Anthropologie Knock-Off- Quick and Easy

A while back I saw these number tiles on Anthroplogie;s website.  I loved the bight red numbers on the colorful tile.

Unfortunately, they are no longer available and even when they were, they were way out of my price range.  Of course the DIY mantra began drumming through my head...."I could make that."   I finally tackled the project and loved how it came out.  I started with subway tile (16 cents a piece) and house numbers ($1.98 a piece) from Lowe's.

 I broke out the Sharpie Markers and started coloring away using Anthro's design as template.

 I sprayed the numbers red and glued them to the tiles.  I love how they turned out.  Since I intend to use them inside, I am done.  If I put them outside, I will give them a coat of poly. 

At the cost of $2.14 a piece, I consider this project a huge success.  Start to the finish the project took less than an hour.  Cheap, easy and quick....now that's the mark of a great project.

P.S.  The numbers 143 is our family code for I love you.

I am linking up at:
320 Sycamore

Style Sunday- The Senator's Wife

Life in America is pretty casual these days.  Most of the time, people even wear jeans to church.  I don't have a lot of reason to dress up....an event I really miss.  I still love a classy outfit and have been known to wear one for no reason at all.  It used to tick me off when in college people would say, "You won't dress like that when you are in the classroom."  Actually I will and do. 

 

 

The shirt and shoes both came from Goodwill.  A good black pencil skirt is a must have staple in any closet.  Now I just need to find a senator!

Thrift Chick

Easter Decor Part 2

Besides the mantle, I have springified a few more corners.  The past few years I have been on a white kick, but this year I wanted more color. (Besides I found a great vintage pink spray paint on clearance at Big Lots which went great with the pink hydrangeas I found at Goodwill.)

 ThriftChick has a thing for owls.  This owl was a Salvation Army find and formerly looked like this.

 

This piece I got last year at a thrift store to use at a baby shower.  It was brown and this time it was ThriftChick who had no vision.  She thought it was ugly.  We did a bird theme and it made a great centerpiece.  ThriftChick had to eat crow (pun intended.)

 These are eggs from my childhood...circa 1960-70's.  We had an Easter egg tree.  I have vivid memories of my mom turning beet red in the face as she blew out eggs for us to decorate.  The various designs represent the trends in Easter egg decorating that spanned those decades.

May your holiday weekend be filled with tradition, love and the joy of a risen Lord.

Too Many Knicknacks, Too Few Seasons

In the last two years, I have been rotating my decor throughout the seasons.  Previously I had an aversion to knick knacks.  My mother is the queen of knick knacks.  She and my father never met a souvenir they didn't buy.  She has saved and still displays all of our lumps of clay artwork.  As a child, dusting was an extremely tedious chore.  However, blogland has reformed me.  I have developed a need to have perfectly styled corners here and there.  That means I need to have unique and beautiful pieces to place.  That means I need to go thrifting, junking and antiquing.  It is a win-win situation...almost.  Storage is a bit of concern.

Here we see my beautiful buffet that my husband and I found years ago in a thrift store.  I have loved it forever.

 Open the doors and it is a different story.  Stuffed in there are all my knick knacks and decor items.  It is a bit intimidating and certainly not very organized.

I'd like to say that is it, but there are eight totes in the basement full of Christmas decorations and my pantry runs more toward baskets, vases and containers than food.  It might be an obsession.

Spring Mantle

I have been a little slow to put away the winter decor and get ready for spring.  I think it was because the small peek of summer we had put me in the mood for barbecues and lazy summer days, not lilacs and Easter eggs.  Our weather has returned to more spring like conditions so I decided I had better get with it or I would miss Easter entirely.

 The mirrored frames I got from an estate sale for $2.00 a piece.  They are really dresser trays.  I spray painted them white.  I have a thing for dresser trays.  That same day, I found an oval one at a thrift store.  I just love when I score multiple times in one day!

A tip about writing on chalkboards.  All over blogland, I see chalkboard items with great quotes written in creative and beautiful handwriting.  When I try it, mine looks like a first grader wrote it.  It slopes and is never centered.  I wipe it off and rewrite it a million times.  This time I used the brains God gave nine year old me.  I printed off what I wanted from the computer.  I took my pencil and colored all over the back of the paper.  I centered the paper on the board colored side down and outlined the letters.  The graphite on the back acts as a carbon and gave me a very light guide to write over with chalk.  I was quite pleased with the result especially since this was just one try.   Sometimes, the ways of the ancients make a lot of sense!


I am linking at:
Very Merry Vintage Style

Sorry for Being MIA

It has been a few weeks since we have done a post.  We have to get into the swing of working full time, attempting DYI and posting.  Work has been crazy because of this:

   

Statewide academic tests, state third grade reading tests and quarterly curriculum tests...our legislators have gone a tad overboard on assessment, wouldn't you say?

 We have also been a bit distracted by this:

Summer like weather in March.  Woo Hoo!  We broke out the flip flops and skirts.  We walked our river greenway with both puppy and grand baby in tow.  Of course, we took the wee one to her first park visit.

Some things are just more important!

Hope you've had some sunshine in your life recently.

Style Sunday - Teacher's Pet

It has been a busy week...no time for projects and postings.  We promise to do better next week.  This past week has been round one of our state wide assessment.  Both Mama Thrift and I proctored the test for students. We are both so glad it is done.  In honor of all the brains cells that were working hard this week, today's outfit is some of my favorite "teacher" clothes

Everything came from my local Goodwill stores.  Total cost for for the outfit $12.  Such a deal! With deals like this, I ca afford to spend more on things for my classroom!

Thrift Chick

The Great Exchange

   Take one bag of clothes you don't wear anymore

 and head over to here...especially when they are having a clearance sale.

You just may end up with these  AND cash in your pocket.

 That's one tunic, one skirt, one pair of jeans, one dress and a jacket.  I would say that is one great exchange!

Thrift Chick

Style Sunday-Pan Am Pretty

Right now I am pretty obsessed with the show PanAm.  For me it is 60 minutes of gawking at mid century style and fashion.while being entertained by the drama and glamour of the story.  This little shift is a dress I found several years ago.  It caught my eye then because its lines were so mid-century.  Flash forward a few years and Mad Men and PanAm have made the mid-century look top style.

  I love how good fashion really never goes out of style....throw the word vintage in front and it becomes a classic piece.

Thrift Chick

P.S. See how to make the vintage suitcase here

Upholstery Store Castoffs Pillows

Years ago a local furniture store in town donated their old fabric swatches to school.  No one wanted them.  I took these home because I loved the colors.  I put them in my craft tote and forgot about them until this winter when I was doing some cleaning purging.

 I decided that they would make some awesome pillows.  Since the swatches were precut and all the same size, the project was ulttra simple. 

 I had enough for three pillows and a super large tote bag.  All for free.  Now that is thrifty!

Mama Thrift

Style Sunday - Channeling Kate (Hepburn That Is)

I used to wear this to class in college all the time.  I didn't think it was anything special, but a friend of my called it my Katherine Hepburn outfit.  Since I do not mind being compared to any Hepburn, I went with it.

Pants are harder to find when thrifting.  Although there are racks and racks of them, they tend to be 80's high waisted jeans.  Also pants tend to bit more worn looking.  However, if you are patient, you can find some great deals and unique styles.  Ditto for shoes.  Shoes and pants in this pix set me back $6.00.

Finding great vintage jewelry at a price you can afford is more of challenge.  You have to search, search, search your favorite thrift stores display always checking it each time you visit.  You need to put the word out that you love the stuff and you need check with your family.  I get a lot of my jewelry at estate sales on the second day (half off!)  However the above pieces were free!  The watch and bracelet came from a friend's grandmother (no one in their family wanted it...can you believe that??) and the owl necklace came from my grandmother.

Thrifting doesn't always take place at a store!

Thrift Chick

Project Surprise

We all have those projects where the vision in our head is breathtaking  and the reality in front of us in no way matches the that vision.  Once in a blue moon the opposite occurs.  The DIY gods smile upon you and what had no potential evolves into something that is quite creative.  Such was the case with Thrift Chick and my "tacky birthday gift."

A colleague of ours was turning 60.  The special ed department was charged with giving her 60 items or a really tacky gift.  I inherited the materials and room of a hoarder this year.  We have about 1000 paperclips (I kid you not.)  My assistant and I decided we should make her something out of 60 paperclips.  I scooped up about a hundred to take home.  Flash forward to the night before the big day.  At 9:00 pm, Thrift Chick reminds me we need to get the present ready.  I was too lazy   engrossed in Modern Family  busy to go out to my car to get the paperclips so we broke Thrift Chicks supply of colored clips.

A little hot glue, buttons from the button tin and a small vase and we were done.  We both looked at each other and laughed.  It wasn't tacky.  It wasn't ugly.  It was ...cute.  It even had 60 paperclips.

 

 Don't you just love surprsies!

Mama Thrift

We are linking up to:

It's a Hodgepodge Friday

Simply Designing

The Shabby Nest

Fingerprints on the Fridge

Featuring Your Sassy Sites

A Little Knick Knack

Make Your Own Vintage Bottles

Years ago, I found these hymn racks in an antique store.  I brought them home and put them up in my bathroom.

They have sat empty because I haven't been able to find anything to put in them.  I wanted something that made sense in a bathroom.  I tried old advertising, but they flopped over.  I was in an antique store when I saw some old bottles with some of their original apothecary  labels still on.  I loved the nostalgia look of them.  I thought they would be perfect for the bathroom hymn racks.  Then I looked at the prices.  They were a little too steep.  I thought I could duplicate them with thrift store finds.

 Each of these cost less than a $1.00.  They have great shapes and are flat enough to fit , but they are boring.

 I went to Graphics Fairy and found some great vintage labels and printed them on white, pink and tan paper.

 I cut out the labels and glued them on with rubber cement.  Now they looked too new, so I roughed them up with steel wool and stained them up a little with coffee.  Now they look like found vintage objects.

The aqua bottle is one I tinted using the technique found here.  Start to finish my vintage bottle project took about 15 minutes.  Now that is an easy DYI project.

Mama Thrift