Okay, cheesy title, but I needed to make a filler for my wall since I decided to go ahead and break my plates. Didn't go to yard sales this past weekend (are you proud of me??) so I went ahead and shopped the house...

I found a ring of old keys I found at a random yard sale this winter that my kids love to play jail and zoo with. They love the klinkety sounds of the keys, so I took three off and left two to jingle. We'll see if they notice...

Another framed yard sale picture ($1) I was going to use to make a chalkboard with, but I'm going to use it here instead.
Take them out to my workshop, a.k.a my garage with an old carpet remnant on the ground. The carpet serves 2 purposes: soak up oil from our little old car my husband drives and my spray paint center.

The frame is perfect, don't need to touch that. Spray paint the keys black and when they are fairly dry, I take a fine sandpaper and gently let some of the gold show through to make them look nice and old:

It looks great just like that, but we're going to add our keys...

Hot glue them on, and there you have it.

Who needs pretty white plates when you've got cool grungy keys in a frame??

We have 2 winners for the shabby straps giveaway:

wrist camera strap: #125 Bryanne

larger camera strap: #38 Gordostyle

** Congratulations!! **

Email me at lissylee@hotmail.com with your addresses and I will get these in the mail for you...

Thanks for all of your encouraging comments about my plates. Is it so bad that I didn't even try to glue them or save them for a mosaic?? Out with Friday's trash they went...

There is good news: the package I bought had 4 plates in it, so I have extras, which is a very good thing for this klutzy girl. And, the packages of napkins had 20 in each, so I have plenty of those. I just hate adding something to my to-do list when I've already crossed it off. I love crossing off.

If you haven't had luck finding the napkins at TJMaxx, some of you have reported finding them at Tuesday Morning and Marshall's. Thanks for the tip!

We had a great Easter weekend and I took waaay too many pictures and wore out my camera battery. No pictures today, but I promise there will be some this week~

happy Monday morning to y'all.

painting by Walter Rane

When you are practicing different arrangements of your beautiful plates on the wall, don't trip over your baby's bouncer and drop them.

I got the best package in the mail this week! My husband got me a camera strap for my birthday from my dear friend, Amanda. We were roommates in college and she knows me better than a lot of people would care to :) I love her to pieces~ She has always had amazing taste and I was thrilled when I saw she had sent along some extras to give away here!! You will fall in love with these~they just give your camera a touch of color and personality and set you apart from the sea of black and silver cameras out there...
Don't you love them? to enter, go to the Shabby Straps Etsy Shop, and then come back here and tell me which strap is your favorite in your comment. There will be one winner for a larger DSLR camera strap and one for a smaller point and shoot wrist strap.

You can enter until Saturday at midnight and I'll announce the winners on Monday...good luck!

Thank you, Amanda! Happy Thursday to y'all~

photo from Martha Stewart

In the April Martha Stewart Living, she showed how to decorate eggs with designs from paper napkins. Very cool idea, but I wasn't really planning on doing it this season. Then, in TJMaxx, I saw these napkins for 1.99/pkg. Hmmmmm....my wheels started turning and I thought what if I could do this on plates?
Remember the plates I found at Target back in February? I loved the little beaded edge, but wasn't crazy about the pattern. So, I spray painted them cream with~be sure to spray a couple of light coats, letting it dry completely in between so you don't have drips.

I cut up the napkin and there were three layers~I just gently took off the top layer to use.

I don't have mod podge, but you can make your own by using elmer's glue and just watering it down. I put a thin layer on the plate, placed the napkin layer down,

and then gently added a thin layer on top and smoothed out any bubbles. The nice thing about this is if you make any mistakes, you just take it right off, wipe the glue off and try again. It took me two takes.

I love how they turned out! If there are any flaws, they are going to be up high where no one will notice~I'm hanging them in the dressing area of my bathroom.
**Side note: "I might learn to like her. Hang her in my bathroom." Can anyone name the movie?? **
The bathroom's coming...I may just have some pics to show you next week! But for now, this works for me. I'll see you back here tomorrow for a fun giveaway~I think you'll love it! Have a great day~

Remember how I told you that I had grounded myself from yard sales until my bathroom was finished?
Yeah, well I jumped ship on Saturday morning.
It had been a long, hard week with my husband gone a lot and the only "me" time I was going to be able to sneak in was Sat morning before 9 a.m. I also had some birthday money from my grandma burning a hole in my pocket. What's a girl to do?

There weren't too many sales since the wind was blowing like crazy. I went to three and managed to find this over the door hanger, bird cage (do you see the potential on this one??), and mirror for $3 total.

I started my pile and just kept adding and adding:
white Pottery Barn dishes, an lamp with great potential, a frame, a candle holder, a wreath, a cute yellow tin, a wooden wall hanging thing with a drawer, and a bunch of Swiffer refills. And, do you see the beauty they're sitting on?

It's a gorgeous white Ethan Allen desk set~ all wood, came with the chair, the toile chair pad, and a nightstand that's not in the picture. It has some handles missing and a few of the shelves were gone, but it was in great shape.

The husband (gotta love the husbands) said,

"how about $35 for everything? We really want everything gone since we had it yesterday too."

Me: "You had it yesterday and you still have all this left?? What did you have yesterday?"

Him: "Oh, we sold a lot~some furniture, lots of fabric, curtains, some old doors, lots of decorative stuff. We're getting ready to move and just don't want to pack a lot."

Me: gulp. (why did I even ask and why didn't I go on Friday?? Blasted bathroom.)

I asked him to hold it all for me while I ran home and measured really quickly. We don't have the space in my girls' room right now, but I knew I couldn't pass up such a great piece of furniture and I had an idea of where it could go. Ran home, measured, did a little dance of joy that it was a perfect fit, grabbed some more cash, and ran back and handed over the $35. Another lady had pulled up and cleaned them out of everything I didn't get.

I can't wait to get my hands on all of it, but I am going to work on the bathroom now. For reals.