decorating on a dime/here's the pics you wanted to see angela

(now angela, if you keep asking me to post pictures on my blog so you can see them, you have to at least comment on it so it doesn't look like i'm all "woooo look at me and my newly decorated family room, aren't i cool?"
and texting me after you read a post doesn't count. get yourself a google account and tell me what you think. and that goes for my other siblings who read and don't comment. c'mon it's called "social networking" slash keeping in touch, which is all we got when we're all so far away, unless you want to call me everyday.
get with the times man:))

now, back to the lecture at hand:
i usually hate to pay full price for things, but we broke down and got a nice living room set, justifying the purchase by saying it would last us for the next 15 years or so, which left me with limited funds to decorate my family room upstairs.
which is actually just the way i like it.
i love the challenge of creating something with "what i have to work with" or hunting for a bargain to polish off the look i'm going for. "very resourceful", or "macgyver", are terms my husband uses to describe me with. i just think i'm ghetto. but i love to walk into a thrift store or a garage sale and see the potential of items that would otherwise be thrown in the trash and forgotten. i try to look for the beauty in things, which now that i think about it is how i try to view the world i live in, believing that there's good in everything and everyone.
makes for a happy and positive life.

oh yeah, my family room. (btw, i have no idea why everything is typing out in different font sizes. weird.)

the couch: a hand-me-down from my sister who actually got it a a thrift store and put a cover on it. the coffee table: thrift store. the curtains and little holdy things on the big window: garage sale. sconces: garage sale i think. i know i didn't pay much for them. i just added a little greenery from my "random greenery" box. ficus tree: has been traveling with me for about ten years. rug: on sale at ross. black frames: big lots, 5 bucks each. "family" sign: 50% off at hobby lobby (which just for the record they're not fooling me with the 50% off of stuff. they just mark everything way up and then you think you're getting a bargain when you get it on sale, but really you're just paying normal price. sneaky snakes. but, you gotta love hobby lobby). most of the trinkets/knick knacks on tables and shelves would be thrift store purchases too.

moving around the room, we've got some chairs from ikea (which i could have easily found the likeness at a thrift store, but they were cheap and i kind of have a phobia of things that i don't know where they've been, which is a little ironic given my thrift store going hobby. rest assured, i totally wash and lysol everything that comes into my house, but it's hard to lysol upholstery). also, a magazine rack from ikea that i attached some black fringe to for added spice. an ugly lamp that got left in the garage from somebody at our old house but works for now because it matches. and i was so glad to find a home for my "footloose" picture (above the magazine rack) that my husband gave me on our first Christmas. it was the first movie we ever watched together in my apartment when we were dating. awww. 3 black frames with pics of the kids and the black "S" i got at hobby lobby "50% off". and i got the bookcase on sale at big lots, and the flower picture at ross (not on sale but sometimes i can't help myself).

here's a close- up of my ghetto window treatment. it's hard to see with the light from the window, but it's redish and yellowish sheer ribbon with silver beads (a.k.a. Christmas garland from dollar tree) held onto the rod with loops i made from black ribbon and glue gunned together around the rod. then for the sheers on each side, i just bunched them up at the top to make like a "flowery" look, and tied them to the curtain rod. it was one of those things that i tried and didn't like so much, but i can live with it. again, fun to challenge myself to come up with something for way cheap.

kick off your sunday shoes:)

now this collage i made didn't turn out the way i envisioned, but the fact that is has like 50 pictures of us as a family, is priceless no matter what it looks like.

i was trying to look for a clever sign to put over it, but i decided to go simple and sum it all up with 2 words. i ended up having to make the sign myself since i couldn't find one. i just used some scrapbook paper and a frame i got at a thrift store that i painted black.

now this entertainment center i was so excited about! it was only $125 at the thrift store and it's not a cheap piece of furniture. totally solid, took 3 srong men to get it up the stairs (with difficulty), it was a great find (for all you texans, i got it at frisco resale).

i actually got this one for our living room downstairs at a thrift store too (c.c.a. resale shop in lewisville) last year for $150. it was brand-new, still had the tags on. a furniture store had donated it, and i looked it up online and found out that it's a "hooker furniture" piece priced at $1,000.00, except it was just the top piece and we had to search and search for months to find something that matched the dimensions for the bottom piece and i'm still in the process of trying to figure out what to do with it because it doesn't match among other things...

so there you have it. it just goes to show that you don't have to spend tons of money to make a room look nice. just try and look outside the box and find the beauty in things.
while you're at it, try to view the world that way, it will help your outlook on life:)
the end. (angela get a google account)