Cheap Art

There are a few things that I am lacking in the supplies/decorating area. Those things are picture frames, flower pots, and candles. I already have a plan to help solve my dilemma and that involves a birthday trip to Ikea. Yes, I actually want to get up in the morning and drive two hours to Northern Virginia on my birthday so that I can go to Ikea. I also plan to start the day at the Smithsonian and then go to Ikea on our way back. I know that I will be able to score some pretty white flower pots and picture frames at Ikea without breaking the bank. I'm sure I will get a few candles as well while we are there with some other goodies that I know we will be bringing home even if I don't know what it is yet. Anyways, the reason for this post was to show you the cute, but extremely cheap (as in zero dollars) art that I made in all of about three minutes. I found an old picture frame (which is the reason for my above tangent) that needed a little something special in it. I decided that I wanted something besides a picture of myself and Stephen in this particular frame and as I was brainstorming I came across an old Anthropologie catalog and found a cute picture of an owl. I cute it out and popped it in the frame, and I love it! Maybe I will put it in the laundry room so it can be friends with my owl hook.

Let me know what you think....

I'm Singing in the Rain...Or Shower

One of the first things on my to-do list is to replace our existing shower heads with some low-flow and eco-friendly ones. My thought was to do the things on the list that would save us money in the long run first, even though they aren't aesthetically pleasing (although I have to admit that the shower heads we inherited with the house were no pageant winners and the new one is definitely much nicer looking), and then we can use those extra bucks to eventually add the more frivolous and pretty items. It just so happens that some lovely people gave us a gift card to Target for our wedding, which just came in the mail. I had a few ideas of what I would get in my mind but when I went to Target today, one of the first things I saw were shower heads. I picked one that fit our budget and needs and thanks to the gift card I only had to shell out $6.50 of my own cash! Cue the happy dance! Anyways, I decided to only get one for the moment even though we have two full bathrooms, my reasoning being that first I didn't have enough gift card money to cover them both, and since we are sans kids for the time being we really don't use that bathroom shower very often. Also it gives us the opportunity to feel out the new shower head and decide if we should get another one of the same kind or something different for the other bathroom. This is the one I decided on...

 

 And as you can see it has seven different settings which is a vast improvement from our original one.

 

And of course everything that comes into our house must be approved by our four-legged companions. 

So once Mia approved of my new purchase, out of the package it came and into the bathroom I went. Only a few minutes later (literally) our new shower head was in place. It seriously took me longer to find the wrench to take the old shower head off then it did to install this baby. So here are the before and after pics...

Before

 

 

 

 

 

 

After

Before

After

 

Strolling Down Memory Lane

So Stephen and I are still very much newlyweds, considering we just got married this past November but that doesn't mean that we can't already look back on our wedding day with nostalgic bliss. I wanted to create a shadow box and put some of our wedding stuff in there so that we could easily look back on our special day. I found a great shadow box a Target for only $8.00 but since we had a gift card to Target thanks to some lovely friends I didn't have to drop a dime on this project. All I did was collect the things I wanted to put in the box which included our wedding invitation, program, response envelope (it had a personalized stamp on it), Stephen's ivory handkerchief, a purple ribbon that came on a gift, and a few little leaves and trinkets that were part of the decoration. I laid everything out in the frame and used tape to secure a few things before putting the back on and hanging it up.

Since this is the only thing hanging on our bedroom wall it looks a bit sad and lonely, but hopefully that won't be for long. You can also see the glass jar right under the shadow box. I took one of the many canning jars I have sitting in my cabinets and put in some of our honeymoon mementos which include our airplane tickets, a few things we won at an arcade, our tickets to some events/museums, and a score card from putt putt (let's just say that I am quite good at mini golf). We still have a few things from our trip that were too big to put in the jar so I will be finding a home for them real soon.