Long time no blog!

So, my parents invited me along for their anniversary celebration...weird. I know.  But I went anyway, my mother insisted! We decided to meet up at the I.D.E.A. Store in Champaign.  I won't explain too much, you will just have to go check out their site and their store, but basically, this store is sort of like a thrift store, it collects one man's junk and then puts it for sale for another man to find treasure.  They have EVERYTHING!  From laundry detergent lids to fabric to test tubes! If you can't find it here...you won't find it....Well, maybe not but, whatever!  So...I was on a hunt to find something! See below

I saw this REALLY cute tutorial on Design Sponge to make your own Moroccan Lanterns.  The only problem was, you need glass paint. You can't find this stuff at Wal-Mart...and when you live in the middle of nowhere, that is about your only option, and even that is a drive!  So I went to my trusty friend-- AMAZON! Man I love you Amazon!  :)  But alas, you let me down!  All I could seem to find as far as glass paint was this little guy.  Now, on the blog, she recommends two types of paints. This being one of them....But I was NOT about to spend $70 on one project!  This brings me back to the  I.D.E.A. Store!  I started looking in their paints and low and behold....My hand lands on some Delta Glass Paint and where there is one, there is more!   I was SO excited! But before I started digging further, I figured I would check the price.  My jaw hit the floor.  A whopping 2/25cents!  WHAT??!?!?!?!?  I REALLY started digging!  I bought every one they had! I ended up with 16 paints, pretty much brand new! SWEET!  After this I had to go to Michael's for a few things and I decided to look at their prices on this stuff there....again, my jaw hit the floor. $3.50 a jar.  I just saved $52!  Thank you  I.D.E.A. Store!  I seriously love this place and I am SO pumped about their new, longer hours!  Oh yea, and while we were checking out, we got to talking about our blog and the shop we are hoping to get opened here in the next few months!  Thanks for the great conversation ladies!  Please be sure to follow us on Blogger!  :)

So, because I haven't blogged in soooooo long, I feel the need to update you on some of my more recent projects.  For the first few weeks of my summer vacation I was staining my deck...what a chore!  I will post a whole blog on that later....LOL.

I have been stopping by some garage sales randomly.  A few of the things I have found:

 I found this really gross mirror at a yard sale for 50cents.  I saw it's true potential!  Don't mind Riley in the mirror, she likes to help me with my projects!!!

 She's guarding the garage door for me!  She took off running after another dog shortly after this.  I'm sure I looked like a huge lunatic running down the street bare foot with a can of spray paint in my hand! haha.  It's whatever.  I contemplated leaving this mirror as it was, so I cleaned it up...it was filthy...and decided it still needed some magic spray (spray paint...it can make ANYTHING look good!) Mainly because it smelled and that needed to be taken care of before it was allowed to come in my house!  So I chose a pretty gold!  Please see below!

The "After". Total cost for this.....about $4. SCORE!

Another angle, without the blaring lights.  See those cute little lanterns in the corner?  Those were a Habitat for Humanity ReStore find, here in Sullivan. $5 each!  And see the cute vase on the shelf?!  Yea...that's a wine bottle I spray painted and then put some sparkly things in....total cost for that.... MAYBE $5.

So....these two shelves!  I found one at the thrift store and one at the ReStore.  Each were like $1.  They were originally wood....an UGLY wood that I despised...so I got out the magic spray and made them pretty! :)  I'm not sure that I love the frames on them...I will have to play around with that stuff.  (The frames were 25cents each...also coated in magic spray.)

Man! Cute!  :) And I LOVE the Scentsy! 

Another thrift store find for a quarter....it's a picnic silverware set basket!  But I HATE that wicker!  Lol....sorry to those of you that like it, it's just not my thing, or my style.

But I sure made it mine!  :) it's now a nice shiny silver!  

This is another garage sale find, I bought the little cart for 75 cents and already had the cute little buckets from when I grew my garden seeds.  I replanted them with wildflowers!  they are already starting to grow!!!!

Ok, so I ordered this collage a few months back.  The pictures are all from our trip to Mexico on our first Christmas together.  It says "Real love stories never have endings." I originally bought a frame for it at IKEA but dropped it while loading it in my car and didn't realize it had broken until I got home...2.5 hours away.  So I sent it home with my sister who lives right by there and I have yet to see another one!  So I saw this frame on clearance at Michael's for $17.99.  It's a $70 frame! I bought it thinking it was the right size....turns out it was a little too big.  But I REALLY wanted to frame it!  So I remembered I had some matting from another IKEA frame.  Well, that was too big!  So, I cut it down to fit in the mirror and voila!  Total cost for NICE frame and Matting....$20? 

My room and projects are starting to come together!  If only I could just chill on picking up new ones...I really must stop reading other peoples' blogs!  That is my down fall.  Well, I'm pooped. Time to hit the hay.  I just thought I would update my posts in case some of our new friends dropped by to check us out!