Free Furniture

Rhoda at Southern Hospitality asked us to share our thrifty treasures from this week. Does free count as thrifty? Oh, yes, I think it does. Woohooo woohoooo.

I stopped by my friend, Laura's house last week to look at what colors she is painting her basement, and I spied a lonely piece of furniture off in the corner. I freaked because it has some serious potential. She told me she was trying to get rid of it and couldn't. I could have it. For free. I freaked again.

The guys have been teasing poor Miss Laura because they think it is junk. I knew right away what she had seen in this piece when she found it on the roadside years ago. She should get an award for saving it. I'm going to send pictures to all the guys who teased her. They won't even recognize it when I'm done. I can't wait to drench it in paint. I already have some beautiful knobs for it.

The only catch was, I had to get it out of their basement. No problem. Mr. Jones was patient with me. He doesn't see the potential, but he trusts in my vision. He learned to do that when I painted this little desk that looked like trash.

Do you see the vision, too?

Stop by Rhoda's blog for more thrifty finds.

Got Epsom Salt?

Have you ever heard of all the things you can do with Epsom Salt? I had no idea what the stuff was, until I had a conversation with the plant manager at Lowe's. Lowe's always has great sale racks of plants at the very back of the plant department. A lot of times, the plants look pretty sick and wilted. The guy told me, just mix some epsom salt in with water and water the plant with it after you stick it in the ground. It worked! It helps them recover and grow nice and healthy. I had no idea.

So I looked it up on the internet, and it turns out, epsom salt is a great thing to use regularly on all your plants. Apparently, even Martha uses it. For more on using it for your plants (like why and how much), check out this and this.

I noticed that the epsom salt looks a lot like sand because it has big grains, not tiny ones like table salt. I always use this for my hurricanes. Much cheaper than buying pretty white sand.

You can also do things like keep away racoons, soften your skin, and clean tile floors with epsom salt. Go here, here or here to see more ideas.

I'm going to give some of them a try, and I'll let you know if it works.

Trash to Treasure and Teacher Appreciation Week

I'm going to join the Trash to Treasure Tuesday party at Kimm's, and show you a project I did for Teacher Appreciation Week. I signed up to decorate the teacher lunchroom at our school (I've learned to volunteer for PTO projects I enjoy doing - decorating, yes, planning, not so much).

Our PTO and parents serve breakfast to the teachers on Wednesday morning, lunch Thursday, and desserts on Friday. We like to decorate the room to make it a little more special. I had the idea to put chalk boards in there (isn't it funny that schools don't have those anymore?! Even dry erase boards aren't used as much because of SmartBoards ... I digress).

I found my inspiration for the chalkboard here, at LuLu & Co. , when I saw this photo. I like to use sunflowers for parties, and I like how this whole setup looked. I was even going to buy lemons, but by the time I got to that, I had spent too much money and didn't want to fork over another $5.00.
I went to the thrift store in hopes that I would get lucky and find a frame like LuLu's, but this is the only thing I could find. Just a couple bucks, no problem. I'll make it work. It had a couple gouges on the front, so I patched them with spackle and sanded them smooth.
Then I re-painted the sides gold (I didn't like the cheap gold paint that was already on it) and after that I painted the entire thing white (I like to use heirloom white spray paint with satin finish).

When it was dry, I rubbed down the top layer of paint with steel wool. I use sand paper on the corners where I really want it worn down good, but I generally like to use steel wool because it is gentle and lets the layers of paint colors show through.

I taped off the sides and painted a couple coats of chalk board paint.
Voila!
For the second chalk board, I had an old picture frame we had in the garage. The glass had broken and there was no backing, and Mr. Jones was going to throw it away. Ooops, I don't think so.
I went to The Home Depot, and in the lumber department they had this cheap, $3.00 board. I marched it over to the cutting center and had the guy cut it to fit my frame. 2 cuts are free. That's all I needed.

I learned something new on this one, though. I thought spraying grey primer before I spray painted it with 2 coats of chalkboard paint would be good enough. Not good enough. You could see the particle board through the paint. It didn't look good. So I slopped on a thick coat of white paint with a roller. This covered up the particle board surface and gave it a nice texture. Then I painted with grey primer (more for the grey undercoat than to prime raw wood at this point) and 2 coats of chalkboard paint. Perfect.

Mr. QTPa2Tee (Youngest Child) was helping me set up, and came up with this brilliant idea: I had planned to just write a message to the teachers on the chalkboards, but he filled a couple mason jars with chalk and wrote a question for the teachers to answer. I can't wait to see what they write. Well done, my young apprentice. (He is really into Star Wars lately. Do I sound like Emperor Palpatine?)

This is the buffet table in the teachers' lunchroom. The mason jars are to hold cutlery or whatever else needs to be held. I have a thing for mason jars and jelly jars lately.

Here is my Southern Living at Home server, and I tied it with some school-themed twill from the scrapbook stash. Here's a closeup look:

I covered the buffet table with a big piece of white burlap. For those of you who read my burlap post and helped me with my problem, thank you, thank you. For those of you who didn't read it, my burlap smelled like it pumped gas at Shell all day. I washed it, Downey'd it, left it outside in the sun and rain, washed it, bleached it, and let it soak in vinegar (I still have to try lavender sachets). Yep, it was that bad. Here's what I learned: Don't buy burlap at Ben Franklin crafts. It STINKS. I went to Wal-Mart and bought more burlap to make the table runners, and that was much better. The quality was better, the color was better, and it didn't smell. Imagine that. We have lame craft stores here in Northern VA. And don't even get me started on the subject of Hobby Lobby. That is the greatest craft store ever, and there is not one in my state. Not fair. Stomp feet. I digress again.

For the 2 teacher tables, I used a big, long piece of white burlap. Since there were 2 tables, 12 feet long, I made table runners out of the 1 piece of burlap to save money. I chopped it in half lengthwise, and I stitched each side with red zigzag so it doesn't fray too much. and the zigzagging looked cute. The table runners were actually a bit too long, so I chopped off the ends, and stuck the pieces right on the buffet table.
Here's me playing with my camera. I have a question for you bloggers: Do you find yourself wanting to take pictures of everything you do so you can blog about it? Or wish you had a keyboard on your steering wheel so the post you thought of while you were driving doesn't get lost? It's an illness, I'm sure. I digress again. Distraction is an illness, too. I'm sure of it.

Next up are the lanterns, ala Matthew Mead. Ikea lanterns, about $6.something each. Great price.

I didn't have any white primer, so I painted them all over with cheap white paint. Then I painted them with heirloom white. Matthew says to use 2 sides of his download, back-to-back, and tape to the outside. What I did instead is used 1 layer of my scrap paper, and I put it behind the glass under the little prong thingies that hold the glass in. No need for tape. *BUT* if you plan on using candles, tape the paper to the outside for obvious reasons. I can't burn candles in the school anyway, so it didn't matter. I have a wild child, so I'm not really a big fan of leaving fire where he can reach it anyway, so I'm experimenting with other methods of lighting up my lanterns.

Here is what the lantern looks like with a red glow stick. How cool would that look on your walkway or deck at night, and you wouldn't even burn your house down! Unfortunately, the mega pack of glow sticks I bought were tiny white glow sticks, and you couldn't see any light when I put the lanterns in the lunch room. Oh well.

When I get my hands on some battery-powered twinkle lights, I'm going to try filling the lantern with that.

2 lanterns with floral paper, 2 with polka dots.

Next up, flowers. I just did a repeat of the flowers I did for this baby shower. I should come up with something new. I bought plastic containers to go inside the not-water-sealed tin buckets. Add a chunk of oasis soaked in water, 3 flowers, a bit of moss. I tied the flowers with some raffia and ribbon (bigger ribbon would have looked better, but I was getting stingy with the coin), and stuck a pick in it.

I made all these picks with shish kabob skewers and tags that had vintage images and buttons glued on. It would have looked great with zigzag stitching across the tag, but I made the tags 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave for the school with the flowers. Not enough time.

I hung some lanterns from the ceiling.

You can't really see it well, but right here at the end of the buffet, I stuck a box under the burlap. You can put different size boxes under your table cloth, and it makes the buffet look soooo much better. Stick some tinkle lights under that cloth, too, and it looks like a caterer came to your house.

I tend to use the same things over and over at parties. I add a little here and there to my collection. Things that are cheap, but add a lot of style. Like these old vintage milk jars. They always look good with flowers. I may get some more of those Ikea lanterns before they stop selling them. You can change the scrap paper for different events. Buy a case of mason jars or jelly jars at Wal-Mart. You can do all kinds of things with those babies. Put all of the jars right down the middle of the table with candles. If you use a lot of the same thing, it looks amazing. I'm a fan of tin buckets, too. And you can bet that burlap will show up at more events.

So that's it for me. To see more inspiration, stop by Kimm's blog and see the other Trash to Treasure Tuesday entries.

Lamp Love

I bought this old lamp yesterday.

This picture does not do its ugliness justice. First I painted it gold, but I didn't like it. Little bit of white ... no. Then I remembered my paint from yesterday's post, oil rubbed bronze. Add a new lampshade from my closet.

Throw a tassel on there. All better.

Now off to my next project ... Star Wars triage.

Some days you get lucky . . .

I stopped by the thrift store the other day, and found this gorgeous set of dishes! Woohooo. 8 place settings with a plate, salad plate, bowl and mug.

What's your best thrift store or sale find?

Budget Bathroom

The Nester has asked us all to share our 10 minute room makeovers inspired by her series called 10 Minutes to a Room You'll Love. Since I did this post before I found out about her party, I am just updating it.

I decorated my master bedroom with things I already had and/or things I got for an insanely great price. The paint wasn't a quick fix, however, but since I copied Nester's paint color, I thought it deserved a nod in this post as well.

My favorite thing in my bathroom is this iron chandelier I had when we moved into our house 3 years ago. It really makes the bathroom feel elegant. I couldn't stand the unsightly chain, though, so I got my glue gun out and glued some fabric right over it.

Recognize this paint color Nester fans? Tobacco Road (well, actually, the Tobacco Road knockoff recipe I got here).

I got this cute mirror from the local thrift store for a couple bucks. I love how the white looks next to Tobacco Road.

I did what Nester told me and hid the Crest, but I do have some silver pieces on a tray (all thrift store) that hold some Q-tips, and other stuff. Is that ok?

I needed some wall art, so I painted some old frames white and put in some pictures of my kiddos' feet at the beach.

This is not my first choice of window covering. I would love to hang some really nice fabric up there. But I'm on a big-time budget right now, and this was in my closet, so it will make do.

Got this cute rug at the thrift store. Brand new. Beautiful hooked rug. For a few bucks. It is a little more "tropical" than I would have picked if I could pick anything, but doesn't it go great with Tobacco Road? It warms up the white floor, too.

This is a pot I got from Home Depot a long, long time ago for not very much money. I just put a cheap little fern in it. Hopefully it won't die.

I like white towels. They look like you're at a nice hotel. They go with any colors. You can bleach the heck out of them. And it takes a little teeny extra time, but I like to roll them up. And when you redecorate a bathroom, you don't have to buy new towels!!

This little pedestal is another thrift purchase. I put some french soap on it by the tub. Some candles, too.

The other day, I did a little upgrade to the toilets. Sooooo easy. I'll show you in a few days.

It's time to save money!

We're trying to get more frugal at the Jones house, so we're cutting coupons and cleaning the house. I have the kids cut the coupons for me on Saturdays, which also helps them with fine motor skills. I use The Grocery Game so it is not as time consuming. GG continues to frustrate me, however, because I am always finding mistakes or discrepancies. Like, a lot. But in the end I still save a ton of money so it is worth it.

I let the cleaning people go this week (I started working last year as a substitute teacher so I could hire them). So I have gone back to the Motivated Moms Chore Planning System. It is a calendar that gives you chores to do every day, and if you do them you will stay caught up. They have a version with a daily bible reading, and one without. And it is only $8.00!! You download it, print it, and put it in a binder. Love it!

Click here to view more details

The Grocery Game and Other Ways I'm Saving Money

I have received a couple questions about The Grocer Game since I posted my intentions to organize coupons on Sunday.

Please do not be intimidated by seeing 55,000 coupons on my dining room table. Grocery Game is much easier than I am making it look!

The basic idea behind GG is that you begin stocking your pantry by purchasing items that are on sale and using a coupon. (We're looking for the good sales, not just trick sales for 10 cents off). On Sunday you go to The Grocery Game website, and they generate a list for you. It will not show everything on sale, but it shows you the items with "rock bottom" prices and exactly which coupons you need to use with them. The cool thing about the list is, when you are looking at it on the computer, you click on the items you don't want, and they will disappear from the list. So when you are done, you have your shopping list to print without all the other junk.

At first you might feel like you are buying too much of what you don't need. But after a while, you become stocked up on things and each week you go shopping you are buying less of things that you have run out of. As time goes on, your grocery bill will get smaller and smaller. Some of the stories of how much people spend are absolutely amazing!!

I hope this is making sense. It it is not, here is a link to GG's explanation of it all.

**Now, you don't need to cut all the coupons!** This is very important. The easiest way to organize it, especially for beginners, is with file folders. You take the coupons for that week and put them in a folder labeled with that date. When you print your GG list, the list will tell you exactly what date the coupon came out, and also tells you which packet it is in (eg, smart source, etc.). So you can just get out the folder for that specific day, open up the coupon packet, and find that one coupon to cut out. No need for cutting, filing, etc. of all coupons. I have to complicate everything, so I am filing them all by coupon (I do this because I like to be able to find coupons even when I'm not using the GG list - I recommend that you do not do this if you are not that into coupons because it can be a little overwhelming and will burn you out on coupons for good.)

You can try it out for $1.00 for 4 weeks, which is a pretty good deal. One coupon will pretty much pay for that. If you like it, you sign up to pay $10 for every 8 weeks. Again, this is a good deal considering how much time they are saving you. That is only $1.25 per week, recovered when you use one coupon. If you sign up, and want to give me referral credit, give them my e-mail address when you register (heatherntj@comcast.net). I would be very grateful.

I would say the only challenge I have had with GG is that my newspaper has coupons that are slightly different than those used for GG. I still save money, but I do have to double-check things a little. My friend Penny says that if you look in the game rules (you get to this after you sign up) on their website, they will tell you the best paper to use for your area. The game rules will also explain the coupon policy for your grocery store, so this is important to read.

So this week I have been working on trying to save as much money as possible here at the Jones household. In addition to coupon mania, some other things I have been doing are:

1. Refinancing. I am a refinancing queen. Back in the good ole' days when housing prices were skyrocketing and interest rates going down (we bought our first house for about 8 1/2%), I had an amazing mortgage broker who always got me refinance loans for no points. When the rates went down enough, time for a new loan. Well, I caught wind that rates had dropped down to about 5% for a few hours last month, so I hunted down a new mortgage broker and started another refinance yesterday. This is very important to me: I do not shop for loans. I find the best mortgage broker there is, and then I use that person forever (or at least until I move out of state). I strongly believe in finding people who are the best at what they do, and then hiring them to do my work. And with mortgage brokers, the lender pays the broker's fee, not you! Be careful though, and make sure you don't hire someone who is not trustworthy.

2. On that subject, I am currently searching for a good financial adviser. I have never hired one before, but I've finally decided that it might just be worth the money if I have to pay a fee. Because I really want to get the most out of the money I save.

3. I do have college savings plans for my kids, but I'm signing up for our state 529 plans also. The plans they have in my state actually lock in the current college rates so even if rates go up, we will pay today's rates when my kiddos finally make it to college. Considering they are in elementary/middle school, THIS IS HUGE! That's like getting free money put into your savings plan.

4. I watched Oprah's going green show, and I'm replacing all the light bulbs in the house to low-energy bulbs. Here's what you should do, that I didn't know before: My power company actually has a program where you can buy bulbs at The Home Depot and the power company pays for part of the bulb. So we got a huge savings on the bulbs, and I expect a pretty good savings coming up on my bill (I'll let you know exactly what that is after a full month of using them). So check with your power company and see if they have any deals.

5. I signed up for an ING Direct savings account. This is an on-line bank that links up with your bank accounts, and you can transfer money into your savings. If you initially deposit $250 into your account, you get a $25.00 bonus. It also has a great interest rate to add to your savings. I am having it take $25.00 automatically every paycheck. Not a lot, but it will add up. Here is a link to another blog that has a better explanation of ING.

6. Transfer debt to low interest accounts. I have a credit card balance ... I shouldn't ... I'm paying it off as fast as I can. That having been said, I will pay it off much faster if I'm not racking up interest charges on it. I would be perfectly content never to look closely at my credit card bills again because they make me want to cry. But really, it's good to examine them closely. Are you getting charged $90 a month for interest? Take one of those offers in the mail for 0% interest, and transfer your balance. That's $90 a month you'll be saving. Be careful with this one, though. If you don't stop using the cards, you'll just end up with more credit cards.

So yes, this is a very boring post ... I know. I'm sorry. But I do like to squeeze as much out of my money as I can, and I hope this helps you do the same.