Inspiration Tuesday: Thrifty Makeovers

In anticipation of the Under $25 Makeover launch next week, I'm sharing some thrifty makeovers. I hope these inspire you to start thinking about inexpensive makeovers!

First up is this thrifty chair makeover featured on Country Living.

Here's the before:

And here's the after:


Love it!!!

I found this great repurposing of a vintage door over at Today's Fabulous Finds.

Before:


After:
Fabulous!

Or what about this great space that was freshened up for under $50 at Better Homes and Gardens:

* See several other spaces BHG made over for less than $50 here.

And finally, I'll share my own microwave stand makeover.

Before:


After:

I'm a huge fan of decorating for less, trash to treasure, roadkill rescue or whatever you want to call it. I hope these projects inspire you to think about it before you pass up that freebie on the curb or throw something out you already, have think about the possibilities!

Happy Crafting!

*Shared at Whatever Goes Wednesday.

Inspiration Tuesday: Rooms for the Baby

Last night I had a moment of panic when I realized that the baby is due the first week of April. That means we have less that four months to buy a house and decorate a nursery. (I don't know if the house will actually get bought before we have the baby, but a girl can dream!) I have some ideas of what I want to do for decorations. We aren't finding out if we are having a girl or a boy, so the decorating will have to wait until after the baby is born anyway. Anywho, enough rambling. Because of all of this, I thought I would showcase some inspiration for nursery (or even older kid's) rooms for today's Inspiration Tuesday.

I have thought about doing a red, black, and white room if we have a boy. Like this one:

*Source

I don't know if I'll be bold enough to paint those stripes on the walls, but I love the look of red, black and white all together.

But then again, a nautical themed room would also be super cute.

*Source

I love the ship graphic! Super cute.

I've been thinking for a girl, I would do turquoise and red. Here's one that incorporated yellow and a few other bright colors that's nice:

*Source

I had thought I would try to stay away from being too girly...but then I saw this:

*Source

Adorable!

Then there's this one:

*Source

I love it!

I also saw a recent episode of Designed to Sell on HGTV, where they took a cute toile fabric that was turquoise blue and really bright pink and designed the whole room on that color scheme. They painted the walls blue (similar to the color on the wall in the third pic above) and the furniture the bright pink. It was super cute. I cannot for the life of me right now find either a picture of the room, or the fabric. I'm currently scouring fabric sites to locate it. If I find it, I'll let you know!

Tip: Today most of the ideas I found on Design Dazzle and then tracked down to the original posts. It's a great place to start looking at ideas for nursery and kids rooms!

Got a nursery that you decorated? Want to share? Leave a comment here or contact me through my profile!

Happy Crafting!

Inspiration Thursday: DIY Christmas

For this inspiration post, I thought I would show you some great Christmas projects that you can do yourself.

First up is a couple of ideas from Better Homes and Gardens . This funky project uses up those big, old Christmas light bulbs:
Learn how to make them here.

Minimal sewing is required on these mini appliqued pillow ornaments thanks to fusible web!

Instructions found here.

Here's a couple of ideas from Country Living. (Can ya tell what magazines I get?). I love this take on the advent calendar using matchboxes:

Learn to make it here.

Or how about making these adorable snowflake pillows?

Instructions here.

Looking for an alternative door wreath? Check out what Rebecca did over at Blue Cricket Design!

What a great idea!

And last but not least, check out the amazing faux gumball machines over at See Jane Blog:

And yes, she has a tutorial here!

Whew! With all this great inspiration, I'd better get cracking on the Christmas crafting! (Holy alliteration Batman!)

Happy Crafting!

Inspiration Tuesday: Thanksgiving Decorating

Okay, so you already know I've been bitten by the Christmas bug early. I thought for today's Inspiration Tuesday I would show some great decorating inspiration for the post-Halloween through Thanksgiving season.

First up is a couple of Thanksgiving table settings from Country Living.

I love the edge of the tablecloth! This could be easily replecated with burlap and a fabric marker or you could use the drop cloths everyone is making curtains out of.

I love the vivid colors of this tablescape paired with the muted tones of pewter containers holding bright berry twigs.

What a great idea to use black and white family photos for a centerpiece! The photos here are just propped up with a display of gords, but you could put them in frames, glass containers, or use any number of different ways to display them. All of these and many more great ideas can be found here.

Check out these fun clip art projects from Martha Stewart:

Cute turkey place cards (project link here):

Or how about these adorable squirrel favor wrappers (project link here):

Find these projects and several others for Thanksgiving centerpeices and decor on Martha's website here.

And lastly, how about taking advantage of the fact that a lot of fall decor is already going on sale or clearance, even those fake pumpkins. They just need a little love to make them look fabulous like this:

Head on over to Shanty2Chic for a great tutorial on making these bad boys.

Wow. After seeing all this great Thanksgiving decorating, I need to clean my house. The second that Halloween is over, I'm changing out the decor! (Not that it will take much. I only managed to decorate my porch and have a few things hanging in the dining room.)

Happy Crafting!

Inspiration Tuesay: A day late but with awesome junk!

I didn't end up posting my junky finds yesterday while trying to get the sun to peek out for better photos. No sun today either, so you'll have to settle for sub-part ones ( I know, but I'll try to make the sun come out tomorrow and retake them!) Anywho, I found lots of great stuff, all on the trinket sized side this time around.

I bought these adorable tin film canisters.


I plan on using vintage ephemera to alter a few of these. At least one of them I plan on turning into a pin cushion.

I found various bit of vintage silverware, all just begging to be made into jewelry.

I especially can't wait to turn the tea spoon into a locket pendant with stuff inside!

Vintage dominoes and mahjong tiles I plan on making jewelry out of also.

I'm not entirely certain, but those mahjong tiles may actually be made out of carved bone mounted onto bamboo.

Tiny cute perfume bottles I plan on altering with ephemera, jewels, and ribbons.

And finally, probably my favorite find was this antique silver hand mirror with my initial on it.

It's kinda hard to see, but there's a beautiful script E in the middle. Plus, the mirror itself is in great shape:

I had a blast at Junk Bonanza and would recommend it to anyone. There are several other flea/antique style markets coming up in the Twin Cities area to watch out for as well. I'll update this post with the info when I can find it in my mess! Also, I promise some finished crafts are coming soon! I am reorganizing my entire craft area right now, so it's hard to get at things.

Happy Crafting!

Inspiration Tuesday: Junk Bonanza!

I am super excited! My mom and I are planning to attend this on Saturday:

Junk Bonanza is a huge flea market event held this year at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, MN. It runs this week from Thursday September 17 - Saturday September 19th. I have been wanting to go to this for years and I am super excited to be able to attend the 4th annual event. "Junk Bonanza is the brainchild of Ki Nassauer, author, designer, merchant, junker and co-editor of Flea Market Style, a new home décor magazine created in partnership with Celebrity Style Editor Matthew Mead." Ki is also the founder of JunkMarket and "co-authored Decorating JunkMarket Style and Junk Beautiful, Room by Room Makeovers; had a regular column in Country Home magazine; made appearances on HGTV’s "Country Style" series and the "TODAY" show; and hundreds of public appearances, nationwide." Source I'm so excited by this that I thought I would show a few projects others have made with "junk."

Check out Kathy's message center made from an old window.

or how about this great teapot lamp?

Or Becki's great chair makeover:

I thought I'd keep today's post a little shorter as I have several other posts I plan on doing this week. If your anywhere near Minneapolis, MN you should consider going to Junk Bonanza. I'm so excited! Bring on the Junk!

Happy Crafting!

Inspiration Tuesday: Fall

Okay, so I know it's only the 1st of September, but all the magazines and stores are sporting fall goods and the weather here has definitely been fall like the last week. My favorite season is technically summer (the warm weather, the lake, sunshine, what's not to love?). But there is just something about fall. I love the weather, the colors, the leaves, etc. So, for today's inspiration, I thought I would showcase some of the reasons I love fall so much. Besides Christmas, it's the season I have the most decorations for!

Check out this gorgeous photo from Chad & Hope Fine Photography on Etsy

At only $20 for an 8x10 matted print, you can afford to only hang it during the fall.

How about this great black and white and orange set-up from Country Living Magazine.

I love how this could work for Halloween and Fall together, but subtly.

Check out the fall color inspiration for this room at Better Homes and Gardens Magazine.

Ah. Fall colors year round? That would be great.

I love these "Harvest" letters from CraftJunkie28's Etsy shop.

Super cute for a mantle or shelf decoration.

Looking for a great door decoration that can last now all the way throught the fall? Check out Heather Bullard's tutorial.

I love everything about this arrangement; the mason jar, the chicken wire, hydrangeas, bird, and the ribbon! What a great accent to any room.

I love fall!! I'd forgotten just how much till I started putting together this post. Expect to see more fall decorating ideas from me in the future! If I get ambitious enough, I might even try to clean my house tonight and get out my fall decorations after Hubby and I go couch shopping and make supper... and separate grapes from stems... and bottle wine....okay maybe it won't happen tonight, but hopefully soon! I'll try to get to that this week and take pics to share with you.

Happy Crafting!

Inspiration Tuesdays: Mosaics

I love mosaics. Whether, glass, tile, found objects or whatever, I love seeing projects where people take stuff and make it special with grout (That's right, grout makes stuff special!). So today's inspiration comes from several mosaic projects that have caught my eye recently.

First is a twist on the gazing balls made from recycled bowling balls. But instead of marbles, Kathy Stantz, a contributor for JunkmarketStyle made this great ball using seashells and sea glass.

For a crazy good picture mosaic, check out vixenmeowmeow's street inspired art piece I found over at Crafster.org.

I love this wall fountain made with broken bits of china and a teapot by Diana Bodwell, a.k.a. pl8buster and found in her Flickr photostream.

Or how about this great tray from Vintage Butterfly 94's Etsy shop. I love that she used all the labels from the back of various pieces of china.

Well I don't know about you, but I'm sure inspired! I have a box of broken and chipped china and I've been meaning to do this kind of thing forever. Tonight seems like a good night as any as hubby will be "working late" (actually he works a couple of towns over and is staying to help with the food booth at the town fair. Read: drink beer.) But that's okay, it will give me time to craft messy and in peace. *Contented Sigh* I love when that happens.*

Happy Crafting!

*Don't worry, I'll show you anything I get accomplished (or whatever I come up with if it's not an accomplishment!) ;)

Inspiration Tuesday (Wednesday): Quick Tips

Okay, so I didn't deliver a project last week as promised, and I'm a day late with Inspiration Tuesday this week. I promise that I'm not ignoring you guys. Life at home and work has been crazy lately. I can't give you all the details yet, but I will reveal all in the next couple of weeks (I promise!).

In the meantime, let's get to today's inspiration! Today I thought I would give some quick easy things you can do with stuff you probably already have in your own house to decorate and switch it up a little.

Need a new end table? Why not use some books!

*Image from Real Simple Magazine.

Just stack up some of your favorite looking books and you have a perfect end table.

Want a unique planter idea? Use whatever you have laying around the house.

*All images from JunkMarketStyle

You can use old drawers, pots, pitchers, even wheelbarrows! The options are limitless for what you can use as a decorative planter. Just be sure to either create drainage holes or put a layer of rocks on the bottom to hold the soil up. Not so crazy about using some things as planters? Use them as a vase instead. If the object is water tight, use it directly. If not (such as a cowboy boot), then put the flowers in a regular vase that fits inside the object

Got a bunch of old cd cases lying around? Need some new art for the wall?

*Image from Country Living Magazine

How about trying this fun wall art project over at Country Living. It's a great way to recycle and spruce up your wall!

Turn your old Mason jars (or spaghetti sauce jars, we're not picky!) into lanterns like RKFELLA over on Crafster.org

What a fabulous pond! I'm jealous.

Well, that's it for today. Look at all the great things you can do with just stuff lying around your house! It kinda makes you want to go digging around to see what else you can find in your house, doesn't it? ;) Go ahead, dig away, I won't tell anyone!

Happy Crafting!

Inspiration Tuesday (Wednesday): Mixing Design Genres

I love many different design styles. I love shabby chic, old world, Asian fusion, cottage...the list goes on. For today's Inspiration Tuesday, I thought I would show you some great rooms that mix different styles together in one room.

First up: a kitchen redo that mixes modern elements with more traditional elements:




*Image from Country Living

The island is a great example of modern meets traditional with a modern stainless steel top and a traditional bead board bottom. The black and white floors and lighting fixtures over the island add to the traditional/vintage look, while the couches, window shades and bar stools add to the modern side.

This living room from an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is another good mix of styles.

The furniture is modern Victorian, the lamps mid-century modern, the clock has the look of an antique. All styles nicely compliment each other.

Of course, some decorating styles just mix naturally well. Asian inspired pieces and contemporary ones such as in this living room on HGTV.com go well together.

The trim on the walls make it look like a shoji (yes I had to look up the spelling on this one!)screen and the contemporary furniture make great pairings.

What design genres do you love? Are there certain ones you mix and match? Leave a comment. I like hearing from you...while most of you anyway. Kidding! Love you guys! :)

Happy Crafting!