New Finds

This past Thursday I got an email talking about a "FREE FOR ALL" in the basement of one of the dorms. Every year Stephens {where I go to Grad School} has a huge garage sale to raise money for the undergraduate programs; all the items are donated and stored on campus. Well it turns out the space where they store things is going to be given to an organization so all the stuff had to go! 

Here are my fabulous finds for FREE

 Now I can heat my food up on real plates!!

 18x20 Picture Frame

 A nice pair of comfy scrub pants...YES!

Some random black bags and a piece of black felt

My lamp has been needing one of these! 

Some OLD picture frames. One of them had a name and '46 written on the back in pencil. 

A solid wooden tray that I plan to fix up! 

Some patterns I can try out! 

Random carrying thing.

Clock

8x10 picture frame

Flash Cards

 A sterling silver bowl of some sort...it will look nice cleaned up :) 

 I'm so excited to see what I can do with some of these purchases!!! Can't beat FREE :)

I {heart} GoodWill

It's time. Thrifty Thursday is HERE! 

This past Thursday I went to our local GoodWill and ...of course... got some really awesome deals! 

I got these picture frames for a $1.00 each 

I am thinking of painting them a color that really 'pops' so they can go along with my new mirror!

This next find was an impulse purchase...if you can call it that? I was standing in line and I happened to look down and saw all of these really pretty bags. 

I didn't really have a chance to look in it before it was my turn to check-out, but I thought, "Heck, I'd pay $0.59 just for the cute bag". 

Now before I show you the rest of the items in the bag, I feel its necessary to tell you...I am not expecting. 

This was the first item I pulled out of the bag. I thought the diaper & wipe holder was really cute!

 Then there were coupons galore and more samples! 

Like I said before, I have no use for these items, but I did mail them to a friend who just had a beautiful new baby girl. 

After all the pictures, my friend Kat came over and I was showing her the bag and then I found something I had previously missed...the most {amazing} thing in the whole package...

A $20.00 Giftcard/redemption code to Shutterfly!!!!! YAHOO! I use Shutterfly to make a lot of my memory books, believe it or not, I gave up on scrapbooking. The expiration date is 06/22/2011 which means I will be able to use it to make one for my Ireland trip in May! 

You know I love to do my "Total Costs" at the end of posts, but I think this pretty much sums it up!

Rummage Sale=Success

I went to a huge rummage sale this past weekend in Columbia and you won't believe what all I got. Prepare to be amazed....Also, try to guess how much you think I spent on all of this and I'll let you know the total at the bottom...

Shirt from Old Navy for me 

Sleeping pants...I plan to just use the fabric.

Three pairs of athletics shorts for my niece Hailey 

Nike and Adidas tops for Hailey  

Two more tops for Hailey 

A pair of DC Shoes swimming trucks for a friend of the family. 

More material

A necklace and some clip-on earrings 

A Jar 

baby bottle drying rack...I plan to use for plastic cups

A t-shirt to workout in 

three books for Hailey to read 

Three UGLY duck canisters I plan to spray paint. 

A bag from The Sak. I found a similar one on their website (see below) that sells for around $60.00 I'm sure mine is just a older style..

That's all.....so how much did you guess!?!? If you guessed $2.00 THEN YOU ARE CORRECT! Yep, that's right. All of this fit into a bag I got for two stinking dollars! Now that is thrifty shopping!

Umbrella Holder

Our office has desperately been needing a home for our umbrellas and I found this "holder" at none other than....you guessed it....GoodWill for only $2.00. 

Originally I was going to spray paint it, but like I learned this past weekend...It's too cold for spray paint right now! Not wanting to wait, I decided to decoupage it.  

First I planned on using some scrapbook paper, but then decided I would probably be too particular and it just wouldn't look as good as I wanted it to. So, I settled for the next best thing....magazines! 

I tore out pieces that were fun, bright, and had patterns. Then I started glueing them on in random ways and covering them with more glue. 

After it finally dried this is what I had! 

For those of you who dont know, I work in the Human Resources office at Stephens College. Stephens is well known for their fashion and design, so I decided to capture a little of that for our office. 

I thought about putting river rock in the bottom to help pull the water away from the umbrellas when they are wet. Not sure if it will work though. Does anyone have any better ideas? 

TOTAL COSTS
Holder         $2.00
ModPodge  FREE (had on hand)
Magazines  FREE (had on hand)

        Total    $2.00 

Thrifty Thursday

Last weekend when I went home to STL I found some awesome deals at GoodWill...Not sure If I should mention my mom and I went to THREE in one day?! Hey, we were on a roll. At the first GW I got this table. 

I know it doesn't look like much, but for $20 I couldn't pass it up; It's perfect for a "sewing center". As soon as it's warm enough to paint again you'd better believe you're going to see a complete transformation done to this baby! 

We didn't have much luck at GW #2, but at GW #3 we hit the jackpot! We went strictly looking for a chair to go with a my new table/desk. We found it! The chair was ticketed for $4.00, which is a steal! However, soon after we stuck it in our cart a man working there came up and said, "Furniture is 50% off today". WHAT!?!?! This chair is only $2.00? YAHOO!! 

I originally only planned to get the chair, but then I spotted this filing cabinet. I had been wanting one, but couldn't find a decent price on any of them. It was originally marked $18, which I think is still too high since the drawers don't close all the way and there isn't a key. However, with the 50% it was only $9.00. I figured why not, I probably won't find one much cheaper and this will just be another fixer-upper for me to share with you all! 

P.S. I still can't believe ALL OF THIS fit in my little G6 :)

Spoons Turned into Art

This weeks inspiration comes from a blog byTatertots and Jello. If you have been following me I'm sure you remember the silverware I found last week at GoodWill for $2.





Well, after reading Tatertots blog I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it...I just wasn't really sure how to go about doing it. So I begun by bending the spoons and hot gluing them together.
Once the spoons were bent I cut out material and placed it over a cardboard circle. I felt like this needed a little something extra to make it really pop so I asked my (also crafty) friend Kat if I could have some buttons. 





While at the flea market (where I scored my awesome new chair) I found an old wooden frame for a $1. It was pretty scratched up but really sturdy, so I purchased it for this project.





The one bad thing about this frame is it didn't come with a back...so I made one. We always have left over cardboard boxes at work so I brought one home and cut it to fit the back.

After spray painting the frame black (that was interesting in winter) I searched through my fabric and found some black I thought would look really well. I then took wooden letters I already had and painted them a gold color to match the fabric. And here is what I got



I LOVE IT! I think it was the perfect addition to my little "eating area". 

Total Estimated Costs for Project

Frame: $1
Spoons: $1 (forks and spoons were $2)
Fabric: $1
Buttons: FREE
Letters: Already had on hand (est: $0.50)
Gold Paint: Already had on hand (est: $0.50)
Cardboard: Free
Hot Glue: Already had on hand (est: $0.50)
Spray Paint: Already had on hand (est: $0.50)

TOTAL: $ 5.00