Pages

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Blog Award!


I am so excited and happy to have received a blog award from another blogger, Julie at Crafty Imaginings and Silly Things! It is such an honor to be recognized! Thanks, Julie!


According to Marilyn at 4YouWith Love, "Liebster is German and means 'dearest' or 'beloved', but it can also mean 'favorite'. The idea behind the Liebster Award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers." 

The rules of the Liebster Blog Award are:
1. Acknowledge the blogger who gave the award by linking back to them.
2. Give this award to five other bloggers (who have fewer than 200 readers), and let them know through a comment on their blog.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Best of all – bask in the glory, have fun and share the love!

The hard part is picking just 5 blogs.  I follow so many great ones (big and small).  I enjoy reading so many, but I finally narrowed it down......So, I am gonna share the love (and the joy of receiving an award) with the following awesome bloggers:
- Shabby Chic Chicks is a great blog full of awesome decor and craft ideas. If you are a fan of the romantic shabby chic style, you will love the ideas that Hilary and Taylor share on their blog!
- Eat.Sleep.Decorate. is one of my favorite reads. Amy has such great decorating ideas that can be completed cost effectively! Amy has such a classy style that must be copied! Check her out!
- Mrs. DIY and the Tennis Guy is full of adorable craft ideas. When you see pictures of Kaitlin's home, you will want to copy everything she does!
- Just 1 Step is my go to blog for encouragement, recipes, and fun family stories. Kara is a great writer with tips on a gluten free diet and on being a great mom!
- The Cottage in the Country is Carla's documentation of her cottage renovation. Carla is a newlywed and it has been such a fun journey to follow as they tear down the old and spruce up the new cottage!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

We all scream for ice cream!

I am so excited to show you the fun project that Taylor and I worked on over the weekend! We really wanted to use my Silhouette, so while we shopped we had our eye out for something fun to add vinyl to. We stumbled upon some adorable ice cream dishes at Wal-Mart for $2 each. We each grabbed a set of 4 and headed home to jazz them up!

We decided to add an adjective to each dish that would describe ice cream. We decided on: Sweet, Delicious, Savory, and Decadent. We used a different fun font for each word and used the Silhouette to cut the words on black vinyl.

Check out our finished glasses!



We had to try them out with yummy brownie sundaes!


Check out Taylor's blog to see her take on our cute ice cream dishes!

 Pin It

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Burlap Curtains

I have been in need of new curtains in our kitchen and dining area for a while now and I FINALLY found the perfect solution!

I just spent the whole weekend with my long time best friend, Taylor, and we had a blast! She and I have so much in common, especially our love for all things crafty and decoration. We decided to drag our hubbys to the local flea market yesterday where we found burlap sacks. They were only $2 a piece which I thought was pretty good considering their large size and good quality.

I decided to buy 3 of them to use as curtains. They were so easy to hang and I love the look! Here is a before picture.



The yellow curtain in the kitchen wasn't so bad but I was really starting to hate the gold sheer curtains in the dining area. I disliked them because the color was so random and didn't match anything else in the house. I also did not realize home much light they were keeping out....but I quickly realized that once I took them down.

We hung the potato sacks horizontally to cover the entire width of the windows. We simply put the rod in the burlap bag and cut holes on each side to bring the rod back out to attach it to the brackets on the wall. After they were each hanging up, we took ribbon to tie the bags up. Check them out....







Don't they look awesome!? I am IN LOVE with them!

On another note, I have been thinking about putting a floor lamp in the dining area to give another light source other than the over head light. The hubby spotted a nice white one at the flea market for me that was only $5! We grabbed a shade from Wal-Mart and it looks awesome in here too!


Taylor and I were hard at work on some other projects too that I will be sharing with you later this week! Happy Sunday! Pin It

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Cookie Jar

I have been searching for a cookie jar for a while now. Mainly on Etsy and at the flea market. I have found so many but they were all too big and too expensive. I wanted a jar to hold our cookies (we make and buy a lot of cookies around here) but I wanted a medium sized one so that it doesn't take up too much space.

I have had this cute tea canister on my counter top for a while now. I have always kept tea bags in it.

Once I received this awesome vintage canister set for my birthday from some great friends, I knew the previous canister had to take a back seat (The tea canister is the only on in use, the others are on top of the cabinets. I love the vintage look they give. They are from the 70's).




After swapping the tea canisters out I stuck the old one in a cabinet. Tonight I was thinking about a cookie jar after we made a fresh batch of sugar cookies and that tea canister came to mind. It would be the perfect size! Since it only says "tea" on one side, I decided to turn it around and add "cookies" to the other side!

I used my Silhouette to cut out a fun border and the word "cookies" in vinyl. After I placed the letters carefully on the jar, I put our cookies in it and it found a new home in the kitchen pantry! I love it! It is fun making something old that was sitting with no purpose anymore into something functional and cute!


Hope you are somewhere warm and cozy on this chilly Sunday night! We are crossing our fingers for snow here in NC!!!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Thrifty Nifty Birthday

I had an AMAZING birthday last week! I am constantly reminded of how great my friends and family are but it seems like it really hits me around my birthday. I am so blessed!!!

I was spoiled like crazy with so many sweet gifts and cards from friends and family. Today I wanted to share the gifts that my in laws gave me.

Gabe and I have been married almost 3 years now and in that time (and before) I have become so close to Gabe's parents. My in laws were really excited about my gifts this year because they knew they found a shop that was "SO ME!" (as Diana would say!). I have to agree because these gifts fit perfectly into our home!

So here is a look at my great gifts. They were all found at a shop on the NC shore. The shop owner had lots of great finds that she had revamped and madeover.

I LOVE this iron piece of art with a rustic wooden frame. It found a home above or our tv and dresser in our master bedroom.
I think it is the perfect piece for that spot. I have wanted something there but nothing too big. I didn't want to compete with the large tv.

They also gave me this beautiful pillow in all the right colors. It found a home in our mustard yellow recliner in the living room.

The last piece is my favorite! It is this gorgeous scalloped table. I love the color and shape so much! It had to take center stage of our entry way!



Thank you so much Jed and Diana!!! I love my amazingly thoughtful gifts!!!

Also, my sister in law made me an amazing gift! It is so good that that I asked her to write a guest post so you will know how to make it too!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Washer Bracelets- Guest Post!

 I am writing from Atlanta this evening. I am in town for a conference. I am excited to be heading home tomorrow! Once I am back home and settled in, I want to share all of the fun birthday surprises and fun times I had last week with you....which explains why I have been MIA!

Two of my VERY best friends made some beautiful washer bracelets and I asked one of them, Sarah, to write a guest post showing how they made them! Sarah is going to take it from here! Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, I am not good at writing blog posts, but I told my dearest Katie I would write a post about a bracelet I made with my other dear friend Allie!

Ok, so like everyone these days I got my idea off pinterest.

I used a tutorial from Tiny Sparkly Things to learn how to thread the ribbon, but we decided to make ours into bracelets instead of a necklace like the one on this site.

This bracelet was super quick to make…that is after figuring out how to thread! Haha that took a little while for us to figure out but once we did it took no time to actually make!

Here is what you need:
~Ribbon (we used ½ inch tan/cream satin ribbon)
~Washers (you can get these at any home improvement store and maybe even Walmart) we used sizes 5 and 6.

I would highly recommend looking at the tutorial on Tiny Sparkly Things to learn how to thread the washers.  She even has step-by-step pictures!

We used 3 size 5 washers on the ends and then 3 size 6 washers in the middle.

Make sure you cut a good amount of ribbon to start with because when you thread it you use a good amount. You will want to make sure you give yourself more then you think you’ll need! We did not give ourselves quite enough ribbon to tie in a bow so we just tied ours in a double knot to wear, but if you leave more ribbon and tie a cute bow.

When you are done and have cut the end of the ribbons, take a match or lighter and lightly burn the edges to keep the ribbon from fraying. Don’t hold the flame too close or it will burn and turn brown… just close enough for it to melt a little.

Here are some pictures of how ours turned out:

Allie working hard threading the washers...

Allie’s final product!! So cute!

My final product!

Allie wore hers to work the next day and got tons of compliments! They are just fun and different! You could also make a necklace if you wanted but we decided that a necklace might get a little heavy and we thought a bracelet would be cute!

Thanks for reading! Enjoy!!


Monday, February 6, 2012

Bloggy Business Cards

There have been so many instances lately where I really wished I had a business card for Thrifty Finds and Redesigns. I will be chatting with someone about the blog and feel like I should have something to give them when they are interested in checking out the blog. Most of the time they try to remember the web address or I jot it down on something. This weekend I decided to try my hand at creating my own blog cards.

There are lots of tutorials out there for creating business cards using various softwares, but I decided to use good ol' PowerPoint. I started by rebuilding my blog banner because the images I had weren't all that high quality. It is not an exact match but it close enough for my preferences.

Besides having the web address and my email on the card, I wanted to add a QR code. QR codes can be scanned by QR code readers that you can download onto most smart phones. Using the code reader, you can scan a code quickly and launch the site instantly. How's that for instant gratification? I used qurify.com to build my QR Code.

Once I had my design in place, I turned it into an image that will soon be printed at Staples onto business cards! I want to give a shout out to my dad who helped me turn it into a higher resolution image than my system was generating! Thanks Daddio!

Check out the design....


I can't wait to get these puppies printed!! What do you think?!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

AVenue Thrift


So for starters, I have an awesome brother....seriously the coolest, kindest, sweetest brother. He is a recent college grad (turned 23 yesterday!) and is starting a lot of exciting new ventures! He is moving to DC later this month for a new job that we are all really excited about!


Here we are together in NYC last year...isn't he so cute?!

As different as we may seem, he and I have a lot in common.....one thing in particular is our love for thrifting. He is officially a professional thrift store shopper. He has all the qualities of a great thrifter: lots of patience, taking time to really dig and find great stuff and a great eye for unique finds.

He even found me a set of these awesome chairs for my Christmas gift this year....they are going to rock my patio this Spring/Summer!

He has a rather large inventory of great thrifty finds...so much so that he decided to set up shop and sell some of his great finds. He opened up AVenue Thrift on Etsy just a few weeks ago and has already made a few sales! His tagline is: "We sell great vintage finds and up-cycled creative creations so you can give new life to old items." Pretty cool, huh?

He will continue to add his awesome finds to share them with us on his store's site.

Go check out AVenue Thrift!