Garbage Pickin's

Hi everyone! It's finally fall in Georgia!! It was actually cold this morning - yippee! I feel so energized! I've felt like an exclamation point all day~giggle!

Well I promised I'd show what I found in the garbage so here they are. First, my wonderful husband dragged this perfectly good french door out of a neighbor's trash.

The hinges are all rusted but otherwise it's in perfect condition. Not one pane of glass is broken and it's a nice heavy door. I have a stash of windows and doors that I've been saving because one day I'm going to build myself a little greenhouse made out of salvaged windows and doors. OR maybe I'll use this one in the garden somewhere - wouldn't that be cute - a door to nowhere or somewhere!

This is a wooden valance. When I saw it I thought it would look so cute in my daughter's bedroom. I was going to paint it apple green because her bedroom is blue and apple green. Brought it home and it didn't fit! Tried it in all the windows, even the smaller bathroom one....didn't fit! So I was moaning to my daughter about how I have no place for it and she said "Mommy why don't you try it over a door?" That girl is brilliant if I do say so myself!

How cute is that! We tried it on all the doorways and decided this one in the kitchen was best.

Another place to decorate! Think of the possibilities!

I shopped my house and have my "ode to the rooster" display up there right now.

Anyway, I'm just thrilled with it! You can't beat free!

I hope you all are having a lovely day - I so enjoyed being out in the garden today and not sweating! More fall decorating on Thursday - I started fluffing up my screened porch for fall because we can finally eat outside without fainting from the heat!

Thriftstore Finds

Today is the last Thrifty Treasures Linky party that Rhoda (Southern Hospitality) is having until next year! But she is going to have a "It's Fall Y'all" party Thursday, October 1st. So be sure to sign up and show your fall decorations or stop by and get some inspiration! I will be participating (although I told myself I'm not going to do a lot this fall since I'm painting my family room and furniture in my office....we'll see LOL)!

I found this beautiful mirrored piece at Goodwill. I'm always looking for things to use as lifts in displays. I plan on painting it though. The gold, although pretty, doesn't work for me so it'll be either black or white(shocker LOL)! I also found a bag of mini bean balls which I'll use in my fall decorating and these two cute topiaries.

I got this shadowbox at Goodwill also. I actually remember seeing this at TJ Maxx and thinking how crazy that they wanted almost $20 for this!

$3.93 is a much better price! I'll save it for next summer and add some more shells to it.

I collect soup tureens and I found this one at a local thriftstore and added it to my collection which I normally keep in the kitchen.

Do you see it up there?

All the pictures will enlarge if you click on them but try not to look at the dust on the cabinets!!

I'm going to split my post in two and post my other finds on Tuesday (they were free since I got them out of the neighbors garbage so come back to see what I do with them).

It's suppose to be cool and dry this week and I absolutely positively have to get out into my washed out vegetable gardens to clean up and see what I can salvage! We were fortunate and didn't get flooded, but all the mulch in between my beds got washed out into the grass and all my vegetables look drowned!

Have a wonderful week everyone!

10 Ways to Save Money

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First of all, I'd like to say thank you you to all of you who visit here regularly! I truly appreciate each and everyone of you! Since there seem to be some new readers, I wanted to let them know that on Saturdays I like to do posts about simple living, ways to save money, simple pleasures, gardening or great ideas or posts I've seen that fit in with these ideas. I like decorating, but I have other interests in life as well and actually making the most of my husband's paycheck is one of my main jobs! A lot of times these posts are more for me than for you! They're a way to keep myself on track.

1. Use technology to help you save money! Before I go to Target, CVS, Walgreens or grocery shopping I check the blogs I have listed under Frugal/Freebie Deals Blogs on my sidebar. They will tell you what good deals are available at your grocery store, what coupons to use, even where to go to print out specific coupons, what items you can get free with a coupon, what the free item at Publix is this week etc. Go have a look! I always look for coupon codes before purchasing anything online. Lots of times I find ones for at least free shipping if not $$off the price or some other add on. If you have a good site you always use, let me know and I'll add it to the list.

2. Use it up or make do. That includes food! I've really been trying to make sure that I either freeze my leftovers or use them up so I don't have any waste. Be resourceful! We try to repair or think outside the box if something is broken so that we don't necessarily have run out and buy a replacement. Sometimes you find you can just do with out!

3. Make a menu. Planning your meals really is a money saver and in the long run a time saver. You don't have wonder what to eat, you're not as tempted to go out to eat, and you can buy what's on sale and plan your meals around that or your pantry.

4. If you want to eat out, go out for lunch. The portions are smaller which is good for your health and the prices are smaller too. Order water instead of a soda, it's better for you and will save you money. Alcohol and drinks in general are a profit maker for restaurants. Go to Restaurant.com to see if any restaurants you go to are listed. They often have coupon codes where you can get a $25 gift certificate for $5-10 (but always read all the fine print some restrictions apply).

5. Maintain your home, car, appliances, clothes, etc. Doing preventive maintenance will save you huge repair bills in the future. Little things like removing the lint from your dyer vent, clearing out your gutters, taking care of a small faucet leak before it turns into a larger one, change your oil and air filters on your car when needed, and getting your tuneups will help you avoid larger bills.

6. Use half the amount of lotions, dish soap, laundry detergent, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste. I always try half the amount and then I up it incrementally until I'm happy. You'll be surprised at how effective the lesser amounts will be. Look inside the cup that comes with your laundry detergent - you'll be surprised by where the line is. It's never to the top of the cap!

7. Enjoy being at home! You don't have to go somewhere to have a good time. You and your family can just enjoy being at home. Have a movie night. We have movie night every Friday night. We rent a DVD from Netflix,the library or Redbox(now that it's more readily available), eat on TV trays (we always eat dinner together in the dining room every night so this makes it "different") and I always make something that goes with fries or I make pizza (usually we try to eat healthy). When my daughter was little we'd have game night and we still do that occasionally.


8.Don't buy it if you can't afford it! The fun of getting that big screen TV on a credit card fades once you get the bill! Wait until you have the cash. People used to always wait and save up...it can be done!

9. Make a holiday budget and stick to it. With Christmas just a few months away, it's time to start thinking about gifts. Give something you made (people usually love home baked goods), give your time, give something small but indulgent (a really good bottle of olive oil if they cook, a small jar of really good honey, a bag of really good coffee, a bar of handmade soap...you get the idea).

10. Focus on all that you have! There will always be people that are richer than you...there are also people that have less than you have. Focus on appreciating what you have and don't let advertisers, blogs, magazines or TV shows influence you into buying things you can't afford and most likely don't really need anyway! You are not what you own or don't own!

Like I said, sometimes these posts are more for me than they are for anyone else! But hopefully some of you will find this helpful as well. Have a great weekend! (it's another wet one here in Georgia).

*all images are from Allposters.com or Google Images

Black & White Pumpkins Plus A Winner

Hi everyone! I wish I had more than one Susan Branch book to give away! But I don't...so the winner is........ KAREN @ Some Days Are Diamonds. Congratulations! I will be having another book give away next month (actually two books that I feel compliment each other).Thank you to everyone that entered! I'm slowly making my way to everyone that left a comment!

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I decided to do just black and white pumpkins in my dining room this year, so I thought I'd share a few ideas for doing non-traditional pumpkins.

I feel that you can make pumpkins look however you want, whatever fits into your decor. Orange doesn't work for everyone! If your house is pastels you might want to just go with the white pumpkins. But you can also spray paint them any color you want. Pink, grey, purple, glitter them, rhinestone them - anything goes as far as I'm concerned! I painted a few red this year! Above are some things that I used to makeover some white pumpkins (some were orange originally and spray painted them white).

I made one polka dot pumpkin. It just makes me smile to look at it! I already had small colored dots leftover from when we had a garage sale and I just filled those in with a black sharpie. So very hi tech of me right!~smile. I also bought a package of Martha Stewart dots from Michaels and filled those in with a black sharpie too. You can cut circles out of black construction paper and glue them on a pumpkin if you don't have any of those sticky dots. All the photos will enlarge if you click on them.

This pumpkin topiary is made from one medium and one small pumpkin. The design on the front is from a rub on I found at Hobby Lobby. I made this one last year.

Aren't these cute! I love fleur's so when I found a little package of fleur stickers I knew I had to find a way to use them!

These two are my favorites! They're just stickers from the scrapbook aisle!

Go to the scrapbook section and have a look around. There are so many cute stickers you can use. There's no reason why you can't do a pumpkin with baseball stickers on it or a pink pumpkin with a ballerina on it. Use paint pens and do more than just draw a face - draw designs on it. Use your imagination and do what will work for your home!

You can paint real pumpkins but for the price of a real pumpkin I can get a faux one that will last forever. I bought two last year at the end of the season when they were very inexpensive. That's how I shop. This year for next year!

I know....that red harlequin one isn't black and white! But I just wanted to show it because I made it last year using decoupage! Yes, get out that mod podge! Pumpkins are like a blank canvas to me LOL!

I hope I've given you some ideas! Have fun with your pumpkins! They're easy to work with (except when using a stencil-I find those hard to manipulate). Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Make Your Own Art

Hi everyone! I'm guest posting today about one way to make your own inexpensive art at Kerri's site Save At Home Mommy .

The picture above is a button flower that I got from a blogger friend and framed. Come on over to Kerri's site to see a few more examples.

Don't forget to enter the give away if you haven't already. I'll post the winner tomorrow morning and I'll also have a fun post on different ways to dress up a faux pumpkins!

Comments are off for this post.

Welcome Fall & A Fall Give A Way

It's officially the first day of fall! Of course here in Georgia it's more like monsoon season with heavy rain and lots of flooding, but we'll pretend that's not happening and that it's a beautiful crisp fall day!

Rhondi at Rondi's Rose Colored Glasses is having a Welcome Fall Day and you can post anything having to do with fall. So join the party, there's still plenty of time!

I thought I'd share this very cute Acorn tea set that I got at Cracker Barrel at the beginning of summer. They had a couple of shelves filled with really deeply discounted fall merchandise from the previous season and I had to pick this cutie up! The store they have has so many cute things (I actually like the store more than the food there)!

I made some Apple Pie Cake cake to go along with my coffee. I'm sure most of you already know how to make this but I'll put the recipe at the end of the post for those who don't

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The Give A Way

To really kick off Fall I'd like to have a little Give A Way of "Autumn" by Susan Branch. If you're not familiar with Susan Branch go to her website Heart of the Home and enjoy yourself! She has the cutest books filled with decorating ideas and great recipes!

I really appreciate everyone who stops by whether or not you leave a comment. But to be entered you need to leave a comment. You don't have to have a blog but I do need to have a way to contact you. Anyone from anywhere can enter.

If you subscribe by Bloglines, Google Reader, etc or are a follower then leave two comments and you'll get an extra chance. This book would make a lovely gift (in case you already own it)!

*I'll post the winner on Friday morning.

Apple Pie Cake

1 can of apple pie filling

1 can of crushed pineapple drained or 2 cans of apple total

1 box of yellow cake mix

1 stick of butter melted

Preheat oven to 350

Dump the apple pie filling and pineapple into a 9x13 pan and mix (or use two cans of apple pie filling instead but the pineapple gives it a bit of a tart kick). Pour 1 box of Yellow Cake Mix on top and spread evenly. Pour 1 stick of melted butter all over the top. Bake for about 45 minutes. Enjoy!

Thriftstore Finds

I have a few thriftstore treasures to share this week. Be sure to go to Rhoda's blog (Southern Hospitality) for her yardsale/thriftstore linky party!

I saw these six plates at Goodwill and I thought they might match a pattern I have in a couple of tea cups.

What do you think? I think they go together quite well! They're not even made by the same company.

The coloration is almost identical and the patterns go together so nicely. That was a very happy find! I'm always happy when I find dishes! You can click to enlarge the picture to see the pattern better.

I was also happy to find this Victoria Ware pitcher! I collect blue transferware so this will fit in nicely with that collection.

The markings on dishes can be very deceiving! You would think this was English transferware, but it's really a Chinese knockoff, but still a pretty piece and a good price!

I've mentioned before that I'm covering one of the walls in my foyer with thriftstore mirrors and I found another one for $4. This one had a cheap silver frame but I like the cheaper mirrors because they're usually lighter and I don't have to worry too much about how I hang them.

So I spray painted this one a glossy black and hung it with the others.

The hard part about doing it this way instead of just going out and buying a bunch of mirrors all at once, is the obvious gaps that happen! But it's much more fun to find each one separately!

I forgot to show these ceramic flower thingies the last time. I guess they're tiebacks? Anyway, I don't need any tiebacks like this at the moment but I thought they would be pretty displayed in something.

So I put them in a creamer in my black cabinet.

I think they look pretty there!

That's it for me. I didn't find alot, but I really love all the things I did find! Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great week everyone!