decorating – Plain and Not So Plain

inexpensive fall table centerpiece

amy / 10/16/2013

How to make an inexpensive fall table centerpiece decoration

When we were first married and making a home, I had the cutest little decorations all set out around our home for each season. After many moves, many children, many lost and broken decorations, I don’t even have any of my original seasonal decorations. Plus with having a large family who has time to think about decorations?

Well my 8 year old daughter does. Jadyn, really enjoys making things “beautified” in our home. She and I put together this cute table decoration, that has so far stayed put in our home. Well it probably has stayed put because we have placed our benches directly underneath our table because for the time being we have a curious 1 year old who loves to climb, the table seems to be the place you are most likely to find him. To avoid any serious injuries, we thought it best to place the benches far away from his climbing reach. Plus it has helped my centerpiece to stay set up.

For our table top decoration….we placed a strand of Christmas lights down the middle of our table. We moved out the table leaf and brought the cord up through the opening so that it was centered on our table verses dangling over the edge.

We then placed pinecones all around the lights.

We found packages of leaves at the Dollar store and sprinkled those throughout the area.

We bought a sack of mini pumpkins at the grocery store and placed those in the centerpiece

Our neighbor gave us some pretty glass mugs—remember we don’t have glass around here it breaks too easily–but I had to find a use for them. We placed some flowers from the Dollar Store into the mugs. At the bottom of the mugs we put pinecones to help push up the flowers and make it look neat. The cups are beveled glass so you can’t really see inside them.

The lantern is a household decoration.

Here is how it looks at night time.

Costs:

christmas lights—already had FREE
pinecones—found in yard FREE
glass mugs–from neighbor FREE
2 package of leaves from dollar store $2
5 bunches of fall flowers from dollar store $5
sack full of mini pumpkins from Walmart $3
TOTAL COST FOR DECORATION $10

diy wood pallet bed

amy / 09/16/2013

I have been busily organizing and decorating our home these last few months. I feel like I got all the way through all the rooms and then I came to our room. It was the last but not least room. Our room has taken a back seat over the years. You know how it is when you have children, you want to spend all of your money on them not yourselves.

We had a king sized bed, but over the years,having so many little ones, we decided to just put the mattress on the floor, to avoid babies from rolling off and getting injured. We have been looking into getting a new bed and frame, as ours is older, but it seems you will easily spend $1000 for a king sized bed. We didn’t want to do that.

For the winter, we heat our home with wood. To cut down on the cost of starter wood we use pallets that we get for free from local businesses. One day while doing a search of “what you can make with pallet wood,” I came across wood pallet furniture. Then I found it……..

a diy wood pallet bed. I thought it was very original looking. They were making these and selling them in high-end boutiques in big cities. I had to first show my husband, in case he thought my idea was kooky. Instead, he thought it was pretty cool. So we started collecting our pallets. A few trips into town and we had all 10.

We took and painted half the pallets(you don’t see the other half because the mattress will be covering it) black to match our color scheme better. You can always leave them regular wood color, maybe add a coat of clear coat. We got a quart of black paint for around $8

Having the pallets stick out on each side is convenient for setting our drinks and other items like cell phones, books, etc.

Our home is quite simple, we don’t have alot of “things” to crowd our floors with. Our room has the bed and a hopechest that has a tv setting on it.

Our walls were bare until I decided to make another picture collage, this time with Dollar Store frames and velcro. I had our business cut the sign “All because two people fell in love….” It has been shown to be a top seller for us. I then have randomly placed different sized photos of us and the children. I did it more in a random pattern, because I like to be able to add more photos as I take them.

This is an inexpensive way to make a bed frame that is creative and different than anything you have ever seen.