My *new* TV Stand from the Curb

I just love finding treasures on the curb! I have no shame :) I noticed this beauty on my way home from school last week, and after checking out, knew I needed to make it our new TV stand. Thankfully, my brother-in-law lives close by, has a big enough vehicle to pick this up, and was willing to do so!

This is how I found it on the curb. It is actually a computer desk with an entire top section, but the bottom makes for a nice TV stand. The lady who put this out was actually really nice and came out while we were loading it up and even offered to drive the top section over!

See how big the TV stand is, you can't even see our old TV stand behind it.

Also, you may have noticed the ugly gold hardware and the many scratches on the bottom. I already had the Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint and I picked up a stain pen at Menards. The color that best matched was "Red Oak" even though I would have thought it was more of a Cherry color.

And a little bit of magic later...

Not too bad for $5 right? Amazing what some Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint and a Red Oak Touch up pen will do!

(Can you spot Oreo's tail in the above picture?!)

Does anyone else enjoy updating their home with trash? :)

 

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Our Favorite Things Party

Favorite things parties aren't anything new to the blog / pinterest world, but my friends and I just had our very first one!

(Get the free printable here - Thanks Positively Splendid!)

If you've never heard of a favorite things party before, here's how it works: everyone brings a certain amount of their favorite thing within a certain price range. We all brought 4 of our favorite thing and it had to be $5, give or take a buck. It worked out great, since 5 of us were able to make it, so we all got one of everything! Otherwise, you draw names for who gets each favorite thing. Here's us all with our favorite things:

 

My favorite thing was dry shampoo from Batiste. I have recently discovered it and it is amazing! On this day, I hadn't washed my hair in 4 days, but thanks to my dry shampoo I could even wear it down and it didn't look disgusting!

Rita also brought her favorite hair product, Not Your Mother's Beach Babe Texturizing Sea Salt Spray which she tried out on me...and it was a fail! But since then, I've used it on my hair wet and it made some pretty good waves.

Amy brought some sea salt truffles from Whole Foods. Ha, just realized those last two had a sea salt theme going on there!

Other favorite things were water bottles from Melissa and Liz, yes two girls brought these, but it's awesome because I love these and had lost my other one! Funny thing, these girls are soon-to-be sister-in-laws :)

Really, these girls are my "favorites" and I had such a fun night with them all!

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Garage Sale Season has begun: What I got for $20

I've got $20 in my pocket....hehe, well I spent $20 anyway...

I love garage sales. It's so fun to find new items that I might not usually buy (or would actually buy) and get them for cheap! :) It's how I spoil myself. Anyway, the last couple of weeks, I've finally been seeing signs pop up around our neighborhood. Here's what I've picked up in the last couple of weeks.

Last week when my husband and I dropped Oreo off at the groomers, we stopped at a couple of sales (very grudgingly on my husband's part), and got these amazing huge nutcrackers! Apparently, my husband really likes nutcrackers so he was very excited (maybe this will help in getting him to stop at more in the future?!). They are maybe 4 feet tall. She has $5 on each, but we got them both for $5!

Then this week, my mom, dad, and little sister Kayla came down for the weekend and my mom, Kayla, Oreo and I went to a subdivision sale nearby. My mom is a garage sale pro. When I was growing up, just about all of our clothes, toys, and even many Christmas presents came from garage sales! And by the way, everyone loved Oreo!!

 

This punch bowl and cup set was $4. The box looks quite old, but the bowl and cups still look really nice! And for just $4, I figure it's good to have one of these sets around.

 

And then I guess it was a good day to shop for drinking entertainment sets :) because I found this margarita set for $5. I almost left it, but then decided it was just too fun to pass up, so I turned around and bought it! I figure for five bucks, I wouldn't have even been able to buy the glasses at the dollar store. So, anyone want to come over for a margarita party?

Then, I was super excited to find these Crocs! Crocs have become my favorite go-to work shoes. I never thought I'd say that I like Crocs, but they actually have really cute flats. I already have two pairs, one is a size 8 and the other a size 9. It kinda stinks because they don't make half sizes so the 9s are big and the 8s are a little small. Even so, they are more comfortable then my other shoes! So these shoes were a size 9 and were at a garage sale that told me to fill a bag for a $1 (they were about to close for the day). Unfortunately, they didn't have a lot of stuff that I wanted and I didn't want to start a tea pot collection, but my mom got a couple of things that she added to my bag!

So for a total of $20 spent, I really happy with what I found...and the season is only beginning! Anyone else started garage sale-ing (how would you spell that?) yet? If so, have you found anything good?

P.S. Oreo is feeling SO much better. She hasn't even coughed in two days :) Love her.

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My New Fur-baby ~ Oreo

Say hello to the newest member of our family! Yes, I am now a very proud fur-mom. Her {new} name is Oreo and we adopted her from a local animal shelter on Friday. We make such a cute family, right?! :)

I went with my sister-in-law as soon as school was over because I saw three dogs on the website that I thought were worth checking out. Well, we got there, and "Pepper" was playing behind the front counter. We asked to see her and immediately fell in love! She was so friendly, jumping all over us, laying on her back so we could rub her belly, and even giving us kisses. She was calm but still had energy. Her previous owners gave her up because they couldn't afford her any longer. How sad! Anyway, the shelter closed at 4:00, but reopened at 7:00 that night, and they said my husband had to meet her before they would let me adopt her.

Well, dear hubby had Iron Man 3 tickets for 7:45, and was concerned he wouldn't be able to make the movie on time. Seriously?! Movie or amazing future dog?! Luckily, I was able to convince him. So, we got to the shelter at 6:50 with two cars so he'd be able to meet "Pepper" and make it to his movie :)

Of course, Kevin also fell in love with our dog and after signing a few papers, she was ready to go home with me!!! She was kind of a shaggy mess but still adorable.

Saturday morning, we brought her to the groomers, who she ran right up to, seriously, this dog loves everyone, and left her there for a couple of hours so they could work their magic. What a difference! You can now see her eyes!

I called my little sister Kayla saying we were stumped on the name. I couldn't decide if we should keep the name Pepper or change it to something else. Kayla decided Pepper doesn't sound like a girl name so we needed to change it. Okay! Kayla came up with some great dog names, including Coco, Hershey, Oreo (do you sense a theme here?), and Zailey. I loved all of those, but we decided to go with Oreo. She has a little white belly so the name is perfect.

We took her to Pet Smart and got her a fancy name/dog tag. (And she's mirco-chipped too.) But isn't her tag cute?! I wanted to get the adorable Martha Stewart collars and leashes, but at about $15-$20 each I just couldn't do it. Instead I got a fun black and white houndstooth (with a red back - they didn't have pink!) collar and leash set at Five Below...for just $5.

Well, this post is getting pretty long but I'm sure you'll be hearing more about her soon! Poor girl has kennel cough and has been coughing/hacking/throwing up since Saturday. Poor girl. We've been trying a lot of different thing to hopefully help her feel better and I'll have to let you know how those go. Apparently, this can last for a few weeks. :( Here she is at night with the humidifier and her bed and the towels because I really would rather her not puke on the floor (and she knows better than to puke in her bed!)

 

Poor girl was coughing up blood when I got home from school today. Broke my heart. but called the vet and they didn't seem to think it was a big deal. Also, it got everywhere and I spent a good 45 minutes cleaning it all up... not fun for either of us. Hope she gets better soon! I love her to pieces!!!

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Monogrammed Etched Glasses DIY

I know, I know, another bridal shower gift post, but you'll love these monogrammed etched glasses! I guess it's just that time of life for me :) But this was actually a gift that I helped my friend Melissa make for her sister.

 Melissa is quite similar to me in that she also loves to give unique gifts. She is also a special education teacher too! However, she is getting married and moving to Wisconsin which isn't really cool...but I'm so happy for her that I'm okay with it. Anyway, so Melissa got her sister a set of glasses from her registry, and decided to turn them into monogrammed etched glasses. Out comes the Armour Etch and vinyl!

You can see here that we used the outline of the circles cut with a Cricut machine, and then cut out letter Vs for the middle. This way the V would show up inside of a circle.

 Quick pause here to say that Melissa's parents actually have the same glasses, and I was drinking water out of one of their glasses while working on etching these ones. Well, I picked up a glass to put the circle outline on...and spilled the water all over myself. I mean, seriously, like all over. It was actually quite funny. Anyway, back to the tutorial!

We dabbed Armour Etch onto each glass and let it sit/brushed it around for about 5 minutes and then brushed the etching cream off (putting leftover cream back into the bottle),  rinsed off the glasses in the sink, removed the vinyl, and ta-da!

 

So beautiful. A set of 12 custom monogrammed etched glasses (and for just $10 - we had all of the supplies on hand so the only cost was the glasses themselves)! I bet she loved them, I know I would!

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