Art on a Budget

 My walls have been looking a little bare lately so I dusted off some old books and transformed them in to wall art. I'm always looking for books that have colorful illustrations or beautiful text at thrift stores & garage sales. Remember this?

I can't bring myself to cut in to an atlas I found last summer at a garage sale. Read this coupon I found in it's pages that expired in 1940. 

Maps made easy art especially in matted frames.

My favorite places to get frames on a budget:

*Thrift stores (sometimes if the picture already in the frame is particularly hideous you can get a great deal)*

*Ross/TJ Maxx/Marshalls*

*Craft stores like Michales or Joann Fabrics (But only with a coupon!)*

My favorite book is all about flowers paired with watercolor illustrations of them.

Here I just cut out a rose and glued it over a dictionary page. 

 Ta-da! My hallway is now dressed for spring.

For the Love of Lamps

For living in such a small apartment I have collected an impressive amount of lamps. They are all over the place, even one in the bathroom. For my latest project I took it upon myself to create a new lampshade for my living room. I found a sturdy lampshade at a garage sale (I fell in love with the scalloped edges on this one) and stripped it of it's very out dated fabric. To give this old lamp a fun new look all it took was some pretty fabric, a hot glue gun and voila!

And here is how it turned out

What I did with $25

A little cash doesn't seem to stretch as far as it used to, but a few days ago I was on a thrifting mission. I know thrift stores smell bad and there are a lot of rocks you have to discard before finding your gold, but when you find your items it all becomes worth it. I was going to buy beautiful things for just about $25 dollars. I got some surprisingly good items. At this little boutique known commonly as Value Village I got myself a copy of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, a sweet t-shirt I will be reconstructing in a later blog post and a lovely pair of boots that are Sofft and basically brand new (with the wonderful scent of real leather) which is a steal seeing that similar shoes go for around $120. And then at Goodwill I struck gold again and got a Levi denim jacket to go with all my summer dresses, a pack of variety yarn for my knitting needs, and and two Nicholas Sparks novels: Nights in Rodanthe and The Guardian (which I am probably going to finish very soon, and definitely recommend it).

And here are my wonderful finds:



P.S. Kierra found some gold too:


2 zippers, some yarn, a book and a lace curtain for her sewing creations:

I heart Bargains!

If there is one thing that I love, it is finding a good deal. A little while back my sisters and I went to a resale shop that is closing its doors and loaded up on some fabulous finds. We left with armfuls of stuff.

This dictionary and atlas will make for some great craft paper, I love doing projects with dictionary paper. And how great is the coloring in this Atlas?

After a little polishing this is the perfect little holder for my new rings (I won't be wearing them all at once, promise)...

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these guys yet, but I just couldn't resist buying them.

And finally a humorous art piece for my mantle.

We were able to buy all this, a big bag of knitting supplies and more for less than $20! Good deal? I would say so.