Bargain Hunter-Eeeeevillllll

As many of you know, I have a love/hate relationship with Target.  LOVE Target because I get so many good deals in there, it is a 1 stop shop, I love their stuff and it is pretty much perfect...  HATE Target because I spend WAY too much money in there.  My friend, Jenny, and I agree that Target is eeeeeeevil and most certainly is the Debil (a la Waterboy).  So here is just one of many examples of how Target is my loving nemesis!!!

Exhibit A: Today's outfit:

Starting from the top, we have the flower hair clip.  This was actually free because I crocheted it myself using scrap yarn and used an old hair clip to secure.

Next we go to the cat eye sunglasses, Twilight inspired:

Purchased at Target for $14.99.    This was full price, but I bought these right after I got my first pair of contacts so it was a little splurge to celebrate.

The large hoop earrings, purchased at Target a few years ago for $1.50! Now onto the scarf:

I bought this two-toned 100% silk scarf from Target last week on clearance for $5.  $5 is great for a scarf, but it is AMAZING for one that is 100% silk!!!  And the Tank:

This tank top is regularly priced at $14.99 and I bought it for what??  $3.74!!!  That's right!!!  Keep an eye on those 75% off racks which is where I also found this pair of skinny jeans:

Not the greatest picture, but they are jeans...  not much to see there. The skinny jeans are regularly priced at $19.99 (which by the way is my limit for jeans, so even at full price... they are definitely in my budget).  However, I payed $4.98!!!  EVEN BETTER!

I am sure that my shoes could be much more fashion forward but I wear exclusively flip flops in the summer and these I happen to pick up at Old Navy for their full price at $2.50.  

I should make a small disclaimer that the purse is Namaste and I normally use as my knitting bag, but I just so happen to be using it this week as my purse and it just so happens to completely match my outfit. Gotta love that! Those of you in the KC area can find your Namaste vegan bags at Urban Arts + Crafts, the one that I am carrying is the Zuma in lime.   

So lets total this up:

$14.99 - sunglasses

$1.50 - earrings

$5.00 - scarf

$3.74 - tank

$4.98 - skinny jeans

$2.50 - flip flops

leaving out the coincidental purse

____________________

$ 32.71

This might not seem like that big of a deal, but when you find clothing items for under $5, it is very hard to say no.  So after running to Target for a $2 prescription, I walk out of there paying a minimum of $50 for a bunch of clearance stuff.  And this happens....  every......  time!!!!  Hence my problem  :-)  

But a friendly tip, in case you want Target to be your nemesis too...  Find an old Target... one that has been there a LONG time.  That way their overhead isn't as high and they are able to discount their clearance and sales more than in a newer store.  (one example: I saw a belt last year that was on sale at a new Target  for dollars more than at the older Target....  same belt, "same" sale!)    Also, the newer stores in newer shopping centers now have an additional tax for "building development"!!!  NO JOKE!  We have several brand new "centers" close to my house (one is a large outdoor mall) and there is up to an additional 7% tax added on to each sale to help maintain the "center". (not sure how that is legal....)  Stick with those older stores... they might smell a little and may not be kept as clean but they are better on prices and sometimes are used as undisclosed clearance centers.

So happy shopping and have a fun time finding your new nemesis!!!

PS: for those of you with kiddos that constantly watch cartoons like me, you will appreciate that I now have the "nemesis" song from Phineas & Ferb in my head...  "My nema nema, oooh my nema nema nema..."  For those of you who have absolutely NO idea what I am talking about, click here and find out!!

Summer

I haven't been very productive this summer....  the heat and humidity wipe me out!!  Not to mention, we have been in and out of town all summer.  So I really haven't had much time to get into anything crafty.  I have been trying to get some little things done and now that we are in town for a while I might be able to get into something a little more "meaty".

One of my New Years resolutions this year was to get more organized.  I am a pretty organized person, by nature, but I find that I don't usually have the time to organize.  One of my previous posts was about the linen zipper pouches that I made to store charging cables:

This has been SUPER helpful since I made them....  even my husband likes knowing where to find them all.  However, I had to take it a step further since sometimes the cables get left out of the linen bags.  So I decided to make "tags" for each of the cables.  Something that tells me quickly, what the cables are used for.  Without it, I usually sit there for 20 minutes thinking, "hmmm, I don't remember owning anything made by Sony...."   :-)  

I started by embroidering the name of electronic device along with who it belongs to on a piece of linen.  After I embroidered 12 of them on the same piece of linen, I took a piece of scrap fabric and placed it right side out on the back (for a more polished/lined look).  Then, using a thread that matched the linen and a satin stitch, I machine sewed around the words in the size rectangle that I wanted the tag to be.  I cut each of them out very close to the outside of the satin stitch, folded them over the cable and hand embroidered a running stitch along the inside of the satin stitch.  The linen is going to fray a bit, but the satin stitch will contain it and keep it from unraveling.  I love how these are turning out!!  I like how patchy/taggy these look and how practical they are and how they match their coordinating pouches!

I am still compiling pics for my close up kitchen tour and hopefully I will be making some crafty things to share soon!!!

Busy

I have been incredibly busy lately.  We went on a 1.5 week vacation and just got back on Monday.  So the preparations and actual trip have been consuming my ever minute for the past 3 weeks.  But we are home now and almost fully back into the swing of things.  I have started a few new projects, am catching up on chores and doing a little light reading.  I have finally started on the quilt for my youngest, I have about 1% completed, but this is what I have so far:

I am teaching a class next weekend on crochet so I am getting some samples made that I will later use in a "copy" project.  It will be more of an "inspired by" because mine will be constructed differently.  But here are the flowers that I have crocheted for that:

And finally here are some pictures from our trip.  We went to San Antonio, TX, with a side trip to Austin (I HAD to go to Ikea!!).  So here are some of the highlights.

My girl, Casey, recently mentioned that we should both post house tours on our blogs.  I have to say, my house is constantly a work in progress...  so surprisingly there is only one room that I would consider "designed" and that one belongs to my 5 year old :-)  I am SUPER eclectic and have just recently defined my "style" and before that I had no direction.  Now that I do have a direction,  I think that things will start falling into place.   When those places are at a point that I consider them complete, I will contemplate doing a tour.   For now, I decided to do a "close up tour" of my home and some of my favorite things in each room.  This will be a multi-post thing and will hopefully give you all an idea of what my home looks like.  My first one will be of my kitchen, so be on the lookout for that.  Until then, happy vacationing.

Recent Doings

It's been pretty busy around here lately. Here are a few things that I have done in the last month or so.

Remember all of the little charms that I was collecting to make this necklace from the Lucky Mag cover?  It is the Noisette Multi Long Necklace by Swarovski  and I just HAD to have it but wasn't willing to drop $270 on it.

So I collected a bunch of charms (mostly from Forever 21) and assembled my version for less than $20.  After I made this, I got to see the Swarovski version in person and I was surprised to see that mine turned out quite a bit more delicate...  but I still love it.  This is a very long necklace so it was a bit difficult to get a good pic, but here is what I've got.

We have lived in our house for 6 years now and my paintings from college are randomly hung all over the house.  Sometimes their colors and placement don't make sense but it is what it is.  I have a very long painting (4' x 22") that I did during my "Jackson Pollock Phase" in college that we hung up over our staircase pretty much just because there was a nail already there.  It was off center and hung on the wall all by itself and looked really out of place.  My intention was always to paint another painting in a similar size to hang with it.... but that never happened.   So, I was organizing the fabrics at work a month ago, drooling over the new Anna Maria Horner fabrics and decided that my favorite print in her Innocent Crush line (AH29 golden) would look GREAT next to "Jackson Pollock Phase" painting.  So I bought a canvas about the same size for 50% off and stretched the Anna Maria fabric over it and hung it "stair stepped" down the wall following the staircase.  The yellow in the fabric is more gold, and the yellow in my painting is a little more sunny and they really have nothing in common...  but I love how they look together.....

Here is a lamp that I bought at Target a few months ago (for 50% off)...   I LOVE IT and it looks great in my bedroom, but I am having trouble finding a shade to go on it...  So here is sits in my bedroom, not in use :-)  until I find the perfect shade.

So, I saw this cute little embroidered fabric note on Etsy and thought that it was the cutest thing EVER.  (I also saw a little irony when I realized that the shop has the same name as my blog-a-roo)

I thought that this would be a great end-of-the-year gift for a teacher so J-man and I made one this year for his Kindergarten teacher.  I machine sewed the lines on a piece of linen, I sewed them to look like the standard Kindergarten paper instead of the wide ruled paper from my inspiration.  I had J-man use a soft pencil to write her a note, I embroidered over it, then I ironed on a heavy piece of interfacing and sewed on a backing.  In the bottom left hand corner I also added in the school year dates.  I think this turned out super cute and this is something that I would treasure if I was a teacher :-)

I also made his teacher a necklace.  I made both of his Pre-K teachers apple necklaces and they really liked them, so that tends to be my go-to teacher gift now.  I try to make them look a little more abstract and less "teacher-y" in case they want to wear it for multiple occasions.

This will indicate size:

My 5 (almost 6) year old is completely into anything that George Lucas creates!  Indiana Jones is his all time favorite character (and movies) with Star Wars coming in at a decent 2nd place.  Comic-Con came to KC a few months ago and it just so happened that both of the actors that played J-man's favorite character, Boba Fett, were going to be signing autographs.  So the hubbs took both boys and J-man got both autographs and a picture with each actor.  I think it was the highlight of his year!  The hubbs bought a few metallic painted frames to use for the photos/autographs and I instantly didn't like them.  I have to appreciate that he was trying to go for a "Star Wars-y" look but they didn't match anything so I painted them orange.  Then I dusted off the ol' mat cutter and cut a few custom mats.  They took me forever but they are done.  We hung them on the wall in his room last night in a little cluster:

Here is the actor that played Boba Fett (the bounty hunter that captures Han Solo) in the original Star Wars movies, Jeremy Bulloch... with J-man in the photo in the corner, and his give away photo with personalized autograph:  (You can't really tell but my mat cutter cuts beveled edges so it really does look nice up close.)

Here is the one with Daniel Logan, that played the young Boba Fett in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clone Wars.  I have to say that the pic he took with J-man is my favorite, look how cute it is!  I am not sure if he had any give away photos or not, but J-man brought one of his comic books for him to sign that I framed with his picture.

 This is a greeting card that we had at work.  I thought that it would look perfect in J-man's room.  The colors are perfect and they are the comic book characters that he loves.  Link here.

I was thumbing through the Stampinton Somerset Studio Gallery mag and came across the cutest little portraits by Shelly Broughton.    Here is a link to some of the portraits that were in the mag.  I thought they were really cute and easy enough that it could be something that J-man and I could do together.  So I dug out one of his papers from school, I used Matte Medium to "decoupage" it to the back ground on a piece of stretched canvas.  We drew and painted him on top (including his lizard that he is holding) and then we decoupaged fabric on both side of the painting.  Since I didn't intend on framing it, I painted the edges orange to match his room....  the fabric was also scraps from his quilt so it ties it all in.  I think that this is a really cute souvenir from his Kindergarten days.

There are tons of things that I want and need to make that I just don't have enough time for.  On the top of my to-do list is a second quilt for my 2 year old.  I have the fabric to make it, I just haven't figured out exactly how I want to piece it together.  I don't want to make it exactly the same as the one that I made from his brother so I am still contemplating and waiting.  Here is the one that I made for his brother:

I also recently saw this image in the Urban Outfitters summer catalog:

I realize that it just a duvet cover that is creating the bed skirt, but it has inspired me to make one that looks just like it for my bed....  when I get a chance.

I should stop now...  I could probably go on FOREVER with my to-do lists :-)   Family vaca is coming up so I should have some fun photos from that to share.  Maybe I will find some time to make a few things too?  :-)  *wishful thinking*
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Thrifted

My new favorite activity: Thrifting!    Here are some of my recent finds.

Here is a strand of acrylic beads that I found at an antique mall for $8.  LOVE THEM!!!  Technically not "thrifting" but I still place it in that category

Here is a little carved wood peg shelf that I got at the thrift store for under $1...   I neglected to get a before picture so I took a picture of the back so that you could sort of see the dark wood color that it was before:

And this is after:.....  still not sure what I am going to do with it. :-)

I found this mail sorter at the same thrift store for $2.  It appears to be carved wood but is, in fact, plastic.
This is the before:

 This is the after:

This is completely not thrifting at all but since we are talking about spray painting...  I bought this "cut-out" vase (on the right in the picture below)  on clearance at Jo-Ann Fabrics for $5.  It was a dark hunter green and was really ugly (I also neglected to get a before pic on this one).  So I spray painted it with white primer and decided to leave it white, which highlighted the cutout detail:

A few years ago I picked up this "&" stamp printer block for $1 at an antique mall.  I have some that I kept their natural color, but this one I spray painted white.  I like how some of the old ink color shows through:

Here are 2 resin "plaques" (for lack of a better term) that I bought for $8 ea. at Good JuJu.  Not sure if this would be considered thrifting, but I do.   I bought them in this dark red/orange color with the intention of spray painting them an undecided color.  But when I got them home, they looked great with my wall colors so I left them orange.  I decided to split them up and put them in different rooms.

This one is in my master bathroom:

This one is in my living room:

I also bought this at Good JuJu...  I think that it was around $8, it looks better on, but you will have to wait for that picture.

I bought this dress at the thrift store for $3.  I think I am going to take off the bodice and just make it into a skirt:

I found this shelf at a "yard sale" that was being held at a Catholic School downtown.  It is made out of hobby wood or cheap pine and it was raw wood when I bought it.  I spray painted it white (which took many coats considering it was raw wood).  But it turned out great.  I have it in my son's room on a white wall and it houses his collection of GoGos.  I originally had these in an old printer tray that I hung on the wall, but I like the white shelf on the white wall so that the focus is on all the fun colors of the GoGos. 

Speaking of collections that my son has, here is another shelf that houses another collection.  I bought this shelf last year at a yard sale for $5 (I think?)  It was stained wood and I painted it green to match my craft room.  But when my son started this collection of Lego figures, I decided to move it up into his room.  I thought that I might have to repaint it, but it looks great on his orange wall and matches his night stand perfectly.  I hung it on the wall right next to his Lego table so that he can easily access his figures or "guys" as we like to call them.

I can't take credit for this one, but this is an old school chair that a friend of ours found in a dumpster.  SO we got this one for FREE and I love it!!!!

Here is another plastic "plaque" that I bought a year or 2 ago at Good JuJu.  I can't remember how much I paid for this...  I think it was under $10.  I didn't get a before picture,  but here is the finished product.  

The animals and flowers are still in their original colors.  the tree was a strange black/gray-ish color that wasn't pretty, so I taped off the flowers and animals and I spray painted the tree.  Here is the back that will give you a good idea of what the black/gray color looked like.

For the record....  the next 'upcycle' is a total RIP OFF!!!!   I completely stole this idea from Elsie on this post.  She has this same ceramic figure and spray painted it in this exact Watermelon color.  After seeing her original post about painting her figures, I stumbled onto the same owl ceramic figure in an antique mall that I bought for $4.  I bought the same color spray paint and made one of my own.  Do I feel shameful?  No... because I am fully willing to admit that I royally stole this idea...  down to every detail  :-)  And give credit to the person that I stole it from.

Here is the bottom, to give you an idea of what the figure looked like before it was painted.

This post shares with you 2 of my "loves": my new love: thrifting and an old love: spray paint.  I also like the idea that I am upcycling old things and trying to help save the environment with my decorating.... even if I am polluting a little with the spray paint :-)   Happy thrifting and spray painting!!!!