It's been a while my friend!

Well hello friends! It has been quite awhile!! Things have changed since my last post, I know 16 months is a terribly long time!! I started student teaching in September of 2013, and was super busy. Graduated with my Bachelors in December of 2013! Here are of few pictures commemorating my graduation!!

I moved back to my home town following graduation.

In February of 2014, my boyfriend proposed

and we began planning a October 2014 wedding.

So needless to say, it has been 16 months, but quite a sixteen months it had been.

But I made a lot of my decorations and things for the wedding and now starting to work on things for our home!

So in the next few days/ weeks, I will be posting some of things I diy-ed for our wedding!!

Here are a few sneak peeks from our wedding!!

Not to mention I DIYed that Just Married Sign in the picture!

DIY Mugs! - From July 2013. I guess I never posted!

How many of you have tried to make a mug using Sharpies and baking it in the oven???
I know I have (twice) and it didn't work either time :(
However, I was on Pinterest (where else?), and saw that if Sharpie Oil-based Paint Markers were used, that it would not wear off!
So I tried it, and guess what it worked!!!!

So here is a list of things you will need:
A mug, plate or piece of glassware you would like to decorate (make sure to wash it prior to decorating it). You can find these at garage sales, the dollar store, on clearance, wherever, I found mine at Big Lots for 80 cents! :)
Sharpie Oil-Based Paint Markers in whatever colors you would like to use. There are fine point and medium, so be mindful of that when you select your markers.
Having a couple q-tips and paper towels around, as well as a cup of water may be beneficial!

Mine is a gift for my Best Friends Birthday! Since I go to school almost three hours from home, it is why I chose to do the shape of MI and a heart where each of us is. Because I wanted it to look as much like Michigan as possible, I printed off a small map of Michigan and cut it out to give me the general shape of it.  So if you are doing something difficult, you may want to do that!

I also found a quote to put on the opposite side. Just Google a quote you like and place it on there.

I made a couple of mistakes along the way, but it was fairly easy to fix, I just got a q-tip wet and used some elbow grease to get of the spots where I messed up.

Also you want to make sure that the marker is fully dry before you touch it against anything, it can smear very easily, but you can also clean it up with a q-tip and water.

 So here are some pictures to show it off!

So here are the markers I used. The Black is a Medium Tip and the Lime and Aqua are Fine Tip. I picked these up at Hobby Lobby. There were $3.79 a piece. I also had a 40% Coupon, so one of them was 40% off. 

So here is the handle. I wanted to do alternating colored hearts with a black dot in between. However, the Black dot does not look like a dot, more like I heart!

So I took a q-tip that was wet and started rubbing to remove the black. 

Here is the mug after I have removed the black dot. Can't even tell it was there!!!

Here is the finished handle.

Here is the side with a quote on it, however you can do whatever you want. I will warn you, you may want to have a couple extra mugs and one as a practice to get a feel for the Paint Marker. They write differently than a regular Sharpie.

And her is my map! Some of the spots are completely perfect, so I did a little more touching up with a q-tip, water, and a paper towel.

After I was completely finished with the mug, I had to let it sit for 24 hours for the marker to fully dry.

After that, heat your oven up to 400 degrees. Place the mug in the oven as soon as you turn it on, that way it can heat up with the oven. Then let it cook in the oven for 40 minutes. Once it has cooked for 40 minutes, shut the oven off, and let the mug cool off. This helps the mug to seal!!

I would also recommend that you wash your mug, especially if it is a gift. That way you can make sure that it will not wash off, even though this is supposed to be a more permanent method of making the mugs.

Happy DIYing! :)

Thrifty Beach Weekend!!!

So this past weekend my best friend (of eleven years) and I headed up to Grand Valley for a weekend getaway. It consisted mostly of relaxing, watching movies, laughing and catching up, laying out at the beach with a little Goodwill shopping!


I found two steals at Goodwill while we were up there!

I managed to snag this Merona (Target) shirt with cute embellishment for only $3.29! The color didn't show very well in the picture, but its a golden rod color, that I absolutely love!!!

And this Merona Denim skirt (also Target) for only $2.99! 

I was super excited! This shirt is so light-weight, but it is a little dressier because of the cute embellishment, and the skirt, well I love denim skirts!!! I decided this would make a cute summer outfit, and I managed to get it for less then 7 bucks! Talk about awesome!!!

I was also able to pick up some up 6 great books to add to my personal library for only $2.80!!! Talk about awesome!

The Books I got were: The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White, Words of Stone by Kevin Henkes, Ralph S. Mouse by Beverly Cleary, Otis Spofford by Beverly Cleary, Little House in Brookfield by Maria D. Wilkes and Disney's Lady and the Tramp

I cannot begin to tell you the number of awesome books I have gotten from Goodwill for as little as 40 cents a piece. Every Goodwill is different, but it is totally worth a few minutes scouring the shelves for those awesome finds to add to your collection!!! Not to mention sometimes you can find brand new books that have never even had the binding cracked (those are my favorites!). 

Hopefully next week I will have some more time to craft and share, I have lots of great ideas I can't wait to try!!!

Simple Crafts (and inexpensive too!)

Hair Towels!

All you need it two hand towels, a button, some elastic (1/4" to 1/2" is fine), a needle, thread, and a sewing machine. 

I purchased the hand towels pictured here at the Dollar Tree. I got two of them for $6, and I also purchased some others on clearance at Kohl's for $1.86 a piece. They don't need to be fancy, just any hand towel will work.

You need to cut the towels in the same shape, if you have shorter hair, you don't need to make the towel as large, but I have really long hair!!

Then stitch the two together with the elastic in one end, and make sure it is large enough to go around your button. After I had done the initial sewing together, I went back and did a zig-zag stitch to make it more secure. Then hand-sewed on the button.

Here is a close up of the button and elastic!

I will be making another one soon, so I will take step by step picture to post!

And not to mention, the chair that the towel is sitting on! The chair was no longer comfortable to sit on, so I took off the old cover, put new cushions on, and recovered it with a cute broadcloth. I used elastic so that I can take it off and wash it too!! :)

Memory Jar

I don't know if it is just me (but I sure hope it isn't), but some many good memories happen, and then I feel like I forget them. So I decided I would make a Memory Jar. I bought a Mason Jar, although we have a ton in my basement that I could have used.

I started off trying to use a hot glue gun to write the 2013, but it wasn't looking as neat as I wanted it to. Then I tried Elmer's, and that was by no means at all effective. So I decided to try a fabric paint. That worked perfectly!!! So I wrote 2013 on it and let it air dry over night.

I used some spray paint I had in my basement to make it as inexpensive as possible, and spray painted it. I ended up doing two coats of spray paint to make sure it was coated well. Make sure you give the spray paint time to dry!! Then I took a piece of cute fabric I found in our scraps box (thrifty-ness again!) and cut it with pinking shears to fit the lid and make it look a little fancier than just the plain gold seal.

The year is half over and my jar is filling up with lots of wonderful memories. I love that someday I can pull it out and read some of the things I written.

The papers are just colored printer paper that I cut with a straight edge into 2 inch pieces. On each memory, I write the date, and a small blurb to jog my memory, in case its one of those ones I might have forgotten!

I decided to do this this year because I am graduating from college, started a new business and was asked to be a bridesmaid in a good friends wedding. I won't ever forget these memories!! :)

Thrifty buys... from last week and a book totally worth a splurge!

Last week I was shopping at my favorite consignment shop and got some great buys, at great prices, and none of them even look worn! This is exactly why I LOVE consignment shops! Although this was before my decision to only purchase bargains at consignment shops and Goodwill, I wanted to show you what awesome things you can find, you just need to know where to look!! Keep your eyes peeled!

These Shorts are Daisy Fuentes (Kohl's) and I got them for only $8.99!

This shirt is from Charlotte Russe, but I got it for only $3.50 from the Consignment shop!

This shirt is from Maurices, and only cost my $6.99 at the Consignment shop! I have already warn it to work, and I paired it with some Brown Dress pants I already had, and a pair of Taupe Flats that I have had also! So Cute!

This shirt is Calvin Klein and I got it for only $6.99!

This sweater is so cute! I could not pass it up, especially for only $4.50!! It is Apt. 9 Brand (Kohl's)

So I managed to get some awesome clothes, and many are name brand, and I didn't spend much!!! :) That's my kinda Thrifty!!


Now onto an amazing book! It's a children's book, but I love it soo much! I have read it twice now, and depending on the grade level I end up teaching, I may read it every year! It has an awesome main character who starts the book as feeling powerless and caged, to ending feeling powerful, mighty and free! It is written in a poetic form that each "chapter" has a title, but some are only half a page, while others may span 3-5 pages. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate will forever be one of my favorite books, not only because it has a baby elephant, but because of the connections that I made to the book. Don't hesitate to read this book! It is still relatively new (Published in 2012) and last I knew, was only available in Hard Cover, but definitely worth it! :)

For now, my copy of The One and Only Ivan looks nice, but in a few years, it will probably resemble that of a well loved favorite (because it is!).




So, my motivation has returned as I am going on a mini-vacation with my BFF, so before I leave, I will be posting two of my favorite thrifty crafts I have done so far! Stay tuned!

No more shopping! (Sort of!)

Last night as I was perusing Pinterest (who doesn't do that occasionally!!), I stumbled across a pin from a College of Ed Classmate to a blog of a teacher who counted all her clothing and vowed not to purchase any clothes and to make cute outfits throughout the year using only clothing she had found in her closet. You can view it here at ClotheMeInRobes! I am going to be doing a modified version of this. I will be doing student teaching in the Fall, so I want to be sure that I have cute, comfy, appropriate clothes to wear, but I definitely want to save money. I don't admit this often, but I have a shopping problem, and it doesn't help that I am a cashier at Kohls and see all the clothes that come through my line (and want to buy many of them)! But from now on, I am going to stop purchasing clothes, with the exception of the occasional buy from the amazing Goodwill's in GR and the awesome Consignment shops I frequent. Along with my crafting ideas and book ideas for the classroom, I will post some of my outfits that I create along the way, as well as where I purchased the clothing. And of course, I will have to brag about my awesome thrifty buys!!! I don't think I will attempt to count the number of clothes I have, but I may even surprise myself there!!

Happy Wednesday!! :)

Excited!

About four months ago, some of my very good friends got engaged! I was so excited for them as I had initially introduced them, and then almost seven and a half years later, they are engaged! Last night, we got together to hang out, all four of us, and they asked both myself and Scott to be in their wedding. I was even more excited, I can't believe that they want us to be part of their day, and not mention the adorable way she asked me!
Check this out!!

Isn't that adorable? All I could do was say "Awww!"and hug Megan! And Scott, of course, was entirely oblivious to what was taking place (gotta love it!). Megan and I have been friends for almost 8 years, and we love to do crafts together, so of course, this is totally fitting for her.


But, it has been forever, and I mean forever, since I have posted anything, and I have accomplished a lot since then, but life has been kinda crazy, so I hope in the next few days/weeks to get myself caught up with crafts I have done to share with you! And hoping to get some more crafts done!!!

Happy Saturday!
Beth