June 23, 2009 • 12:21 am 1
It always surprises me when I find a beautiful, delicious-smelling candle—and then I look at the price tag and it’s something outrageous like $49. I recently bought a soy based candle from Glade’s The Fragrance Collection, and was very pleasantly surprised. A nice consumer-friendly substitute to pricey designer candles. They’re available online from Drugstore.com for $9.99, but I would keep my eyes peeled for coupons and buy one from a retailer like Target, Walmart or Walgreens.
May 13, 2009 • 5:15 pm 5
My boyfriend moved into a new appartment recently, so the fine art of apartment decorating has been on my mind a lot lately. As usual, I’m reminded of how much I can’t wait to move into my own place again (I’m one of those return-to-home-after-college casualties), but such is life when you’d rather crash at your parent’s house than default on your student loans. At least my room is an 8′ x 12′ place of solace. The best place in the whole room? My vanity!
Ladies: do not underestimate the power of a vanity in transforming a room from a space into a santuary. I think a huge part of why I love my vanity so much is that the entire project cost less than 100 dollars. I took the desk I used to use when I was in high school and covered the top of it with Martha Stewart craft paper ($4). I added a mirror from Fred Meyer ($20), a magnifying mirror from Ikea ($10), and then gave the vanity a shabby chic look with knobs and a stool from Target ($10, $37). Craigslist, Goodwill, flea markets and garage sales are also great places to find one-of-a-kind accessories for a vanity.
Filed under: Decor, Home, decorating, Fred Meyer, Ikea, Martha Stewart, mirror, shabby chic, Target, vanity
January 18, 2009 • 7:54 pm 8
When I decided to redecorate my room back in September, I didn’t realize how expensive my project was going to be. Even small items, like picture frames and photo prints, ate up an unexpected portion of my budget– but then I decided to get crafty. I found these black picture frames at Target in the back to school section. They were sold empty, two to a package. Cheap a.k.a. not super sturdy or durable frames, but they were on clearance, and I paid less than five dollars for two packages of frames.
When I got home, I searched through magazines and other scrap material that I had scattered around my room. For the top frame, I used a Bumble & Bumble shopping bag from my last trip to the hair salon. I’m minorly obsessed with these stylish black and white shopping bags, so much so, that I kept the bag because I thought it was too pretty to throw away. For the bottom two frames, I used magazine cut outs. I used a collage-type image for the middle frame from Portland Monthly magazine, and a photo from a fashion spread in Nylon magazine for the bottom frame. Aside from the actual frames, which were dirt cheap, all of the other materials I used for this project had been previously used. Talk about good for your wallet and the environment.
Filed under: Decor, Home, Bumble & Bumble, crafts, Nylon, picture frames, Portland Monthly, reusing, Target, wall art
January 16, 2009 • 4:09 am 3
I found this cool craft idea today in the Oregonian. Very clever and— most importantly— very cheap!
Filed under: Decor, Home, crafts, The Oregonian
pretty + cheap 