Nifty Thrifty! St. Patty's Day Edition!

Georgie and I love to throw parties! For me it's all about decorating, cooking and choosing the perfect outfit!

Each year we have an "I'm sick of winter" party, usually with a Hawaiian theme. This year, though, our party was delayed because we were busy with very important endeavors, you know, like going to Jamaica!

So we decided to have a St. Patty's Day party! I don't wear much green, so I set out to my favorite, Goodwill, to find an outfit.

I am serious when I tell you that I tried on every green shirt in the place! I ended up coming home with this sweater/tunic without trying it on just because it was only $1!!!

Now before, I show you the pic I should tell you that I forgot to take a pic until a few hours into the party and we were feelin silly and had given me a little shamrock forehead art.

Also, please excuse my necklace hanging off to the side, it has a mind of it's own.

Here's the outfit rundown

Tunic: thrifted

Gold heart choker: thrifted

Long gold chain: vintage

(meaning I stole it from mama's closed about 10 years ago)

Brown leggings: forever 21

Boots: Gojane.com

The necklace combo was inspired by one of my favorite style bloggers: J's everyday fashion. Check her out.

Here's the inspiring pin.

Check J out on Pinterest

Talk on her Pin was iffy on this long/short necklace combo but it inspired me and I like the way it turned out on my St. Patty's day outfit!

Where do you find your fashion inspiration?

Yarn Vases

I really love yarn. It's so soft and cozy, like a sweater. :) I have seen the "yarn bottles" posts all over Pinterest and really wanted to try them. The basic point is to cover beer bottles in yarn and use them for vases.

Would you believe that after repeated requests for my husband to drink bottled beer, he keeps only drinking canned beer! Completely unacceptable! I mean what is this world coming to when you can't get your husband to drink bottled beer for you?

Instead, of using beer bottles, I ventured off to Goodwill and picked up three miniature bud vases....

The purpose of these vases are to be decorations for an upcoming St. Patty's day party, and I just so happened to have some green yarn left over from my Christmas Yarn Wreath!!!I also bought a multicolored lighter green yarn, just to shake things up!

Turns out, wrapping yarn around a bud vase, especially one that is ribbed on the outside, is not very easy. I tried many ways to get started, it's a good thing I had lots of yarn and hot glue peels right off glass. :)

The winning method ended up being to stand the vase upside down, and tie the yarn as tight around as I could.

Then, I wrapped yarn around 5 times and pushed it down towards the first ring. The rhythm that worked was loop five times, bunch them down. Make sure to use your non-looping hand to hold the yarn down, that stuff is slippery.

Once I got midway down the neck, it went pretty smooth. Until I got to the wide bottom. I told you, yarn is slippery! Once I got to the point when the yarn would continuously slip off, I squeezed a round of hot glue as the very bottom and ran a circle of yarn around it, then glued and ran another. That usually made a nice surface between the neck and bottom to spin yarn until your hand falls off.



 I love the way they look like they are wearing sweaters! Sweater Vases!!!!

Now, I need to learn some new types of flowers to fill my vases, any suggestions?

***Two days after I wrote this post, I happen to see a new pin for yarn bottles and checked out the tutorial. Turns out, I'm kind of blonde :). If you cover the outside of the vase with Mod Podge, as you go along, the yarn sticks right to the vase, you can even use more than one color yarn on a vase this way! - In hindsight, it seems really easy and super obvious. If you don't have Mod Podge or don't want it to be permanent, my way still works, but it's more difficult. Rolling eyes at myself all day today.***

End Table Refinishing!

Now I am not trying to say that I am a Goodwill expert but.... Hello, my name is Shawn and I am a Goodwill addict.

"Hi Shawn, welcome to the group." Thank you, thank you!

So, it seems to me that on most Sunday's furniture is 50% off at Goodwill....

A while back, during our usual every other Sunday or so trip my mom and I spotted this end table for only $5!!!

I called George and he said, buy it! My plan while at the store was to take it home and paint it a nice dark brown chocolaty kind of color. When George took one look at this table he had other plans!

He wanted to strip off the unknown layers of paint and stain it instead! I was up for the challenge!

To strip the layers of paint, you just bush on the stripper, and the paint begins to bubble like the shot on the right.

Then scrape off the layers of paint! You may need to scrape as much as you can, then paint on more stripper, then scrape and so on until you most of the paint off. After that, George sanded the wood down to a nice smooth surface. Now, I'm calling this a DIY project but in reality, you need someone who knows a little bit about stripping and sanding. George is an exceptional carpenter and he has every tool imaginable. If you asked him, I'm sure he would say the sander that he used was invaluable. It would have been much more difficult to sand it by hand with paper alone.

Here is the little table with 9 lives all ready for stain! This guy had lived many times before, underneath the taupe color that it was when I bought it, was a deep dark blue and a muted green! We chose a dark rich red stain to coordinate with the other pieces in our living room.

After he was finished staining it, I applied the first coat of clear poly and he scuffed and did 2 more coats!

And here's where this little guy lives now in our living room!

What do you think? I Georgie did a good job, hey? Not just with the staining but also by indulging my thrifting, upcycling, blogging ways! Thanks Georgie. :)



Nifty Thrifty: Acessories Edition!

Thrift shopping isn't just great for expanding your wardrobe, it's also an amazing source for accessories!

The recent creation of my Jewelry Organizer, I've wanted to grow my collection and fill up the board!

All of the following pieces are from, Salvation Army, Goodwill or St. Vinnies!

I love this gold choker on the left, the pearls shaped like a heart really caught my attention! On the right there is a gold heart charm necklace that my mom actually bought and wore on Christmas Eve! Since she rarely wears jewelry, I offered to adopt the necklace so it could really be loved the way it deserves! The gold drop circle earrings were from Salvation army! Around $2 a piece!

I loved the earrings on the left because they are gold but have green, red and blue in them. Using color in your accessories is a great choice when wearing a neutral outfit. The bracelet on the left caught my eye because of it's mixed metals, it's gold, grey and rose chain braided together, it goes with everything! Both pieces are from St. Vinnies and were about $1 each!

I love beaded necklaces, they are so versatile! Both of these strands have purple beads (I also love purple) and the necklace on the right has gold beads as well. Both are from St. Vinnies and $1 each!

When I saw this necklace at Goodwill I had to have it! It's a combination of  wooden beads, yellow, pink and green beads and it has these tiny amazing gold charms - elephants and coins. It's very Moroccan and I just love it! It was about $2

The total cost for all of these pieces was around $10-$12, all are very diverse and not like anything you'll find in the stores right now!

Don't miss out on these opportunities! Remember to check the jewelry counter at your favorite thrift store!

Happy Thrifting!

Nifty Thrifty!

Thrift Shopping is something that I LOVE to do!

I love clothes and changing my look often but I'm also really cheap!
I never pay full price for anything!

The best way thing about thrifting?
It's guilt free! I can come home with a bag full of clothes and George (that's what I call my husband) can't say anything because I usually spend less than $20!!! And it's recycling!

It's such a thrill to dig down in the racks and find something totally amazing!

I make sure to shop in all departments and all sizes! Something

that was a juniors dress could be a women's tunic! Also most clothes have been shrunken (makes me wanna say "it's already been sharunken" - in my best "Bring It On" voice) by their original owner so that L or XL on the label isn't always accurate!

Recently I found this adorable jumper while at the Salvation Army.

It's gray with a herringbone pattern and a slight shimmer! A little short to wear on it's own but add some tights and we're good to go! I used a low slung belt to gather and pull the dress a little to make it fit more like a skirt/shirt combo. This dress has pockets but they are a bit low on my body so the belt covers them nicely. You could also sew the pockets shut and cut off the excess fabric if you wanted.

It goes perfect with my $24 boots from GoJane and my fave black cardi!

A great outfit for Christmas Eve or New Years Eve, maybe?

I am also starting to work on clothing "upcycling." which is where you take thrifted clothes and repurpose them into something new. Like a tank top into a purse or a woman's sweater into a child's dress. - There are so many ideas out there on the internet, many of them don't require any sewing! The possibilities are endless! Stay tuned for future upcyling posts!

Happy Thrifting!

:)