The Decorating Bug

For two years now I've been in my home, and for two years I've had blank walls. The reason for this is two fold.

1. I consider myself to be a bit artsy and crafty, yet I don't have any works of art I feel worthy of putting up on my walls, but I refuse to just "buy" something made by someone else when I'm perfectly capable of making something.
2. It takes MONEY and TIME to make things. Both I always come up short on.

So, for two years my walls have remained empty and projects are left unfinished. SO, I'm dedicating this fall/winter to taking care of my walls and unfinished projects little by little. Thanks to Thrifty Decor Chick she has got me totally motivated with her savvy thrift store salvages and restorations.  I'm in awe of some of the stuff she comes up with.  Totally gorgeous and totally within budget.

So, I admit I kinda suck on decorating.  I just don't know how to arrange things properly on walls and what should go where.  I'm pretty awesome at copycatting things, so that's pretty much what I plan to do but add my own little flair to it.

So I started last week with my wine bottle project (which I totally stole from somewhere but can't find the link so I can't give them credit...so sorry).  Anyhow, I primed them, painted them a color to match my Asian tablecloths and then looked up the Chinese words online, crossing my fingers I didn't accidentally stumble across a dirty word ;)  I added some cherry blossom to them and plan to put them on a shelf in my dining room.  I really love the way they turned out.  I can't wait to get them up on the wall!

And yes, I'm missing one cherry blossom.  For some dumb reason when I went to Hobby Lobby and got them I only got four instead of five.  Waiting for them to go back to 50% off again to buy another.  Total project cost (since I had the wine bottles leftover and the paint on hand) about $5.00!

This was the old mirror to my dresser we got at a thrift store.  We don't use the mirror and it's been sitting under our bed for two years.  I pulled it out, cleaned it off and painted it black.  It's not the best mirror out there but it was FREE (oh and it had to be THIS weekend when I ran out of Windex...).  I found the candle holders at a local thrift store this past weekend, brought them home, painted them with a little ORB (Oil Rubbed Bronze by Krylon), and voila.  The whole project cost me about $12.00!  Now I have one wall in my living room done at least.

Anyhow, I have MANY more projects in the mix, just trying to find time to do them all!  Will post them as I get finished! I'm not quite as innovative as my guru (Thrifty Decor Chick), but I'm trying to get there.