site love

These days I am much too poor to be able to afford to buy magazines (thank goodness I have one prepaid subscrition). While I do love turning the pages in my hand, and ripping out the glossy pictures for inspiration, I have found that a website can be almost (very nearly) as good as the magazine.

Cue, Country Living. Adorable magazine, super amazing website! I spent hours after I found it, just, browsing through every article they had posted. Soooo many amazing ideas for home decorating, restoring, upcycling, and cooking. My project list grew exponentially in the time that I was browsing. I've already started a couple, and others are waiting patiently in line for me to find the perfect pieces to make them.

Here are a few of my favourite things (all of which are on my to do list) :

Isn't this picture frame board pretty? Before I had even found the site, I had a project like this in the works. The frame is painted, I just need to buy the corkboard and frabric to make it prettiful, and then hang it in my room.

I must admit, I have a thing for old framework. I am so in love with this shelf idea. Again...Must go thrift an ornate wood frame soon.

I thought these candles were just the bees knees! I would love to try my hand at candle making, and I think vintage tea tins make them perfect for gifts! I predict that Value Village will be seeing alot of me soon.

And, as per usual, I save the best for last. As if vintage china plates weren't beautiful enough on their own, then you go adding sentiments or quotes and arrange them on your wall, and they are just that much more amazing! Needless to say, this is the project I am most excited about. Right now I have a huge poster of the Eiffel tower on display, but I can see that coming down to make way for an inspiring collection of vintage plates.

I just love the personal touch of doing something yourself, thrifting and repurposing. There is truth in the saying that "Everything old is new again" . If you're looking for more wonderful ideas (these really are just the tip of the iceberg) check out countryliving.com, or click the post title which will link you to their site.

Let me know what projects you're working on, and share any ideas that you may have; I'm always looking to expand my repurposing idea book. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

-Katrina

p.s. - I'm tinkering around with the layout of the blog, so if you find it changing frequrntly, just bear with me.

charmed thrifting

Today Mum and I stopped into Value Village to see if we could find anything. And we did. I found some great little charms on various chains. Some were such a decent price I picked them up immediately...Others were well...outrageously priced for second hand charms but I gave in and bought them too.


I found a sweet little goldtone daisy charm, a must have for me. A cute itsty-bitsy rainbow, which I will use on some piece for my etsy shop (soon to be opening I swear, I'm in the process of organizing all the last minute details now). The one I could not pass up despite its price, a vintage telephone! Hello awesomeness, thanks for calling! And lastly were some sweet vintage bows; cause they were sweet.

So what do you think? Mega cute right? I also managed to find the perfect frame for a project I've had in mind for a while. I'll post that one later, when I show you what its being upcycled into.

Thanks for visiting my humble little blog. I've recently photographed & created a new header, what do you think? Also, be sure to check out the latest poll and place your vote! Thanks so much. xx

holiday joy

There is so much going on that its been hard to post things when I wanted to. But here is a quick update of some of the things that are new. My family and I had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope that you did too. There was so much good food, quality veg' time all cozied up on the couch together, and happy smiles as we opened gifts. Because my budget was so tight this year, I went with one small purchsed gift, and then their other gifts were handmade by me with much thought put into each thing. Everyone seemed more happy with their handmade gifts so I feel it was a success. And it only went to solidy my belief that it is not the price, but the thought behind the gift.




Here are some pretty cards I made. I'm entering these in the Paper Crafts December Gallery Challenge.






Daisy wants to wish you all the very best this season, as she fills in as one of Santa's reindeer!



And here is what I wore to the Christmas Party I hosted on Wednesday. After all that baking and prep, I managed to have a wonderful time and indulge my friends. The little black dress is thrifted, one of my wonderful finds at a Value Village half price day, lucky me!!

Thank you for taking the time to visit my little corner of the web, and reading my blog. I wish you all the very best.

thrifty tuesday

Yesterday was a good day for thrifting. Value Village was having a 50% off sale all day. So naturally, I had to go and see if I could wrangle any brilliant finds from the racks. The store was absolutely packed, so my friend and I split to shop in our sections (she had to look at maternity clothes), and we shopped with intent.

We each found a handful of things, waited in the line to get a dressing room, tried them on, and we both got lucky. While she found herself some practical pants, I walked away with three stellar dresses!

The first one is actually cheetah print, with a hankerchief hem and a sweet ribbon. I wasn't sure I could pull off the animal print, but, I fell in love with it once I saw it on. The second dress is black with white polka dots. Its so swooshy and has an asymetrical hem. It has a matching belt, but when I do wear it, I think I'll swap the belt for something with colour. And lastly, an unworn black shift dress. So perfect for the upcoming holidays, and the possibilities to modify it are endless. I'm going to put my thinking cap on and see what embellishments I can add to make this dress my own. And all of these, half price! What a thrifting extravaganza indeed.

I also picked up the Value Village coupon calendar, and will be sure to post what I buy each month with my coupon. Happy thrifting everyone!

thrifty thursday

Well it must have been over a month since I've gone to my local thrift store. I was just itching to pop in and see if I could score any new cameos for my collection. Turns out today was a good day. With crisp October temperatures and sunny skies, I took the bus across town.



Value Village was full of shoppers, no doubt looking to score the best 'unique' costumes for this weekend. It felt so good to just peruse the store, pick up anything I fancied and bring it to the dressing room for the final call.



Today, dresses seemed to be calling my name, and I tried on about ten. There were four that fit well and would make lovely additions to my closet. However...I had also found a beautiful cameo brooch that I could not leave, and two bracelets with charms I wished to upcycle for my own jewelery. It was a tough call, but I reasoned myself down to 2 dresses, the brooch and the bracelets which would be used for parts. It seemed that from those five items I would get the most bang for my buck, and that really is important when shopping on a strict budget.



The dresses will be posted soon to my flickr account no doubt, and the charms should be showing up in my designs when the shop opens. But, if you're anxious to see my fab finds, here's a sneek peek.





Cute square buttons and eiffel towers anyone?