Chic on a Shoestring Decorating: May 2010


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Flaunt it Friday #9!

Welcome to Flaunt it Friday #9!  Sorry that it's up a little later than usual.... I didn't forget about my bloggy friends, no way!  Can't wait to see what you've got this week!





Organizing a Junk Cabinet

I'm so excited that I have enough cabinets in my kitchen to have a "junk" cabinet.  In my old kitchen I only had enough cabinets to cover kitchen essentials plus one skinny... I'm talking 3.5 inches wide made to hold only about 3 wooden spoons tiny drawer that we used as a junk drawer.  Not only do I have a junk cabinet in this kitchen but I also have a junk drawer... because who doesn't need more space for their junk?

My junk includes, cameras and their various cords, candles, batteries, receipts, coupons and other random items.  So this is great, right?  A whole cabinet for all of these odds and ends that should probably be in my office (but I am way too lazy to walk to the office everytime I want to take a picture or get a coupon... I have kids and I'm cheap, I take lots of pictures and always am digging around for a coupon!) So, it is most excellent that I can stash them in my kitchen where they are oh so handy! 

It is great... until your cabinet ends up looking like this....



Yikes... now it looks like junk. and who can find anything in there?  Me... but not my sweet hubs.  He rifles through it looking for something and leaves it looking even worse. 

This used to be a common occurence with our medicine cabinet until I came up with this complicated organizational system of baskets with labels... (I'm being sarcastic here in case you couldn't tell)  You can see what I did here

It has worked extremely well in our medicine cabinet so I thought why not try it in our junk cabinet too? 

I went to the dollar store because I'm a big spender and looked at their fine array of storage type baskets.  They really have a large selection but most of the sizes all seem to be wider at the top, skinny at the bottom.  I didn't want that shape because it doesn't hold very much and wastes precious inches in my junk cabinet between the baskets.

I ended up getting these baskets because they don't waste as much space when they are next to each other,  they are pretty deep and they leave about 2 inches behind them to stash a few things.  I couldn't find any baskets that were the same depth as my cabinets but that's what you get for a dollar. . 



I used leftover ribbon and tags that I had from my medicine cabinet to fancy these up a bit.




After all the junk was sorted into the appropriately labeled baskets I decided to get rid of the cookbooks because they took up too much space and they make these things called book shelves.  In my organizing frenzy I even cleaned the bulletin board. 


Here it is with the new "complicated organization system". 




Now, if we can just keep it this way.  The project ended up costing me $9 bucks.  Definitely a small price to pay for some much needed organization. 




Join us Saturdays at tatertotsandjello.com for the weekend wrap up party!
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Flaunt it Friday #8

TGIF!  Thanks everyone for helping my party grow!  I am loving checking out all your cool ideas!!  I am sorry if you linked my party and I didn't leave a comment on your post.  I look at all of them and always amazed by the cool stuff you guys come up with.  Can't wait to see what's happenin' this week!  As alway, thanks for linking my fun partay! ;)



Accent Pillow Obsession

Recently I've become slightly obsessed with textured decorative pillows. I'm the kind of decorater that likes a sofa full of pillows, then I just tell people to throw them on the floor when they come over and want to sit on my couch (is that tacky??) :) Anyway, I don't care, I can't help myself, I like the look of a couch with lots of decorative pillows.

Decorative throw pillows are one of the easiest ways to change up a room. They are an easy way to bring in a new bold color and give your room some pizazz (yes, I just said pizazz). And then, when burnt orange (or whatever bold color that I used to hate) goes out of style, out with the pillows. Or they can be recovered, easy peasy. What an inexpensive way to change up a room... much cheaper than buying a new couch right?

Here is some eye candy for those of you who are fellow pillow lovers.

All of these pillows below are used in my home. 

Not in the same room silly! 



Soon I will share the rooms that these pillows accent as I continue to decorate our new home. :)

Flaunt it Friday #7


Hi friends!  Tomorrow I will be doing a real post, Promise!

So here's Flaunt it Friday #7.... show me what you got!! :)








I'm baaaaack!

Geesh it's been too long!  So that you know this big "vacation" from blogging isn't going to be a regular thing for me.  I'll give you a quick run down of what's been happening and why I haven't been blogging.

We went on vacation in April which was wonderful, we came home a day late because we had a little boy with a bad stomach flu.  After we were home for a few days and our little guy was starting to feel better little brother starting throwing up. :(  A few days later when he started feeling better guess who got it?  Mommy!  Washing your hands until they just about bleed sometimes just doesn't cut it when your in a house and cleaning up so many yucky little germs.  When everyone was finally well my 42 year old uncle who has been battling cancer started to really struggle, it became obvious he didn't have much time.  (That's not a typo, I said 42, my dad's baby brother).  He passed away last week and although I knew it was coming, it was incredibly shocking and horribly sad.  I still can't believe he's gone.  With all of these things going on I just didn't have the creative blogging juices flowing. 

Now that things have settled down I'm ready to get back into it.  I will be posting regulary again sharing my home projects, sweet deals, decorating tips and wonderful wit (wink wink) :) 

See you back real soon!  Thanks for sticking with me! :)

Fluant It Friday #6!

Hi bloggy friends.  Sorry I have been MIA.  I will be back next week to a more regular schedule... please stick with me and join my party!



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