Quick, as soon as you are done reading this blog post run, don’t walk, to your nearest Hobby Lobby. Well, actually not your nearest. Go to the nearest BIG Hobby Lobby near you. I have a HL near me and it’s small and cramped and doesn’t seem as well stocked as the one by B’s preschool. So I went to that one today for some jars for my kitchen and ended up leaving with a cute piece of decor for my back yard.

They have all of their Garden Decor on sale for 80% off. That’s right. 80%. You can say it… I sure did. “HOLY CRAP! That’s a big discount! ”

This location had 2 rows full of 80% clearance items, which included yard signs, welcome signs, wall hangings, iron decor and more.

I found some adorable little gardening tools that looked all rusted and vintage for $1.40 each. I snagged one of each style and went over to where they have hooks and knobs. I found a 3 hook panel that had gardening designs on it, and hung the tools from each hook. Perfect! All the hooks/knobs/etc were also 50% off, making it only $6.49!

So my entire decor piece for on my back wall was $10.69 + tax. Not too shabby!

(Side note: Glassware was on sale for 50% off too, so I snagged several airtight canisters for my kitchen at only $2.24 each.)

I’m back from Vacation. It was a 2 week trek back home (up north) for my best friends wedding. YAY! We also saw lots of family and had a great time, but it really put a halt to all the projects we were working on.

So today we dove back in head first on finding great deals to help us improve our home.

And by the way, I found one heck of a deal that I didn’t get a blog about before we left town… I’ll be sure to share that one with you soon enough though. Just a hint? It’s a $2,000.00 deal. No joke.

But today my deal is a $70 deal.

We went to Lowe’s tonight to get some cement board screws to hang up some outdoor decor I purchased (also a deal, but will post about that tomorrow) and while there we saw a rolling rack with light fixtures that were clearanced. I found what appeared to be a display model of the Mitchell Vanity Mirror. It was in great shape! I told my husband that it would be perfect in our downstairs half bathroom which is very plain and booooooring right now.

In this boooooring half bathroom we have a totally basic frameless mirror, a pedistal sink, and one of these fugly temporary lights

Not very stylin, huh? So we snatched that pretty little light up and headed right home to install her!

Here are my horribly blurry, not color corrected quick photos I took after dark. LOL

Not a bad change for 18 beans huh?

Tell me about the best deal you’ve found recently for our home or crafting!

If you’re my husband, you can build an entire tool bench with $23.00. Including tax.

Yup, that’s right. He’s the man! I’m a pretty creative lady myself, but dude has impressed me this week.

This tool bench is ALL GREEN, ALL THE TIME. Every single piece of wood in this piece was salvaged lumber from another project. How great is that? No extra waste. No extra expense. The $23.00 was the cost of 2 casters, 8 bolts (for the casters) and a box of screws. We are going to paint it to get all the wood uniform, but we are waiting until another weekend to tackle that. In the meantime, my hubby has his first tool bench

If you follow my blog, you probably already know Ana White. You probably already read Knock-Off Wood, and you probably have either already built something from her site, or are int he process of buying materials for one of her plans.

She’s contagious. Really.

Ana is this gorgeous female carpenter who offers free plans on her website for dozens upon dozens of awesome furniture pieces that you could easily buy in stores…. for a markup that makes me want to cry. I don’t mean like “Wow, I saved 10% by building it myself”. I’m talking more “I spent $110 on this including paint instead of buying it for $3,000 in a designer furniture store”. She’s awesome.

My husband and I are completely addicted to her website and while the big kids picnic table here was our first project by her, we have several more we are ready to tackle after vacation.

I was a bad girl and didn’t take photos while we were making this, but here are some pics of the kids (and dog!) enjoying this table once it was finished.

A few months ago I was flown out to florida to photograph one of my best friends renewing her vows on the beach with her family. On the way to the airport, I noticed that our neighbor had this “pretty” little bench (snapped in half) out with their trash.

I told JR that I wanted him to snag it if it was still out there when he got back from the airport. As usual, he looked at me like i’d lost my mind, and said “sure”.
When I returned about 3 days later, the bench was stacked in the corner of our garage. I was excited and oh-so proud of him for listening, until he confessed. He didn’t pick it up that day. Then the next day, it was still there. And the next day, it was still there. When he walked out the door to go get me from the airport after my return flight, he’d realized it hadn’t been picked up yet, and thought “Crap, now I HAVE to get it, or she’ll be mad”. LOL. So he dragged it into our garage that day and I saw it that night.
But really, it doesn’t matter how it got there, it just matters that it DID get there. And now it’s beautiful.

I started by removing all of the bolts and screws and discarding the busted up and rotted wood panels.
I hit up lowes for what they call “craft boards” in the size I needed. They were pricey, but the right size (no cutting) and a hard, high quality wood.
I also grabbed a can of the “Red Elm” Gel Stain from Lowes. Come to find out, Gel Stain is one of the best things you can use on hard woods b/c it doesn’t need to soak all the way in to get a deep, rich color (soaking in is difficult on very hard, dense boards).
I picked up some Brown colored Spray paint Primer for rusted metal, and some Valspar Brick Red Spray Paint as my top coat.

When I got home, I thoroughly cleaned the metal pieces and started priming them. Once they were primed and painted and dried, I re-assembled the metal and did a dry-fit of the wood to be sure it would work before drilling/staining such $$ wood panels.
Once I knew it would fit, I quickly stained all the pieces and re-assembled the bench using mostly the same hardware that came with it. Some screws were missing or just too rusted, so those were replaced.
And in the end, we have a new Bench… for around $55

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That’s right, it’s not that I’m not posting. I’ve literally done nothing since my last post. My sewing machine cries itself to sleep every night. It’s pitiful really.

But YOU can help me reach my $5,000 goal, which will give me back my free-time for crafting!

Today I’m hosting a ONE DAY ONLY blogging event. I’ve got around 60 blogs around the globe helping with it, and I’d love for you to join in too. If you want to find out how, click here

I’m basically trying to round up 3-4 $10 donations from each of these bloggers and their readers in order to hit $2k in donations in one day. It’s a HUGE undertaking, and I’m not sure how close I’ll get. But if I can get in $2k today, I’ll have hit my big goal and I’ll have way more time for sewing, reconing, etc. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
So you can click here to donate a little and help towards a wonderful cause, while also getting me closer to having free time to craft/post/share/etc.

Abbie of The Green Wife

Congrats Abbie!

To see more about Abbie’s project visit her blog post here:

http://www.thegreenwife.com/things-ive-made/halter-top-recon/

]]> http://www.thefabricfloozie.com/?feed=rss2&p=639 1 http://www.thefabricfloozie.com/?p=624 http://www.thefabricfloozie.com/?p=624#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:44:48 +0000 The Floozie http://www.thefabricfloozie.com/?p=624

I’ve had a great time this morning, reviewing the entries for the Recon-A-Thon!
Below I’ve compiled a list of the entries that qualify. Be sure to check out each one and use the poll at the bottom of this post to vote. Feel free to share on facebook, myspace, twitter, or your blog, and please encourage your friends and family to vote. But remember, only one vote per day, per person. Thanks!

So without further ado, here are the entries…. Simply click on the photos from each project to view the actual blog post showing how the project was completed. All blog entries will open in a new window, so don’t forget to flip back here and vote when you are done reading!

Voting will close at Noon CST on March 10, 2010

Then of course, there is…

And finally…

So now that you’ve seen the entries and have had a chance to check out their blog posts about the projects, weigh in on which project is the most impressive by voting in the poll below. Be sure to pass along this blog post to anyone who you think might enjoy voting. And remember, you can vote once daily, so come back tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day and…. well, you get it. Anyways, keep coming back to ensure your favorite crafter scores the grand prize of 2 yards of CUSTOM PRINTED Fabric from Spoonflower.com!

Please remember: One vote per person, per 24 hour period. If we have reason to believe someone is abusing the voting privileges by placing multiple votes on one day, they will be disqualified. Since this is a private contest, disqualification is at the discretion of the blog owner. If the votes appear to be coming from an entrant, their entries will be removed. If they are coming from a reader, that readers votes will be removed. Please keep this fair in the interest of more contests in the future.

In the meantime, here is a sneak peek of my latest recon