Custom Chandelier

I bought this light fixture off of the nicest man one rather cold morning.  It was probably the brisk air that made the price so low--he wanted to sell everything and get back in to his cup of coffee I'm sure.  He was thrilled that I could use the fixture and told me all about the dining room that held the white flowered light.  That's the thing about garage sales.  You meet nice people who are truly happy when you can use something that they've gotten their use out of.  So I picked it up for $4 and took it home.

The entire lamp, including the lampshades had been painted with a white textured paint so that it looked like it was covered in white sand.  Once you paint lampshades with a heavy paint like that, they no longer glow, so the lampshades were unusable.  I knew that when I first looked at them and so I automatically knew that they would have to be replaced and I budgeted for it.
What I really wanted in my family room was a red chandelier.  So initially I painted the entire fixture red, but it lacked dimension and didn't look special.  So I painted the candlestick holders flat black and misted the entire fixture with gold fleck paint.  Then I purchased six brand new gold lampshades for $45.  The end result was exactly what I wanted. 

Earring Magnets

This is a project shared by my mother--the queen of creativity.  She's also just as bad as me about throwing anything away so she had a drawer full of button earrings that were as outdated as shoulder pads.  So she took the earrings, removed the posts, attached magnets to the back and repurposed them.  Aren't they beautiful?

Outdated pins and vintage buttons would also look amazing as refridgerator magnets.

Growing Up Shelf

I wanted a shelf in my daughter's bedroom, but true to character I didn't want to pay for it.  So I hunted the garage sales and came up with these two possibilities for a couple of bucks each.

Can't you just picture roosters on these gems?  I bought both because I wasn't sure what size I wanted in the room.  Eight long coats of paint and $6 for new glass drawer knobs later and I had a great shelf that could grow with my daughter.  The glass knobs will hold her necklaces long after the dolls have been packed in boxes.  Total cost for the project $10 with a shelf leftover for another project.  I could have spent a lot more for some beautiful glass prismic knobs and it would have been like hanging a piece of art, but it wasn't going into MY room!  Repainting a shelf and changing out the hardware is a quick and easy project with nice results.

Jewelry Displays

Okay,  so there's been a little time between posts.  Mainly that's because I've been off looking for stuff secondhand.  It's remarkably time consuming but equally fun.  It's amazing what you can find when you dig in and go for it.  I've got several projects underway and I'm asking all my family and friends to turn in their great projects too so I hope this blog will give you more great ideas from more creative brains than mine.

This one is a no brainer--I think.  I only own the cheap costume-type jewelry, but that doesn't keep me from feeling like a celebrity when I pick out my accessories in the morning.  I shopped my house and a couple of garage sales and came up with some beautiful ways to display my jewelry.

I have my earrings hanging on tiered plate holders and yes, the plate holder does double duty and is used at parties for actual plates.  The other one is a tiered bowl set for fruit.  I picked up the glass bowls, dishes and a funky rotating mirror that reminds me of a disco ball at garage sales.  My bracelets, rings and pins are all displayed like pieces of art.  I used fabric left over from my curtains (when I shortened them) as the backdrop.  I have mine in an entertainment center shelf, but it would look beautiful on top of a dresser too.

Magazine Wallets - Eclipse Style

I made these a while ago and I'm just getting them posted.  I'm a couponer.  Whew--finally out of the closet on that one.  Anyway, I love food coupons, those loyalty cards that earn you free sandwiches and burritos, and gift cards that come free with a purchase.  They take up too much room in my wallet, but I have to carry the darn things around or I never use them.  Hence--the coupon wallet.
It's made out of scrapbooking paper, but can also be made out of magazine pages, family photos or whatever paper interests you.  This is one I made in honor of the New Moon movie opening--which leads to another embarassing admission that I am a Twilighter.  I'm also a Harry Potter and Fablehaven fan so I guess I'm at least 20% geek.  My sister (Team Jacob) uses hers as a full on wallet.

Thanks to a great tutorial I found from my friends at Craftster.com, this wallet came together pretty easily.  You just need an 8 1/2 x 11 double sided sheet of paper and a plastic sheet protector.  I tweeked mine with an additional credit card holder, but that's completely optional.  Hope you like it!!

Grown Up Prom Dress

I loved Nicole Kidman's wardrobe in Bewitched.  Although I'm not normally that romantic of a dresser, I was especially taken by the full skirts she wore in the movie. (Not my image--owned by the studios and all that.)

I decided to embrace the full skirt by making a special occasion skirt out of an old prom dress.  I picked the prom dress up at a thrift store for $8.

It's a bad picture, but the dress was burgundy and had a stretch-velore top with a satin skirt.  This transformation took more sewing skill than I possess, so I enlisted my mom.  She helped me remove the top, create a waistband and shorten the skirt by approximately 10 inches.  I LOVE the end result.  Now I have a grownup special occasion skirt.



Skirt Reboot

Skirts are so easy to bring back into this decade and we've all kept skirts way longer than we probably should have.  This skirt I picked up for $4.  It's a designer skirt that hit at that unflattering 3 inches above the ankle.  I loved the fabric.  It's a velore with sequins sewn into the skirt.  The detail work was beautiful and definitely worth trying to make it more wearable for now.  Because I liked the finish on the bottom of the skirt, I opted to remove the top layer and replace the waistband. 

Hope you like it.

Halloween Costumes

I'm using my family and friends to demonstrate that the best costumes are often the cheapest.  They just require a little imagination and, to keep them as inexpensive as possible, be on the lookout year round for things you can pick up for pennies at garage sales that could be a costume contest winner once you put your spin on it.

FLOWER POT:  So clever.  She put a plastic cup on her head, poked a hole in the bottom for the flowers, then wrapped her ponytail around the cup.  Add a cardboard flowerpot to hang around your neck and you have a clever costume that took more time than money.

RED NECK:  This would be an easy costume to pickup at a garage sale.  Old hunting gear and a mangled wig.  So easy.

VIKINGS:  These take a little crafting skill, but were pulled together using fake fur fabric, cardboard and aluminum foil (gotta love aluminum foil). 

MALIFICENT:  This is where found items meet store bought.  She purchased the dress at a thrift store.  It was a prom dress.  The head dress was a sewing miracle (the talent part) to create an amazing costume for $30.  The best part?  She plans on selling the head dress on ebay.  My bet is that she'll be ahead money in the end.

80's Denim for Today

Whenever I spend a Saturday on the Garage Sale circuit I always leave with the belief that American's could clothe the world with their cast offs.  So there's tons of things to pick from, and since most are priced between 25 cents and a couple of dollars, you can't go wrong--even if your do-over goes wrong.

This is the denim dress that we all wore in a past decade.  It wasn't missing any buttons, but they all got stitched back on (more securely this time) while I was catching up on Grey's Anatomy.  I bought a size bigger than I wear and went to town.

I cut it off to make it into the kind of shirt dress that's being shown in the magazines for fall.  Then I fitted it so that the skirt had more "swing."  I finished off by purchasing 48 cents worth of leopard print cotton fabric (and I have a lot left over), and ironed it on over the pockets to add a little detail to the dress.  It looked great with boots and a belt that was already in my closet.

Iron Bar Stools Makeover

 I picked up these bar stools at a garage sale.  They were price at $25 each and I picked them up for $20 each.  I only needed four stools and they wanted to sell these as a set of five which was perfect.  When you're buying a used set of items it's always nice to snag an extra--especially if you want a matching set and you're purchasing furniture.  These are swivel bar stools with one ruined cushion so I now have extra hardware (from the extra bar stool) that I can use to make sure all the stools are in working order.  I also liked that the cushions were covered in vinyl.  It's easiest to recover seats if you don't have to remove the original fabric, and the cushions will keep their shape better. And it saves tons of money if you don't have to include an upholstery shop in your makeover.

Prior to purchasing the stools, I inspected them and made sure that the seats detached easily so that I could recover the cushions myself.  I love neutral colored furniture with easy-to-recover cushions because then you can change them out multiple times depending on where you're using the piece.  The other thing I noticed is that they were DIRTY!

I took them home, attacked them with my screw gun, removed the seats and scrubbed them within an inch of their life.  These were obviously used in the kitchen and rarely wiped down.  There was enough food on them to stick small children to the seats permanently.  Ice cream had dripped down the legs and jam was petrified under the armrests.  I also had to scrub the seats and let them dry overnight because the leftovers would have attracted ants if I had just put my new fabric over them.

When you re-do garage sale finds, you have to be okay with vintage finishes.  No matter how hard you try, there will be signs of wear that can't be erased.  Although my plan is to repaint the iron, a lot of finish had been rubbed off and I wasn't sure how well the paint would adhere in the long run.  Also, we had to try several finishes to find a stain that would adhere to the back of the stools where the stain had been rubbed off, so it's not perfect and I'm okay with that.

The final step was to recover the seats with my new fabric and my trusty staple gun.  A few screws and the seats were back in place. 

This project took about nine hours to complete with a final pricetag of $121.  The fabric cost $9.20 for 2 yards and it took two cans of flat black spray paint.  I used stain that I already owned and I have about 1/2 yard of fabric and 1/2 can of spray paint leftover to use on another project.