Sunday, August 28, 2011

HOW TO DECORATE FOR LESS THAN $100










Well, I am back!!!! This time, I have found a new passion or obsession!! How to decorate my home for less than $100! I know, you are probably thinking, "sure, those guys on HGTV tell you how to do it, but they are PROFESSIONAL DECORATORS"! Well, I am here to tell you it can be done!! I did it for less than $100, and in only one weekend.

My living room was basically red and black with white walls (hospital white, at that - BORING)! So, I decided to make a change. I had been contemplating doing this for about nine months! Then one night, while in bed, it came to me the color scheme I want to change to. I want the walls to be a combination of soft blue and green. In other words, light blue-green. This was about one month ago. Next, I went into Wal Mart's paint section and looked through there paint chip samples. I found the right color. Another time, while shopping in Wal Mart, I found a new lampshade to replace the red one I had. Still, another time, I found two rugs for the living room floor in the right colors. Also, found material to cover existing pillows. I had material left-over, so I covered an old picture with some of material, made a table runner, place mats. The solid blue, pillow slip looked plain. I took an old doily I had and hand-sewed it on to the front of the pillow slip.

At this point, I had my dinosaur of a sewing machine out for most of the weekend, and figured this would be a great time to quit procrastinating and sew the valances for two other windows in the house. This material I had on hand for quite some time!!! The machine is a dinosaur both in size and age! It is heavy to move, even though it is portable, and I received it as a present in 1964!

The pictures tell the story. The cost: Lampshade $5; Rugs $60; Material $10; Total $75
I live in Florida, and it is way to hot to paint now!! Will wait until the fall!!
Thanks for viewing & following!!

Friday, August 26, 2011

My Obsessions

Where to start? I guess I will start with my latest obsession, which is searching out my ancestry. This has led me straight back to some of my older obsessions. These are history and travel.

I have found the best ancestry searching site is RootsWeb.com. It is free, easy to operate and thorough. I can spend hours on it, and in some instances have! It has opened my mind to a lot of historical questions. Such as, what exactly happened to cause all of these ancestors to die on the same day? Was it war-time, and if so, which war, or was it disease or famine? It has opened my mind to more travel related directly to me, rather than to others or in general. I know I can't afford to travel back to New England in person. However, with the aid of the computer (at least for the time being), I will travel through the computer.

Another one of my obsessions, crafting. I do crafts with stamping, coloring, jewelry, natural bath & beauty items, paper crafting. Love to do paper crafting. It can be easy to complex, but if you have left-over paper in your home you can use it!! No or Low Cost.

Paper Crafting: I do a lot with card templates & origami.

I will be posting more in the future!

Thanks for viewing!