Everything is better on a pedestal

A few months ago I found a soap dish on a pedestal at a local thrift store. It had a plastic liner in it originally and was solid wood with a dark stain. I have had it in my craft closet since I bought it....but decided to paint it today and use it as a holder for my dish brushes in the kitchen. I currently use a little plate to hold them but I just love pedestal dishes!

I started by removing the pink plastic liner and giving it a good clean and then I got to painting...

I chose a light gray for the bottom...

And a bright green for the top....

 After the paint dried, I sanded it a little to make it distressed because I love that look and then I gave it a coat of polyurethane to water proof it, since it will be holding my dish brushes.

Then I stuck it by the sink and threw my brushes in it.

Hope you are having a great Saturday! It has been busy around here and we are heading to Vegas tomorrow for the week!

$3 Dollar Vest and Scarf

I am writing from the beautiful town of Black Mountain,NC. I am spending a long weekend away with some of the wonderful women in my family. This is a yearly trip and my sister in law, Blair, and I started a tradition last year of doing a craft every year. This year, we made scarves and vests out of $3 tshirts from wal-mart.

We started with these materials....

And followed these tutorials:
T-Shirt No Sew Vest
T-Shirt No Sew Scarf

And ended up with these final products...

Hope everyone has had a great weekend! Our wonderful trip comes to an end tomorrow, we have had an absolute BLAST but I am missing my hubby!!!

DIY Coasters- October Craft Night

Tonight was our October craft night! We made our own coasters. This was an extremely simple craft, which suited us well, we were all pretty wiped out and silly due to exhaustion :)

We started with blank tiles from Home Depot that were 16 cents each...

We then each spent a considerable amount of time deciding how to decorate them. Once we chose our scrapbook paper, we cut it to the size of the coasters and used modgepodge to glue the paper to the tile. With a thin layer of modgepodge directly on the tile, you can easily place your paper down and smooth out all bubbles...

Sarah put stickers on her Christmas themed coasters after gluing her paper on...

Once we had everything on our coasters, we sealed them first with a topcoat of modgepodge.

Next, we hot glued 4 felt pads onto the bottom of each tile to protect our table tops from the rough tiles...

Lastly, we sprayed an even layer of polyurethane to the top of each coaster to make them waterproof. (Notice that this step was done outside- that stuff stinks and could probably make you pass out if used in an enclosed area)

With the help of yummy desserts (cinnamon roll cake and gluten free chocolate chunk cookies), a little wine and coffee, we finished our coasters! Check out everyone with their finished products:

 Sarah's Christmas coasters

Allie's funky flower coasters

 Kara's polka dot coasters

 Erin's orange patterned coasters

Mica's paisley coasters

Once mine we nice and dry, I wrapped them with some twine, and tied on a little paper tag. How cute are these as a gift?! Mine are going to be a little thank you gift!

I am off to Black Mountain after work tomorrow for a weekend away! That means no project posts coming up til next week! Hopefully there will be a thrifty find posts because there will definitely be shopping!

Anniversary Giveaway

To celebrate my one year blog anniversary, I wanted to do a little giveaway. BUT instead of having everyone sign up to win, I decided to use Random.org to pick a random follower as the lucky winner! First, let's look at the prize up for grabs...a Ball Jar salt and pepper shaker set.


The lucky winner happens to be one of my oldest friends from my childhood, Ms Abbey Collins!

 

I will be emailing you soon Abbey to get your address!!!

Thanks to everyone who follows along!

Thrifty Finds

I apologize in advance to those of you looking for a good project....this is more of a "hey, look what I found" post. Over the past 2 weekend I hit up a few thrift stores and saw my brother, who gave me an awesome thrift store find as well. I wanted to share those with you tonight :)

Here are last weekends finds...

Love this milk glass compote (is that what you call those things?). I may put a little plant in it. I also found this little Jim Bean shot glass for the bar cart...

I paid $1 for this yard of fabric. I really like the weave and colors...

Lastly, I found another tray, it has legs that fold out. I am definitely giving this one a colorful makeover...

My brother found this awesome salad bowl set at a thrift store for just $5. I LOVE it. The large bowl and 4 small bowls all say "salad" on them! Thanks Aaron!

Today, Aaron took Gabe and I to one of his favorite thrift shops and I found a few treasures. I instantly loved this old omelet pan. It has 2 omelet recipes on it, one on each side. It was only $1.61.

I also found these cheese domes that are going to be put on pedestals and painted and used as cute little finger food serving dishes. They will look like these, I have a little obsession :) They were $2/each.

I am finally home after a week and weekend away, it has never felt better to be home! I am hoping to complete some projects this week but it is a busy week! We are having our October craft night this week, there will definitely be a post following that to show you what we make!

Have a great week!!!

Give Thanks Printable

Exactly one year ago today, I started Thrifty Finds and Redesigns. I can't believe it has only been a year, it is one of those things that feels like I have been doing for a long time. When I started I was just posting cool things I found on Craigslist and over time I began writing about things I was creating in our home and how I was decorating. This blog has been a great outlet for my creativity and an escape from my sometimes stressful career. Thank you to those of you who read along and cheer me on!

To celebrate Thrifty Finds and Redesigns' Anniversary I am giving away another printable. I have been wanting to put "Give Thanks" somewhere in our home for the Fall and for Thanksgiving. You can right click the printable below and save the image and print it out to frame or hang up.

I printed mine and modgepodged it to a tile...it's now in our kitchen...

Thanks again to everyone for reading along!

House Number Porch Pillow

Remember my Anniversary Pillow? Well, I decided to make another one but with our house number on it for our front porch. There are so many cute ideas out there for displaying your house number....on pumpkins, on planters, etc....but since I am on a pillow kick, I thought I would give it a shot. For a tutrorial, you can check out the steps I took for my anniversary pillow.

Here is my house number pillow:

It sits nicely on our cozy swing. Our swing was an anniversary gift from Gabe's grandparents for our first anniversary. (It says "Established April 4, 2009.) Gabe just refinished it with some weatherproofing paint, he did such a great job!

I used freezer paper to make my stencil for this pillow but instead of using my Silhouette to cut tht numbers, I decided to freehand them on the freezer paper with sharpie and then cut them out by hand....which is why they are imperfect, but I like them that way!

While we are on the porch, check out my little wheelbarrow full of pumpkins! Isn't that so cute? I found the wheelbarrow at a thrift store for $1, painted it green, and let the pumpkins overflow!

I am not one that does much on the front porch, other than a wreath on the door. This new pillow makes me want to decorate more!

Some Yard-sale Treasures

Last Saturday, Gabe and I went by a few yard-sales. It was such a beautiful fall day and a great day for yard-sale shopping. I found a few treasures at one yard-sale in particular. I found 3 glass containers that were each unique and cute....and only $1 for all 3 of them, which made it even better.

They have each found a new place in our home, take a look at them...

An antique Ball Jelly jar...

 A little jug with a glass lid...

A glass container shaped like an owl with a cork lid (not pictured)...

These two have become part of our coffee station and have splenda and stirrers in them...

The owl now holds my new straws on the bar cart...

A little side note about the fun striped straws...I won them in a giveaway on the Liz Marie Blog. I won a gift card from Domestic Charm and chose several packs of their fun straws as my prize!

I love finding good deals at yard sales. The Ball Jelly Jar was only 40 cents but I found them for sale on Ebay for as high as $20....so I would say that is a pretty good deal! The owl jar was only 10 cents and with the popularity for owls these days, I was excited to find one so cheap! The little jar with the glass lid and metal clasp was 50 cents and was another great find!