European Adventure Day #3

Hello Fellow Thrifters and Friends,
  I loved day #3 on our trip. It was so much fun to find this beautiful street. The street is lined with lovely stores and then on the side walks are booths filled with food, jewelry, clothing, house wares, and all sorts of other treasures.

Day #3

One of my favorite things about Europe is that they have tons of lovely flower shops. It seems like there are flowers being sold everywhere, and since I love flowers it is quite a joy to see all sorts of beauties on many of the streets we visited.

Each street is a new work of art in London. Each home has their own specific color. I love the idea of saying come on over you will know it is my house because its the pink one. So fun.

This store is AMAZING! Walls lined with vintage sewing machines. They sell high end clothing in mainly neutral colors. 

Our final destination for the day was an extra awesome one. We got to go to sherlock Holmes house where they have a museum set up. It was so much fun to see his little house. 

What a happy day it was!

P.s I can't wait to share my treasure hunt finds with you tomorrow. I found some fantastic stuff!

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European Adventure Day #2

Hello Fellow Thrifters and Friends,
  Welcome to day #2 of our wonderful trip. This day was a day full of biking and walking. We rented bikes and went from our hotel to Kensington park, then to Buckingham palace, Big Ben, Westiminister Abbey, and then to a book sale. Lets just say our little feets were hurting after this fun day. We had a great time though and got to see a bunch of beautiful sites.

Day #2

Buckingham palace is surrounded by beautiful flowers and TONS of people. I just couldn't believe how vibrant the flowers are that surround the palace. I just loved looking at them.

We were very excited to see find the palace and walk around the beautiful grounds surrounding it.

We were lucky enough to arrive during the changing of the guard. That was really neat to see.

I wanted to sit in this spot for hours, but we kept trecking on as there was much more to see in London.

I just loved finding amazing detail wherever I looked.

Big ben is quite the site to see. The clock is beautiful and the windows are made up of tiny squares that reflect the most beautiful light.

I DID NOT go on this death trap, but it was neat to see. I hate heights so I just enjoyed snapping some shots of the eye of London,  and continuing on my way. 

Westminister is an amazing church and has some lovely grounds as well.

I found out about a used book sale that is held under a bridge every day and I was so happy to find it open. I just love this concept and wish we had one in my town.

Tons of awesome used books.

Day two was fantastic, and I love remembering every where we went that day.

See you tomorrow with day #3!

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European Adventure Day #1

Hello Fellow Thrifters and Friends,

  I am home from an amazing 10 day adventure in Europe, and I can gladly say that I am so happy to be home. I missed my lovely house, my bed, and my normal life. The trip was amazing and I am so excited to be sharing my adventures with you lovelies. I was going to do a post with all of my favorite pictures and realized it would be huge, so I decided it would be great fun to share with you pictures of each day just because I am so excited to share my adventure with you.

Day #1

I couldn't believe I was holding a ticket that would take me to London. 

 Ready to get through customs and get to London

 Carry on staples included magazines, Ipad, IPhone, and gum. I did not take much because I didn't want to lug it all over Europe and because lets be honest I knew I would sit back and watch all of the movies they had to offer anyways. Next trip I will take a bigger purse because this one just didn't quite fit everything and be able to close it. Lesson learned.

 On the plane right before take off. 

 Ready to leave!

 Thank you air plane for getting us safely to London.

Our hotel in London. Worlds smallest bedroom and bathroom, but we didn't care because we did not spend a lot of time in our hotel room. We left right after we dropped our bags to go on a small walk and see what was near our hotel.

First siting of something old.

Day #1 was a blast, but we were also exhausted! I can't wait to share more pictures with you all. It just keeps getting better. 

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Good Bye California Hello...

Hello Fellow Thrifters and Friends,
    I am so excited because tomorrow Mr Joyful Thrifter and I are leaving for Europe!!!

(Image Via Pinterest)

(Image Via Pinterest)

We will go to London first and then take a hopper flight to Ireland. Yes this is real, and it so does not feel real. I can't wait to share pictures and all of our adventures with you all when I get back. If you want to feel free to follow me on Instragram and you can enjoy our journey in real time. 

See you all when I come back!

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"No Matter What" Art Project

Hello Fellow Thrifters and friends,
   The phrase "No Matter What" is very near and dear to my heart. Mr Joyful Thrifter and I told each other that often while we were dating and made it our slogan for our marriage. The saying has so much meaning to us.

-"No Matter What" we will be faithful to each other

-"No Matter What" we will always enjoy each other

-"No Matter What" we will continue to grow our marriage

-"No Matter What" we will love each other

I could make this list go on and on, but those are some of the main points. Those three simple words hold powerful meaning in our little home. That being said I love using it for inspiration in my art. I have seen some lovely canvas art lately where the person simply hand writes important words, wedding vows, song lyrics, etc on the canvas. I love the simpleness of it but how awesome it looks hanging on a wall.

Canvas can get a bit pricey, and since I was not sure if I was going to like the finished product I bought a piece of foam board to try out this project on. Plus the foam board was on sale for $0.88 at Michaels so that made my decision very easy.

I started off by penciling in the words before I started painting so some lines would not be larger then other ones. 

The final product needs to be hung, but I can't wait to find a wall where it will look lovely. And also continue to remind us of how important our marriage and our home is. 

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Today is Great

Hello Fellow Thrifters and Friends,

It has been a lovely weekend, and today is great! I love the soft weather, and I love this strange plant that is growing in my back yard. I hope your day is great today too!

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Painting an Old Dresser

Hello fellow Thrifters and Friends,
   I have been re-painting furniture like crazy latley. It is such a great way to update pieces I already have. Plus it can brighten up a room very nicely when you choose a bright color like yellow.

I love looking at all the shades of yellow paint at Lowes. it makes me want to buy enough furniture to use all of the shades.

We bought the dresser a long time ago at an estate sale for $2.00, and just never got around to painting it. We decided this week that our tv was just to low to the ground, and we remembered this little dresser and decided it was going to make a perfect tv stand. The dresser was definitely in need of some paint and new knobs. The knobs that were on the dresser did not match, and to be honest they were just ugly. 

Here is the before:

Here is the Lovely After:

I just love the color. It is so happy and cheerful. The knobs were found at a garage sale, so this whole project cost about $5.00 to do. Now that is a thrifty update. 

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First Storage Auction

Hello Fellow Thrifters and Friends,
    Mr Joyful Thrifter and I got to go to our first storage auction this past month. Going to a storage auction has been something we have wanted to do for quite some time. We are huge fans storage wars, so when we heard of a local storage auction we had to give it a go.

(image via A&E)

Here we are posing for exactly the same picture. Right?

We did not buy a storage locker, but it was quite the adventure to go. Here is what we learned at the auction:

-You don't have to shower before attending an auction. WOW did it smell awful inside the storage facility.

-A lot of lockers are empty or have just one shoe box in them.

-Another mans trash is truly another mans treasure. An example is a locker with a several cases of kitty food went for $45.00. Why I don't know. 

-We could have brought home so much crap our house would have turned into a storage facility.

Over all it was a great time, and we will for sure go to another one again sometime.

Have you ever been to an storage auction before?

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Upcycling Shutters into a Head Board

Hello fellow Thrifters and Friends,

   Our spare bedroom is looking so lovely. I can't wait to do a room tour here on the blog, but it still has a way to go. I have seen some lovely head boards made out of shutters on Pinterest, and I had two shutters sitting in my garage needing to be used. 

My dad cut the shutters in two pieces for me, so they could be a head board size instead of door size. We thought we would sand the doors before beginning to paint them to make sure the paint adhered to them.

Lets just say that idea back fired on us pretty quickly. Mr Joyful Thrifter had to put each one of those little pieces of wood back into the little slats. So sad. Such is the life of a DIY'er. He finally did it and I was able to continue on with the project, and we decided that they did not need to be sanded anymore.

He was pretty sad about having to put them back together again.

Look at that awesome mint green color! I just love it. Plus I got the paint for $3.00 in the clearance section at Lowes. That is my favorite spot at Lowes for sure. 

They are looking so lovely. I will post pictures soon of the finished product hanging on the wall. 

Good Luck on the projects you are working on!

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