Home shopping

I have some very creative friends.  And they’re constantly decorating.  And REdecorating.  I love visiting their homes because most of what they do is crafty, really affordable and very, very cute.  Think lots of refurbishing and repurposing and recreating on the cheap.  Now that’s my kind of decorating!  I always come home itching to decorate every room in the house!  It’s like a sickness.  I’ve been trying to use what I have laying around the house as much as possible.  It’s kinda fun to go shopping in other rooms of your house for new arrangements and new looks.  You’d be amazed at how different a room can look by swapping out a few things!  Case in point:

I love walking up to a welcoming door at other houses so I made an attempt with my own front step.  So, I went shopping around my house.  I had this little green bench I had grabbed at Tai Pan for $24 back in January.  It was sitting in my entryway but I never really liked it there so I moved it out to my porch.  Much better!  I found the wire baskets around Easter at Marshalls for $3 each.  They had nasty tin eggs hanging from them but I love them now thanks to my wire cutters.  They make my little plants I compulsively buy from Fresh and Easy (our grocery store) look much cuter.

In another attempt to scratch the decorating itch I was rummaging through my craft supplies and found a couple of twig wreaths I brought home from a baby shower.  (Remember, Wendy?)  Sitting right next to it were some wooden letters I’d bought from Michaels years ago that were yet to be painted.  A little paint, some sand paper and my trusty glue gun and wallah!

When we last visited California on family vacation, months before we knew we’d be living here, I discovered what was always making Disneyland smell so amazing… besides the corndogs and churros.  Gardenias and Star of Jasmine are everywhere and they smell fabulous, especially in the early morning and at dusk.  I’ve been obsessing over them ever since.  Definitely a smell I’d love to greet my guests with.  Thanks to a sale at Home Depot I can call one my own! Digging through our garage I found this old empty pot that we brought from the last house.  It makes a perfect home for Jasmine.  Who, you ask?

I’ve named all the plants in our house so Crew and Jax know which ones to water.  We named this one Jasmine.  I didn’t realize at the time that it’s actually a gardenia.  Whatever it is, I could get high off it’s sweet fragrance.  (Carl’s rolling his eyes at me right now.)  Now, all that’s left for my porch makeover is a cute door mat.  I found the perfect one at Pottery Barn only to find it’s sold out so the search continues.  For now, the original will do.

Oh yes, and no doorstep is complete without one of these.  At least not if you have small children.

I’m sure I could have made it cuter, but a post it, sharpie and some packing tape is good enough for me.

Next is our living room.  Ugh.  This room is the hardest one for me and sadly this room and our almost empty dining room are the first rooms you see when you walk into our house.  I have plans for the dining room but this room has me completely stumped.  It needs some zing, some color!!  I blame these couches.  They’re super comfy, not to mention they were free, but the pattern is so outdated.  Not having decided what to do with them yet I hesitate to do much else with this room.  Do I slip cover the couches?  Do I start over and watch Craigslist?  What to do, what to do?  In the meantime, I had Carl hang our the mirror we swiped from his mom.  I love that she made it herself!  She’s so crafty.  I found this”Work Hard Play Hard” sign being stored in our closet, and someday I’ll get around to putting actual pictures in those Costco frames.

Back in December we had these amazing pictures taken by Blue Lily.  (Sorry, I may never get around to posting them.  Just come over!)  I ordered my favorite one as a canvas and proudly hung it above my mantle.  But it was very, very lonely there so I made the mantle my next project.  Again, shopping around my house I found myself staring at my boxes and boxes of books that were waiting to be unpacked.  Why not?  I grabbed stacks of them and arranged them to show off the fun colors.  I love decorating with books.  Do you think my kids will want to read if I surround them with books?  And I think they make a room feel cozy and lived in.

The vases I found at Ross for $4 each, the birds I had in other rooms in the house.  Add some $5 twiggy flowers from Michaels and a $15 birdcage from Tai Pan and boom!  Instant personality, right?  The only thing lacking is proper lighting above the mantle but that’s not something I’ll concern myself with.  We’re just renting, after all!  Now the mantle was done, but I couldn’t stop there.  A sickness, I tell ya!  My entertainment center was naked and needing some love.  I saw the button monogram idea on a blog and thought it’d make a fun focal point.  I am loving monograms so this was a fun and different way to incorporate one.  I pulled the glass out of a frame that wasn’t being used and stretched the fabric, tacking it to the back of the frame.

The pink ceramic ball I found at Joanne’s on clearance for $2, the plant and vase I’d already had for another space.  More books, a tray from Walmart for $3 and another bird from Tai Pan.  Easy, yes?  Cheap, YES!  I’m still tweaking it but I like where this is going.

Have you done any home shopping lately?  Try it!  You’ll have so much fun! And once you start you won’t be able to stop!

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