Dollar Store Sunglasses Case!

I don't buy expensive sunglasses. For me, it's just like that old Jeff Foxworthy joke. I could buy a pair of expensive sunglasses and 5 minutes after I walked out of the store I would lose them or destroy them. But a pair from the Dollar Tree I couldn't lose if I was trying. I believe he says that you could be on an ocean cruise and lean over the railing and your cheapo's fall off your face and a random scuba diver would pop up with them in his hand asking "hey did somebody lose a pair of sunglasses??" Yes. (I think he mentions this joke in his "Totally Commited" video but I cannot be sure, and I had no luck finding this specific joke on YouTube, but trust me, it's the truth and it's so funny!)

But the stinky part about buying inexpensive sunglasses is the fact that you don't get a case with them. And I throw mine in my purse and Heaven only knows what might happen inside that Mary Poppins bag! I carry a large Vera Bradley tote bag (I couldn't tell you the style.... but I do know that it is part of the "tote" bag genre) and it has 4 huge pockets on the outside, I've gotten into the habit of stuffing my shades into one of those pockets to try and protect them from getting scratched up. But still... they're not really protected. I could very easily squish them since they're in  a pocket on the outside of my bag.


These are my shades. I freaking love them!

I got them about a couple of years ago at Kohl's for like $12 and I have worn the heck out of them. I love aviator sunglasses so much! I feel so cool when I wear them. Like I look like I just stepped out of Top Gun and I'm doing the slow motion walk with my hair in the breeze and the fighter planes behind me...... there, that's my confession for the day. So embarrassing/

As you can tell, they are gold with rose colored lenses (...these roooose coooolored glasses... teeheehee) and they have a cute little circular design on the arms, or earpieces. I have several more pairs of shades, but these are my favorite and the ones I'm always reaching for.

A few weeks ago I was in the Dollar General store and I was wandering, killing time, checking the merchandise, checking if they had anything new, and I slipped into the clothing/accessories isle. Have y'all noticed that recently the dollar stores (Dollar General and Family Dollar, specifically) are starting to get some super amazing clothes?? Back in July I bought a boat load of clothes at the Family Dollar for just $30. Anyway, I was in "DG" as my Mom and I call it, and looking at the clothes and turned around to where they have like wallets and purses and things like that, and tucked way back into the far side was an entire box brightly labeled SUNGLASSES CASES!

For $4! Yes.... $4!

I was so excited. They had a ton of fun colors, and I picked up a pink leopard print one and was about to walk away with it when I saw my color peeking out at me from way in the back.

This is a super good quality case! I was afraid it wouldn't fit my aviators, my main pair, so I dug them out of my purse and checked it, right there in the middle of the store, and they fit, with room to spare!

It is such a pretty color blue. One side is blue and white stripes and the other is blue with white polka dots and it has a really adorable little set of baby pink "purse style" straps.

I am really loving this case. It slides into my outside purse pocket super easy, and if I want to stick it inside my zipper pocket in my purse, I can! And for $4 you cannot go wrong with this! It's giving me the protection I need for my favorite sunglasses.

I thought I'd share that with you all, and hopefully you, like me, will be able to save yourself a lot of broken/lost sunglasses grief!


Dollar General, you've done it again! Thanks for being on top of things!

I do not receive any compensation from DOLLAR GENERAL for discussing their products. 

App Love! -- Retail Me Not --

Being frugal is a way of life. It isn't a hobby. Getting the occasional deal on something, or using a coupon every once in a while doesn't make you frugal. The constant search for "the most for the least" is what makes you frugal. Not going into a store unless there is a sale or you have a coupon makes you frugal, and even then, using your calculator to keep on budget. Shopping at the Save-A-Lot is being frugal. Shopping what you've already got when you want to redecorate a space and using a can of spray paint to breathe new life into it is what makes you frugal. I'm proud to say that Aaron and I work hard to be sure we get the best price on everything.

I don't set foot into a store unless I know there is either a sale or I have a coupon for it. I'm not a 'crazy coupon lady' however, I see the potential in such a lifestyle and I wouldn't put it past myself to one day cross that line. However, if I am looking to go to a specific store for something, a lot of the time I will wait until there is a sale, or a coupon becomes available.

Michael's is one store that I don't go to unless I have a coupon. That is a store that I very easily get in trouble in. But the good thing is, Michael's often, very often, has coupons available online. You can pull it up on your phone, show it to the girl (or guy, but at our store it's always a girl) at the register, and she scans it right from your phone screen. I check for Michael's coupons every weekend, cause that's usually when this country girl heads to the big city. ;)

I take my Kohls coupons pretty seriously too. Date nights are also much nicer when I have a coupon at a restaurant! Pizza night? Coupon!


But, Missy has no printer. Well... I have one, but it hates me and decided it didn't want to work anymore. So I have to have coupons on my phone, or not at all.

My Mom actually turned me onto this app a while ago. I had it on my iPhone 4s but I had never opened it, not even once. When I upgraded to my 5s, one of the first apps I downloaded from the Apple App Store was "Retail Me Not." (Free)

Just prepare yourself. You will LOVE this app.

When you set up your account it asks you what stores you like to shop at the most, and it lists a ton for you to choose from. But you can also search for stores/restaurants and add them to your favorite stores. Once you have a list of stores, you can fix it in your settings to where Retail Me Not will alert you when there are any good deals in stores nearby. It will give you a happy little alert noise letting you know that you have coupons for (ex.) 12 stores nearby! It did it to me tonight! I got all excited when I heard the happy little alert!

You can also save coupons. If there is a sale coming up in a few days and you want to be sure you get your coupon, you can tap the little star to the side and save your coupon. Don't worry if you forget about it, Retail Me Not will alert you before it expires!

So what stores are available on Retail Me Not? Ha! You name it! Wal-Mart? Yup. Macy's? Uh-huh. Old Navy? You bet! Kohl's? Why yes! Bath & Body Works, Bed Bath & Beyond, Anthropologie (I've never shopped there, but it's in my favorite stores list because one day I will buy something!), Ebay, AutoZone (for muh Aaron), Etsy...  Even Amazon.com (which makes me soooo happy)! There is an "In-Store" or "Online Sale" option for every store too, which is awesome because sometimes stores offer sales online and not in the store and vice versa! Double the chance to save some cash!!

The last time Aaron and I went to Kohls, I used 3 coupons from Retail Me Not and it brought our total from around $140something to $100even. That's a big deal! It was major success on our part and we both practically skipped out of the store, because our total savings (we did take advantage of everything being on sale, but even with that the total was still at $140) were $158!! YES!!! We celebrated with milkshakes and slushes from Sonic! :)

I check retailmenot.com all the time, because if you log into your account on your computer, on your main page it will list all the deals of the day/week/etc. It helps me determine when to buy the things I want/need. 


So, go download this app and give it a whirl. Your wallet will thank you! 

Let me know in the comments, below, if you get this app and if you love it as much as I do! It's so funny, whenever we go to town, Aaron always asks me if I have any coupons on "that app thingy." And the answer is usually, always "yes!"

I am not being perked in any way by Retail Me Not. I just love this app and am sooo happy I found it! It has helped us so much with our shopping and spending!



P.S. HI JESSICA!!! :) (old college buddy who recently revealed she's a Simple Lifer!)

OFFICE RE-DO!

I'm so excited! If you are personal friends with me on Facebook (and I know some of you are!) you probably saw where all day yesterday I was doing a major re-organize/re-decorate in my little orange chevron office.

It's about 1:30 on Tuesday morning (it's my brother's baby girl's due date... Aunt Missy is patiently- impatiently- waiting!) and I've been at it for about 15 1/2 hours... it was a major clean out in my office closet, I've been putting that off for years, and I moved a piece of furniture and am making a space for a new one, and I'm creating a full on crafting space... as well as ridding myself of the bright orange chevron. I hate the color orange. I love the fruit orange, but hate the color orange. Yuck. I have just never seen anything in orange that I really liked. Of course part of that could be the fact that I am a die-hard University of Kentucky fan. But anyway....

What does Missy do when Missy wants to redecorate but can't afford it? She pulls out the spray paint!

I've been spray painting since about 8pm... I ran out of one color around 9:30 so I had to pull out some left over regular paint that just happened to be the perfect shade for what I was doing.

I've got to go pick up my new crafting table (thanks Mama!) tomorrow and while I'm out I need to stop and pick up some contact paper to cover my table tops, all of them. I have three tops to cover: my desk, I love the desk but I'm apparently a very oily person, so I'm rubbing the finish off the top where my arms rest when I type. The table next to my desk, where I used to have my printer, which doesn't work. So I moved it and set up a bill/to file station. And then, of course, my crafting table. I want the pretty black and white floral contact paper, cause it will go with my color scheme, and it will brighten up my dark furniture. I'm also purchasing a large cork bulletin board to go over my crafting table, it will be a pretty edition to the room and my plan is to use it as my "IDEA" board, I even hand lettered a cutsey little "Idea" sign earlier in my evening. (I did go ahead and washi tape the dimensions off on my wall so that I could get the "feel" of having the board up until I can order it.)

So, does anyone have any guesses as to what my color scheme is?? It probably won't take a genius to figure it out. Aqua and Pink. Along with some black and white of course. And I'm talking, eventually, all shades of pink. It's my favorite color for me and aqua is my favorite color for decor at the present.


I got inspired on Sunday afternoon when the sight of my orange lampshades nearly made me vomit. So after about a second and a half of searching on Pinterest for ideas, I quickly, very quickly, hatched a design. I'm excited to get this project finished, entirely, and show it to you. A LOT of this project has been DIY and I'm only giving myself a $40 budget to completely redo the room, and most of that budget is going to the large cork board. The room still has to house my treadmill, so I have that to take into consideration, but I think my plan for my crafting table and desk, which I am not moving, should actually give me a lot of room to use the treadmill.

It's pretty late and I have a ton of things to get put away, the tool box, a few containers, the paint (Lord, the paint) and I'm dying of thirst and, to be honest, quite smelly. You love me for my honesty, you know you do. I'm sure my poor, poor, sweet, dear husband wishes I would shut off the music, and the lights, bathe, and get in bed. But, you all know me, I'm a clean freak, and until I can walk into this room tomorrow with my craft table in one hand and my contact paper in the other, and not have to stumble over anything (except my things for Goodwill and my things to sell online) I will not rest.

I'm a happy little lady tonight, but I'm beginning to run down, so I'd best get to hopping before I fall asleep sitting here at the desk!

I hope you all are as excited to see this super DIY office as much as I am excited to show it to you!

Our Non-Pantry

My pantry is different from other people's. I envy those of you with a nice built in, matching your cabinets, floor to ceiling style pantries. Or those of you with whole rooms built to the sides of your kitchens that house all your food. Or even with giant closets in your kitchens that act as pantries. I go to other peoples homes and I just stand and stare into their pantries, taking a mental photograph. It's sad. I sometimes refer to it as our "non-pantry."

When Aaron and I first moved into this house it became very evident to me, very quickly, that we needed a pantry. We have a fair amount of cabinet space in our kitchen, but I was having to load all of our non-refrigerator food into one cabinet, and the weight of all the cans etc was starting to weigh the cabinet down and make it sag. I could just see the cabinet falling out of the wall in the middle of the night one night. It was terrifying. I needed a solution and quickly.

So I started searching Pinterest for ideas. Pinterest was a fairly new thing at the time - it's strange calling Pinterest a "new thing" - and it didn't have a whole lot to offer me -- (Of course now it has pages and pages of "no pantry" solutions. Of course.) until I saw this picture from marthastewart.com. I don't know what it was about this precise image, but the idea light bulb lit up over my head.

There was something in that image that made it all come together in my head. So, knowing my budget, I left work that night and headed to the Family Dollar store that was just down the road.



And this is what I came up with. We had this empty space here to the side of our fridge. It had housed our trash can (which I removed for the sake of the photographs. It's usually pushed up against the side of the fridge) and a broom. And when the idea finally came to me, I knew it was the perfect spot for something like this. It's nothing super fancy. It's not very visually appealing, but it's super functional and it works for us! That's the important thing. Now I'm not going to lie and tell you that this is the permanent solution to our problems, I'm looking into maybe upgrading my shelving unit soon. This has worked for us since 2011 with little to no trouble.


What I did was I went into the Family Dollar and purchased the units. I've got a million of these things all over my house tucked into various places. They're inexpensive, easy to assemble and fairly strong for how cheap they are. I ended up deciding to buy one 4 shelf unit ($30) and one 3 shelf unit ($20), and I combined them, omitting one shelf, but using all the hardware included.

All you do it take it out of the box, lay the shelf, insert the spindle and screw (no tools required). Do you call that a spindle?? I don't know what you call it, the stick thang. Screw the stick thangs together then add another shelf. Easy. I had it assembled in probably 10 minutes. I chose not to take the unit any higher than the fridge, 1) because it would look tacky and 2) because it might be too top heavy. Like I said this isn't the most sturdy piece of furniture you could ever purchase.

After about 30 minutes of moving my food stash around I was done and so proud of myself.

This is where we keep our stockpile of food. Our "extra" food, if you want to call it that. We keep our cereals and snacks and chips and things that are open or that we use all the time (like ramen noodles, peanut butter, bread, cereal, chips, pop tarts, cookies etc) in the cabinet, but everything else lives here.  I keep all my flour, sugar, corn meal etc in a cabinet by my stove, as I reach for those all the time.

I also keep a "bag bag" hanging on the wall here and my favorite apron hangs on the door that leads into my disastrous utility room. It's an insane mess right now, let's not even go there.

I keep our weekly meal plan posted on this side of the fridge as well. This is so easy for me because I can stand at the pantry and plan my meals out. ("yoyo means 'you're on your own' for those wondering) I just found this page online - did a Google search - and printed it off. I slid it into a sheet protector and use a dry erase marker on it to write my list. I also keep my grocery list pad of paper hanging here, with a pencil. I got the pad at the dollar store, you can find these things anywhere. As soon as I run out of something, I write it down. Makes it so much easier on grocery day!


So now, let me take you on a quick tour of how I have everything set up. 

On the top shelf I keep my large package of paper towels. I buy whatever is on sale, and this time, it happened to be Bounty Basics! And in the little clear plastic box I keep baking things. Cause I don't bake cakes or cookies much, so the powdered sugar and hot chocolate and cupcake liners etc live there.

On the next shelf down this is where I keep all of our condiments and honestly whatever else will fit. Because this is such a small space to work with I kind of just have to go with whatever fits wherever.  We keep lots of salad dressings on hand as well as BBQ sauce, bacon bits, gordita shells, taco sauce and tea bags!

On the next shelf I keep all our boxes of things, like hamburger helper, stuffing and boxes of like Zatarans Rice (it's hiding in the back). I can arrange things two deep on these shelves, which I really like. We love the Save-A-Lot instant potatoes... I know, I know. It's so lazy but I could live on mashed potatoes so when I want them, I want them now and don't want to chop up potatoes and boil them and mash them and... no. I want my potatoes now. So to avoid this whole shelf being boxes of potato flakes, I keep them in this airtight container. We also have a large bag (SAM's Club) of coffee that we keep here. (We have a keurig, but buying the K-Cups was breaking the bank. We bought the refillable cups and fill them ourselves every morning. Easy, and saves all kinds of cash.)

Here I keep all our spaghetti noodles (Aaron would live on Spaghetti if I'd make it every night) and macaroni. We keep our pasta sauce here, some pasta on the side packets, and I've got all our spice packets and yeast packets organized here, where they would fit. And one lone package of Ramen Noodles. I crunch mine up in the bag before I boil them, and after I crunched this bag up I decided I wanted something else, so I just laid it in the pantry to grab next time. 

 Canned veggies go here, I also have a few empty glass jars back in the back. I like frozen veggies and canned veggies both and I keep them both in the house at all times. Save-A-Lot has a huge selection of canned vegetables!

And finally on this bottom shelf is where the heavy soup cans live. I also keep our Chef Boyardee type things here. (Please excuse the mouse trap in the corner. Old house, recently bush hogged field across the road... mice. Ick.) We aren't big soup eaters, only when we are sick or in the winter, so I don't keep a whole lot of that kind of soup, but I do use cooking soups all the time, so I run through those quickly.



Not a bad job for $50 and 40 minutes of my night, I don't think. Do you? This works for us. I am always on the hunt for a more sturdy shelving unit that is the right width, because we are working with such a cramped space. But I haven't found one for the right price as of yet. I don't have to be in a huge hurry, because, I'll say it again, this works for us. I saw the need, I made it happen!

Do you have a non-pantry pantry like us? Share it with me! I'd love to see it!

Thanks for stopping by again today! I hope you, at least, got a chuckle out of this post, I know it wasn't much, but I thought sharing this - a way to create something where there is nothing on the cheap - would be a nice post to share!

I'm working hard on the kitchen evolution post so hopefully I will be able to get it posted tomorrow, but I won't make any promises.

Home Style Evolution Series: 2nd Bedroom

NOTE: I'd like to supplement the Living Room Evolution post with this one, for now. The living room post is proving to be hard to keep from turning into a book. And the kitchen is the room that took us the longest to transform in the first place, so it will be a doozy too!

This room has always been a bit of an "anything goes" type room. It's the 2nd bedroom with no bed/Office/Craft Room/Writing Room/Workout Room/Storage Room.... etc etc.

When we first moved in it was the storage room. Our attic is inaccessible (the door is stuck shut and we don't want to risk what might be living up there to break it open!!) so we just started piling stuff up inside this room.

But after about 6 months I wanted an office, someplace where I could write, craft, blog, etc. And at the time, Aaron was studying to pass his insurance license exams and so I wanted someplace nice for him to be able to study.

This room has been a bit of everything. And a lot of that time I didn't take pictures of it, because it was a god-awful mess. 90% of the time we kept the door closed. But, I'll share what I have. This could get ugly....



Pretty sad, right?  (The table had been my Dad's desk, I love it! My mom has it now.)


This is the most miserable looking mess I've ever seen. Why is there a tupperware bowl laying in the chair??


 
 This was the day we moved the desk in. Aaron settled right in.


When I quit working a public job and started my journey as a work at home wife, I needed to make the office functional. BADLY. So I took a little time and did a little rearranging and reorganizing.


Setting the desk in the middle of the room this way was a good idea at the time, as long as I didn't put another thing, not even an extra paper clip, in this room.

 
 The one shelf for crafting supplies worked for about a minute. I didn't realize I was such a huge crafter...



 I really liked how this looked, especially with the big zebra print letters.



After a while, I realized I needed more space in the room. I needed to be able to walk in the room, for starters, I needed more crafting storage, more photography equipment storage, and I needed someplace to put the treadmill my darling bought me after years of prodding. I tried, unsuccessfully, to add a seating/reading area into this room on numerous occasions, but it never did work out. It just made the room look and feel too small and too cluttered.



I ended up swapping desks with my Mom after I started writing again. I've got three different novels in the works at the moment and spend a lot of my time in this room. The way it's set up now is certainly the most functional it's ever been. I do, desperately, need to sort through everything in the room and get rid of some things....

I love the set up of the desk. I love the art over the desk, which I made myself... I love that I finally figured out how to hook my MacBook up to my monitor and keyboard ;) My chevron lamp shades were from Dollar General as well as my orange clock and chevron pen holder (it's a tea light holder actually.) I love my little cork board with my pictures and note cards tacked on it. Alas! Woe is me... my printer doesn't work anymore :(

This shot of the room is the view when your standing in the doorway. I'll admit, it looks like jumped up mess. The black shelving unit holds all of my photography supplies - office and studio-  and a few extra baskets for organizing.  I've got a lot of stuff. And the white unit is actually 3 sets of Sterilite plastic drawers that holds all of my crafting supplies. From bottom to top: Gift Wrapping Supplies, Jewelry Making, Drawing/Art, Writing, Crocheting, Note Cards, Scrapbooking/Stickers, Office Supplies (the ones that don't fit in my desk, I'm a junkie) and finally Large Stationary. The crane looking thing on top is a craft supply organizer/light from OttLite that my cousin got me for Christmas a while ago. I LOVE IT. If you are a crafter go to WalMart and GET ONE!

Tabby has her own little nest in Mommy's office, where she can see me, otherwise she flips her tiny mind.... and that's where she's at right now, curled up in a ball asleep... with her nose in her butt. Ew. Dogs. Even so, she's still soooo cute!!!

And of course over to the side is the treadmill. :)  I've got a few movie memorabilia tins on the wall and then some of my own playbills and posters on display from my glory days in the theatre. 

 (In case your wondering, the big white thing is a Kenmore dehumidifier. We got it at Sears 5 years ago.)

As far as looks go, this room has like.... none. Aside from my attempt at art over my desk. However, from where it was before, this room is a masterpiece.

I spend so much time in this room, thanks to blogging, and my writing and crafting. It's not my dream space, by any means, but it's getting there. I've got plans to do a MAJOR clean out in the closet in this room and maybe store my black shelving unit inside there. I'm planning to buy a sewing machine and at present I have no real good place to keep it....meh. I'll keep you all updated with that!


Thanks for walking down memory lane with me one more time!

Front Door Makeover! (On a Budget!)

 FINALLY! I've been wanting to get this little project done for the past 5 years. Almost the minute we moved in, I wanted to paint our front door. I couldn't decide on a color, so I just never did bring this project off of the back burner.

Link to the blog containing this photo is available on my "The Honeymoon Cottage" board on Pinterest.

Until I found this photo on Pinterest. I fell in love with the look of this, because, mainly, it's almost the exact same color brick as our house. I loved the color of the blur against the color of the brick, and the galvanized buckets (still working on that one!) and the chalk board... I adored it. I showed it to Aaron, he loved it. My father in law loved it. My mom loved it. My best friend in Alabama loved it and bugged the crap out of me asking me if I'd gotten it done yet....


And then the wheels started turning at warp speed. This was another instance of, I can do this project but it has to be on a super tight budget. Aaron and I decided that I could do it only if I did it for less than $70.

I did my research, which included a planning trip to Lowe's one Saturday afternoon with my Mom. I knew I needed new hardware, so I found a great oil rubbed bronze set (knob and deadbolt) from GateHouse for $21.97, I also decided I wanted to add our house number to the door.  So I found the oil rubbed bronze GateHouse numbers for around $3.95 (I think) a piece (they were a few cents shy of $4). And finally I needed the paint. No need to buy a gallon to paint a front door, I purchased a quart of Valspar Duramax at Lowe's for $18, after about an hour of looking at every aqua blue they offered, I decided on the color "Crystal Aqua."

All together, that brought my estimated total, pre-tax to $55.89, I rounded it up to $60, told Aaron, and he gave me the ok. In the end, the total, plus tax, was $59.20. Score!

Because of Memorial Day and the fact that we had a big day planned with my in-laws, I ended up finally painting on Tuesday. I think I drove my sisters in law crazy talking about how excited I was to get to finally paint my front door!


It was an all day job. Because I can't do anything the easy way. NOTHING.

First I had to sand the door down. Just a titch. I used 180 grit sand paper(just whatever I had on hand) and gave both sides of the door a quick once over. Next I cleaned the door off with a vinegar and water mix. I let that dry while I mixed up my paint and my Floetrol. It's supposed to help eliminate brush strokes, however, in this instance, it didn't, and, in this instance, I like it. So I left it.

I turned on the TV - Space Jam was on VH1 and, because I'm 12 years old at heart, I watched it, and then some of.... wait for it.... The Borgias - and got to work.

I got to work taking the old, nasty hardware off.... and that was a task, let me just tell ya.

As you can see, the hardware was in BAD shape. The doorknob was plain embarrassing. Or at least it was to me.  Taking the plate out of the wall for the deadbolt took me, literally, all day off and on. The heads in the screws were stripped out, badly, so finally I had to get the drill out and drill the heads out. Always my last resort. And then once it came off, the new deadbolt wouldn't go into the hole... I had to widen the hole with my drill... it was a hassle. But, in the end, the door closes, and the deadbolt latches! So yay for that! I only broke one screwdriver head and one drill bit.... that's not too bad.... right? 


So I got to work painting once all the old ugly gold hardware was gone. I painted 3 coats on the front door after the first two were horribly brush strokey. Glad I did too, the three coats really makes the paint solid looking, like it was made that way. And I only did 2 coats on the interior or the door. And by the time Aaron came home, it looked like this! (However, I do believe it's time for a different wreath on the door.... hmmmm....let me put that on my shopping list! For now, this works.) I painted the window trim, some wouldn't have, but I did, because with the blue door and the stark white trim... it kinda looked like a baby blanket. No... not good.

The new hardware REALLY pops against the aqua! (The best news, to us, is that we now only have 1 front door key instead of 2!)

I think adding the number to the door just makes this project! I'd wanted to have our house number actually on our house for a while, and the way the exterior of our house is set up, putting it on the door makes more sense than anything. I absolutely LOVE this! 


I still have a few things to get for out front. I've been on the hunt for a milk jug for the longest time, but can't find one I like, that's a reasonable price. I need to get some new flowers for the bucket (I'm thinking hydrangeas and peonies, they're my all time favorites) and I'm toying with doing the chalkboard, like my inspiration picture showed. But idk, I'm attached to my star (they're like my favorite things ever) and my pineapple welcome sign. When my Mom and I were in Charleston, SC, the summer before I got married, they told us all about the history of the pineapple as a welcome thing and ever since she and I have made it a point to have a pineapple welcome at our front door. Plus, the one in the picture below was a gift from a very special lady to me and so I don't think I'll ever be able to part with it!

I also used to have a garden flag waving there at the door, but during our last set of storms it blew off into the abyss and I haven't managed to remember to purchase a new one.

I'm excited to see how the blue does with fall and winter decor! The possibilities are endless, folks!

Excuse the glare on the door, it's a bright, beautiful day here in KY!

My home isn't one of those Pinterest Perfect homes, but it's my home. It's where my heart is! And the blue front door just makes it seem so much more homey, in my opinion!

Downey Unstoppables in Your Wax Warmer!

My Wax Warmer. The Simple Life © Please excuse the brightness.

Why didn't we, as the human race, think of this before??

A lot of you are probably familiar with my post on my Better Homes & Garden's Wax Warmer (See the post here) and in that post I raved about how much I loved my warmer.

The warmer I was raving about had been a gift from an old girlfriend of mine for my birthday and was the white version of the warmer shown in the blog post.

Sadness struck not too long after that post was published. The warmer got knocked off the shelf and broke into two pieces. Because I loved it so much, I glued it back together and continued to use it.

 One afternoon I was in Wal-Mart with my Mom and we wandered over to the warmer isle and I saw one I just had to have, on sale for $10, $5 off the original price. It now lives on my piano, next to a picture of me and my Dad when I was a baby. (My big brother had dressed me up like a wild Indian at Cracker Barrel one afternoon and thought it was hilarious. Brothers.)


Here's the tip! And it's been going around for a while now, but I thought I'd mention it because it really does work and I love it! You can find lots of pins on Pinterest in regards to putting Unstoppables in your warmers, so you may want to check some of those out as well.

Instead of spending the $2.00 for a package of the warmer wax, use some of your Downy Unstoppables in your warmer!

Downy Unstoppables.

I use the kind with the blue top, in the"Fresh" scent. It fills my house with the smell of cleanness and I love it. I just pour out a cap full and dump it into my warmer and in a few minutes the little blue dots melt together and the smell starts floating through my home.

I find that I don't have to change the wax out hardly at all, because the Unstoppables have such a good staying power to them... if that makes sense.  This is a great trick that everyone should try! I haven't used a single square of my wax since I started using this tip! 



Ok, now for a funny story!

On occasion I will ask my Aaron to run by the store on his way home from work and pick up some household items that we need. Paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent etc. Whenever I ask him to get Downy Unstoppables, I ask him to pick up the one with the blue top. It's easy enough for him to understand and we have no problems with it. He always gets the right one.

Well back in December I was laid up (for the entire month it felt like, I'd be sick a week and better a week and sick a week and so on...) with the stomach bug that swept through our community. I was vomiting a lot and making a general mess out of my clothes, so I was washing a lot of nasty clothing and I ran through my "try me size" bottle of Unstoppables (the only size offered at Dollar General at the time) within a couple of days. One Friday afternoon my Mom was heading to our house after work and stopped by the store to get me a few things to try and eat. She asked if I needed anything household wise and I told her yes, I needed some Downy Unstoppables, the kind with the blue top, like I always tell Aaron. "Ok, no problem," she says. A few minutes later I get a text message from Mom with a picture of the Downy Unstoppables shelf, with the blue top one front and center, and it says:

"They don't have one with a blue top, They have Light Pink, Dark Pink, Purple and this Aqua type color. Which do you want instead?"

I start laughing and tell her that the Aqua is the one with the blue top and she starts laughing and grabs me a bottle. When she gets to our house about 10 minutes later, we are still laughing and I tell her that next time I'll be more specific with her, and that just saying "blue" usually does it for Aaron. I'm not used to having to state the specific shade of blue! That's the difference between men and women folks. Blue works for my hubby, however I have to specify that it is Aqua for my Mom to understand it! HA!

We laugh about it every time we are in a store together and see the Unstoppables. "No blue!" she'll say.


Ok, so there's your tip (and funny story) for today!


Hope you have as much success with this as I do!! Have a great rest of the day!

*I am not being perked by Better Homes & Gardens, or Downy for mentioning their products, I just love them!

Home Style Evolution: The Bedroom

The "Master" Bedroom in our house has seen many a change in the 5 years that we've lived here. It's so easy to swap out bedding and curtains that I find myself doing it a lot. I get so bored with bedroom decor, and my tastes for that room are constantly changing.

Since we've lived here I've had 7... possibly more... different bedding sets on our bed. I told you, I get bored with it. I'm on the hunt for something new even as I type this. So please be advised that this post was written in advance and by the time it actually goes up on the blog, the bedding and/or curtains my have changes. You've been warned!


When we first "took possession" of the house (for those that don't know, we rent this house from my Father in Law, and he gave us permission to do anything to this house we wanted, except knocking down walls or adding on rooms.) I really had no clue how I wanted our bedroom to look. I'd never shared a bedroom with someone, and at the time, I was in a dark and twisty place, so I liked dark rooms and modern clean lines, thinking I wanted to go as far away from the super clean/country look that my Mother has always used to decorate her home.

Our bedroom is nothing special architecturally. It has this long window on one wall and a regular size window on the wall to the right, and a regular sliding door closet that you can step into but not walk around in.

The closet doors. Inside is a ClosetMaid system that my brother in law put in when he and my sister in law lived in the house while they were building their current home,

My bedroom at my parents home had 2 walls painted a chocolate brown and two walls painted a really pretty medium blue. I had an iron scrolling pattern bed with brown and blue bedding. So I just figured, I do the same thing in my new bedroom with my new roomie ;)

So we set out on the journey to make our house a home...

Here is the inside of the closet. It holds SOOOOO much more than I expected it too. My husband and I are such clothes horses. True Story, when we moved in, we considered turning the 2nd bedroom into a closet because we have so many clothes. ;) 

Aaron, and me, a couple of love struck, soon-to-be-wed kids, painting our bedroom.

As you can see from the photo above we chose a very dark brown color for the bedroom (the hallway walls hadn't been painted yet). Again, as with the old paint color in the bathroom, I have blocked out the name of the color, but it can be found at Sherwin Williams,  Don't you just LOVE my hair in that picture?? (Couldn't you feel the sarcasm dripping off of that question?)

We finished the bedroom, added our curtains, furniture and decor, and this was how it looked 4 days before our wedding, and 12 days before we came back from our honeymoon and moved in.

Bedding from Target. Curtains from Burlington Coat Factory. Print on wall from AllPosters.com, lamps and shades from Dollar General.

Oh dear. Looking back at it now I want to beat myself over the head with an iron skillet. I said I was in a dark place. I meant that metaphorically and literally. I began to refer to our bedroom as "the cave." Romantic, right?

Our curtains were a last minute find from BCF, and I ended up choosing them because they were a light color and they were on sale. Almost from the minute they were hung, I regretted them, but lived with them.

Our bedroom furniture set did not come with any nightstands, so we improvised. I didn't realize how badly I needed a nightstand until I didn't have one.

And in the moving process everything got "arranged" on our dresser. People that see this picture joke that our house must be haunted because off all the "orbs" in this picture. It's a dusty old house, what can I say? I love it, it's home. 

There's that light bulb.

We came back from our honeymoon on Dec. 20th, and started living in the house. We were so lucky when we "moved in," my best friend and her husband and I spent a whole day the week of our wedding moving my things from my parents house, which was about 40 minutes away, and Aaron moved his things (basically just clothes and odds and ends) the day before the "big day." Anything else that needed to be taken care of, our parents did for us while we were gone honeymoonin'. We have the best FRAMILY anyone could ever wish for!

So we started our lives together in this house. And really quickly I decided the bedding needed a change. 

Springtime 2010 came along and Aaron and I found ourselves in a tight spot, career wise. Aaron left his job at a bank and started pursuing his current job as an insurance agent (I am so stupidly proud of how hard my man works!) and I was working weekends at a bridal shop while finishing up school. We changed what we could in our house when we could. This was our first try with "shop whatcha got."

AAAAHHH!!! Scary, I know. Apparently I forgot how to make a bed.

 This bedding was what had been in my bedroom at my parents house before I got married and moved. (We still use this bedding in the winter months, it's held up great.) It was from Target and I'm pretty sure my Mom and I found it on a deeeeeeep clearance sale there by accident one afternoon. 

The bedding doesn't even go with the curtains, but I thought I was in Heaven, I suspect. I was young and stupid, can't fault me for learning a lesson.

 We lightened things up a bit in August of 2010 (due to the ridiculous heat and the fact that we only have one window air conditioner in the entire house, and it's in the living room) and started using this reversible brown/beige quilt, also from Target. "GOES" better with the curtains but this poor room still looked like a mish-mosh. And I can't do mish-moshes. Sorry. I just can't. 

See anything different in the above picture? The little canvas basket tower sitting to the side of the bed... ok. Those were gifts from my father in law for Christmas in 2009. He knows how I love to organize things and so when he saw those he said he knew he had to get them for me. We used them as nightstands for a couple of years. It was big enough that I could lay my cell phone and my glasses on at night. It served its purpose and is now in the big cheap organizing/furniture store in the sky. (I saved the baskets, they're the perfect size for little odds and ends.)

Finally in July of 2011, I'd had all I could take. I had started a new job, and Aaron's new career was taking off like a jet plane, and so we had a little extra money, so I decided that I was going to repaint the bedroom, and give it a good updating.

I took a day off work, and my Mom did the same to come help me - she's always up for any project I ask her to help me with- and while my sweetie was gone to work, she and I did a bedroom overhaul!

Please excuse the blurry photo. I was very excited.

Pretty amazing change, yeah?

I found this bedding from a website called KingLinen.com. I've bought several items from them before. Their bedding is SERIOUSLY discounted, like this was a $150 set I got for $60. Not all of their items are super high quality, and not super luxurious and fluffy, but it is all really nice and very pretty and will last a good while if you take care of it properly. 

I fell in love with it cause it "matched" my curtains, and therefore I didn't have to buy new ones!

Do you see my old teddy bear peeking out? My Mom made him for me when I was 2 and I can't part with him.

 We spent $30 on a set of cheap, put-them-together-yourself nightstands from Family Dollar. They were so wonderful compared to what we had been using. I will never regret spending the money for them and using them for the time we did.

Our dresser.... still a mish-mosh. I did really like having my jewelry right there, but the little organizers kept falling off the wall and chipping the paint. So I finally got rid of them. Do you recognize the shape of those candle sticks?? They're the same ones from The Power of Spray Paint at 2am!

We had almost completely overhauled our bedroom. We took it from that "poop brown" color - that was what I was calling it near the end - to this beautiful light tan shade called "Oak Barrel" from Sherwin Williams. Now both of the bedrooms in our house are painted this same color. Not a whole ton of money was spent, but the room itself was so much brighter, and happier. We really were pleased with the outcome. 

For a while... c'mon, you had to know that was coming.

One night, Aaron and Tabby (our dog) and I were sound asleep in our bed, when all of a sudden we hear a snapping sound and the mattress falls clean through to the floor. The cheap slats in our cheap bed had broken, and the side rails had split in two. Our bed was broken. We didn't go to a high end furniture store to buy furniture in our early days. We went to a discount store and bought the cheapest of whatever we could. 

So...to keep from having to sleep on a mattress on the floor (nothing wrong with that, but we tend to have mice in this old house), Aaron and I propped the bed up with milk crates and crawled back in to finish out the night.

This lasted for a good few months before I'd had enough. We had recently purchased a new set of living room furniture from Ashley Furniture, a cousin of Aaron's works there, and I knew she could get us a dynamite deal on a new bed and maybe some real nightstands. Our dresser and chest of drawers were holding up very well, so we really didn't need to replace them. And we still haven't. Maybe one day we will, but for now, what we have is working just fine. 

I thought changing out the bedding might help me "deal" with it. I mean, as long as the mattress was centered on those milk crates, we were fine and everything we level and even. I started referring to the bedroom as "The Beige Palace," because everything was so monotone. So I changed up the bedding to this and a few weeks later my Mom and I decided to rebuild the bed from the inside out. And for a while, everything was hunky-dorey again.

Quilt from Overstock.com, white throw from SAM's club, pillows from a local fabric store. Big pillow in front was made by my Mama and has our names and wedding date in a big heart. ;)

 That bedding lasted until it got cold outside and we needed something warmer. (Me and my bedding, jeez.)

 So one Sunday afternoon after church, Aaron and my Mom and I stop in at Ashley's "just to look." Yeah right. 

Just to look my foot. 4 hours later Aaron and I have looked at every bed in the store, and argued over more than a handful. The one we both really wanted simply would not have fit in our room, and we toyed with the idea of whether to just deal with it and buy it. But when I saw the bed we eventually got, I knew I could dress it way up and make it look really rich, or dress it down and make it look really country. It took some wiggling on my part, but I finally got Aaron on board and we left that night having purchased the queen size "Porter" bed and matching nightstands.

 It's a really dark photo, but it had taken us absolutely all day (from like 10am to dark) to get the bed put together and made etc. That is the same Target bedding from my teenage bedroom, many years ago. Our lamps came in a set from Lowe's and you will see where they had originally been when I take you through the evolution of our living room next week. The bench sitting at the foot of my bed was a surprise from Aaron the Christmas before last in 2012, from Kirklands and I believe it was around $170 (I have since this photo moved it so that we can see our beautiful foot board). Our curtains I got for a steal off of... wait for it... AMAZON.COM for about $7 a set (just search sheer curtain panels and they should pop up). I kept the brown swag at the top to kind of bring all the browns together, but I may remove it later on, depending on what I come up with for my bedding.  We have new artwork on that side wall! That came from Kohl's and it was originally $80, and I got it for $15. (Don't worry, I didn't get rid of the couple kissing in Paris, I love that picture too much. You'll see it again next week!) The two little pictures to the side are some of our wedding shots that I had printed from my partner lab/ And hanging above my lamp is a little hand stitched sign that says "I see the moon and the moon sees me, God bless the moon and god bless me. Amen." I bought it at a craft fair the summer before we got married.

So that is what our bedroom looked like throughout the first part of this year, the winter months, and now that we are on into spring, Aaron and I were simply suffocating at night underneath that big comforter, even with our trusty floor fan going. So I decided to swap out to the beige quilt we'd been using before it turned cold last year. I am on the hunt for a beautiful blue quilt to replace it. If anyone has any ideas, please comment below and let me know where I can find one! 

Our little master bedroom has underdone so massive changes in the 5 years that we've lived here, and frankly, it's still evolving. I'm happy with it for the first time in a long time, and I am insane over my new bed and how beautiful it is.



Thanks for walking through the transformation with me! Next week I will share my LIVING ROOM with you, and how it has changed (intensely) in the 5 years that we've lived here!