Swag Project....Complete.

Here are some pictures for you:

Sconces Before

After

Not too bad, uh? I would love to get rid of the very boring white walls but I live in an apartment and don't care too much to have to paint it white again before we move if we were to paint our walls.

I have a mantle! Finally!

Our new rental is amazing. It's an older home, but it's had many updates and I just love the place. So much potential.
The landlord has given us free reign as long as my changes are tasteful and don't involve purple paint.
I would never!
Heh.

One of the most thrilling parts of the new rental is the Mantle!! I finally have a mantle. That was the very first part I decorated. A mantle cannot be nekkid. It's just wrong.
As with everything I do , I do it cheap.
Here's the big picture:The screen is old and tarnished, I imagine its brass, which I hate. I may spray it black.
I like the exposed brick, should it be painted?
I am in love with black and white schemes right now. I'm also deeply infatuated with apothecary jars.
Everything on my mantle came from thrift stores,outlets, or heavily clearanced.
3 glossy black candlesticks bought on 3 separate visits to the salvation army thrift store. Yep, those are glade candles on there. Sand dollar on clearance somewhere. Apothecary jar from a recent garage sale for 50 cents! The jar is filled with pearl floral beads.Here is the right side of my black and white mantle. 2$ black finial from Hobby Lobby. 3 apothecary jars from Bells outlet. Ahhh clearance at an outlet, I love it.
French bulldog made in japan. Ive had him for almost 10years now and I love him. He came from a garage sale.
Finally my wall art.

It seems like people struggle with art for above mantles, and too many go with the traditional boring mirror. I hate mirrors, so instead I ... redid my own wall art.
These are wood panels clearanced at Kirklands Home, for 2$ each. I filled in the recessed parts with a peal white, then slopped metallic black paint over the entire panel.
Amazing results.
Never be afraid to paint. Never. When I buy something, theres a 90% chance I am going to paint it.
Heh.

Now, I don't decorate for every single holiday, however I change it up often. I cannot wait for Halloween, its gonna rock your socks.

Thrifty Finds

Here are a following thrift store finds from the past two weeks.
This platter I bought for $3.99 at Goodwill. It was great for the cookout we had this past weekend.

I spotted these at the Salvation Army a few weeks ago. They were there this past weekend so I bought them for a total of $1.50 for the set. I think I will paint them a glossy black. What do you think?

And for my swag project in bedroom I bought these at another S.A. for $3.99. I am going to spray paint these black for my swag. I was so happy I found these. Brand new in the package.

Not a bad price either!

Fab Swag

So I have decided to switch up my bed room a bit. For the past two years I have had one of those mosquito net canopy's over my bed. It was annoying so I ended up tacking the side of it to the wall behind the bed. A few weeks ago I came up with this idea to buy something I can use to swag the fabric on the wall behind the bed. Here is an idea I found that is close to what I am going to do.



I think this would look great. More pics to come...sans cat.

This isn't a consignment shop lady!

So RedAries and I went thrifting this past Saturday. We hit up a few garage sales and experienced something very interesting, and maybe very common. At one house, there was a woman checking out the clothing for sale. On her back, literally speaking, the seller was watching her go through each piece of clothing. This seller was asking $10 for a piece of clothing. I think it was a skirt or something. The seller also said and I quote " I don't buy cheap clothes". After hearing this I looked at RedAries and mouthed "let's go!". I would also like to add that she had no price stickers on anything. Scary huh?

Has anyone ever run into something similar?

Thrifty Decor Chicks Goodwill Party

There's a Goodwill linky party over at one of my fave reads, Thrifty Decor Chick!

Great deals are NEVER wrong, no matter where they came from! Here's my contribution to the party, my "deskshelf!"
I searched high and low for a book shelf for my many books, with no luck. I personally am not willing to pay 300$ for a bookshelf, even if I have the money or not. (typically not)

I found two pieces of an entertainment center for 5$ at a yard sale, and then resold one piece in my driveway for 5$!

Here is the before piece I kept:

It has a great little desk perfect for my laptop, easily hiding it away when I need too.

I bought matte black paint, matte poly and new hardware, less than 20$ total.

After:The shelf has a small hole, which I keep covered with books, easy solution for an almost free desk with tons of storage space!!

Note: thanks for checking out my brand new bloggity blog, I hope you come back for more decor goodness! Please leave me a comment, Im lookin to fill out my link section today!