Spring Cleaning and Reorganizing (A Recap So Far)

April showers bring May flowers.  Or so the saying goes.  

And yet, we awoke to the first day of April to snow, which got worse as the week progressed and we ended up with a pretty significant quantity of snow.  And it got COLD, going down to below zero at night.  My electric bill alone is insane.  I don't want to know what my gas bill is going to be like next month.  Bright side, Monday rolled around and suddenly the temperatures started to go up around here.  By next week we have one day that is even calling for it to be in the 60s!  I am thrilled as honestly I'm so over winter at this point and just want Break Up to officially be here.  We went out sledding over the weekend when I realized that we finally had enough snow, it hadn't blown away and we were looking at it melting this week and the kids had a lot of fun, especially the daughter.  This week the kids are getting a kick out of playing outside and running around on the bare patches of ground where the snow has melted off.  Crazy weather.

 It has been, once again, hectic around here.  First there was the drama around my tooth.  I got my permanent cap on around three weeks ago and while the temporary cap was just fine, the permanent one has been giving me grief from the moment I got it on.  Hot liquid especially would make me jump in pain and it seemed like it was getting worse.  So, I ended up back at the dentist a few weeks ago trying to figure out if I needed a root canal or what.  The dentist, after various tests, assured me my roots on the X-ray looked fine and what he thought was going on was that when they were messing around putting the permanent cap on they had scraped away all of the material that I had protecting my weak enamel on my tooth (I've always had weak enamel) and I was basically dealing with an overly exposed nerve because my tooth was over sensitive.  They painted on a de-sensitizing agent onto my tooth to help it to start to heal and told me to start using Sensadyne toothpaste.  It has helped, but the stuff they painted on my tooth wore off as of yesterday, so I'm in pain again on and off.  Bright side, hot liquids aren't lighting me up as badly as they were, but now cold sensations, especially sucking cold air, does not feel pleasant, we'll just say that.  Between that and still battling the after effects of being sick...I have been better.

The husband ended up back at the doctors, this time for his neck giving him grief and he was diagnosed with tension headaches and is on a mild muscle relaxant as needed.  It does seem to help him, so I'm glad of that anyway.

But, yeah, it has been a bit of a challenge around here.  

Despite it all, though, I HAVE been getting stuff done around here.  Actually, some of it is kind of neat, so let's get to that.

I originally planned to put this in a Frugal Friday Recap, but we've been up to so much around here and it just gets busier, that the post would be about 20 pages long, so I figured I'd show you guys some of the things we've been doing around the house as we wait for the weather to finally show us Spring.

Despite the fact that there is still snow outside, the light continues to come back around here, so I've really gotten into Spring cleaning and organizing the house...like happens every year, but this year it does seem to be a super potent need for me...probably because we have been in the house for basically a year and so everything just starts to get to you after a while.

First, let's start with the living room.  I got tired of the living room as there always seemed to not be enough room for all four of us to sit comfortably and it seemed like the daughter was always taking refuge back in her room and not wanting to sit and watch a movie as she always seemed to move to the floor to watch something.  So, I decided that the den is going to become a activity room for things that are more PE related (I'll get more into that later) and I would move the chairs that were in the den to the living room so we could use the additional seating.  Turns out the son LOVES the grey chairs and pretty much takes them up himself, but everyone else doesn't mind as we can sit elsewhere.

I have been working hard at accumulating credit card rewards the last year or so and now that the cards are pretty much paid off due to the recent stimulus payment (I had to put things like a medical bill on my husband's card, my Amazon Prime renewed that I had forgotten about and such, so there is some things on them again), so I have worked on paying off one credit card completely every month and then use that card to pay the utilities and things, so that we can quickly accumulate rewards.  When your electric bill is about 400.00 at the moment due to winter not giving up...yeah that adds up quickly. 

Anyway, one of the things I purchased with credit card rewards (well after redeeming said rewards for Amazon giftcards) was to get an I-Pad charging station for the living room so I could get the tablets out of my kitchen.  I LOVE it!  It is so nice to not be tripping over charging cords all the time and having a place for the tablets to plug in that is out of the way of me cooking and things.

Next, I tackled the kitchen.  I have become addicted to various vlog channels on YouTube the last few months, mainly a South Korean vlogger whose channel is Nyangsoop because I love her style of vlogging and I love the warmth of her home and kitchen.  I really have become a fan of channels like hers due to lack of vocal communication and quiet backgrounds, so I can just read the subtitles and enjoy the neat cooking segments and stuff while sitting with the TV turned way down at night waiting for the son to settle down and go to bed.  While watching her channel and other Asian vloggers, I started to really get some good tips on how to make my small kitchen run more efficiently.  I watched pretty much every American video on how to better organize a small kitchen and got nothing, I repeat nothing, out of them (no offense to DIY stations, just modern kitchens don't really help me organize my 1970's style kitchen), so it was great to me to run into things that actually gave me some good ideas as I am always striving to make things work more efficiently around here.

Note:  The following do not contain associate links, but I am linking to some product pages.  I'm just sharing.  If you would like to support the blog, feel free to click on the link to Amazon on the right hand side of the blog (you may need to turn off your ad blockers to see it) and order things after clicking through to Amazon from there.  I will receive a small commission for sending the sale Amazon's way if you order through the link.  Thanks if you do :).

I have been working on picking things up slowly over the last bit and just using reward points and things to pay for it.  With the exception of the chairs.  The kitchen chairs went onto my Amazon card, but were needed.  I just found that our one wood chair that the daughter was sitting in was in need of replacement and a much less intense job than what it was dealing with day in and day out with kitchen table duty combined with homeschool.  My father-in-law has always had this bad habit of tipping back in chairs when he would sit in them and he is NOT a light guy.  He managed to break one of our kitchen chairs years ago and that is why we had the metal framed chair since the kids were very small and the other one he managed to crack, but it was managing to hold together with some maintenance help from wood glue.  But, I did my six month check up on the chair for Spring cleaning and found that the crack was getting worse.  Since the table set used to be my husband's grandparents set, has sentimental value for my husband (and honestly I love the maple furniture myself, not to mention I had a lot of affection for his grandparents), the last thing I wanted to do was to break that chair.  

So, I went on Amazon and put a two pack of kitchen chairs on my credit card  after looking around everywhere I could find trying to find a replacement for our old chairs (turns out the company that made our table set declared bankruptcy in 1983 and it is really hard to find the maple furniture now, sadly).  I checked locally, but found nothing that would even close to work for us, tried Target.com (won't ship the kitchen chairs to Alaska) and everywhere I could think of.  I, after trolling around Amazon for ages, found these, which would actually ship to Alaska (most of them don't ship up here that are on Amazon either).  My husband helped me to put them together and while they don't match our table finish (which, I would have been thrilled if it had, but knew that the odds of that weren't good), they are solid wood and came together solid, so we are happy with them.  And, hey, at least the two chairs on either side of the table match now where they definitely did not before.  The other chair retired to my bedroom where it sits at my husband's computer desk for his occasional internet surfing.  He is much happier with it than the fold out chair he was using and I think the chair will last a long time in that location as my husband will be good to the chair.  I took the black 80's style chair and put it at my sewing table to replace, once again, a fold out chair, so that is also nice for my back when I'm doing sewing (which I have some of that on my long list of things to do as well).

The chair cushions are not built into the chairs by the way.  The cushions are these.  I ordered them to help my back as sitting on the bare wood furniture for hours helping the kids with school was not helping the bulging disc in my back.  They are okay.  They don't slip like the old tie onto the back of the chair cushions used to when I was a kid, but they aren't the best either.  They definitely are firm, so if you are looking for something cushier, I would not recommend them.

The bread box behind the table is this one, although I got mine at way less of the price point than it is now.  And I WOULD NOT recommend buying it at that price point!  The instructions for assembly were non-existent.  It took me two hours to get the screws to hold the bamboo and not strip out as the screws were cheap and I had to figure out how to construct the thing with no instructions to go off of.  When it was finally together, it is cute, I'll give it that, and it works like a bread box should.  I do like the plexi-glass fronts on the bread box as I can see what is in the box.  I am so tired anymore that I was forgetting bread in my other box and was losing things to mold (my fault, not the boxes fault), so this has been really nice and gives me a good place to put baked goods that keeps them off of my counters, which I need.

I took the other bread box I had (that I love the look of) and was able to store a ton of things for more "fancy" baking in it.  Like my icing tip kit, cupcake liner papers and things like that.  I was even able to store some of my holiday cookie cutters that were for the non-Christmas holidays (Easter, Halloween, etc) in my old bread box as well.  It is nice having them by my microwave and within easy reach for when we want to use them without having to tear apart the house looking for them.

I put a radio I found at the used store early this year (whoever got rid of it, got rid of it quick, because when I searched for it I found that it came out in August of last year) on top.  I love the look of it and it will work with a power cord or batteries, which is nice for an emergency.  It gets a few channels, but not my favorites, so I might be moving it around the house to find the channels I want to listen to and working on finding a radio that fits my tastes that also doubles a Bluetooth speaker *laugh*.  I also cleaned up a pewter flower pot (so much tarnish!) I found at the used store years ago and has migrated around the kitchen since I bought it and I put some fake flowers (we bought some new for a art project my daughter had for school and I just snatched some when it was done) in it.  I like how the entire thing looks in the kitchen, I have to say, and it is nice being able to listen to the radio in the morning while I am waiting for the kids to wake up., even if I can't seem to get the classical music station on the sucker.

I ordered a new blind for the kitchen when the pull string for the old one ended up breaking so I couldn't even put the blind all the way down and I was having to stand on a chair to open the blind all the way when I wanted.  It was a HUGE pain and I had enough of things being broken on it.  The wand to open the slats had broken in the earthquake, so the string was the only way to open or close the blind, the paint had changed color from age, it as metal so it did not like to clean up at all, it was an outside mount blind so it got in the way of the pot rack...we had our issues.  The string breaking was just the final straw for me.  So, I ordered a new blind and installed it this week (my window, it turns out, is an odd size window, so I had to order a non-standard sized blind to install).  I am happy with it and even ended up with two as one got lost in the mail for nearly a month and showed up at my door a day after the replacement order came in.  What I am going to do with the other blind...I have no idea, although my mom suggested keeping it as a back up in case something broke on this one.  I tried to match the mahogany type of stain on the trim of the window, and while the photo doesn't show it very well, I nearly succeeded, so I'm okay with it.  At least I can open and close this one *laugh*.

I also, after careful thought, got a behind the sink shelf to try and get a bit more space out of the kitchen. I put my mortar and pestle there so I can access it easier (and not break a toe dropping it on my foot), my ceramic coffee cone (as it doesn't sit in my cupboard very well, but it was a gift, so I was determined to find a nice place for it), my coffee filters (in the tan holder there), my coffee container and my sugar bowl.  It makes morning coffee very streamlined and I really love it.  I wish it was a bit taller, though, as the shelf gives me BARELY enough room to turn the faucet on and off and using the sprayer on the back of the sink requires a bit of creativity.     

Next up was a real game changer for me and was one of the ideas I got from a bunch of Asian vlogs and that was a cutting board holder so you would have cutting boards within easy reach.  I got this cutting board holder and set it up in an awkward corner of my kitchen counters that always seems to not work right.  I got my most used cutting boards out of my sheet pan cabinet (which is saving me a bunch of arm strength as getting sheet pans out when the cabinet is full with the cutting boards in there is not an easy task) and put them in the holder,  Best use of credit card rewards, I swear!  I love having such easy access to my cutting boards!!!  I was even able to put a nice bamboo cutting board I got as a birthday gift in front so you don't have to look at my plastic cutting boards first *laugh*.

The other big purchase I made, was due to, once again, necessity.  My phone started to die and was muting calls randomly.  I went online and found that the Vtech cordless phone I had definitely had a problem with that happening and I should replace the entire phone system.  So, instead of having to buy a new cordless phone and having to replace the batteries way too often (so it feels like anyway) and spending more than the phone originally cost on said batteries, I decided that I was just going back to basics and ordered this corded phone instead.  We have another old corded phone plugged in downstairs, so now we have two corded phones in the house.  I bought a 25 foot phone cord to go with the phone, so it stretches about 12 feet or so without too much trouble and honestly I don't miss the cordless phone.  I only talk to a very limited number of people on the phone, so it works fine for me.  And now I don't have to worry about power outages taking out the phone (sure the answering machine and caller ID won't work, but the main phone does) and I don't have to worry about replacing batteries.  It works for me!  Now I just need to find a good place to wall mount it to get it off of my counter.

Next up, I invested in a six pack of heavy duty magnetic hooks and I hung up all of my pot holders on either side of my fridge to free up actually a pretty significant amount of drawer space out of one of the few drawers I have.  I also like how easy of access I have to them this way.

And the last thing I got for the kitchen is a good old fashioned pan rack so I could turn all of my more awkward shaped pans onto their sides and organize them better and not worry about everything falling over every time I needed a pan.  Once again, a great investment (the one I ordered is no longer available, so no sharing this time) and I'm glad I got it.

For non-photo related items, there are various ones.  My goal, right now, is to do one thing on my Spring Cleaning/Chore list a day AT LEAST, so that I feel like I accomplished something and also to just start slowly checking things off of my very long list.  So we also...

1.  Cleaned the fridge all over the outside, removed the bottom plate and cleaned out the coils anywhere I could reach on the fridge.  Had the husband move the fridge out (if we were going to break the water line, again, moving the fridge, I wanted him there to take care of it *laugh*) and did a deep clean behind it and everything.  I still need to empty the fridge itself and deep clean all of the shelves, but I'm making progress.

2.  My husband has started to put down carpet in my son's room.  It is going slower than we hoped.  The carpet was completely shot, the carpet pad was disintegrating and we even had some mold on the sub-floor (luckily no black mold).  We got all the old carpet in about 2/3 of the room ripped out after doing a bunch of research online I found that you were supposed to scrub the sub-floor five times with borax (I added some bleach just to be safe as well) to make sure that all mold was killed before putting on new carpet.  So, that's what I did.  Got a ton of blister on my knees that day climbing back and forth across the floor, but it came out clean, lighter and the room had no smell anymore.  Course then my husband started putting down carpet squares and there was carpet glue smell to worry about, but with the help of a nice big fan and an open window, the smell went away fast and the son's mood improves every time we can find time where he's in a good mood to put down more carpet squares.  I'll share pictures when the room is a bit more done, but I'm glad we are getting that job done since we have been sitting on the carpet for a good long time now and I'm happy to get it where it needs to go (and get the boxes out of my den *laugh*).

3.  I sat down and started to sketch out my master bedroom closet to try and figure out a good system to organize it.  It looks like Armagedon right now, so I really want to get it organized, neat and accessible and so I'm working it into my master bedroom plans for the summer (since I have to repair and paint it anyway).

4.  Sat down and started figuring out different food preservation plans for this year and uses for each (I don't like to preserve anything anymore that I might or might not use...I work on preserving things we will use versus "might use" for the sake of not wasting food and so we don't have to worry about eating things we might not like).  I'm working on embracing more than just canning as a means of preserving food this year as canning jars have become hard to find and cheaper quality (I've seen and heard absolute horror stories on the new Ball canning jars that are coming out...now that they have been sold, I guess quality control is not what it used to be) and canning lids are still platinum plated unless you want to take your chance on ones made in China that might or might not work.  I've got a limited number of Tattler lids and an old stock of one use canning lids, but still want to make my efforts and materials last as long (and as smartly) as possible.

5.  Started to make tentative plans for the garden this year.  Seeds are definitely out this year as the cats dug up my attempt to start seeds in the house and with the weather breaking so late this year I'm figuring the nursery is going to be my best bet for plant starts.  Between the garden and the CSA box I'm hoping to put up a decent amount for winter next year.

And there you go folks.  Some of the things we've been up to lately.  How about you?  Getting cleaning and organizing done this year?

Christmas Decorations on the Cheap Part 4: Throw it!

This is a decorating technique ANYONE can do in any type of financial situation, so I thought I'd share it.

This time of the year I go with the adage "throw it" when it comes to decorating for winter/Christmas.  What do I mean?  Use what you have in the way of material, sheets, or throws and just plain throw it over furniture for a festive flair!

This is my couch and trunk/coffee table in my den this year.  Remember the white duvet that I bought at the used store for cheap?  Well, I found it went really nicely with my winter themed throw pillows and so it found a home on the back of my couch.

Side note:  The throw pillows were actually one of the few things I've bought new when it comes to decorating.  I ran into them at Target three years ago, thought they were really nice and would go with a lot of different decorating schemes and bought them on sale (but not clearance or anything like that).  I put them into storage with the rest of my Christmas decorations and pull them out every year.  This is year three for them and they still look brand new doing it this way, so I'm happy.

Anyway, back to the original point.  The throw that I put over the trunk?  Was bought at a yard sale for .50 in the middle of summer three years ago (can't tell I was going through a "gee I need to really redo my Christmas decorating now that we've moved to a new house" can you?).  I originally bought it to throw over maybe a recliner to use as a lap throw, but found it too busy for that.  So, a tablecloth it became.  And I personally think it looks great where it is.  It will remain on the table through most of the winter as it's a winter themed throw vs. a purely Christmas one.  I love using throws as table clothes for coffee tables and such because they are 100% washable, which is ALWAYS a good thing.  The red tray some may remember I got at a local used store earlier in the year and thought it would look cute as a Christmas tray (I like to keep some type of tray on my coffee tables to catch any glasses that might end up in the room.  Helps protect the furniture).

The afghan was a gift from my step mom years ago and has rotated around the house into pretty much every room at one time or another.  Right now it's sitting on the couch in case someone gets cold (and also to cover up the shredding couch cushion that I switched out from upstairs for the photo.  Keeping it real folks!).

Upstairs in my living room I decided to go lazy and simple when it came to a coffee table topper this year.  This is just a piece of light blue flannel I found at a thrift store years ago and had in storage for a long while.  So, I washed it and just threw it over the table without any sewing or anything.  It looks nice, will stay in good shape through the holiday season and if I find I want to do something with the cloth later I can without being pegged into using it strictly for a tablecloth.  Yup, I'm lazy!

Oh and another side note?  The Little People nativity was purchased on the Christian Family Bookstores site on an after Christmas clearance sale for 14.00 when my kids were little.  This set is awesome, has put up with rough play from my kids and is still going strong 5 years later.  I highly recommend it!

So when it comes to decorating use your imagination.  Do you have a light blue, or maroon, or any "Christmasy" colored sheet you could use to quickly make a furniture cover of for the holidays?  Have any quilts with blue in them or afghans (which I have those over the back of furniture too right now around the house).  Think outside the super expensive store bought "only for the holidays" types of decorations.  You can still make your house look nice and reuse the things you used as soon as the holidays are done!

Christmas Decorations on the Cheap Part 3: Make the Ordinary Fun

When people ask me what the one piece of advice I can give them when it comes to decorating with class but cheap, I always tell them, "Keep it simple".

And by that I don't really mean just shove a Christmas ball into a bowl and stick it on your table and call it good.  I mean use what you have, buy a few key pieces if you want and use those as focal points, but the big thing is don't buy into the mindset that you have to have your home looking like a Pottery Barn catalog with every season and that you have to spend a lot of money to get a certain look.  It just isn't necessary.

Try to figure out something that helps you to show your own unique style and personality and just go with it.

For instance, when talking about key pieces in decorating, seen up above is the top of our antique bar in our den.  In the center stands a hurricane vase (I think that's what it's called *laugh*) that I got at a yard sale for .50 a while back.  That vase stays put all year, but during the different seasons the contents change.  In the Spring/Summer I put small sea shells in it as I go with a coastal type of theme in the den for Spring and Summer.  In the fall I put pine cones mixed with some Indian corn and put some fall picks sticking out the top. 

And above is what I do for the Christmas season/winter.  The contents are some vintage glass ornaments that I love but will not be put on my Christmas tree because I don't want them to get broken.  In between the ornaments, to help protect them from breaking in an earthquake and also to add depth to the vase, I put a bunch of pine cones I harvested from my yard that I reuse every year just for this purpose.

Don't have a vase you can use for something like this?  What about a glass bowl placed in the middle of your kitchen table?  Don't have a clear glass bowl?  How about a mixing bowl you aren't using with some Christmas ornaments in it?  Even a plastic bowl with some unbreakable ornaments could look pretty festive.

On the right is a quart mason jar I had in the den and I just placed candy canes from a Christmas tree past on it (I bought certified peanut free candy canes this year and tend to reuse candy canes from year to year, so I had some extra).  On the left I put some spools of Christmas ribbon I use for Christmas wrapping (for the most part they are old Costco ribbon spools that I bought at used stores for 1.00 or less through the years).

In front I put a red cinnamon scented candle that I've had since...wow since my husband and I got married I think (14 years?).  I normally keep it in my china cabinet for emergency lighting "just in case", but I pull it out at times like this for decoration purposes.  The steel platter is normally in my den floating around and I needed a place to put the candle so it didn't stain the bar, so voila!  Instant landing zone.  The pine cones I bought at a used store in a bag of big pine cones for like .75 years ago and I float them around from place to place to decorate during the fall and winter months.  My son loves to play with them, so I'm thinking one day soon I'll have to buy more, but for the time being they are surviving.

And here is the area where the "buy for the next season after the holiday has passed" thing comes into play.  All of the above things were purchased at 90% off at different stores.  The houses light up and are all Peanuts related (well Snoopy's dog house doesn't light up).  My kids love them and they were 1.00 to 3.00 a piece when I bought them.  The plate I got at Fred Meyer years ago on clearance and we use that as our "Santa cookie landing zone" for Christmas Eve.  My daughter has already asked if she could inherit the plate some day, which I told her we'd talk about it if it survived till she was an adult.

And above you can see a few Christmas frogs that I have (I used to collect frogs hard when I was younger...still think they are neat, but I don't collect them anymore *laugh*) and think are really cute.  They too get put into storage and pulled out with the Christmas decorations.  Most were gifts given to me years ago that I just reuse from year to year.

 Another area where I decorated with everyday items for the holidays when it came to the ribbon.  It also leads into my next piece of advice...buy used if you can get it cheap!  I have never bought ribbon new and have found new spools at the used stores for .25 to 1.00 as the years have gone by.  I finished off the top of the shelf with an antique German glass bird that I found at a used store for .25.  I collect German glass ornaments (they are now all in storage because, kids), so when I saw the little bird missing it's tail I had to grab it and bring it home.  Unlike other birds in my collection, which I LOVE (birds on your tree mean joy you know.  I have thought they were wonderful since I first laid eyes on them when I was 12), this bird had an actual hook system to hang on a tree instead of a spring loaded clip to attach to a tree branch.  So, I figured I could put it somewhere OTHER than on a tree.

I brought it home, put some lace carefully into it's tail with a knitting needle to replace the horse hair it used to have and then placed it in a small little bird's nest I had left in my Christmas decorations.  Every time I see it it makes me smile.

And here's one more example of using what you have to decorate.  I just placed some of my collection of Christmas cookie cutters into the same glass jar I used at Halloween to place candy in on my sideboard and then placed it over on my bread box.  It shouts "festive", but does double duty as both a practical storage solution for my cookie cutters for the time being and also as a neat Christmas decoration as it shows off different cookie cutters.

There are a lot of different ideas you can do with cookie cutters to help you decorate.  I saw a tip to turn them into napkin rings (just tie a string around the cookie cutters or if you have the metal frame type just put the napkin through the middle of the cookie cutter), tie them to some string to make into a little garland for your kitchen...get creative! 

I have a few other tips for another post, but here's hoping you might have gotten some ideas from this one!

Christmas Decorations on the Cheap Part 2: Stating the Case for a Small Tree

I almost kind of lumped all of the Christmas decorations into one post, but then thought better of it because some things deserve some more attention than that.  This, my friends, is one of those cases.

Around here we have a small Christmas tree.  Minuscule compared to some.  It was a 10.00 clearance tree from Target that we bought three or so years ago to replace our other tree that wouldn't keep branches on it.

It is a slim diameter...three feet might be generous at the bottom.  Some people have called it a hallway tree it's so slim.  It stands at about five feet with the star on top of it.  My son broke the cheapy tree stand last year and my husband quickly built a tree stand out of some scrap wood for it.  At least it's stable now with the wooden tree stand and some duct tape to fill up the play in the tree stand, the tree is pretty darned sturdy now.  I still have a ribbon strung around the center of the tree and tacked to the wall behind it, just to be a bit safer in case my son decides to do something crazy, but it's pretty stable I think.

Not a catalog perfect tree for sure.

But you know what?  I love that tree.

Why? Well there are some really good reasons to love a small tree!

1.  One strand of LED lights takes up the entire tree, so I don't have to worry about storing more than one strand of lights for the tree every year.  And this also helps to reduce energy consumption in that you only have on strand of lights, compared to 3 or more.

2.  I can string the lights by myself and not worry about them tangling because even my small slim arms can wrap around the tree as I wrap the lights.

3.  It doesn't take many ornaments to fill the tree.  I was able to put away all of my breakable ornaments when we bought the tree (thank goodness since my son got into the habit of climbing the tree...thus the wooden tree stand) and just left ornaments that are safe for the kids to play with on the tree and I never had to buy more ornaments as the tree was just that much smaller than our previous one.

4.  Here's a thrifty tip for you.  Instead of tinsel or garland for the tree I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics a long time ago and bought like 15 yards of gold rope.  Using a coupon for 40% off or something like that I got out of there spending less than 10.00 for the rope.  And I've used that rope on our tree instead of garland now for six years or so and it's still going strong toward many more years on the tree.  That's a lot cheaper than having to buy garland for a tree every year or two, it doesn't get stuck to everything and it's easy to store.

5.  The best part of a small tree, especially one slim in diameter is that if you put four gifts under the tree the underneath looks full, so you don't feel this need to make the underside of the tree look "catalog stuffed with presents" perfect.  I really do think this helps to reduce holiday spending because you don't feel this need to fill space in.

6.  My son can now reach the topmost branches of the tree (he's grown tall enough) so I don't have to worry about him pulling down the tree to get at an ornament he wants.

7.  The tree came in three sections and all the branches are pre-secured to the trunk.  So, I can put the tree up in fifteen minutes if you count shaping time.

8.  My kids love this tree just as much as they would a eight foot tree and it takes up about 1/4 of the space of a bigger tree in my den.

So, there you are folks.  Why we have a small tree and why I'm hoping this one will last for a while as replacing it with anything less than a ginormous tree might end up being hard.  I'm really happy I was able to find this 10.00 tree and hope that I can somehow make it stay in one piece for many years to come.

Oh and another benefit of having a tree with a small diameter like this?  You can actually see the hand quilted tree skirt I got at one of our local thrift stores years ago for .50 (yes, fifty CENTS for a hand quilted tree skirt.  I couldn't believe it when I found it!).  I think it's so cute, but it always got buried underneath a really big tree.  Now I can really enjoy it as it takes a while for the gifts to bury the tree skirt now :).

And if you look close you can see a shot of our cat, Ginger under the tree there.  Every year we put up the tree and she camps out under it until the gifts stop her from doing so.  It's pretty funny.

Christmas Decorations on the Cheap Part 1: Christmas Wreaths and Swags

Okay, so confession time.  I come from a VERY superstitious family.  Like one of "those" families that you spill salt and throw it immediately over your left shoulder "for luck".  Never walking under ladders types.  I could go on about the things I was taught growing up.

I think part of it is my dad's family comes from a long line of fishermen.  "Poor as Church mice, but hard working,  God fearing sorts" was my grandpa's way of putting it.  I think the sea is in my blood (if the pure joy I get out of paintings of the old wooden ships is any indication any time I see them *laugh*) and just as surely superstition goes hand in hand with that blood.

One of the superstitions I was taught was that if you don't have evergreen hanging on every entrance to your house comes the New Year you are inviting bad luck into your home for the coming year.  This was one of those superstitions I didn't think much about but kind of thought it was a bit out there.  Until the last couple of years where we've had our share of things happening and those were the two years where I didn't have any money to purchase wreaths for the doors.  So, this year, I decided to hedge my bets and put evergreen on every door. 

You may now laugh your head off at your leisure.  I do not mind one iota *laugh*.

I didn't have money to buy wreaths this year on Black Friday weekend, so I decided to try and find the wreath form I had saved and make a wreath.  Well...I couldn't find it (I'm sure I put it somewhere "safe"...it's like the "Room of Requirement" from Harry Potter, only you can never find the darned room again *laugh*).  I could have used my mom's old trick of using a coat hanger bent into a circle and then using floral wire to wrap the pine around the wire, but this leads to a three dimensional wreath, so it's kind of hard to hang on a door when you have an outer storm door to worry about (which out of four doors, I have have two of those to worry about). 

I tried to think of something else to do and came up with an idea.  I dug around in storage and found a fake wreath I had bought on clearance from L.L. Bean for like 7.00 YEARS ago, but hadn't used in a bit because it was getting kind of sparse (bits of fake greenery falling off as the years went by, etc).  And so, armed with some ideas and a tree saw, I took to my yard and decimated some tree branches today to make some decorations.

And here's what I came up with.

The wreath above is actually the fake wreath I was talking about, but with real pine sprigs secured throughout the perimeter (I just plain stuck them into the wreath as I went along and it worked great).  I then secured some wreath picks from previous wreaths I'd bought throughout the years (yes, I always grab those off before throwing things away) and a bow from a previous wreath and voila!  Front door wreath done!  I even secured some battery powered LED lights to the wreath to light it up on Christmas because I had them in my Christmas stuff from a previous year.

Next up is another "punt" when it comes to decorations.  I put this one up outside of my upper deck/kitchen door.  I ran out of wreath hangers (I had 3, but can't figure out where my fourth one went too...I almost think it got bent out of whack and I threw it away), so I hung this one on a nail by the door.  This is a fake pine swag I found at the used store a few years back for .50 and then I just secured it to some pine branches with some floral wire.  It really does look better in person than the photograph makes it seem.

And then I made two of these for the other doors.  These are straight pine from my yard that I made into swags for the other two doors with layering of pine branches and some floral wire.  They are pretty much identical with the exception that the other one has a more elaborate bow on it (I just forgot to take a picture of it).  I took some pine comes from my yard that I had dried out and allowed to open earlier in the year and wired them to the swags and then I took some cranberry wreath picks that I had and wired those in throughout the swags as well.

Now, just to be safe here I want to assure everyone I have NO IDEA what I'm doing when it comes to floral arrangements of any type, I do not know how to make wreaths without one of those "jam in" forms that you can buy and even then I'm still trying to master that skill and I have never taken a class to help me in this area. 

So, in short, I think these look fine, but they probably are making professionals everywhere flinch *laugh*.

But, hey, they were free for me to make, so I consider it worth it.

You might not have the money to get Christmas decorations for your door, but maybe you too could doctor up a used store find, an old fake wreath or just make something out of what you have.  Just because you don't have the money to buy something doesn't mean your hands are completely tied :).  Get creative!  You might find you enjoy the process!

The Birthday Bedroom Reveal (Redoing a Room on a Zero Budget)

Well, despite having to blow my nose about once every three seconds yesterday and having a son home sick, I put together his new room for him.  Mainly because we are expecting guests for his actual birthday later in the week and I didn't want to feel pressured to do too much at one time.  This also allows him to get used to the room before he has to deal with guests too.  So far he loves his new room, so score one for me ;).

So, first here's the room that I had to deal with before...

The shelf above, by the way is actually a toddler bench I got on Amazon for 10.00 when my son was really tiny (like 6 months old or so) in preparation of getting a house so we could give him his own room.  Unfortunately the bench didn't get much use as by the time we found a house and moved to our new place, my son was just too darn big for the bench anymore.  So my husband converted the bench into a shelf for the wall (and yes, it's straight in case you are wondering in later pictures.  I kept taking the photo of the shelf at an angle, so it looks wonky.  Sorry).

The wooden bedside table needed to go.  It's sturdy and we love it to pieces, but my son spent most of his time standing on it to pull all of the trucks my husband put up on his shelf down on top of his head, so it was time for a changing on the proverbial guard there.  There are some things missing from these photos too.  I pulled a gigantic rocking horse out of the bedroom and put it into storage that my husband had made a couple of years ago and I took a huge car race track thingy that my son spent most of his time standing on and put it into storage too.  So, the room wasn't QUITE as sparse as the photos make it appear.

Please excuse the very dirty mirror in the photo.  I was in a hurry and was also sick, so I just left the effort to clean the mirror until after I was done setting up the room.

And now for the after pics!  I'm quite proud of this room.  Considering the ONLY money I spent out of pocket was for 7.00 for some quilt binding for the quilt and 1.00 (that I dug out of spare change we had around here to pay for) for a shelf, I thought I did pretty darned well.

My son LOVES cars (all those moving parts you know), so I went with car racing as the theme for his room.  Formula One racing to be more exact :).

Tadaaa!!!!

 When you first enter the room you see this.  I got this car mat at a used store for 1.00 probably about six years ago.  We've had it in the kid's rooms on and off throughout the years, but my son for the longest time liked to sleep on the floor and since he sucked on a bottle...well there was always a lot of milk and mess on the mat and I finally just threw it into storage because I got tired of cleaning it on TOP of the carpet underneath it.  I pulled it back out of storage, ran the carpet cleaner over it a ton of times to clean it up and now the kiddos have a place to play cars.

Here's the quilt I made for him.  The black quilt binding is where the 7.00 I was talking about went.  The blue border material was a very nice quality twin sheet I picked up at a used store a while ago. When I cut the material up to make the quilt I then used some of the left over material to make a matching pillow sham. 

I then embroidered this design on the pillow sham.  I thought I did pretty well for a gal who is usually pretty inept at drawing machines.

I made a racing themed bunting for the one big wall (it's the only really BIG expanse of wall without anything like closets, windows or shelves interrupting the space).  I used scrap material and ribbon I already had.  My inspiration was all the different flags used in racing (green for go, white and black for the checkered flag, red for warning, yellow for caution).  I thought it turned out pretty cool myself especially since I eyeballed the spacing on the flags as I was sewing along.

The prints on the wall were from the good ol' internet.  I was looking for Formula One types of vintage posters to print off and I ran into these Cars 2 promotional posters.  I loved them, printed two of them off (there are four in the series) and put them in frames that I had in the house already.  And voila!  Formula One themed prints :).

If interested you can find the prints here.  Just page down to the gallery and look for the prints in the mess of photos.  They're pretty cool!

I hope to dig up a couple of more frames at the used stores or hiding around here somewhere so I can print off the other two prints, maybe for Christmas for my son and put them in other areas of his room.

Here's a view of the shelves on the other side of his bed.  The wire shelf was from the used store for 1.00.  There were two shelves there and I had two dollars in pocket change and immediately bought them both.  The picture doesn't really do the shelves justice.  They are pretty well built.  The other shelf I put in my bathroom to put things on to replace the shelf I had taken out of it for my daughter's room.

The other wooden shelf has moved with us since we moved into our previous home (another hold over from the previous owners).  It's rotated around.  Most recently it housed my limited collection of Pyrex casseroles in my kitchen, but I cleaned it off and put it in here instead. 

On top of the shelf I put these.  I had bought some all natural hand made wooden cars at a used store for .25 a piece a long while ago and placed them in the "gifts to be" pile.  They were so cheap because they had pen graffiti from the previous owners (read: doodles) all over them.  I used some acrylic paints I already had around the house from previous projects, looked up Formula One color schemes that would match the colors I had (with a bit of help from my husband) and I ended up with two Formula One cars in American blue and British green.  I think they turned out really nice myself.

And here is the new beside table, of which I'm extremely proud of having come up with this idea.  I had an old barrel that my husband's grandfather gave us years ago.  Originally the two barrels we brought back housed dishes to give to my mother-in-law.  We gave her the dishes but kept the barrels.  This is the bigger of the two.  It originally had a vintage type of wallpaper on the outside of it that had seen MUCH better days.  The paper was flaking off the sides bad and the top of the barrel was rusting.  It had been sitting in the garage taking up space and so I figured I could use it for a new bedside table. 

I wrapped the barrel in white drawing paper (the kind that comes on the roll) and then printed the Mobil logo onto photo paper off of the internet.  I then wrapped as much as I could of the barrel in laminating paper to stop my son from hopefully causing much liquid damage on it.  I tried to match a vintage looking oil drum as much as possible.  My husband thinks I did a pretty good job, so that's good enough for me.

Then came the lid.  I took sand paper my husband had and sanded all of the rust off of the lid.  I then took a can of silver spray paint my husband had and gave the lid a couple of coats (it's a rust resistant paint too, which is a good thing as the lid is going to take abuse I'm sure).

This is probably my son's favorite part of his new room thus far.  Because the barrel is empty he can hit the lid and it's essentially like a big drum.  He LOVES the noise *laugh*.

Next to the "oil drum" is an empty five gallon bucket or "waste oil" container that is currently housing dirty laundry.  Total coincidence that it worked out the bucket would go with the theme, but I'll take it ;).

And above the bedside oil drum is the new contents of his shelf.  I had empty coffee cans that I hated to just throw away.  I looked at them and thought they'd make cool old oil cans if I could find labels to put on them.  I thought I would have to try and draw them by hand, but the internet wowed me again when I found this template and tutorial.  I only printed off the automotive oil labels and only printed off three of them (seeing as how I had three cans).  I put the labels on with packaging tape (once again for protection to the paper to help save them from abuse by my paper eating son).  My husband loves these.  I think it's his favorite part of the decor. 

I then put some of my son's books on auto racing and machines on the shelf and placed his little rubber band run race car on the shelf too.  This gives him less motivation to get into things on the shelf as his trucks are now more on his level in the room below.  He checked out the shelf for a few minutes and then shrugged and went back to playing on his bed. 

On top is his Speed Racer Mach 5 nightlight my husband found at a used store ages ago and a gasoline truck coin bank my brother-in-law gave to my son for Christmas, I think it was last year. 

Over by his closet didn't change much (thus the lack of pics of that wall).  All I did there was take down all of the old and outdated artwork I had hanging up of his and put this piece up of his I had framed.  I always thought it was really cool splatter painting and it reflects the colors of the space well.  So, I hung it up in his room instead of in my stairway.

I always try to incorporate pictures the kids have made themselves into the house and their spaces.  Sometimes the best artwork is the artwork you do yourself :).

Overall, for a non-budget makeover, I thought I did pretty decent.  And my son loves the new room, so double bonus there.

Lesson here folks?  NEVER let being broke dissuade you from at least trying to do something.  Sometimes you might just surprise yourself.

Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

Well, this is a week where despite a son who has been SUPER destructive (I spent until now today cleaning up the serious mess he made my upstairs while I was cleaning and organizing the den) I actually got a decent amount of things done!

So, let's get to it shall we?

I managed to reorganize the den and got my sewing area set up!  The shot above is what you see when you enter my den from the hallway.  I also, as you can see, got the glider rocker upholstered and placed in the den for my son to use.

 This is the shot of what you'd see if you were standing with your back to the glider rocker.  You don't see the bookcases off to the left and right of the cabinet that are still a major mess, but it's hard to make VHS tapes look good, so I just focused on the clean parts *laugh*.

I would share the before photos of the den, but honestly it was just a HUGE mess.  My sewing area, after we got the TV cabinet was all over the place, some of which was in open Rubbermaid containers that were stacked wherever.

 And here's a shot of my new sewing corner.  I am super happy with how this turned out and I can safely say I paid not one penny to get this done as I shopped around my house to find the things I needed to get it done.

For instance, the clock on the wall has rotated around two houses now.  When we bought our previous house it was on an estate sale and was FULL of stuff when we got it.  The clock, and the antique fold out bar came with the house.  We had the clock hanging in our bedroom, but would always use the digital alarm clock to tell the time, so I moved it out to the den so I wouldn't lose track of time when in the den.

The crate on top of the basket I received with a free thing of Melissa and Doug blocks I got years ago (I had a 10.00 off 10.00 code for some site and the blocks were on sale for 10.00.  It was awesome).   It's very solid and even dove tailed, so I use it to store current sewing projects I'm working on.  The basket hamper under it I use to hold my fabric scraps.  That was found at a used store a couple of years back for 3.00.  Didn't work as a hamper as it was just was too big for the area I needed  a hamper in, but it works great as a fabric scrap basket.

The dresser houses some of my cloth stash and a bunch of my crafting things as well.  On top I used some of my vintage jars to house zippers, plastic weight beads, buttons and other sewing notions. They'd been sitting on the sill above the TV cabinet, but always looked cluttered.  So, I moved them where I could access them easier.  I then moved a lamp for added light to the top of the dresser as well.  The basket housing my "most necessary" patterns was a leftover from my pantry redo.

The dresser itself?  Well, this was actually my dresser from my bedroom.  I got it at a local antique store years ago at a great bargain.  I just fell in love with it (my husband still, I think is kind of baffled by my love of it as the veneer on top of the dresser is shot, thus the tablecloth cover) and the character it had.  I desperately needed SOMETHING to clean up the den and knew we didn't have the money to build shelves or something to house my sewing and crafting items, so I figured the dresser would get the job done.  And it looks great with the all the pine in the den, I think.

I'm living out of Rubbermaid containers for the time being, until I can pull a dresser out of storage, but it is worth it.

Above the dresser I even hung up my little collection of vintage embroidery hoops.  I thought it came out looking awesome myself.

The sewing table I got at a used store about three years ago for, geez, I believe it was like 20.00 or something close to that.  It's unique in that you can mount whatever sewing machine you want to the table and then the entire sewing machine folds down into the sewing table when not in use (instead of needing a special sewing machine to go with the table, which is what I normally see).  Under the dresser I stored some of my bolts of material.  And then I stored a glass jar of ribbon behind the crock (not shown, obviously).

The crock I had picked up at a yard sale for next to nothing a long while ago.  Honestly, I'm not sure why I picked it up, as it had another family's name on it, but I always wanted a crock, so I bought it.  I turned it around so the name wasn't visible and it had been housing some of my children's blocks, but I cleaned it out and placed all of my hem tape, bias tape, quilt binding and the like in the crock.  I love the little design element it lends to the area.

The red toolbox is my "stuffed fuller than full" sewing box.  It folds outward like a tackle box in both directions and my husband brought it home from one of his expeditions years ago.  I thought it would make a great sewing box, so he gave it to me.

So, yeah, I am proud of the den.  Can't tell can you?

Other than all of that, I finally managed to go through the rest of the storage we had, or at least anything that I could access anyway.  The rubbermaid containers of lawn sale things are currently stacked in the corner of my bedroom where my dresser used to be and also in a couple small areas of the den, but at least it's done.  Now we just need to find time to have a yard sale, or at least start to slowly donate or give away the things we don't need.

I haven't gotten the master bedroom reorganized yet, although I did make a floor plan and worked on figuring out where I wanted to place things.  I'm hoping to get to that next week.

I dehydrated some more herbs and kale this week and even got a few more rosehips out of my yard and dehydrated them.

I pulled about 1/2 of the garlic from the garden.  I didn't want to give up on the healthy looking garlic, but I might just pull it all this week and call it good.  I've been saving my coffee grounds to work into the soil after I pull the garlic to help it get some nourishment to help see the soil well through the winter.

So, let's get onto this week's goals!

1.  Cut out shorts for children.
2.  Rearrange master bedroom.
3.  Continue to dehydrate herbs, vacuum seal and store.
4.  Set up new printer.
5.  Shampoo upstairs carpets.
6.  Pull rest of garlic and compost that area of the garden.
7.  Make laundry soap.
8.  Make tablecloth for living room coffee table.
9.  Cut out pillow shams and handkerchiefs.
10.  Get kids ready for school and make sure upstairs space is ready to accommodate lunch items such as juice boxes.

Thrifty Thursday: A Room Redecorate for Under 20.00

Today, I decided to do Thrifty Thursday a little differently and show you what I've been up to the last little bit.  A lot of it was in the planning, figuring out a theme and such and then picking stuff up at garage sales, or more importantly from around my house, and putting the plan into action.

This was a direct result of my daughter really needing a reward of some type.  She started out this school year really behind due to a stomach condition that made her miss probably at least half the school year last year.  She worked hard at school, worked hard at home with me on her homework and as a result she finished the school year scoring average or above average in both math and reading!  It was a long hard road, but we got there.

My daughter recently has become obsessed with the book series "Fancy Nancy" and when she saw Nancy's "fancy" room she desperately wanted a fancy room of her very own.  Her dad and I sat down with her and told her if she worked really hard on her end of the year testing for school (which she did in spades) and cleaned her room before bedtime WITHOUT complaining (we just have kind of gotten used to a war at  night getting her to clean her room every day) I'd fancy up her room for her.  And she did everything we asked without complaining for the last three weeks.

So, this week it was time to repay her for all of her hard work.

Here's some pictures of her room before the redecorating.

One of the plans I had was to make it easy for her to clean her room by making the main floor space kind of minimalist in design.  You can see the just open bins of dress up stuff and things that were just around her room.  You can also see the top of her "tea table" that I set up for her to have her tea parties on that was kind of sitting in the middle of her room.  My daughter's room is kind of tiny, so I decided if she wanted a fancy room it needed to be kind of empty or it wasn't going to be looking very fancy at the end.  I didn't want to fancy up the room with tons of stuff and then my daughter just have MORE stuff to clean every night.  That seemed counter productive.  So, I worked out a plan/theme in my mind and went with it.

I decided the theme for her room would be, "A Garden Cottage by the Sea" and figured I could do a lot of the decorating with things I already had from around my house.  Her room was already decorated with butterflies (my handiwork on the curtains and quilt on her bed) so I figured a garden theme would work perfectly.  I then headed to the thrift store with a list of additional things I hoped to find/get to finish up the design work.  And I hit pay dirt.

Here are the pictures of the room after the redecorating I did.

The biggest purchase I made was this.

A limited edition painting of a cottage on a country road which was just PERFECT for what I wanted to do with the room.  It cost me 5.00.

A grape wreath for .50, a baggie of fake flowers for another .50 and some floral wire that I already had and voila.  A fancy wreath to hang.

Here's a view of her desk area.  I took some mason jars (which hurt to part with, but they were needed here) and sorted her drawing and painting things so she'll be able to find them easily at her desk.  My daughter loves to draw, so I wanted to make it that much easier for her to express her creativity.  On top of her desk I placed a lavender plant I had on top of my cabinets in the kitchen and then just organized part of her rock collection around the plant.  I also put up one of the wooden dolls that my mother-in-law has been picking up for my daughter when she finds them (we can't really do paper dolls around here because my son likes to eat paper).

I put a light green small tablecloth I had on my living room coffee table and placed it on her table with a doily I bought for 1.00 at the thrift store to dress up the space.  It really is amazing how a doily can make any space fancier isn't it?

In the small space between her closets I hung up some straw hats as an extra decorating element and the double bonus was that it got the hats up and away from falling on the floor, thus made it so they won't get wrecked over time.  I did buy the middle hanging hat for 1.00 at the used store, but it was such a nice touch to the room I couldn't pass it up.

Another big thing I did, which kind of hurt for me to do, was I took the small bookcase I had in my bathroom and moved it into my daughter's room.  I kept trying to avoid doing it, but I finally came to the conclusion that she needed a bookcase as I was picking the books she had been reading at night off the floor where they'd slid off her bedside table every night.  She has book shelves in her closet, but they are kind of high and hard to get to, so I knew she needed something that was lower and easy for her to access or the problem with floor books would continue.

So, I rearranged and got the bookcase in her room.  One of the things I bought for her room was some pineapple bookends I found for 1.50.  I took the books she had around her room and placed them on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.  This way she can take whatever book she's reading at night and place it on the bookshelf and it won't end up on the floor.

I took a basket I bought years ago that had been in my bathroom housing shampoos and things and placed it on the bottom shelf.  In it I placed her chap sticks, moisturizers and other self care things that were scattered all over her room.  On the upper shelf is a basket I found for .25 which I told her to put hair things in so she'll have a place for hair elastics and barrettes. And I dug her "Lorax" tree she made at school out of her closet and placed it on the shelf so she can enjoy it.

On top of the bookcase I placed a small crocheted blanket that my step-mom made that my daughter loves, but is kind of small to use as an actual blanket.  But it sure does fancy up the space.  And then I placed a couple of boxes my mother-in-law bought my daughter for her birthday that house little necklaces and things in them.  I also bought a tin on a whim that says "Spring" on it with a little girl holding flowers for .25.  I'm sure she can use the tin for something, but I thought it was super cute and went with the room well.

One of the main requests my daughter had for her room was that she wanted a mirror in it.  We tried to convince her she didn't need one with mirrored closet doors and all, but she insisted.  So, I took a mirror I had down in my den and hung it above the bookcase.

I also hung up some of my daughter's spring and summer themed artwork around the bedroom in places and took down her winter themed things to put into her closet until...well...winter.

As a last little touched I took a small vase I got for .50 and placed some of the shells I had previously in a hurricane vase in my den (it's part of a coastal theme design I have in the summertime in my den).  I put a big shell I found at the used store for 1.00 beside the vase (so she has a shell that she can actually play with).  Underneath I placed a book on herbs I had to span the gap behind her dresser so we don't lose any shells behind it at some point (herbs kind of went with the garden theme).  I do use the book from time to time, but it'll be easy enough to grab it for a few minutes here and there to take notes or whatever. 

I took the basket with her ponies in it and placed it over by her bed, mainly to discourage the space becoming a clutter catch all, which it always has become in the past.  I then took the rest of her things and managed to rearrange her closets so everything tucks into the closets nicely and is out of the way, so she has plenty of floor space to play (at the end of her bed right now is a couple of cardboard boxes that she's using one as a dog house for one of her stuffed dogs and the other is a doll bed for her Elsa and Anna dolls.  I left those because playing with boxes is important ;).

The only semi-permanent thing I kept out was her small tea table, which I placed over by her dresser so she has good access to tea parties, which she's really into right now.  She even had been using a small picnic blanket I made for her 18" dolls as a tablecloth, which I thought was super cute, so I left it.

All totaled I spent around 15.00 on decorations total and I got one thrilled daughter out of the deal.  She loves that the room is fancy and super easy to keep clean (really her closets might become a sty here very quickly, but at least it is off her floor) and she now has a "fancy" room to go into every day.  And she's keeping it clean, multiple times a day, just so that it feels clean and fancy.

Total cost of redecorate:  Less than 20.00 and rearranging items from around the house.

Cost of Having a Daughter Thrilled With Her Room and Not Complaining About Cleaning It:  Priceless!