Save Some Dough
Surprisingly Stylish: The Target Dollar Aisle
You know you all stop there first…
Does anyone write anything down anymore? Why not for a one dollar, wonderfully assymetrical polka dotted planner.
Retro patterned tissues for my post-Lasik eye drop love-fests. Did I ever tell you guys they plugged my ducts? So weird.
Hello Kitty. For children or adults I say.
For your bean. Your patriotic little bean.
I am going back for this 80s zebra, or for ten of them.
Because in the end all I bought was this ah-mazing blue fret designed wrapping paper. Only a dollar. I’m sorry to tell all my South Durham friends that I hogged it and bought all two rolls that I could find.
Merry Christmas to us. We will use it to stylishly wrap the two presents we have already procured. We are sick, yes.
Any other awesome dollar aisle finds out there? Now, we’re serious. We mean awesome as in, on the same level as a neon zebra shopping bag?
Spray Painting Things White
It’s a national past time here in the Republic of Whited.
Here’s our latest. Sorry about the camera phone pics. Chad was away with our “good” camera.
Garden stools are pretty hot little numbers right now and most have a price tag to match. Until a recent trip to Tar-jay the cheapest we’d seen was $60 at Carolina Pottery. It was the color of vomit.
This little beauty was only $17.48 in the clearance aisle of Target last week, likely because of the pink flowers all over it. A little Krylon fixed them in no time. We are kind of taking turns kicking each other for not buying a second one – you know just because it was there and we like to buy stuff.
Make Your Own West Elm Day Bed
Ah-mazing!
I have long longed for not only one but two of West Elm’s iconic and graphic white day beds for our guest bedroom. But the $449.00 price tag I was not longing for. That’s a lot of pupperoni and these things right here - which I am also longing for. Someone tell my husband.
These beds are pretty versatile pieces that definitely don’t have to be used as beds. Check out this day bed turned sectional combination from the latest issue of Do It Yourself Magazine.
This DIY savvy homeowner, Kyle, just shortened the legs on her three beds and turned them into super stylish and cozy sofas. Love it.
And now thanks to the girl power (yes I just typed that) that is Ana White you can make your very own West Elm daybed – for much less than $449 plus shipping and sales tax. Cha-ching!
The plans are free and her site is great because in addition to showing you how to put the bed together she also offers detailed diagrams along the way with both shopping and cut lists so you have to do zero math. You can also download printable pdf instructions for each item. Cheapo West Elm beds, a new project and a pdf download – my inner DIY computer geek may explode.
How amazing is that? Anyone else doing the happy dance right now?
If you make one we want pictures!
Barnacles!
We’re putting on our square pants and bringing a little bit of the sea into our master bedroom by way of a fun new accessory. So far it’s one of the only ways I’ve managed to get some sort of purple into the room without Chad objecting. It’s a good day.
To refresh your sixth grade science, a barnacle is a type of arthropod and a cousin to lobsters and crabs. They live mostly in shallow, tidal waters. What Mrs. Minnow didn’t teach you is that barnacles look great on a side table and can be purchased for minimal dollars at Home Goods. Mrs. Minnow was still awesome, she was my sixth grade science teacher. She let us take the hamsters home on the weekends.
We’ve pointed out barnacles in home design before, specifically in that bedroom image that we loved so much, designed by Jamie Meares at Furbish Studio.
We could have easily scored our barnacles from the Furbish store, but honestly didn’t know that we really needed any until we spotted a bag of them in Home Goods one afternoon. Like how I use the term “need” to describe a barnacles purchase? I guess we need them like we need cute bowls from Target, or reuseable shopping bags from Crate and Barrel or even that lantern hanging in our half bathroom. Need.
We spotted a lonely bag of barnacles down on a bottom shelf. The bag was pretty big, the entire set could have served as a centerpiece for our dining room table – but a lot of them were broken. This is when I decided we needed them. Never underestimate Amy Whited’s desire to score a bargain – even at Home Goods where things are already heavily discounted. Give me an inch I will try to take a mile.
So we snatched up the broken sea carcasses (doesn’t sound nearly as home-y when you say it that way) and headed to the regiser hoping for a deep discount in exchange for taking the half-destroyed merchandise off their hands. We could tell that the pieces left intact were large enough to make a nice table accessory so weren’t worried about all the broken parts.
The salesperson was able to mark them down from $12.99 to $9.00 as you can see. To be completely honest, I was hoping for half price. But that didn’t stop me from declaring victory. We happily purchased the bag for $9.00 since it was a little bigger than what we found at Furbish as well as what we normally have seen in stores for much more moolah. Like this guy from Clayton Gray Home, yikes! Although, Mr. Gray’s version does have me wondering what they would look like spray painted white… I have a sickness.
Our $9.00 version holds down a stack of magazines in our bedroom quite nicely. It’s just a fun and cheap accessory that we’re pretty happy we splurged on. It’s a nice underwater complement to our DIY sea urchin vase which sits on the dresser in the same room. Read all about how we made that guy right here.
What about you guys? Any fun finds out there? Anyone else buy something broken and bring it back to life?
Another Good Find From Goodwill
Lamps are expensive. We’ve experimented with our fair share around here, like when we bought Freddy the Mercury lamp from Home Goods only to return him a couple of months later. Or when we bought Kim, our curvy Kardashian-esque lamp for the master bedroom.
This is a far cry from my apartment days when I owned one lamp that went on the table next to my bed. I think I may have splurged a year later and found one to go on the desk too. Even worse? We still use those two lamps I’m talking about.
We only have one lamp next to our bed right now, on Chad’s side. It’s the same lamp that I purchased at Target seven years ago. It’s been plugged in next to my bed ever since.
I think I deserve a couple of brownie points for purchasing a lamp seven years ago that doesn’ t look completely dated. Right? It actually looks way more modern than the two lamps that I’ve picked up to replace it with.
They totally work, I gave them a rigorous testing in the store as to not waste the $8 I was spending on each one much to the annoyance of the salesperson who I know wanted to yell at me “it’s only eight bucks lady!” But I will not be taken for a ride – not even by Goodwill.
Because we have not one but two certified pre-owned lamps for our bedroom now, it means that one of them can actually go on my side of the bed!
Anyone else notice how light and bright those pale green walls still are? Love them. What about the head lamp hanging on the corner of the bed? That’s the light for my side in case of emergency. I feel safer already.
So needless to say I am ecstatic about these brass, shade-less beauties from Goodwill. Almost as excited as I am about that $16 price tag for both.
As you can see they have seen better days. The “brass” is a bit worn and dark in places. If you look closely you can even see an upside down Amy in there.
The solution to these cheapo lamps with potential? Gloss spray paint and modern drum shades. We’re working on that now, so stay tuned for some after pics – and wish us luck that we don’t have another red side table on our hands.
And you’re right, we didn’t say what color gloss spray paint yet. It’s coming. As a hint, our new lamps will definitely match our new bright floral bedroom curtains.
What kinds of treasure are you guys finding at Goodwill lately?
A Whole Lotta Fun for Under Two Bucks
If organization is your kind of fun!
We like to stay organized around the casa by using lots of little containers to control our clutter. Say that five times fast… clutter control containers. It’s easy to stumble on cute boxes, baskets and trays that can quickly overwhelm your house and also grow to cost a small fortune. That’s why I love the dishes aisle at Target.
Because, my friends, for less than two bucks a pop you can score an adorable (my word not Chad’s) bowl, tray or plate to be used as a tray for under two bucks. They aren’t made of fine china, but most people won’t notice or care. They are instead made of melamine – a fancy word for tough plastic.
This is the stuff that your kids love to eat out of but that you can’t put in the microwave and can’t put in the dishwasher more than four or five times before the pattern wears off. But for a small accent piece that you change with each season for a teeny investment they are mucho bueno.
Here are some of the styles that caught my eye while wandering the melamine aisle earlier this week.
And here’s the one I brought home for only $1.79. He’s about to start catching some clutter on my bathroom counter fo sho.
