hacking a thrift

In the winter time I have a lot less energy and very little motivation. I'm sure many of you are the same. I think this is because the cold weather makes my blood freeze and thus causes me to just want to crawl under a duvet to keep warm. Today the temperature was -27 C. 

The cold weather also affects my desire to do craft work because I like doing my work outside, where I can be messy and in the warm sunshine. My brain is always ready to work on DIY projects, but my ice cold body says "naaah maybe when it warms up." However this week, I felt slightly motivated to work on a project.

I guess it also doesn't help that what will be my crafting space is currently still under construction, and sitting at the coffee table with my sewing machine is not as handy. 

I found this great piece in Value Village for a mere $8. It's missing two drawers, but when placed properly, who cares right?

Here's what I did: 

1. I did nothing here. I just wanted you to see the before. 

2. Removed the drawers. They actually held Cd's so I peeled those out with a butter knife. 

3. I printed out some old looking images that I liked, and cut them to the same size as the front of the drawers.

4. I lined up my drawers on my kitchen counter

5. I made a paper mache mix (flour, water,salt) and coated the drawer fronts with a layer to give a slight texture

6. I paper mached the images with 3 coats of the mix allowing it to dry between coats. 

(Olive helped...not)

7. I placed the drawers back in the the stand and Voila!

I still need to touch up the chipped corners, maybe with a bit of brown paint just to disguise it a bit. I plan on removing the legs and placing just the drawer section on top of my crafting table as I will be using it for my crafting notions.

Bad family photos and barking in the rain.

Okay so I missed a greater number of weeks than I would normally between posts. It's been a busy couple of weeks though, with Christmas, New Years, family outings, winter illnesses, basement renos and what not. All of these are poor reasons for not blogging though, I must confess that. They're not even really reasons...more just excuses.  so here's a bit of an update on most of what I have been busy with.

1. Creating another awful Christmas card. Last year we decided to start a tradition of sending out horribly distasteful Christmas cards. This year's is pretty bad: 

2. The Christmas tree went up. The Christmas tree came back down.

3. Working on our basement. I'm not going to post any pictures of that in this post though. I will blog about that when it's complete, but so far we have a great storage room, and the new laundry/bathroom facility down there. 

4. I found this great drawer unit for $8. I plan on covering each drawer with either printed book pages, or vintage floral paper. Then I will use it in my near future crafting corner which will be in our new basement. I will post the finished results probably not too long from now. 

5. I redid the front entrance way to our house by building in a built-in coat/boot/seat area: 

6. I made Olive a raincoat. I made it out of part of a shower curtain. Our new shower stall in our new bathroom, is only half as wide as the curtain, so I cut the curtain and reused the other half to make this new coat for Olive. I tried to find some patterns online but I didn't really like any of them, so I started measuring my dog and ended up creating my own pattern. 

Olive hated having to be measured every 5 minutes. As soon as she saw me with the partially completed coat, she'd make a dash to the basement or under a chair. But eventually it was completed.. Here is the final result:

Turtle Necks Are Still Cool Right?

I love shopping. I Also love saving money and sometimes the two seem difficult to mix. This is why I love thrift stores. You are doing yourself and the world a big favour by shopping thrift. First of all, you save a tonne of money, second, you are reusing instead of throwing out and item, and third, Almost every thrift store  uses some or all of the money to give back to a community. 

At least once per week before I leave my work, I browse through the dresses. I love dresses. And brooches. I don't love every dress, but if it is knee length, a-line, and has a great neck line and has some sort of shape to it, I'll love it.

So today as I browsed through the dresses, I found this interesting brown plaid dress. It looked wearable on the hanger, but it did look a little out dated. So I took it with me to the change rooms. I've had some luck with out dated looking dresses in the past. 

Anyways I tried it on. sleeves were a bit tight but as Stacy and Clinton  from TLC's What Not To Wear, you can always tailor an outfit to make it fit to your body. 

I also had to resew the hem just to make it a little sturdier as it looked hand stitched...but loosely hand-stitched

It may need a second layer of fabric in the skirt since it might be slightly see-through...not too sure about that yet. 

The dress is made by designer Jonathan Logan. I had no idea who this was, but then I looked him up and I still didn't know who he was but his dresses are all really beautiful! I do know now that J.L was a company formed in the 1940's and designed classy dresses geared towards young ladies.   Also if you look up his dresses on ebay, they sell anywhere between $150 and $250 these days.

I paid: $4.00. Sweet. 

My Jonathan Logan dress. 

I also made some other purchases somewhat recently. 

I bought this great turtle neck. Those are still cool right?  I think this one belonged to a very hip grandma. I only assume that because someone had sewn in shoulder pads and I don't think those have made a definite come back yet. So I removed them...but I will hold on to them in case that style does return, that way I can claim that I had them long before anyone else. 

granny's turtle neck.

cost: $ 4.00. Not bad. 

And then I purchased, this AMAZING sweater dress thing. It's by tna, and its a mix of a bunch of different wools. Plus it has that great big collar on it and it's super warm because of all the sheep and llamas that donated their wool to make it. . 

my warm sweater dress.

Cost: $4.50 Steal.  Original retail price: $180. Yup...I got a good bargain here. 

I don't really like knick knacks, but I love this little teal bird.
cost: $1

DIY Beauty

This is a very quick post. Something that I just HAVE to share with people. I don't take credit for this as I found it online about a year ago so I give credit to whoever/whomever discovered this.  This is mostly for girls, but my husband does it too, and I totally recommend it for guys too.

You know those Biore strips you buy at the drug store or the beauty section of your local grocery store? You know how they cost and arm and a leg to buy but you really want beautiful pores and so you would willingly sacrifice that limb...sometimes?

Well I'm going to share with you a VERY cheap solution that allows you to keep all limbs.

Buy one box, or two or one million, whatever your heart desires of Knox Gelatin, (Or whatever brand, but this seems to be a fairly basic and popular brand)









Here are the steps to follow:

• Mix 1 tbsp of gelatin with 1 1/2 tbsp of milk. (you can use any type of milk...but I would stick to the basics; skim, 1%, 2%, whole. Try to avoid butter milk or chocolate milk you can try it if you'd like though but don't say I told you to do that.  
• Stir it so that it's kinda thick and then microwave it for 10 seconds...no more than 15 seconds.
• Now put it on your face, not too thin. I recommend NOT putting it on sensitive areas like around the eyes, and I would also avoid areas that have very fine hairs...it hurts to pull it off afterwords and you don't want to damage the sensitive skin around your eyes. I usually just apply it on my cheeks, nose and T-zone
• Let it dry. This takes about 15 minutes. When it is dry your face will feel really tight. Have someone tell you something funny. If you can only laugh on the inside and not on the outside...then it's dry. 
• Start peeling. take a look at the strips of gelatin you pull off ( you can wash off the tiny bits that get stuck since water just turns it back into squishy gelatin). You will see a forest of pore stuff. Gross. 
• Never buy the expensive stuff again.

You will also have bought enough to do this over and over again...and how much did you spend? Maybe $3 or so.

Don't throw that out!

I'm stuck at home with a gross cold, surrounded by blankets, a hundred used Kleenex' and a sleeping dog. So why not use this time to write another post about penny pinching.

So as I have recently mentioned, we are renovating our basement. We removed our staircase  which used to be an L shaped one, and replaced it with a new straight staircase. The wood form the old staircase was very solid and I really wanted to do something with it so we made night stands from it. They are currently rather tall compared to our bed, but the plan is to eventually make a bed frame that will heighten our bed to a more proportional height in comparison with our night stands.

I also made baskets for the night stands to hold small or personal items. I simply made a box out of cardboard, and them brought my handy glue gun ( a crafter's necessity) and lined the inside and out side with a printed fabric. In my case I used the same fabric that I used for the trim of the lamps that are on my nightstands...gotta coordinate!) I then added a ribbon trim to clean up the edges and a bow so that I have something the pull the box out of the shelf with...like a drawer handle.
I still plan on adding one more thing to the night stand, but I am not too sure if I will do this or not. The plan is to create a sort of hammock under the shelf, that will really act as a second shelf. This would solely be to add a little balance the shelf as I feel the bottom half is too empty. Unless one of my readers has another suggestion which I would be open to hearing/reading.

What else is new?
Olive, my dog, got into our Halloween chocolate. I know you are probably gasping at the thought of a dog eating chocolate, but no worries...she survived it. My house on the other hand was covered in doggy doo-doo and smeared chocolate...some of it I wasn't sure which was which. She also decided to eat this chocolate on the quilt that I am making and so there is chocolate stains on that as well.  One week later at my husbands birthday party ( a.k.a Fritzmas), she helped her self to an entire bag of dried jerky a.k.a biltong which my husband received as a gift. So Ollie had a fairly fulfilling week.

I feel like a lot of the things that come out of my mouth starts with the phrase " I saw this thing on Pinterest..."
so....

I saw this thing on Pinterest. A new way to use your fire place. Our house has a non-functional fire place. I.e. we would need a new pipe inside our chimney, and an insert, whether pellet, wood or gas we haven't decided what we would want in the future. But for now,as seen on Pinterest,  it's filled with candles. Tall candles, short candles, skinny and fat. For now we have been lighting the actual candles, but eventually we will fill the hollowed ( by means of burning) candles with electric tea light...just to give the effect of the candles burning. The look is very cozy, without the cost of gas or pellets or wood, and once the electric tea lights come into play, without the risk of fire.

To sum it all up: I'm sick, my dog is a pig, I like Pinterest for DIY ideas.

Busy Busy Busy Bee!

I'm learning how to can food this year. So far I have canned 7 small and 3 large jars of tomatoes and 2 large jars of pickles. I've also done the freezer bag method... I've got about 8 bags of frozen tomatoes, 6 bags of frozen beets and maybe another 8 bags of frozen beans. YUM!! And I still have another grocery bag full of tomatoes to can!
This is my first year doing this  so my recipes are very basic. so If you know of any great canning recipes send them my way...you can do so in the comment section below...I'd love to know what other's are canning!

I did not can that bottle of Amarula... If I knew how to do that...

I though canning would be more difficult but it's actually quite simple. I started off boiling my filled jars and then realized what the heck?! I have a pressure cooker! so I did a bunch in the pressure cooker which took a fraction of the time.
 Here's a funny situation that canning has gotten me into though: I decided that instead of canning in small jars, why don't I use the larger jars?  so I went out and bought a box of larger mason jars, cooked and peeled my tomatoes, and proceeded to place them into my pressure cooker... the jars were taller than my pressure cooker, ugh!
I had to go on a scavenger hunt throughout the city to find a large (and cheap) enough pot to  hold my jars and allow for a 2 inch cover of water. I finally found a canner in Walmart, the only one left.

I have also been doing some gardening. The soil in my area is the most amazing soil ever...it literally feels like potting soil so adding gardens is so easy to do. I don't know if I changed the gardens too much since my last post, but today I expanded the garden along the fence line. The way it was designed was soo......blaah. it looked like a narrow gutter running along the fence. I prefer to have some dimension to my gardens so I I made it deeper, and added some flow to the edge. Next year I hope to get more of a variety of perennials

Thrift finds:

 This brooch I found at a flea market. The owner said it belonged to her husbands mother...or was it grandmother..I'm pretty sure it was grandmother. Anyways, none of her kids wanted it...so I bought it for a twoonie! I love it! I think I'm going to become a brooch kind of girl

Add caption

This is a great mixing bowl complete with handle and pouring spout. great colour too!              

Sneak Peak Crafty stuff:

My dog keeps chewing up my pin cushion. I always come home to see that my cocker spaniel has become a pin cushion spaniel and I have to spend some time pulling pins out of her long furry ears. So I made myself a pin cushion and gave Olive the Blue pumpkin tomato thing that used to hold my pins. It also hold my measuring tape and other small notions.

FUN!

Here is a sneak peak at my quilt: 

Far from finished. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Barn Raising At Cottage Corners.

So it has definitely been a while since my last post. Too long of a while if you ask me. Maybe some of you are thinking "gosh... finally a break from her blogging posts appearing on Facebook". Tough. Here's another one.

We've been in our new home now for almost 3 months now. When we first moved in we said we would give it a couple months, at least until the fall, before we begin to do renos. Well... that sure didn't happen. My fingers itched with the need to change things beyond a coat of paint.

 We did some landscaping, adding a couple gardens,enhancing the ones already present, cleared walkways and paths, added some cedars. 

I decided that we needed a better garden shed. The one that we had was one of those basic metal ones, you know with the rusty roof and sliding doors that don't really slide but just scrape along a hinged edge? I wanted a rustic little garden shed. And so I started planning, designing, calculating costs etc. I thought I could build a really cheap little shed, like the ones I've seen on Pinterest. Let's just say my calculations were WAY off and the shed had some "unexpected" costs. I know that it could have been built a lot cheaper since we used a lot of new lumber, when we could have searched more for the used stuff. 

While my husband and father were building the shed, I started some separate projects. Of course I cannot do one project at a time, I have to do them all at once. 

I started to paint the exterior window frames from a nasty old faded brown to a clean crisp white ( I still have a couple windows to do but they are obstructed by either excessive height...or bees). I also started making shutters for my windows. I thought a bout buying them....but what a rip off! I just made shutters for about $10 a pair. I've only completed the shutters for the large front window for now. I also painted my front and back door a beautiful red. ($5/can at Liquidation World!). Of course in the midst of these projects I also started a quilt. But I will blog about that when it's done. 

The shed was completed just a couple of days ago I added a couple coats of "weathered barn wood" stain and a dry brush applique with white to the frames. I attached my solar lanterns that fade on and off ( rather that rapid flashes). My mother helped me add some gardens with a nice stone border as well as a couple new gardens around the back yard

Then as I was biking to work this past Wednesday, I saw that one of my neighbours had tossed out a wooden bench. I quickly called the hubby ( I don't know about the legality of cellphone use and cycling) and he picked it up. I sanded it after work and placed it by the new shed.

We have now started renovating the basement. The idea is to make it look like a beach house, inspired by our friends' guest cottage. So far the basement has been gutted and a new staircase is in place.

Side story:

While working on the front gardens, we heard what sounded like a motorcycle and when we turned around this really old toothless man drove by on a motorized bicycle, wearing aviator goggles and a hat. He looked so serious! Have you ever seen the movie Waking Ned Divine? well this seemed like a very similar scene out of that movie:

He looked just like this but with clothes, no teeth and
a hat instead of a helmet