one of their lamps. Hopefully that will be the first of many! We also received 2 awards this year: The Liebster Award and a Blogger Recognition Award. Thank you to fellow bloggers for nominating us!!

We are planning on making a few changes, all positive we hope! Pam will still be posting on Monday. We are going to post on Wednesday with a Fabulous Finds and/or Fashion Day. We will either post about thrift store/garage sale finds or some fashion ideas. Lauren will be posting on Friday. Hopefully this will work better with her school and work schedule and Saturday will be our Corner News.

Of course, we want to hear from you too! What kind of posts do you like to see? Are there things you don’t like or things we should change? Please let us know in the comments below. Just be kind please :)!

I don’t want to be too mushy, but I really have to say thank you. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing blog posts and letting everyone who comes by see them. It has been hard for me at some points because of working a full time job and going to school full time, but I love to come up with ideas of how I can make a blog post. I have enjoyed reading all of the kind comments that I have received on some of my posts (mostly about Zoella, but nevertheless) and loved seeing who has come to view our blog. Thank you for not only fulfilling my dream to create and write about something for people to see, but also showing me that you care about what I write. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! And cheers to creating more amazing content to share with all of you!

It has been quite a ride this year and we can’t wait to see what else is waiting for us! Thank you again for coming over to read our posts and for all the kind comments! Obviously we wouldn’t continue if we didn’t have readers! Thank you for your support!