Juli 2013

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Must Stop Shops For Frugal Decorating

Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier Selasa, 30 Juli 2013 0 komentar

When you are decorating on pennies like I am, you rely on hand-me-down furniture, and great discount shopping sources!
I know I tend to rejoice over those ridiculously discounted finds in my posts, and I've gotten quite a few emails and comments asking "where did you get it?" and "how can I find it at that price?"! *grin* I always use to hate it when someone else seemed to get these great finds and I couldn't catch a break! I figured I had bad luck... turns out I just didn't have the 411 on where to get those "fantastic finds". Now I'm reveling in my new found "good luck", and I thought it was time to pass it on!
In my last post "Barely Budget Decorating" I shared my tricks to frugal decorating, but I thought I should give you a few more details on how to find that must stop shop to aid in that endeavor.

Used & Vintage Goods
We all know the perks of a great garage sale, estate sale, or thrift shop. But what about other shops that may not fall under the google search "thrift stores". To start, broaden your internet search to key words like "resale shops", "consignment" + " furniture", "vintage" + "home goods", etc.
The difficulty is that these small businesses often do not have a very large online presence (if any at all), which often makes them hard to find, and you will have to visit to see how good the shop is.

A great example of a center that sells great goods at great prices is the Habitat for Humanity Restore! ReStores can be found all over the U.S. and in Canada, click here to find one near you.

ReStores are a DIY'ers dream! Not only do you find used furniture there, but they often carry old doors & windows for projects, closet systems, building materials & paint, cabinets & hardware, and many many other home goods!

New Home Goods
I love a great home goods store, but lest you think you are getting their rock bottom prices during sales, think again. Often stores like Marshalls, Kohls, Ross, Target, and more, will hand their unsold items over to an outlet, warehouse, or discount center where you can find the same new good for a fraction of the sale cost.

One great example is an awesome discount center a friend introduced to me not far from my mother-in law. Every holiday season that we visit, I reserve one afternoon to make a run over to the Frese Discount Center in Dowagiac Michigan. Moral of the story, when you can't find that great discount store nearby, just hit one up when visiting your friends and relatives! *grin*
The Frese Discount Center gets quite a bit of goods from Target (one of my favorite stores for home goods!), and they slash the original price (even store sale tag prices) in half! Can it get better? YES! They are great about "haggling" and often mark or round it down even lower at the cash register!

Just a few (of the many) fantastic items I've found at Frese at a fraction of the original cost.

I hope you are convinced to look for your own local "must stop shops" and keep your money where it belongs...in the bank!

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Barely Budget Decorating

Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier Kamis, 25 Juli 2013 0 komentar

The biggest expenditure I have ever made on any one item in my house is the washer/dryer because it was a necessary evil, but besides the necessary appliances, I would have to say it is the $80 I spent for my daughters twin sized mattress, a close second is the $60 I spent on a couch. To say we are frugal may be the understatement of the year. When you add my husband's impossibly practical cheapness and his lack of decor savvy to my frugality, you have basically end up with no decor budget. Of course, our priorities are paying off our house by the time we turn 32, having college funds for our 3 kids, and we've spent the last 9 years of our marriage paying off college and cars so we could be completely debt free. These goals have been much more important than purchasing new furniture when hand-me-downs suffice, or putting money into purely decorative items. So yes, for the past 9 years I have been lucky to spend $30 per month on household goods, and I choose to live with hand-me-downs, mismatched dishes I scored off of freecycle, and do without many niceties.
That being said, I ADORE a beautifully decorated and organized space more than most. So finding the pennies to create my dream home is an ongoing challenge I am willing to work hard to achieve. How am I doing it? Slowly and carefully, pinching every single penny along the way. *grin*
That's what this blog has been about, creating a beautiful house little by little...patiently growing a home.

Here is my key to decorating on a non-existent budget...

Thrifty Shopping
I'm always excited when I find a consistently good thrift shop. However, thrifting isn't the only answer. Often you can find a discount center or warehouse that will sell brand new items at a fraction of the original cost! But I'll tell you more about that in the next post... click here to read.
Then of course there are methods to get discounts at the dream stores themselves: such as signing up for floor (display) models, shopping discount aisles & racks, using discount codes & coupons, price matching, and more depending on the policies of that store. It is still a pretty penny (at least where my budget stands), but for those big ticket items it is worth the wait to invest in a sturdy as well as lovely piece of furniture. Lol! I'll let you know when I finally get one of those!

Couponing for Decor & DIY
I am such a huge advocate of couponing, and clearly not just for groceries! There are often printable coupons for many products I use for organizing and decorating. I have used brand coupons for paint, plastic storage, command strips, hardware brands, glassware, fabric, etc. etc. etc.

I recommend shopping at fabric/craft stores and hardware stores that accept competitors coupons. I recently bought a gallon of Martha Stewart (Glidden) paint from Home Depot on sale and used a 40% off coupon from Sherwin Williams! I also use Michaels store coupons that include sale prices at Jo-Ann Fabrics so that I can combine a coupon with Jo-Ann's sales. Jo-Ann Fabrics do produce their own coupons, but they exclude sales.
I do the same for organizational products at office supply stores such as Staples and Office Max. I wait to purchase until I have a coupon from them or from their competitors, then I use it on a sale or combine it with their rewards programs and coupons. You can find coupons in the Sunday papers, search online (codes, or printables), or by signing up for their rewards programs and store emails.

Here is the thing about couponing, or saving for that matter: When you are sticking to a budget, it isn't the total amount saved that counts, it is the total amount spent. Don't get excited that you saved 70% if it means you had to go into debt for it or blew the rest of your budget. I'm not saying there isn't a time or place to use your budget on one "investment" item, but that means you have to be willing to sacrifice and consider your spending done for that period, and fyi, this should never be the rule.

My favorite time of year for couponing is the Thanksgiving to Christmas season when stores such as Kohls mail out coupons for $10 off any $10 or more purchase. Every time they send me one of these, I score a nearly free item... just look for a $10 item and only pay tax! If you can combine these types of promotional gift-card coupons with sales or other coupons (when allowed) you can score expensive items nearly free. See that picture of the receipt at the beginning of this post? That was a nice white dish from Kohls I had been eyeing that cost $24.99. I waited for it to go on sale at 50%, then used my $10 promotional coupon. My final cost after taxes was $2.66.

Supplemental Money

Saving money is the obvious strategy when decorating, but not the only strategy! There are many reward programs that pay you to get bombarded by ads from their sponsors. My preferred program is MyPoints. They will give you points for every email/website you open, every search you do, shopping online, using their coupons, etc. Honestly, I do the bare minimum, things I ALREADY do... I use their search engine from time to time, and I print coupons for groceries...that's it, and amazingly I make enough points to redeem a $10-$25 gift card every 4 months or so. I get a few extra bucks to spend guilt free wherever I feel a whim, usually at my beloved Target. If I'm being diligent I save up my points and get a $50 gift card to some snazzy home goods store a few times a year. Let these gift cards do triple duty by combining them with coupons, and sales, and if you are smart about it, those $25 gift cards can get you $50+ worth of home goods!
There are other point based programs out there. I'd love to know if you have discovered one that works well for you.

Repurpose, Reuse, UpCycle!
I have a love-hate relationship with upcycling, more accurately an adore-despise relationship. When every major piece of furniture you own is either a hand-me-down, or found on the side of the road, you learn to adore upcycling, it becomes the saving grace to the ugly and mismatched. So while it is a lot of effort and creative energy to make the ugly amazing, it is well worth the effort! Sometimes you have to have a little vision and revamp something entirely, but other times all it takes a is a little sanding and paint!

I admit I'm a little shy about looking at someone's thrown away furniture sitting beside their trash can...but it is a shyness worth over coming! Not only have I found many wonderful pieces of furniture that just needed a little TLC, but occasionally I will stop and raid a piece of furniture only fit for the trash so I can salvage hardware from it. I also love Freecycle.org for scoring items to repurpose or salvage goods from without having to sit near someones trash can. It is a network made up of (your local) groups, where people post things they no longer want/need, or things they are looking for! It is fantastic!
I have also purchased thrift store items at a few dollars because it had really great castors (wheels which are really really expensive!), or to salvage the drawer gliders (also adds up when purchased from a hardware store).
Start a small collection of useful salvaged hardware (bolts, castors, gliders, pulls, etc.) so you can build or revamp things yourself. That will save you a huge wad of money!

DIY'ing
When push comes to shove, make it yourself! I may not have the skills for big building projects, but the way I figure it, after 10 years of trial and error I will become an expert. "I don't know how" just isn't a good excuse in this information age. My whole world opened up with websites and blogs, and online video tutorials that share all the how-to's! DIY'ing makes for a healthy hobby worthy of pursuit, and skills worthy of teaching your children.

Finally...
Remember that frugal decorating means patience. We won't get the same satisfaction of seeing a room go from ugly to amazing in a weekend. It will become a labor of love that may just take a while. I'm still waiting for all the elements to come together in...well almost every room. In the meantime I make do with what I have, and make it look its best!

Baca Selengkapnya ....

Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier Minggu, 21 Juli 2013 0 komentar

i just got back from a week long beach vacay with my hubbie's fam. while some people would roll their eyes to a week w/ the in-laws, i am one of the fortunate few who loves hers. i love watching my children play with their cousins, sitting at the beach relaxing (just kidding, you cannot relax at the beach when you have young children), eating great meals, and rocking on the screen porch with a glass of wine in hand. it's always so sad when it ends.....

*images courtesy of brabourne farms, that kind of woman, birch and bird, my french country home, tempodadelicadeza

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Summer's Frugal Finds

Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier 0 komentar

Hooray for Summer's fantastic frugal finds and freebies! Speaking of which, tomorrow is the last day to enter the GIVEAWAY here on the blog! If you haven't entered, now is the time! You don't want to miss out on a free year subscription to ListPlanIt.com, I am LOVING my subscription! You can read about some of my lists on List PlanIt here, ~~or just enter the giveaway here:~~

Congratulations to our Winners: Stephanie & Tricia!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So where was I? ...Oh right, summer has been good to me with all manner of frugal finds and freebies. Of course, this is garage sale season, so I'm in my element hunting for those hidden treasures.

Take a lot at these babies! I was the grateful (and a bit overly excited) recipient of some Pottery Barn throw pillows and miscellaneous decorating items priced at a dollar each! I'm telling you, garage sales in the proper areas are chock-full of lovely items just waiting to be given a happy home!

But garage sales aren't the only ways to get great deals to makeover your house. I just came back from Home Depot an hour ago with the cheapest gallon of Martha Stewart paint I've ever purchased! The regular price for this paint is between $23-$25 depending on the matte, but using this weekend's Sherwin Williams 40% off coupon (as a competitors coupon) I got my gallon for only $15!! Oh happy day! That's even cheaper than the Walmart brand I usually afford! If you are going out today or tomorrow, you can probably catch the end of the Sherwin Williams sale (or at least use their coupon like I did)...you can visit their website here for details on the promotion. Both Home Depot and Lowes accept competitors coupons.

Great finds for great prices are all around us, the tricky part is knowing how to find them. I thought I'd share some of the tricks I have acquired, and I hope to hear some of yours as well!

I'm dedicating the final days of July to sharing how to find great deals on home decorating & DIY goods, and even how to make a little "guilt-free" spending money!
Keep an eye open for those upcoming posts, and hopefully we'll save a little money and get some big style!

See you then!

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List Love

Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier Senin, 15 Juli 2013 0 komentar

Yesterday I spied stationary on Pinterest that read "Keep Calm And Make A List". *Chuckle*. You have no idea how many times I have said that very thing to myself. I LOVE checklists! Probably because they bring some semblance of sanity and direction to my crazy life! There is just one little hiccup in my list making... losing lists!
Between the girls doodles and my lists, our house always looks like a paper snowstorm hit. Just how helpful are written lists when they have disappeared in that snowstorm? Yeah...
Much to my delight I have discovered a fantastic solution, ListPlanIt.com!
Now my lists are compiled in one place, and accessible on any device anywhere I go!

Yes, drool my organization chasing friends! This lovely website not only helps you get a head start on your lists, but keeps all your important checklists together in one place. Of course, if you prefer a hard copy you can save to your desktop or even print for reference, since there are downloadable options available!

I am loving this resource, so I'm super excited to announce that Jennifer Tankersley (the founder of List PlanIt) is sponsoring a giveaway here on the blog today! Two lucky winners will receive a free year subscription to ListPlanIt.com!

My Many Lists

A good list can help choral chaos, increase efficiency, and aid all those who have less-than-photographic memory. I admit, I have problems in all three of those areas, so I am a big list maker. Well, if you follow my blog you know that I've discovered the merits of a good list.
You've seen (and possibly printed) my Kids Chore Chart and Chore Checklists, and even my Desktop Paper Organizer list... and that doesn't even scratch the surface of my list obsession! Good grief, we won't even talk about whats in my Home Management Binder!

Well, now that List PlanIt is feeding that obsession, I have added a whole new set of lists! And they aren't floating around on some random piece of paper under a couch somewhere (thank goodness!).

Here is a sneak peak at just a few of my lists on List PlanIt. FYI, my two favorite are the Honey Do list, and the Home Improvements list...they are awesome ("awesome" said in a sing-songy voice).

There are hundreds of fantastic lists to choose from on List PlanIt, but that didn't stop me from customizing a list to fit my exact needs. I created a Room by Room Updates checklist from a list originally designed for decluttering ( previously called "room by room purge"). Oh, I'll let you take a peak at a small part of that list... I'm kind of eager to share all the projects I'll be doing on the blog for the next couple years! *exhausted grin*

But enough about my list obsession, it's time for you to get your list lov'in on. Have you checked it out yet? Why not? Go! check out ListPlanIt.com, and you can also follow List PlanIt on Pinterest ...oh wait, do that after you enter the giveaway below!
~~Not one, but two lucky people will win a year long subscription to ListPlanIt.com!~~ Even better, we are all winners with a special discount for Home Made by Carmona followers! When you sign up at ListPlanIt.com you get a 30 day free trial (which you should all do), and now use this code HOMEMADE20 to continue your monthly subscription for 20% off! That's $4 per month to get and stay organized! (Now that's my kind of price! Cheapy cheapmore over here... lol!)
~~Well, what are you waiting for? Go on, enter to win! And good luck!!~~
This Contest is now closed:
Congratulations to our Winners: Stephanie & Tricia!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier Rabu, 10 Juli 2013 0 komentar

the other day i went to dinner w/ some girlfriends and we were talking about design and how hard it is to make decisions. it's so true....everyday, i think "ok i'm going with this for the house, no more analyzing" and then i'll hop on pinterest and bam, there's something else that completely changes my mind. do y'all have this problem?!! i can't commit to save my life.

*images courtesy of mode de vie, weekly day carnival, house and home, home inc

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Dry Erase Calendar

Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier Selasa, 09 Juli 2013 0 komentar

I've had many requests to share the rest of my Home Management Binder! I have shared the Blog Planner and the Menu Planner sections of my Home Management Binder, and today I'm eager to share the Calendar segment!

My reusable dry erase Calendar/Planner/Scheduler operates much in the same way the Blog Planner and Menu Planner work...as a matter of fact, these three work really well when used together! Can you tell I love post-its and dry erase? maybe just a little huh? *grin*

Calendar. Planner. Scheduler.
The Breakdown
The Calendar is two 8.5 x 11 pages wide and is entirely dry erase friendly!
I chose to create pages for all 12 months, but because it is dry erase you could easily choose to create only 6 months (or even less!) worth of pages and still keep up with all your scheduling by reusing those pages!
Start by writing in the month at the top of the page and write in the dates.

Then populate your Calendar using your choice of post-its, dry erasers, or washi tape!

Using Post-Its
I loooove post-its. Perhaps it is because I'm fickle... when I change my mind about what day this event is happening, or what month I want to do that activity, I peel and stick it someplace new! Easy as pie. I am also visual, and this allows me to arrange and rearrange my scheduled week seeing how I want it to look before settling on something.

I like to pull completed blog post stickies from my Blog Planner over to the Calendar once I have decided what date I want to publish that post.

If you prefer, you could also pull menu idea stickies from the Menu Planner and put it in your Calendar rather than using a separate Weekly Menu Plan reference sheet.

Using Dry Erase Markers
I tend to use the dry erasers on appointments that are already set and unlikely to be changed.
You would think that using dry erase markers meant it would be messy, but it isn't messy in the least! I use quick drying markers so I don't smudge while dragging my hand across the page, and I keep an eraser cloth in the front of my binder along with my markers. (Honestly though, I rarely use the cloth, I just use my finger...whatever).

You could dispense with the post-its and washi tape and just use dry erase markers if you desired!

Using Washi Tape
I admit I haven't yet discovered all the merits of washi tape. But I know that some of you are die hard fans, so I was curious to discover what all the hype was about and ordered a couple rolls online. So far (in addition to a couple other DIY projects), I have used washi tape in my calendar to represent business trips or vacations. It spans multiple days allowing me to jot all my vacation plans on one strip.

Info Section
This little corner is perfect for the little extra bits of information you need for this task or that appointment. Whether it is a phone number to confirm an appointment, or an address, or any other piece of information it is nice to have a spot to ensure you get it all down.

Categories Section
I like to be able to distinguish the different types of appointments (and thus the varying levels of importance) at a glance. So I created a category key. I apply this color coded key whether I'm using post-its or markers.

Tasks To Schedule Page
This is the cover page of my Calendar section. When I have tasks or appointments that I still need to schedule( or require action before they can be scheduled) I put them here so they are not overlooked. Once that task or appointment has been scheduled it is moved to its confirmed date within the calendar.

Notes Page
This is the last page of my Calendar... I might as well use every page as efficiently as possible, and I often find myself jotting little extras in some random corner of my calendar, so this page has served me well!

Free Printable & Assembly Instructions
Click on the PDF or Customizable Word document options below and it will take you to Google Drive where you can print or download. Please remember that while you can directly print the PDF from Google Drive, that will not be the case with the customizable Word doc option. You will need to download the Word document to tweak if you choose the customize option...please don't request to "edit" or "share" while at Google Drive, the customizable Word format must be downloaded to customize. To "share" simply email your friends the link!

PDF Document (recommended)

Customizable Word Document
(format will be altered: must choose the download option from Google Drive and tweak as necessary)

To Assemble: Print onto regular paper and set pages back to back in page order before laminating. OR print single pages at a time onto cardstock, print front then back one at a time and laminate individual pages at a time. Punch holes using a three-ring punch, and pretzo! You're done!
If you do not own a laminator I recommend Scotch brand self-laminating sheets.

Enjoy your Dry Erase Calendar! I hope it serves you well!

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Computer Wallpaper

Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier Jumat, 05 Juli 2013 0 komentar

Simply put, wallpapers are attractive pictures, which can be applied to any desktop in order to make it a more active to the human eye. The use of wallpapers is not a new concept in fact, it has been around for a while, people use wallpapers to decorate their homes and make their environment more appealing, the same can be said about computer users, the computer wallpaper can be thought as a nice way to motivate the user's work in such computer.

Computer wallpapers come in different sizes and formats, the size of the wallpaper is directly related to the resolution of the image, in other words, if the wallpaper is big, users with bigger displays will be able to use such wallpaper to decorate their background and not lose valuable details. Resolution is very important when it comes to wallpapers, wallpapers with great resolution will not be pixelated. When the user stretches the image in order to fit the background, some users will have a large screen, which needs to be filled with the team at a higher resolution, for instance a 1028X768 image may not be enough to cover your desktop if you have a widescreen monitor that operates at a much higher resolution, on the other hand, people with smaller screens will be able to enjoy a beautiful background picture on their desktop even if the wallpaper doesn't have a great resolution.

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Widescreen Wallpaper

Posted by sew4tejhtr6ier 0 komentar

Though there are many wallpaper sites on the Internet, few of them provide quality wallpapers in widescreen format. Instead of spending hours trying to find a great wallpaper for your monitor, here's an easy way you can make your own widescreen wallpaper for free using public domain images.

I typically do other important processing steps like level adjustments, saturation, and sharpening. Many images are just put up on the sites without any processing and you can make some dramatic enhancements. When you're done making your adjustments, select Save As and save your new widescreen wallpaper!

The easiest way to load your new wallpaper as your desktop background is to use Explore and find the image. Right click on the file and select "Set As Desktop Background". Do that and you have a brand new widescreen wallpaper on your monitor.

With a little effort you can find many outstanding images that will make great widescreen wallpapers.

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