How to create a backyard oasis on a budget

To have a flower garden, you can collect seeds from other flowers or buy them. Seeds are cheaper then actually buying an already blooming flower.

• Herbs are relatively cheap, you can select herbs that you use in your meals such as basil and parsley.
• If like me you would like a stone path which is really in right now... Use mother nature! Walk around the city and grab flat stones or even rocks that are not in other people's garden.
• Make lanterns out of glass jars found at the dollar store, simply place a candle in it.

How to create a great art piece without artistic abilities

The best way to add color on walls is by adding art work. However paintings tend to be expensive and some of us are not great at painting.

The solution: create an art piece that is affordable without paint or brushes!

For this project you will need:

• A canvas of the size of your choice (you may also have a few small canvases)
  Decorative paper of your choice (you can use wall paper, gift wrapping paper, scrapbooking paper etc)
• A stapling gun or some resistant glue
  
  How to do it:
• Put the wrapping paper on the floor with the image facing the floor
• Put you canvas on top of the paper
• Cut the paper by making sure that you have enough to cover all the sides
  Staple or glue paper onto the canvas

As a result you will get a nice art piece you can brag about!

DIY (Do It Yourself)


This week: How to create jewelry storage
By Sandra Best

If you are like me, right now you either have a jewelry box, or maybe a jewelry bag where you tuck away your precious jewels. Howerver, I have noticed that the box does not accomodate many jewelry, and my necklaces tend to get tangled together so, I have come up with a great idea to tuck jewelry away neatly.

For this project you will need:

• A Cork board


• Cork board pins (1 for each item)

Directions:



Once you have your material simply display your pins on the cork board and hang your jewelry on it.

• If you have earings with a loop, just hook it on the pin


• If you have stick earings gently press the stick onto the cork board.


• Necklases and rings can simply be hanged on the pins.

This will allow you to see all of your jewelry at once, it can be used as an art piece in the bedroom, and it will definately limit the tangling situation!


I bought the cork board and the pins at the dollar store for a grand total for 2,15$!


Try it!!!

How I decorated my place on a modest budget

I have a bit of a fancy taste. Ever cince I moved into my very first appartment when I was 21, I have been fascinated with decoration, home improvement activities and all that stuff. However, my budget does not always sufise for my expensive taste! Instead of just putting off re-decorating, I decided to find ways to stretch my money and I would love to share them with the whole world!

Dream

I Believe the first step tp creating the home we love is to imagine it first. At first, I did not know my style for example, I was not sure what colors I liked or what was important to me. I know many people find themselves in a state of chock because they have to make decisions and they don't know what to choose. To get an idea of the styles that I like, I grabbed a few decorating magazines and cut out any pictures that appealed to me. I cut clips of sofas I liked, dinning tables, rugs, even layouts that I love....I did this for every single room I wanted to decorate.

It was clear to me after doing this excercise that I love earth tones like browns and greens, and blues, and grays. I also like what decorating savvy call cold colors (opposite of warm colors like red). I value comfortable sitting, lots of cushions, bookshelving and lots of personal touches.

Cost

After I knew what I wanted to do, I set a realistic budget for each room. To help me compare prices, I looked at the retail prices for all the furniture or art work I wanted to buy and then I set a budget for what I wanted to spend. Finding out retail prices helped me to know the value of certain items and possibly not get ripped off if I chose to buy second hand (which I did).

Shop


Then I went shopping... This is the part that took a lot of patience, curiosity and some bargaining.
For my shopping I would go to second had stores like Renaissance, Salvation Armee, and Vallue Village almost on a weekly basis since they continually receive new things. Of all the stores I found the best pieces at Renaissance. They have a lot of decorating accessories and art work and even paint or wood stain bottles.

I also went to a few garage sale but found that most of the time people sold things that they should just throw away!

When I had no time to go shop, I started doing some internet shopping. Some sites like ebay.com, craigslist.org and kijiji.ca are great for all kinds of postings. I personally found a lot of my furniture on Craig's list. For example both my sofa and dinning room came for the same person. She had bought her furniture 6 months ago at Breault et Martineau and she had to rellocate in another country because of work so she was wanting to sell her furniture quickly.
For the dinning room that she had bought for more then $1000, I ended up paying $300 and for the suede sofa that she had bought for $300 I bought it for 120$ and it came with an 8th year warranthy against stains!

Save and splurge

With the savings that I made I was able to spend a bit more on items that I didn't feel comfortable buying old like a new mattress or a rug. Or for items that I just could not find!

DIY
For some things I had to be resourceful and do it myself to save even more. For example I started painting because I found that art work was very expensive and used art work was often tacky! Once I started painting I found that I had a natural talent. If you really suck at painting, they also sell paint by numbers paint which is an image already made and you would just need to colour with numbers codes (example 1-red, 2-blue). Also, you might have a friend who is better at it, pay her a small fee to make you something nice. The other thing I did myself is to sow my cushions and curtains. I bought fabric that was on special and I was ablt to save lots of money and have cushions I am the only one to have!


CK out some of the rooms of my place

The savings

In the living room I got the sofa for 120$ and the chaise near the fire place aswell as the mini Otoman for 24$

The shelving on top of the sofa I got for free from a person who no longer needed it.
The art work on top of the shelving I painted myself or I put some of my pictures

The art work on top of the fire place I found at a garage sale for 10$

The two basjets near the blue ottoman I found at Ikea for 5$ each!

The dinning room and six chair was bought second hand for 300$

The room divider in the dinning room I found in the garbage and just cleaned it up a bit!

Splurge

The carpet I bought brand new at home depot for 150$
I also got that round coffee table at Zellers for 119$
I bought paint for the walls to put everything together