Spray Paint Is My Friend

I wish I could say I was one of those super crafty people who are experts at refinishing furniture and turning trash into treasure. Occasionally I get lucky and find a way to use something of my own in a new way, and I'll be honest - if a can of spray paint can't fix it then I really won't bother. I'm all about easy. I thought I'd share a few pictures of a few things I've worked on lately. (And sorry I don't have before pictures, I know it's always fun to see those.)


















I decided not to get all of my fall decorations out this year, but I still wanted a few little touches here and there. I changed out my summer letters for FALL and spray painted these cute little pumpkins to add some pizazz. (They are real pumpkins.) I love the fall colors of oranges and reds, but I just wanted something simpler and more subtle this year.






















Since our kids have pretty much trashed our good old IKEA computer armoire we bought when we first moved into our house, I decided it would be futile to spend a lot of money on a new one that will probably get equally thrashed in the next few years. Hence, this little lady that I found on Craigslist for almost nothing. It was already black but needed some touching up so I gave it another coat of paint and made some cute little curtains on a tension rod to cover up the contents when not in use. I'm still thinking about putting some cute drawer pulls on it. (Now I just need to move it to the living room and get all the computer gear set up inside of it.) I got the fabric on sale buy two yards get one free, and had enough to recover the seat of the chair (which was also a cheap Craigslist find), and used the rest as a table runner on the dining table.




















The chair was already painted white and kind of naturally distressed so I decided to leave it as is, just recovered the seat cushion.






















I've had these barn stars for almost six years, they used to be an aged bronze color that was really nice, but I wanted something brighter. When we repainted our walls recently, I moved everything around and decided to spray paint them red and put them on a shelf in the family room. They add a nice pop of color. I purposely tried to not spray an even coat, so some of the darker color showed through making them look aged.

















I had been wanting to do some updating in our bedroom decor for a while. I wanted something soft and serene and relaxing. I've been chipping away at it bit by bit when I happen to find something I like. This is just a little peek. I love these little wall lights from IKEA. They have adjustable heads to get the right angle for reading, were priced right, and didn't require any electrical work which is right up our alley. Before we had some table lamps, but I hated the room they took up on our nightstands. I've had a couple of people ask why I went with mostly white bedding since little kids usually don't mesh well with white, (and Morgan has already spilled root beer from his leaky sippy cup on it) but I just think it looks clean and simple and light and I'll scrub the root beer out when I have to. :)
















The headboard we received from one of Riley's aunts when we got married, but I was never really in love with the oak color, so it had been sitting in our garage for the last few years. I sprayed it a few coats of white, didn't even sand it and I like that part of the wood and the grains show through. The metal wall hanging I've had for a long time, and decided to paint it a robin's egg blue and hang it over the bed for a little pop of color.

















So there are a few of my fun re-do's. Next up are the twins room and Kendle and Morgan's room with new bunk beds. It could get very interesting.

Learning something new...

Today I tackled both bathrooms and gave them a thorough deep cleaning that they were in dire need of. It's one of my least favorite things to do, but it always feels good after it's done and no one's complaining that they can't see themselves in the mirror because of the toothpaste spots anymore (young children brushing their teeth can be quite the adventure).

I washed the bath mats and rugs and decided I'd even throw the shower curtains in the wash too. Then I got to looking at the shower curtain liners that looked like they were needing to be replaced and had seen much better days. I was going to the store and thought I'd just pick some up while I was there. Then I thought - I'll just try throwing them in the washing machine too and see what happens. These particular liners were kind of expensive and pretty heavy duty so I hated to just get new ones. Was I ever happy when I saw that the liners came out perfectly clean and looking brand new. Am I the only person who has never tried this before? For some reason I thought the washing machine would ruin them, but I was so pleasantly surprised. Ladies, these are the things we need to be sharing with one another! Why didn't someone tell me this before! :)

An extra bonus was that a big old black grease smudge (I have the guy who fixed the crack in our soaker tub to thank for that) on my really nice shower curtain from our master bathroom came out too. I was thinking I was going to have to buy a new shower curtain, but I guess that old saying definitely applied to me and my endeavors today:

"It all comes out in the wash."

Good Deals

For those of you with baby's and young children here are some great printable coupons you can use:












Huggies has two awesome printables right now for $5/1 Huggies Gentle Care diapers (and products) and $3/1 Huggies Natural Fit Diapers (and products). Click here to print both - you probably have to scroll over to the 7th or 8th button. If you hit your back button you can print them twice and then it will tell you that your print limit has been reached. You do not have to use these for diapers, you can buy wipes or other products as well. Walgreens this week has an awesome deal going on where when you buy $25 worth of Kimberly Clark products, you get a $10 register reward back to use on your next in store purchase. I love doing transactions like this when it's for products I need anyways (like diapers). On Monday I went there and stocked up and I'm going back today and will use that register reward to get an even better deal. Huggies hardly ever puts out coupons like this, so when they do - take advantage of it. I've heard that Target also has wipes on sale that would make this a good deal as well.

*I will mention that the Gentle Care Diapers are only for sizes newborn and 1,2, but you can buy them for a friend or someone you know that's having a baby soon.













The next awesome printable is for Johnson Baby products which I use to stock up on FREE Johnson's Buddies soap. I love these easy grip sudzing bars and have a ton under my bathroom sink. They put out coupons for these every few months it seems and Walmart always has them priced around 97 cents making them free with these coupons. My kids love them and they smell really good, even Morgan at 21 months can grab it and scrub himself up. Follow this link to Money Saving Mom to print yours off and stock up on free soap every time you make a trip to the store.

Did you also know that Target has printable coupons? You can follow this link or visit Target's website, scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Target Stores, and under that click on grocery coupons. Sometimes even with a coupon, the products are still a little more than what I would normally pay at another store, but every once in a while they will have a really good one (like this week's $1 off Mott's single serve applesauce) that you can combine with a manufacturer coupon to get a GREAT deal. Even if the coupon printed says Super Target on it, I've never had a problem with them not accepting it, except for one experience but that's a whole other post.
Click here for another Mott's coupon for an additional 55 cents off.

I truly believe that it is not being cheap to look for good deals and bargains, but it is being a good steward of the money that you have. To me it's like flushing money down the drain if I have a coupon for something I needed and bought the item without out. This does not mean however that I buy something just because I have a coupon for it. Quite the opposite. And sometimes, word of mouth is the best way to share all of the good deals out there and we can all help each other get the best bang for our buck. So if anyone else has any great deals or finds to share please do!

****P.S.
Don't forget to tune in to Glenn Beck on Fox News [205 on dish network] today at 2:00. Use your DVR if you are going to miss it. We are not alone. We surround them. Go here to learn more.

*Worth Watching*

I recently discovered Clara Cannucciari, who is a 93 year old cook. She has her own cooking videos you can watch here that feature recipes her family made during the Great Depression. On each video she teaches how to make simple and affordable meals while telling stories about her life during the Great Depression.

I sat hooked watching all of the video's and listening to her share interesting tid-bits about the hardships they faced, but also the good things she remembers. She has such a cute personality and lots of great information to share. Some of her stories are so funny. This has inspired me to want to do the same thing with my grandmother.

Here is just one of the videos I thought I'd share. To see the rest clink on the link above.
(make sure to pause the music playlist on my side bar first)

Halloween Crafts

I'm feeling a bit under the weather today, but wanted to share these pictures and links with you.

I've been seeing all sorts of cute Halloween ideas popping up all over blog land that I thought I'd share with you. Even though I already have quite a bit of Halloween and Fall decor, it's nice to add new things into the mix every year and let the kids get in on the decorating fun.

These first two ideas I liked for two reasons:
1. They were easy and kid friendly
2. They were cheap/free depending on what you have around the house

Last week on BeCentsable I saw these cute ghosts and pumpkins made out of empty milk jugs:

For the ghosts you just draw on faces with a permanent marker and then paint the lids white if they are a different color. The pumpkins just need a little orange and green paint and you can cut out faces with a craft knife. For both, cut holes in the back and insert lights. In the above picture she just took a string of white lights and put a few in each one.

Another easy idea BeCentsable shared were these pumpkin garlands made from orange paper plates:

Cut out different shapes from black paper for the faces and glue onto the plates. You can punch a whole in the top and string them from ribbon to hang around the house.

There are more cute ideas she posted about and I just really appreciated that they were kid friendly and something even non-crafty people like myself could do in a short amount of time.

Also, yesterday on A Soft Place to Land which is one of my new favorite blogs, Kimba hosted a bloggy party where everyone could share a link to their Halloween and Fall posts. There are over 100 links and I have not had a chance to look at all of them, but here are a few cute things I saw that I'd like to make:

This blog had the cutest countdown to Halloween idea:

You can fill the little bags with one little piece of candy per child/per day or some other little Halloween trinket. How fun is that? I think I might enjoy that one more than my kids!

I also loved this blogger's version of a Halloween wreath and her "Boo" sign.

These were just a few of the many, many cute things I saw looking through the links on Kimba's blog.

Yesterday I managed to put out my fall decorations with only a minimal amount of help from the Morgster. Kendle loves our electric Jack-O-Lanterns that I always put up on our high wall ledge. She came home from school yesterday and kept flicking the wall switch to turn them off and on. I left a few things out for her to help with and put in her room. I remember the excitement of being a kid and wanting to help my mom decorate for the holidays. I'm glad she shares my enthusiasm for that sort of thing.

SCORE

A few weeks ago I did a post about scoring some freebies and finding good deals from different websites. Walmart.com is an excellent place to request product samples from. I like product samples a lot because #1 they are free and make the perfect travel size for trips, #2 they give you the opportunity to try products you might not usually buy and #3 they make checking the mail every day really fun because you never know what might be waiting for you. Many manufacturers offer free samples and as a bonus a lot of these come with coupons as well. Double score! On my sidebar I have a link to Freebies 4 Mom, which is a great resource.


Every time I get a freebie in the mail, I put it in a box on top of my fridge. I keep it handy in case I want to grab something like a little tube of lotion to throw in my purse, or whatever. I'm starting to run out of room though, so it might be time to get a bigger box! Here is some of what I've gotten in the last two months since I started receiving freebies:















Some things not pictured that I've gotten for free were:
-mini boxes of cereal
-mini desserts
-free camera tri-pod
-awesome coupon booklets
-magazines
-recipe booklets
-child's sippy cup

Anything I don't need or want, I can give to other people. There are lots of free baby samples that come in the mail, (usually with really good coupons and sometimes whole cans of baby formula) and since my baby isn't so little anymore I can pass those on to friends and family that can use them. Excess items can also be donated or used for care packages, and they'd be great to send to college kids or missionaries, or tuck them away in 72-hour and emergency preparedness kits - lots of uses I can think of. Our family is going to the Oregon Coast for our summer vacation next week, and usually I find myself at the store buying last minute travel sized toiletries. But this year, I've already got shampoo, conditioner, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, lotion, laundry detergent, baby wash, and a cute bag to zip it all up in. For FREE!


So don't be afraid to request product samples, (only the free ones, some ask for participation in other promotions and I NEVER do those) and have fun checking your mail everyday like me!


*If you already receive freebies in the mail, what is one of your favorite things you've gotten lately, or one of the best deals you've scored?

Sharing some links

So I'm not really the poster child for being frugal and saving money, but I have been trying really hard lately to be more mindful of what I'm spending money on, and trying to do a better job at looking around for the best deals. I've found a couple of websites that I really like, that help out all the mom's out there who are trying to save a dollar or two. I thought I'd share a few of these, you may or may not already know about them.

-Mom Advice , specifically the Motherload portion of her blog. The author gives out lots of informative and fun information, and I love her freebie Friday.

-Freebies 4 Mom, gives great links and resources to find the best free product samples (which are so fun to get in the mail) and great coupons, a lot of which you can just print off of your computer. Also regularly updates you on what you can buy for "free".

-Tips and Treasures, you'll find more good deals and tips, and the author also does a weekly recap of how much money she earned and saved for her family by finding good deals and using coupons. Very interesting.

-Money Saving Mom, one of my favorites because there are weekly and mid-week rundowns on all of the best grocery shopping deals broken down by store. They tell you which coupons to use and basically make it totally easy for you. Also other bloggers can update with their own local deals or finds. Very helpful.

-Frugal, Freebies and Deals, updated daily with new finds. Quick and easy to look through.

-BeCentsable, organized and easy way to look at store deals, coupons, and also has a section for printable coupons you might have missed.

-Home Ec 101 -What You Wish Your Momma Taught You, This blog is one of my favorite finds. It has kind of a retro throw back feel and has TONS of good information on pretty much anything you could think of.

-ebates -If you're going to be shopping online anyway, might as well earn some cash back in the process. This site lets you search by store and shows you the percentage you'd get back.


*Just for Fun*:
-Bloggy Giveaways features a new giveaway that you can enter almost every day. The prizes are really cool and feature some really neat companies.

-Mama Loves Giveaways also has some good prizes for you and your family. They usually post about one giveaway a week.

For those of you who don't subscribe to the paper to get all of the coupons that come on Sundays, you can go online to smartsource.com, or redplum.com and print a lot of them off. Also if you have a favorite product brand, try visiting their companies website to score some more discount coupons and join their mailing lists.

Also, when I'm ordering anything online, I always search for discount codes to apply to my order (i.e. Children's Place online discount codes). Sometimes it makes it just enough to cover the shipping, but hey that saves me an extra shopping trip, and added with the ebates cash back makes it a pretty sweet deal.

With the rising prices for food and gas, it's made me more aware of what I'm bringing into my home. Are they things I really need, or is it just more "stuff"? That can be the one trap about clipping coupons and hunting sales, is that sometimes you feel the need to buy things just because they are on sale or you have a coupon for them. That's not really saving money in my book. And I also don't run all over town to several different stores. Time IS money right? Although sometimes, you can't beat good grocery sales and there have been times where making a special trip to a certain store for a few things has been worth it.

I hope this post doesn't sound like I'm trying to be an expert in this particular area, (because I'm NOT) I just know I've scored some pretty cool freebies and deals and wanted to pass them along to all my friends so you could enjoy them too.

What' s your favorite money saving tip?