Beauty and the Budget: Project Mirrors
Category: Beauty and the Budget
Home decorating on a student budget …
Beauty and the Budget: Project ‘clip-on makeovers’
So, I found some super cute vintage looking clip on earrings at the market the other day for .50p. (If in the states look at yard sales or flea markets for the same). Being on a graduate wife budget, I just couldn’t resist the price. After about two wears, I realized they were a bit too heavy and large to enjoy wearing. Instead of ditching them I did a few little DIY make-overs and voila! Fun, fabulous face-lifts for only 50p! I decided to share a few of them and take a break from our home decorating series. I hope you can enjoy some of the super easy DIY projects below!
Beauty and the Budget: Project Framed Things II
Following Jill’s post on ‘framed things’, I’m excited to share a few inexpensive tricks from my own flat.
1) So, I absolutely love it when I come across a series of prints that are similarly framed and lined on a wall as seen here. Don’t get me wrong, I adore mismatched and funky frame arrangements as well (and many such arrangements can be found in my home) but something about the order and the stability of a few simple prints brings an element of permanence and consistency that is otherwise very hard to achieve.
While being on a budget, it is pretty much impossible (unless you strike gold at a charity shop or boot sale) to find more than one print/drawing and mat and frame that go together. So, I decided to create my own series. I am a huge fan of Picasso and Matisse’s sketches, so I decided to just copy some of their simple face images. You could do a series of your own loose sketches, or even frame a series of fun, brightly colored paintings by your toddler…the possibilities are endless!
I bought 4 matching frames with thick mats at Wal-Mart (of all places) in the states for $10 each and proceeded to carry them back with me in my carry-on at Christmas. You could also purchase the frames (like Jill mentioned) at some place like Ikea or Argos, here in the UK. Although a bit more pricey than other tips below, the only costs involved are the large frames!
2) Sticking with the idea of framing a series of similar items, you could choose to frame postcards, bar coasters from your favorite pubs, pressed leaves from your yard or any number of fun, colorful items that liven up your home. I bought the below frames at Ikea for £3 each and the vintage postcards were found at the local market for 50p each. I dug the bins and found some that had women depicted in different settings, clothing and doing different activities. I have these in my bedroom and I love the feminine glow that they bring.
I also used the same frames to hang some pressed leaves in our living room. Check out this link for a great guide to properly pressing leaves. At my old home in DC, I even had framed pieces of flat coral and dried seaweed from a beloved beach trip and it looked amazing. Be creative!
3) My last money saving tip for lovely but inexpensive framed wall décor comes in the form of wrapping paper. I cut out the little egg section below (actually used on a gift from my friend Sarah) and popped it in this $3 frame that I found at a yard sale in DC. I have the below map of England framed in our flat and it’s total cost was £4. The frame was £1 at a local charity shop and the map itself is actually a sheet of fancy wrapping paper from Paperchase that cost £3. You could find the equivalent at Papersource in the states. I also have the adorable ABC sheet of wrapping paper up on the back of our nursery door to teach our daughter the ABCs.
More tips: Check out these gorgeous calendars which could be used to cut and frame. In our daughter’s nursery back in DC, I found a beautiful old nursery rhythm book at a yard sale and I cut out pages and framed them to line her walls. It was absolutely precious and so original. Be creative…the possibilities truly are endless! Keep your eyes open and frame away!
Beauty and the Budget: Project Framed Things I
Written by Jill – a former graduate wife
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I was a graduate wife for 7 wonderful years and I am now in my 6th year of hubby having a full-time job! YAHOO! Hang in there girls, it does eventually happen!
I have found, however, that some former habits die-hard…like decorating on the cheap…or sometimes not decorating at all (GASP!).
When we moved to England for full-time job #2, we found ourselves living in a gorgeous Victorian home with lots of character. And bare walls. Bare white walls with 12 foot ceilings! Lots of space. So much wall space that I found it completely intimidating. So my walls stayed bare for 18 months. Yes, 18 months!
After a trip to Ikea with a friend, I came home and announced to the family that I was decorating. They told me I couldn’t decorate in the living room because it was the guy’s tennis wall! Not anymore!
I am not an expert at decorating, but I can assure you that enhancing your space (even on a budget) is incredibly important and enriching. So here goes!
Step 1: Find something you want to frame. If I were in America, there is no doubt there would have been pictures of my 3 kiddos in those frames. Case closed. But we live in England and family pictures just don’t normally grace the walls of your living room. So I had to find something else…and that something else had to be cheap! So I headed to my box of scrap fabric that just so happened to match two of our chairs.
*Other ideas of things to frame: pretty leaves from your garden or local park, cool wrapping paper (MC’s idea!), postcards from a place you love, trinkets, the ideas are endless! (MC is posting more on this next week!)
Step 2: Find frames. The frames I used are from IKEA. I found matching frames in different sizes and made a little grouping on the wall (all for under 20 pounds). Frames can be expensive. So if you have time stroll through local charity shops and yard sales…you may find a beauty! It is nice to find frames with matting as well.
Step 3: Frame it! I cut out the parts of the fabric that I liked and taped it to the back of the matting. Simple as that!
Because the frames were all different sizes and I wanted them to look mis-matchy, there was no measuring and obsessing. I just got out the hammer and started hammering!
I threw in a few more knickknacks (some bought, some hand-me-downs from friends) and voila! a wall
that is no longer suitable for indoor tennis!
Party for Pennies: A 1st birthday party
Written by Vanessa – a current graduate wife
Hosting parties can be a very expensive and time-consuming task. As a young mom and graduate wife, you might not have the finances and energy to decorate, cook, and clean up for special occasions. You might convince yourself that someday, when you graduate from your role now, you will host elaborate parties and gather to celebrate the ones you love.
I have learned from my time as a graduate wife (4 years and counting!) that now is that time to make those memories, and you don’t have to spend a fortune to do it.
1. Discovering Your Theme
In my home, we recently celebrated my daughter’s first birthday. Making it to a year with an infant, now toddler, is an incredible milestone! I began brainstorming themes months ahead. I ended up choosing a “garden party” theme, mostly because we live in England and it would be a sweet way to remember where she spent the first year of her life. Also, we live in a flat that is surrounded by a garden (convenience-check! free- check!).
The best resource for finding a theme is thinking about what you and your child enjoy. Do you enjoy animals at the zoo together? Do a circus theme. Do you enjoy reading a particular book before bed? Do a Dr. Seuss theme. Do you and your child enjoy a particular activity? Do a sports theme. Obviously, the options are limitless. I encourage you to take a look at your daily life and find your inspiration!
Google is incredibly useful for this next step (or BING, whatever your flavor), but organizing inspiration can be messy. I recommend registering with a site such as Delicious or Digg. Once you have a theme, you can begin searching particular keywords. I often veer over to the ‘image’ search results. Go ahead, give it a try: choose one keyword for a theme that you have in mind and see what kind of inspiration you come up with!
When I search “garden party”, I see a lot of different elements: bunting (triangular garlands made of fabric or paper), flowers, tea style foods, etc. This is where I begin to hone my theme into a workable plan. I find photos that I like and bookmark them. When using Delicious or Digg, be as descriptive as possible when saving bookmarks to save on time and confusion later (who knows, you might find inspiration for another party such as baby showers!). Use helpful keywords: ‘child’s name’ first birthday, pink, purple, flowers, food type, etc. Additionally, there are hundreds of sites on the Internet that are devoted to party planning. Take advantage of the themes and ideas on these sites. Some of my favorite sites include marthastewart.com and hostessblog.com
Bookmark everything that inspires you- whether it is a photo, tutorial, or free printable.
3. Choosing the Elements of Your Theme
Hopefully you have found a lot of helpful design elements and inspiration during your web search. In this step, you will begin to choose the elements that you want to use for your party.
To save money on decor, you can use a helpful DIY tutorial on the Internet. This step will be the most time intensive. You will want to give yourself a month or two to complete these crafts and design elements.
Schedule your décor DIY’s during the month or two before the party and make achievable goals. Write down which days you will designate for each task. For example, I would give myself 3 evenings to accomplish one task (bonus- this gives your dear hubby a chance to catch up on some much needed research!). I found it helpful to be in the same room as him, listing to NPR or music, while I did my crafts. It felt like we were spending time together, but still accomplishing our goals.
To give you some inspiration, here are a few examples of some of the DIY projects that I did for the ‘garden party’ theme (that are interchangeable for any party!):
Cupcake Rack– composed of two plates and a tin can wrapped in a rectangular piece of scrapbook paper
Cupcake Wrappers- made with a rectangular piece of scrapbook paper
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Printable Bunting– labeled with ‘Happy Birthday’ (there will be a free downloadable template at the end of this post!)..
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Cake Bunting- small triangles strung on wooden dowels
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Sandwich Flags (found here)
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Menu Labels (found here) by adding text in photoshop, but you could easily just write in it.
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Have fun with this process, but don’t allow it to overwhelm you. Remember, keep things simple and make achievable goals.
4. Watching Your Theme in Action
The big day has come! Make a schedule for the days leading up to the party- for example, which food to prepare ahead of time, when to setup, who can help, etc. I purposely designated preparation and setup during my daughter’s nap times so that my hands were free to work. I didn’t have an overwhelming amount of food prep, but I did prepare most of it during the first nap (except for the cupcakes- which I prepared the night before and iced in the morning).
I also planned a few simple activities for our guest. We had crochet available (very English!) and kites for the children to fly. Another suggestion would be a craft for the children to do.
Find some friends who can help you with tasks during the party. For example, ask that friend with that amazing camera to take pictures of the guests and details. Maybe someone can film your child taking her first bites of sugar coated icing and cake.
Don’t worry about a flawless presentation, but greet and enjoy your guests! And if something about your food or décor goes awry, let it go. Your child won’t even notice (and I bet your guests won’t either).
Freebie: Downloadable Bunting Template
On your graduate wife journey, have you found any other tips for creating parties or hosting events for pennies?
Beauty and the Budget: Project Plates
How many of you have moved into a rented space during your graduate school journey and instantly found yourself a bit depressed by the stark white walls around you? How many of you have drooled over Pottery Barn catalogue wall displays and then ended up in tears when you saw the price tags? OK, that is a bit extreme, but if you have come close, know that you are not alone! Continuing on through the dining room/living room, our next beauty on a budget project involves an easy solution to instant wall decor.
I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy vintage plates and saucers. There is so much charm and beauty to be found in old chipped pieces of porcelain. To quickly fix our white wall dilemma, I started searching for some flea market finds that would do the trick. I found three of the plates above at the Gloucester Green market in Oxford and they were £2 each. I found the fourth plate (bottom one) at a local charity shop for only 99p. Finding fun vintage dinner ware is almost always easy, as it will be at pretty much every yard sale / charity shop / flea market that you find, and it is also always incredibly cheap. Usually there will only be one or two of the set and thus it sells for pennies. You have to embrace the theme “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” If you haven’t done that before, let yourself be creative and go for it! Don’t try too hard at visualizing the plate on the wall and don’t let yourself put too much thought into it. If you like a pattern or a color, just grab it and build the others to match the same color family. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to match exactly, just keep the same theme or pattern or color family going on. The key is finding pieces you like and that would work well together. I’d say start with 4 in a hanging and if you find more plates to add later, then go for it.
The next few steps are incredibly easy.
- Buy some plate hangers that fit the plate sizes. They usually sell in small, medium and large. If you are hanging a
platter, you can buy a little disc that sticks to the back of the platter and has a small ring to hang from, called an invisible disc adhesive plate hanger. (UK-Boswells-£1.19 each/ Ebay UK) (US-any large craft store, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc.) - Slip the hanger around the plate.
- Arranging the plates can seem daunting, but don’t let it stress you. Just start with the largest plate and place the others around it. The spacing doesn’t have to be perfect, just try to keep around 3” between each plate to be most pleasing to the eyes. Try placing them on the floor first to arrange them and then move to the wall. (You can take Martha’s suggestion and cut out paper to mimic the plate and then tape it on the wall first to get a better idea of your layout.)
- Plates are nice to be viewed at eye level, so keep that in mind when hanging. I needed to fill a full wall in our dining nook so I opted to hang them a bit higher than eye level when seated. I hope to add some more plates to the collection soon, so I left room to travel down the wall.
- Hang and viola! You have beautiful wall decor and no empty pocketbook.
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Here are some favorites I found online that might inspire you as you are working on your plate arrangement.
Stay tuned as we will feature guest posts with several more DIY wall decor ideas for cheap. And for all of you who aren’t allowed to hang with nails or do anything else to puncture the walls in your rented spaces, don’t worry, we’ve got some ideas for you coming up too!
Beauty and the Budget: Project Ottoman
Who doesn’t love an eye-catching and functional ottoman? It’s a nice first project because it feels like a real piece of furniture. It serves as a bench or a footstool; it holds a tray of tea; and it brings a splash of color into a (pre-furnished) room instantly. Since I don’t have a car, I carried the below ottoman on top of my pram (stroller) from the outdoor flea market to the bus stop and then onto the bus with me. It was only £5 and I couldn’t resist.
Now I am not gonna lie, if we were living the states almost every part of this posting would have been easier. I miss easy
access to massive stores like Michaels’ Crafts or Home Depot. When I first moved overseas I had no idea where to find any equivalent to the above, and so I decided to take things into my own hands. I needed to get some lovely things into our sterile flat and I needed them fast. The completion of this project was a few months back, and I have since come across the UK equivalents. However, I decided to share the original process below. On some of the steps I have listed 2 options: one for those with limited access to large craft/home decorating stores (unless you order online and that gets really pricey-or take a bus or cycle to find them!) and a second set for those who do.
Here are the essentials:
- Ottoman
- Fabric
- Scissors
- Screwdriver
- Sand paper
- Acrylic Paint or semi-gloss (or low lustre) latex paint or spray paint
- (Acrylic Paint-300ml/3 oz. semi-gloss paint-1/2 quart spray paint-one can)
- Glue gun/sticks or staple gun
Let’s Begin:
- Remove the ottoman cushion by unscrewing the screws underneath. Unfortunately, the ottoman I found didn’t have screws fastening it, thus I had to just leave the cushion on and work around the frame.
- First, sand the legs to strip away the shinny finish. Just a light sanding, to remove the gloss. (100 grit Sandpaper in UK-Boswells/Robert Dyer/Wickes/Home Base)
- Now you’re ready to paint! I used white acrylic paint since I didn’t have spray paint. I let it dry for a few hours and applied 2 more coats. Since we live in a complex, I was camping out in the stairwell, but if you don’t have little hands to worry about just lay down a tarp in your living room with an open window. The only downer with this impromptu acrylic finish is that it won’t be glossy and it won’t be able to protect the piece from scratches, the way that other paints would. I am fine with this since I know I am only living here for 3 years and won’t be carrying it back to the US in my suitcase. I let it dry over night. (White acrylic paint in the UK-The Works for £2.99 and brushes for 99p) (Spray Paint/Semi-gloss latex paint in the UK-Wickes/Home Base) If you have access to a home improvement store choose a spray paint or a semi-gloss latex paint. Don’t be afraid of bright colors! If using paint, do at least 3 coats with a brush and a 24-hour dry. If spraying, do at least 2 coats and a 24-hour dry.
- I found this lovely fabric sample at the same outdoor market for only £4 pounds! I made sure it would cover the
ottoman and snatched it up. After ironing out the creases, I measured the area of the ottoman and then measured that same amount plus 2” on every side of the fabric and cut it. If your fabric piece is a bit tight, you don’t have to get exactly 2” on every side, just make sure there is enough for you to tuck under the cushion and secure it. If you are in the UK (does anyone know a great place to find fabric?) and you don’t have any fabric scraps handy, I’d look at places like markets and charity shops. If no luck, I’d look at these same spots but in the clothing section. You are bound to find a bright pattern you like, just make sure the material is a thicker weave than cotton. A tablecloth would also work. - Since I don’t have a staple gun handy in my tiny flat, (I’ve since spotted one on Amazon UK for £8!) I decided to just use a glue gun to secure the fabric to the underside of the cushion. If you’re using a glue gun, don’t worry if the fabric doesn’t seem secure enough — once you screw the cushion back in, it will be even more secure. (Glue gun and sticks in UK- from AmazonUK for £2.99)
- When securing the fabric make sure you keep it taut and straight. If your husband isn’t in the library :-) it might be nice to have another set of hands, but you can also do it yourself. Lay the cushion (or entire ottoman in my case) upside down on the fabric and make sure it is centered and straight. Start slowly pulling the fabric tight and wrapping it around the cushion and gluing it in place. For the corners just cut the excess fabric out like I did below, and then tuck under and secure with glue. Think: wrapping a present. Check the front of the fabric periodically to make sure it is still straight and wrinkle free. If you are able to get a staple gun (Home Depot for around $15) the process is very similar. Just continue to work your way around the piece pulling the fabric taut and stapling slowly as you go. I’d staple about 2” apart.
- Secure the cushion back into the seat and voila!
Beauty and the Budget
Greetings! I am really excited to start this “Beauty and the Budget” series for the graduate wife. This project has become a great interest of mine as I have seen far too many friends give up on making their homes feel comfortable and beautiful because they were on tight budgets. So, these blogs are being started for one reason: To inspire and encourage you as you seek to spruce up your space on a budget.
I don’t want to overwhelm you or leave you thinking, “Eek, I could never do that.” It is definitely not my point to show you lovely things and make you think, ….I wish. I PROMISE that all of the projects I am going to highlight are totally possible to do. Yes, by you and you alone.
I can’t go on enough about the importance of beauty, balance and comfort in your personal space. I believe it can be truly life changing for you and your family and can be achieved if you are willing to get a little messy (with some makeovers), dedicate a bit of time and allow yourself to tap into your creative side.
So, if you are reading this then you are probably a graduate’s wife and you are no doubt on a budget….a pretty tight one at that, budgeting with an income that you are bringing in or possibly even living off the luxuries of a student stipend (as I find myself). Don’t fret! I know that you feel there is probably nothing you can do with a meager budget to liven up your flat, apartment, dorm suite, or wherever else you now find yourself, but these blog postings are for you!! I am going to show you some easy steps to transform everyday items and thrift store/market finds into beautiful pieces that will bring life to your home and not put a hole in your pocketbook.
If you are interested in using some of these tips, be warned. :) Once you liven up something like a small bookcase, it is very tempting to feel depressed that the rest of your space is not ‘up to par.’ This is going to be a work in progress and you have to be patient with yourself as you slowly but surely bring a new sense of harmony and beauty to your home. Most projects will range from around £5-15, so start budgeting in a few extra pounds or dollars a month for a new project. I will try to do a series on one room at a time so that you can allow yourself to focus on getting one room in good shape before jumping to the next. Or you might be like me and want to jump around…feel free!
I pray these tips are helpful and fun. I’d love your thoughts, feedback and other ideas that can be highlighted on here. I hope to include more thrifty ideas for cooking, etc. and would love thoughts on those as well. Tune in next week as we start on the below project!
Until then,
M.C.
the graduate wife 
