Category: Deals, Steals, & Thrifting

Good deals and thrift store shopping.

Glass Container Sale: Part Deux

Published on by Our Humble Abode11 Comments

If you recall, Hobby Lobby had a 50% off sale on all glass items a couple of weeks ago.  On my first trip, I left with a few canning jars, a small apothecary style lidded jar and a tall glass container for spaghetti.  When I returned home, I realized the tall jars would be perfect for our pantry, so I went back to buy 6 more.  Add a few pretty labels and we were done.

Well, in that same trip, I picked up the larger apothecary style jar and another footed, covered container for our main bathroom.  I filled the largest with soap, the medium with cotton balls and the smallest with Q-tips.

This is the bathroom our guests use, so I wanted to keep some often used items out to limit searching.  And I love that everything is white and pretty. 

We haven’t had any visitors since this addition, but I hope it is useful.  If not, I still don’t mind looking at them.  What about you?  What do you do to make your bathroom more guest friendly?

Magazine Artwork

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The first time I saw the Skinny Cow ads was when Young House Love turned it into art for their nursery.  I fell in love with it right away, and the colors were perfect for our boys’ room.  So, I Googled around to find more ads.  I found one print ad and a few more designs used on the Skinny Cow website. 

I love that the dachshund is being held up by a balloon to share with the giraffe. 

Aren’t the monkeys from this coupon cute, too?

I couldn’t find other printed designs, so I went to You Tube and found two commercials. 

I paused on the frames I liked and did a print screen and saved the image to my computer.  Then, I opened the images in Photoshop to make alterations as I liked.  After an hour or so of playing around, I had five new 5 inch by 7 inch art pieces to frame. 

I had to recreate the koala and monkey images to place them on a solid background.

 I didn’t have to do much to the other images, except remove the ice cream and text for the actual ad.  I bought five ugly faux wood $3.00 frames from Wal-Mart and gave them a quick coat of gloss white spray paint.

I love how the group of five looks in the room, adding a dose of whimsy and a pop of color.  Not bad for $15.00.  Have you turned any magazine pages into artwork?

Goodwill Goods

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After a long week of hanging with our boys, I pawned them off on Ben to do a little retail therapy, alone.  I know the moms out there understand how great this is.  I find thrift stores are difficult to go to with kids.  Target usually has the same inventory, but thrift stores are ever-changing, so it takes more searching.  Off to Goodwill I went.  I didn’t find much, but I wasn’t looking for anything, either.  I did find a cute stone bird. 

I did think twice about this guy, trying to keep my bird obsession in check, but he wanted me to rescue him from the shelf.  So, I did.  I immediately snatched this brass leaf-shaped bowl.

 

I left Goodwill $4.50 lighter with two more projects in the works. 

Come back soon to see what I did to update my finds.  For now, though, I want to know what specific items you go to thrift stores to find.  Dishes?  Furniture?  Lamps?  Spill.

Glass Container Sale

Published on by Our Humble Abode8 Comments

I was at Hobby Lobby yesterday looking for various craft items and wandered down their glass aisle.  Boy, am I glad I did.  All glass items are 50% off!  So, I brought these home.

The decorative lidded jar on the left was originally $5.99, so I scored it for 3 bucks.  Our new spaghetti jar was only $2.50 and each canning jar was only $1.25.  I don’t need those right now, but I do use the same type for our vacation jars, so I figured it would be okay to have a few on hand. 

Once I returned home, I regretted not buying more.  I think I’ll have to go back before Saturday, when the sale ends, to get various sized jars for other purposes.

Recent Finds: Pier 1 & TJ Maxx

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I guess I’ve been doing more retail therapy than usual.  It has to be becuase so many cute things are for sale this season.  Like these Power Ball-esque letters from Pier 1. 

Aren’t they cute?  And for $2.00 each, they don’t break the bank, so I got one ball for each member of our family.  My glass thrift store jar was a perfect vessel for displaying my new purchase, too.

While wandering through Pier 1, these pillows caught my eye. 

I love the texture of both, although the round red pillow seems uncomfortable and impractical.  I might try to make a similar version of the green pillow, though.  The Pier 1 version is made of felt, so it should be cheap and easy to work with.  We’ll see if it will make the cut.  Pun intended.

I also liked this lamp.

After Pier 1, I stopped in TJ Maxx and found matching white rubber backed rugs to replace our old bathroom rugs. 

Note: don’t send a straight man to buy a specific color rug.  I sent Ben out to buy white rugs.  What did he come back with?  CREAM!  There is a difference.  So, we finally have nice quality matching white rugs, all for the low price of $7.99 each.  Who’s happy?  I’m happy.