hey that was fun!

Once per week the men get together for their Bible study and the women and friends get together for their little social gathering. While the men tackle to book of Matthew, the women tackle personal stories, cheese platters and a good game of Six Degrees of Wikipedia. This week we changed it up a little and decided to make it a craft/DIY night. I got this notification about 5 hours before our meeting, and because I don't usually make what I'm going to label as small tool crafts, I had a difficult time coming up with something that didn't require my sander, staple gun, sewing machine, table saw or a can of spray paint.

So I started to research  for a craft on the internet for a small tool craft and found something on a very reliable site many of us know as Pinterest. I have been so addicted to this site lately. There are sooo many fabulous ideas there. So I found this fabulous wreath made by a lady named Myra who is a wonderful Christian lady  whose blog I happened to just stumble upon and who does amazing DIY thrifty things.  You should read her blog

this was the wreathe she made :

I used her's as inspiration to make mine:

I think it turned out pretty good for my first wreath. 

I didn't have burlap so I used an old tweed skirt that I bought at Value Village to make the base, then I wrapped yarn around a bout 1/3 of it and added some fabric flowers, beads, buttons and feathers. Voila!

Also side story. 

(Fritz actually wanted me to post this in my blog. he said, "make sure you mention this in your blog" on our way home from Bible study.)

Do you remember, when watching Rugby, and whenever the game was starting or a goal was made (I can't exactly remember the occurrence) this Spanish sounding trumpet tune would play. So Fritz made that little tune his ring tone for his texts.

Last night He was standing by the coffee table and picked up a shoe horn that happened to be present and proceeded to play it like a trumpet. An right on cue, he got a text and his trumpet song played as he was pretending to play the trumpet on the shoe horn. We all had a good laugh.

High/Low vs Louw

First off, I have an awesome new name for these types of blog entries. They used to be just called High vs Low vs Lowest, but then after my second post my friends, the Tuckey's told me I should call it this instead which I thought was genius because that really is what it is. 

So I saw the latest issue of Style At Home which is one of my favourite magazines especially now that I am preparing to move. Anyways I noticed that it had another High vs Low budget room design articles which is something up my alley 

Now I don't know if this room is from the latest issue, but I do believe it is from a very recent issue

HIGH

Here is the High Cost room and the items along with their prices:

price: $15,787

SOFA  $4,495,

 END TABLE, $695,

 COFFEE TABLE, $949,

CABINET, $2,245,

RUG , 8' x 10', $3,248, 

THROW in Cream, $295, 

TOSS CUSHION, 20" x 20", $345,

TOSS CUSHION in Saffron, 18" x 18", $637, 

BOX, $125,

TABLE LAMP with taupe shade, $600, 

 DECORATIVE BALLS, 4", $7 each, 

DECORATIVE BALLS, 2", $9 each,

 BOWL, $275 (large)

 BOWL, $75,

 DRAPERY PANEL with Perfect Pleat, $660 per panel,

CUSTOM FRAMING, $525 each, Pi Fine Art.

LOW:
Here is the Low cost room, the items along with their prices:

price $6,326

SOFA in Coal, $1,799,
 END TABLE, $239
 COFFEE TABLE, $399,
 CABINET, $600,
 RUG in White, 8' x 10', $1,995,
 THROW in White, $59
TOSS CUSHION, 18.5" x 18.5", $79,
 TOSS CUSHION in Grey/Gold, 20" x 20", $135
BOX in Natural, $19 (small),
 TABLE LAMP with taupe cylinder shade, $210
DECORATIVE BALLS, 3", $3 each,
 BOWL, $75 (large)
 BOWL, $22
 DRAPERY PANEL in White, $190 per panel
CUSTOM FRAMING, $239 each, Pi Fine Art.



LOUW

Here is the" Louw cost room's items
(again, the room is not set up but the items listed above are also listed below. The items may not match exactly or even as closely as the comparison above, but will give the same feel/look to the room)

bowl  $3.50 (ikea)

bowl  $5 (ikea)

basket instead of a box $6  (ikea)

cabinet  40 (kijiji)
I would remove/replace knobs, off-centre

coffee table $20 (kijiji)

couch $250 (kijiji)

white curtains $40 (Ikea)

just the yellow cushion $16 (ikea)

cushion $14 (ikea)

end table $10 (kijiji)
paint this white...who doesn't have white
paint laying around the house?

Ribba frame from Ikea-35
you need 2...so $70

silver based lamp and shade  $10 (Kijiji)

White Rug 8X10 $50 (kijiji)

Throw $40 (ikea) 

(I did not include the silver decorative balls because the price in the LOW room is pretty basic, but I suggest buying some Christmas balls at your local thrift store or wherever and place those in the bowl)

My grand total
$574.50....let's just say $575.


So total differences:

High: $15,787
Low: $6,326
Louw: $575

It's Official

    We have officially sold our house. Pretty much all the papers are signed. We sold our house through Comfree,  a fantastic private brokerage. They seem to be a relatively new thing, but my experience with them is absolutely fantastic!. Basically you pick from a number of advertising packages and they come and take pics of the house and set you up on their website, advertising for you. You do the rest. So once we had all that set up in only a matter of a couple hours, we were responsible for setting up appointments, doing open houses etc. The best part is that we don't have to pay commission to an agent. I'm sure an agent would have done a decent job but, in my "humble" opinion they don't have experience living in the house they are selling. They don't know all the details of the house or the neighbourhood, they buyers can never know the whole truth about the house before they choose to purchase. Where as with  Comfree , you are speaking to the people who live in the house, who know about the little details, the costs, the neighbourhood and what not.
    So my point here is that I totally recommend  Comfree . Their website is so easy to navigate through , much like a social network. You have total control of the sale of your house, and a bunch of people to help you out just a phone call away. And you save a whole bunch of money by not paying an agent. ( I'd say roughly $5000 for every $100 000 that your            house is selling for).
    We are pretty stoked to move into our new house at the end of this month. But we are also kind of sad to be leaving our first home. But now it is time to move on. I guess the feeling really are mixed about this change. I mean  we put a lot of work into it, and I have done many blog posts about the renos ad updates and yet at the same time, this is like a fresh start, a new house to decorate and many posts to write!
    I have spent so many hours on Pinterest, picking out ideas and colours  for our new house. One of the first things I plan on doing is repainting the cupboards in the kitchen. At the moment, they are a 1993 light blue...as in the colour my mom had in her kitchen in 1993. I will also need to paint the big bedroom downstairs because it is currently a soft lavender....a circa-1997-in-the-bathroom kind of purple. The tiny bedroom has a 1992 wallpaper on it which I don't despise as much as the '92 blue or the '97 lavender, but will eventually have to go.
   The basement for the most part is unfinished with the exception of the rec-room. the laundry facilities are in the basement too, but not in an enclosed room, which is something that I would like to change in the near future.
    And one of my favourite things that I am really looking forward to decorating is the mantle! I think I am going to hang my ugly horse painting above it but I won't really know until I get there.  Either way, I can't wait to start on the new house, doing all the decorating and landscaping! Oh and  I wan't a picket fence!!

Old house. It will be missed. 

New house. I hope to paint the brown trim black and add
some shutters and and a nice red door. And a picket fence!

Expunged?

This is the new word that I learned today. It means that it was erased/ no longer exists.  
 I always wonder who's reading my blog. Not that it matters of course. But I see all these different countries from where my readers are reading from and I think to myself: " do I know someone who lives there? So far, looking at just this week, I've got readers from Canada (obviously) US, Switzerland, China, Germany, Austria, UK, Japan and Latvia. There might be more that Blogger doesn't list, but that's pretty cool! I've seen that I have readers in Spain, France, Italy, and so many more places! I think it's awesome that my blog is being read world wide! and I hope it's being enjoyed.
    I went thrift shopping today with an old friend and her daughter whom I don't get to see that often. I found this amazing vintage Canadian made (from a Montreal company c. 1970's and 80's which no longer exists...or it was expunged) blazer, like the boyfriend jacket.  I wanna put some suede elbow pads on it.

Here I am,  my husband took this pic for me
in the middle of his video game

YaRRRRR!! I'm a Pirate...

...because I swore like a sailor doing this project. I normally don't swear but for some reason the projects that I do can sometimes frustrate me to no end... or maybe I was just having a bad day. The whole day started off bad. On a regular day, I would get up at 6:30 am, do my regular morning routines of showering and such, put on my running shoes (the ones that have my insoles in them)  get to work by 8 am, do my duties there, come home and work on a project for two hours and then leave for my tutoring job and be home by 7:30. This day however went down hill after 7:53 am when I got out of  my car, looked down at me feet and realized that I am not wearing my running shoes with the insoles in them, but instead I'm wearing my Walmart loafers on which the heals ar worn so low that I feel like I am standing on an upward slope. I get into the staff room only to find out that my work partner is not in. I now have to do twice as much work and run around like " a bat out of hell" as my boss put it just to try to keep up...which didn't happen. While rushing around the store trying to put things in order on the shelves, a wooden cabinet falls on my hand leaving a giant welt and a numb feeling running up my arm.  I get home after my shift, to continue working on my project only to hammer my thumb, and sew my own finger with the sewing machine...while my hands were already calloused and swollen from removing thousands of staples the days before.

How I felt  all day

Maybe I should explain my project. In my last post I may have mentioned something about this project . I bought a wing back chair on Kijiji. What a great site! I love Kijiji. The chair wasn't spectacular. It wasn't horrible either. It was a plain wing back chair. I only paid $20 for it. I then went to Ikea, picked out some fabric that had just come to the store that day. It has cabbages on it. I had to buy a new foot for my sewing machine, some chord and stronger thread than I had previously been using.
I then had to watch some YouTube videos on how to reupholster a wing back chair. This is how I learn. I also had to watch a video on piping to learn how to make those round fabric edges on furniture.

As I'm watching this video with my husband by my side, there was a scene where the chair was completely stripped down, and I turned to him and said " you know...I think I feel pretty confident about the first half, but I will probably have a meltdown at some point during this project. He then proceeded to ask for directions on what to do in that situation. I said  "just give me chocolate or something"

So I stripped the chair down, pulling out the thousands of staples with the improper tools that got the job done and painted the legs of the chair ( actually Fritz painted them for me) . My hands were calloused, cut and swollen the next morning. The next day, I re-padded, and put down the larger parts of the fabric. At this point I started to get frustrated and ate the chocolate bar that my husband left for me. I thought what I was feeling was the melt down. I shouldn't have wasted that chocolate bar.
The next day was the scenario explained above (wrong shoes, crushed hand, hammered my thumb, sewed my finger). So After sewing my finger, I decided I needed to make a petticote for my dress. ( the one one that I mentioned in my previous post) Of course the thought wasn't  "i need a petticote for that dress, I'll make one next week when I'm done this." My thoughts go more along the lines of  " Oh my goodness...I need a petticote ...gotta make it NOW!"  I have no idea how to make a petticote, so I made it up but whatever I made works well and makes the dress look good. However, while laying out the fabric for this sub-project, ( 10 minutes before I had to leave for my other job... and remember this is the hand-crushing, finger-sewing thumb-hammering day)  I took a step back to look at the fabric only to ram my heel into the leg of a project I started last summer. At this point I say a couple sailor words at an excessive volume, and Fritz looks up at me as I burst into tears. This is when the chocolate bar would have come in handy had I not ate is so greedily at an unnecessary time in the project.

after the petticote. 

before the petticote. Not too bad,
 a little flat though

The Before                                                    The During                                                         The After


So anyways, to finish off this post, I completed both the main project and the sub project. The chair has a couple of mistakes in it but fixing them would require me to strip the entire chair down again. I had to make a couple of stitches which are a little bit noticeable but these mistakes will be noted for next time. Either way, I learned how to do piping and how to reupholster a chair ( in my own way ). I still need to replace the foam cushion. As you can see in the pic, it's a little flat.

three thrift thrive

I love the 1950's. I love the style, the era, the everything. I love the dresses, and the aprons and the houses and the hairstyles. In my mind I am living in that era. I can't wait to put a picket fence at the front of our new house and pansies along the footpath.
I started watching Mad Men not too long ago. (Though my husband and I gave up our tv shows for lent so I haven't seen anything since Ash Wednesday on february 13). I have only seen the first maybe 6 episodes and I know it's about advertising, but I care more about the styles of the show rather than the plot...though I do like the show itslef too.
About a year ago I purchased a working condition pressure cooker from the 1950's from Value Village . It came with the manual and in side the manual are great pics.

my pressure cooker

love it!

I also love tea parties. I recently purchased a great tea pot. It had been sitting on the shelf at VV for about 2 weeks. When I first saw it I thought to myself, if it's still there at the end of the week I'll get it. Then I forgot about it. the next week it was still sitting there so I snatched it up. I feel obligated to have a garden tea party with this. Who wants to come?





I also found this great knee length Guess summer dress. Perfect fit, cute sleeves with elastic buttonholes so that the fabric doesn't pinch your arms or bunch the dress when you lift your arms. A collar that you can pop up (I don't even know if that's cool), a great print, and the best part....pockets! Whoever invented pockets in a dress is awesome and deserves a prize.

Not this

something like this would
 be nice

So I have a new project in mind. This will be one of the most challenging projects I will do, and I'm not too sure if I will be successful. Fritz really wants to have a wing back chair in our new house. The thing is I DESPISE the fabrics on almost all wingbacks that I have seen. They all have this "hotel" fabric on them... you know, that beige or blue or burgundy with a shimmery stripes or argyle pattern in it. Ick . So the plan is to find a cheap/free wing back and reupholster it. I have reupholstered an ottoman,and I could do simple chairs like a kitchen chair. But this is going to be quite a challenge as I need to do specific sewing and piping and such. I have watched a bunch of tutorial videos so I feel somewhat confident enough to tackle this challenge.  Anyone have a wing back they'd like to get rid of?



Side story:
Have you ever seen that Fido commercial about how dogs and owners look the same? Whether it's the owners that begin to look like their dogs, pick out dogs that look like themselves or the dogs begin to mimic the owners is anyone's guess. I always thought this to be rather funny. Then I noticed something...

Salt Sensitive

This has nothing to do with thrifting, but I thought I would share....And I will get to the point after  2 paragraphs or so.

They say when you leave home and start University, you will gain about 15 pounds (6.8 kg) in your first year, Also known as "the freshman 15".  Well I nearly doubled that! During my second year, I decided to do something about it. I went on the unofficial WeightWatcher's pragram. By that I mean I did everything but go to the meetings. ( I'm not going to pay for some to say "you can do it!", when I can just go ahead and do it). The thing with "Diets" including the Weightwatcher's program, is that if you want to maintain the results, you need to stay with the program for life. Maybe not as strictly as when you first began though. The point of WeightWatcher's is that you eat the right amount of the right kinds of food, guiding you with a points system.  I ended up losing 40 pounds on this program, and I have maintained it for the last 6 years because I have never really quit the program. There were some things that I didn't follow in the program, one of them being eating diet products, and the other one of them being replacing regular dairy products with fat free ones. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I grew up on a dairy farm, but I really don't believe that ANY dairy product should be fat free. But that's just my opinion.

A lot of the time when people look at the lable of a food item, they first look at the fat content and or the calories. Though these may be important, it is more important to look at the nutrients it gives you and also the amount of sodium. you need about 1500 mg (a little less than a tsp) everyday in order to keep muscles and such working properly, but if you get more that 2300 mg ( just over 2 tsp) it could lead to high blood pressure which leads to a whole lot of other illnesses you don't want. But if you get too little sodium, it could lead to serious damage also.
(based on a 2000 cal. diet)

So here's the real story realated to my blurb above:

The last day that we were in Disney world, we decided not to pack our own lunches and instead splurge a little by buying lunch there. So at Lunch time we went to Pinochio's Pub or somehting along those lines, I had my nuggets, Fritz had his Burger and fries. Beside us was this family of with three teens, and the one kid had a thing of fries, probably comparable to a medium at McDonalds. Then he takes out a package of salt and pours it ontop of his fries. No biggie, some people like salt on their fries. Then he pours another on his fries and yet another. I'm slightly disturbed already by the amount of salt he pours on what I thought were already salted fries, but then he shocks me even more by pouring two more packets not on his fries, but in his little tub of ketchup! I hope this kid has really good health insurance becuase heart disease is just around the corner for him if that's how much salt he eats!


I'm really into the Blue Menu products that President's Choice offers now. Alot of there foods are low sodium.  Here is a great example. I love corn.  I really do. I buy Blue Menu corn which contains 10 mg of sodium for 341 g of corn. Del Monte ( Not to target them, just first lable  I saw)  has 360 mg of sodium for every 125 g of corn. Lets do the math to make it clearer: (create equal amounts, do some division blah blah blah)

Del Monte: 125 g of corn = 360 mg of sodium
Blue Menu 125 g of corn = 3.7 mg of sodium

What grosses me out even more is Mr Noodles! In one package there is over 1900 mg of sodium and your daily requirement is 1500! I get chest pains just thinking about it or watching other's eat it. However I don't doubt that the kid in the disney pub would add 3 more packets of salt to his serving of Mr Noodles.

I rarely use salt in my cooking either. There are other ways to flavour your food. And if a recipe askes for a tsp of salt...I don't even bother, I've never noticed the difference. Don't get me wrong though, you need sodium in you diet. It's found in a lot of foods naturally. But adding 2 pakets to a tablespoon of ketchup is not a good idea, especially when the meal that comes with the overly salted fries is already atleast 5 times over you recomended daily intake!