Monday, August 31, 2009

Toolbox metamorphosis…

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My neighbor David’s father made this toolbox. I swapped some wood for it, as I thought it would be good for storing quilting supplies. Cleaned it up and stocked it with quilting goodies. The scarves in the top of the box will be used to make a quilt some day.

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If you look closely at the right side of the picture below. David’s dad Wes punched holes to spell out his name Wes Smith…so cool.

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I used to have the quilting supplies in these baskets (see below). As I added more and more stuff it became too much for the baskets. I put some thin acrylic in between the baskets to keep the baskets from sagging and that helped. Now they will be used for Wii equipment…sometime this winter I will spend more time organizing them.

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Blogged for Between Naps on the Porch’s Met Monday, and blogged for Southern Hospitality's Thrifty Treasures. Thanks Rhoda and Susan for hosting.

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.

Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Last day of my giveaway…

light at the door 

Prize: Beach House Inspired Watercolors print of you choice and willing to ship anywhere.

Rules: You don’t need to have a blog to enter…just make sure you leave your email address. Enter as often as you wish. Anyone in the world can enter.

Ways to enter: You can do one or more of the following.
1) Visit Sara Tetley’s Beach House Inspired Watercolors and come back and share your favorite print.
2) If you follow my blog you will be automatically entered.
3) Sign up to follow my blog.
4) Visit my Thrifty Shopping article on examiner.com titled Affordable watercolor art and frames, where I featured Sara’s watercolors and leave a comment.

Thank you to those that follow me, those that recently signed up as a follower, those that left comments, those that took the time to visit Cottage Lifestyle, Beach House Inspired Watercolors and examiner.com. Stay tuned to see who will walk away with a watercolor.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway

<p><a href="http://cottagelifestyle.blogspot.com/%22><img title="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="237" alt="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" src="$Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway[11].jpg" width="244" border="0" /></a></p>

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.

Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Calling all Minnesota Bloggers…

Minnesota Bloggers

I have started a group called Minnesota Bloggers on BlogHer.com to connect Minnesota based bloggers. I don’t have a clue how it will all work, but thought I would give it a whirl. If you live in Minnesota or the surrounding states, please consider joining.

 

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway!

Prize: Beach House Inspired Watercolors print of you choice and willing to ship anywhere.

Rules: You don’t need to have a blog to enter…just make sure you leave your email address. Enter as often as you wish. Anyone in the world can enter.

Ways to enter: You can do one or more of the following.
1) Visit Sara Tetley’s Beach House Inspired Watercolors and come back and share your favorite print.
2) If you follow my blog you will be automatically entered.
3) Sign up to follow my blog.
4) Visit my Thrifty Shopping article on examiner.com titled Affordable watercolor art and frames, where I featured Sara’s watercolors and leave a comment.
5) Post the Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway graphic (by copying the graphic or the HTML code below) on your blog either on the sidebar or in a post and let me know you have it on your blog. If you do a post and put it on the sidebar that will be worth two entries.

Giveaway ends August 30th.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway

<p><a href="http://cottagelifestyle.blogspot.com/%22><img title="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="237" alt="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" src="$Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway[11].jpg" width="244" border="0" /></a></p>

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.

Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee

Friday, August 28, 2009

More than just a soup spoon…three days left to enter my giveaway…

0823 002 Call me crazy but I prefer to use these soup spoons for meals that require a spoon.

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Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway!

Prize: Beach House Inspired Watercolors print of you choice and willing to ship anywhere.

Rules: You don’t need to have a blog to enter…just make sure you leave your email address. Enter as often as you wish. Anyone in the world can enter.

Ways to enter: You can do one or more of the following.
1) Visit Sara Tetley’s Beach House Inspired Watercolors and come back and share your favorite print.
2) If you follow my blog you will be automatically entered.
3) Sign up to follow my blog.
4) Visit my Thrifty Shopping article on examiner.com titled Affordable watercolor art and frames, where I featured Sara’s watercolors and leave a comment.
5) Post the Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway graphic (by copying the graphic or the HTML code below) on your blog either on the sidebar or in a post and let me know you have it on your blog. If you do a post and put it on the sidebar that will be worth two entries.

Giveaway ends August 30th.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway

<p><a href="http://cottagelifestyle.blogspot.com/%22><img title="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="237" alt="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" src="$Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway[11].jpg" width="244" border="0" /></a></p>

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.

Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Gone Swimming…

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Love, love this sign. Found it at the Good Junk sale last weekend and of course it was from LeAnntiques. Totally evokes memories of summer birthday parties with my brother and friends at our cabin. The colors are dreamy. Now to find the ideal spot for it. Tried it over the bathroom window and a bedroom door…have a feeling it will end up in the stairwell. Stay tuned.

swimming sign 2

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Blogged as part Homebody’s Thrifty Store Thursday. Thanks for hosting Holly!

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway!

Prize: Beach House Inspired Watercolors print of you choice and willing to ship anywhere.

Rules: You don’t need to have a blog to enter…just make sure you leave your email address. Enter as often as you wish. Anyone in the world can enter.

Ways to enter: You can do one or more of the following.
1) Visit Sara Tetley’s Beach House Inspired Watercolors and come back and share your favorite print.
2) If you follow my blog you will be automatically entered.
3) Sign up to follow my blog.
4) Visit my Thrifty Shopping article on examiner.com titled Affordable watercolor art and frames, where I featured Sara’s watercolors and leave a comment.
5) Post the Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway graphic (by copying the graphic or the HTML code below) on your blog either on the sidebar or in a post and let me know you have it on your blog. If you do a post and put it on the sidebar that will be worth two entries.

Giveaway ends August 30th.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway

<p><a href="http://cottagelifestyle.blogspot.com/%22><img title="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="237" alt="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" src="$Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway[11].jpg" width="244" border="0" /></a></p>

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.

Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Beach Party @ The Shabby Chic Cottage…

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I was thrilled when I heard that The Shabby Chic Cottage was hosting a beach party.

Here are a few of my beachy items…

A shell frame warms up the winter scene of my nieces.

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i brought back 130 shells from New Zealand wish I would have brought back 500.

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Stop by The Shabby Chic Cottage Beach Party!

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway!

Prize: Beach House Inspired Watercolors print of you choice and willing to ship anywhere.

Rules: You don’t need to have a blog to enter…just make sure you leave your email address. Enter as often as you wish. Anyone in the world can enter.

Ways to enter: You can do one or more of the following.
1) Visit Sara Tetley’s Beach House Inspired Watercolors and come back and share your favorite print.
2) If you follow my blog you will be automatically entered.
3) Sign up to follow my blog.
4) Visit my Thrifty Shopping article on examiner.com titled Affordable watercolor art and frames, where I featured Sara’s watercolors and leave a comment.
5) Post the Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway graphic (by copying the graphic or the HTML code below) on your blog either on the sidebar or in a post and let me know you have it on your blog. If you do a post and put it on the sidebar that will be worth two entries.

Giveaway ends August 30th.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway

<p><a href="http://cottagelifestyle.blogspot.com/%22><img title="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="237" alt="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" src="$Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway[11].jpg" width="244" border="0" /></a></p>

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.

Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Danger Mosquitoes…

danger mosquito

In my August 7th JUNKMARKET garage sale post I mentioned that I had only spent a $1 and purchased one item. This is what I bought…don’t know for sure what I will do with it….but here are a few of my ideas:

1) Spray paint the plastic portion red and hang it on the wall.

2) Spray paint the DANGER MOSQUITOES on a board and hang on a wall in the house or in the screen porch or on the front porch.

3) Spray paint the DANGER MOSQUITOES directly on the wall in my back porch.

4) Make DANGER MOSQUITOES signs and sell them to the Minnesota and Wisconsin cabin owners.

I know you are wondering how it is that with all the goodies at the sale I managed to only walk away with this ‘sign’. I have kind of gotten to a point lately where I am not going to buy something unless it meets at least one of three conditions, which are: (1) truly need it as it is going to solve a dilemma; (2) willing to let something else leave the home to make room for the new item; or (3) it is so unique that I will wail feverishly if I miss out on it.  The DANGER MOSQUITOES qualified under condition 3.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway!

Prize: Beach House Inspired Watercolors print of you choice and willing to ship anywhere.

Rules: You don’t need to have a blog to enter…just make sure you leave your email address. Enter as often as you wish. Anyone in the world can enter.

Ways to enter: You can do one or more of the following.
1) Visit Sara Tetley’s Beach House Inspired Watercolors and come back and share your favorite print.
2) If you follow my blog you will be automatically entered.
3) Sign up to follow my blog.
4) Visit my Thrifty Shopping article on examiner.com titled Affordable watercolor art and frames, where I featured Sara’s watercolors and leave a comment.
5) Post the Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway graphic (by copying the graphic or the HTML code below) on your blog either on the sidebar or in a post and let me know you have it on your blog. If you do a post and put it on the sidebar that will be worth two entries.

Giveaway ends August 30th.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway

<p><a href="http://cottagelifestyle.blogspot.com/%22><img title="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="237" alt="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" src="$Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway[11].jpg" width="244" border="0" /></a></p>

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.

Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee

Monday, August 24, 2009

The Porch Couch Part II and a giveaway…

I didn’t realize that last Monday’s post about my front porch couch would be part I. Here is a recap of where I was last week…extremely tired of using my red, white and blue quilt on the couch and decide to go without it…but didn’t want the white slip covered cushions exposed directly to Mother Nature’s elements…so I layered on a $4 white garage sale shower curtain.

Here is what the couch cushions look like with out the old red, white and blue quilt covering them.

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Here is what the couch looked like last week after the white shower curtain was added.

0726 001On Saturday I went to the Good Junk sale and bought an outdoor iron couch with floral cushions (see picture below) from LeAnntiques.

I fell in love with this couch because it is in three pieces. Why is that so important? I have a 1906 house with narrow stairs and can’t get a couch up to the second floor, let alone up to the third floor – a finished attic where I enjoy watching TV, playing Wii, blogging and quilting during the winter. I have been using a two piece bamboo loveseat that I dug out of a dumpster…I will share that next Monday when I show you where the iron couch landed.

My attic is a somewhat neglected area as I tend to use whatever will make it up the narrow staircase and isn’t being used else where. Additionally it is the only level of the house to have carpet – a soft green color, and it is painted cream…which isn’t me at all. The ‘new’ sofa will look odd being that it is white and the walls are cream…but some day when the walls have been painted white and the carpet replaced by hardwood…it will look like my style.

After I got the iron sofa home and was enlisting the help of my friend Melinda to help me haul the pieces to the attic…we realized that maybe we should swap the white cushions from the front porch couch with the floral cushions that came with the iron couch. After all…the floral cushions weren’t the original style for the iron couch and we could cover the floral cushions so no one passing by the front porch or stopping for a visit would see the floral cushions. And best of all my nice white cushions wouldn’t be exposed to the outdoors any more.0822 018So, are you even still reading?  Here is the front porch couch (see below) with the floral cushions. I used the garage sale white shower curtain to cover the cushions, however because it was so thin I needed to find another white large size cloth. Thankfully I remembered that I had a white chenille shower curtain that I quit using a few years back, and had it tucked away to use as throw when it is chilly during our s’more night parties. It worked perfectly as it is thick enough to hide the floral cushions, and it adds texture. I am guessing the cushions are suppose to sit as they do in the picture above, but in order to make them work on the front porch couch I had to be flexible.

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Here she is with the white chenille shower curtain covering the floral cushions.

0822 025 Here she is with a quilt I am particularly fond of and only use for special gatherings on the porch.

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Blogged for Between Naps on the Porch’s Met Monday, and blogged for Southern Hospitality's Thrifty Treasures. Thanks Rhoda and Susan for hosting.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway!

Prize: Beach House Inspired Watercolors print of you choice and willing to ship anywhere.

Rules: You don’t need to have a blog to enter…just make sure you leave your email address. Enter as often as you wish. Anyone in the world can enter.

Ways to enter: You can do one or more of the following.
1) Visit Sara Tetley’s Beach House Inspired Watercolors and come back and share your favorite print.
2) If you follow my blog you will be automatically entered.
3) Sign up to follow my blog.
4) Visit my Thrifty Shopping article on examiner.com titled Affordable watercolor art and frames, where I featured Sara’s watercolors and leave a comment.
5) Post the Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway graphic (by copying the graphic or the HTML code below) on your blog either on the sidebar or in a post and let me know you have it on your blog. If you do a post and put it on the sidebar that will be worth two entries.

Giveaway ends August 30th.

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway

<p><a href="http://cottagelifestyle.blogspot.com/%22><img title="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="237" alt="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" src="$Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway[11].jpg" width="244" border="0" /></a></p>

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.

Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Southern Hospitality Part II and a giveaway…

0821 005 If you missed yesterday’s post you may want to start there first. Today’s photos were taken during a visit to Consigning Interiors in Pelham, Alabama thanks to Rhoda of Southern Hospitality. I wanted all the items in these photos. There is one other item that I wanted badly and didn’t buy…but you will have to keep checking back to see what it was.
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0821 008
I am really regretting not buying the 4 coastal pieces below.
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0821 010

0821 011

0821 013
0821 015
0821 016

Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway!
Prize: Beach House Inspired Watercolors print of you choice and willing to ship anywhere.
Rules: You don’t need to have a blog to enter…just make sure you leave your email address. Enter as often as you wish. Anyone in the world can enter.
Ways to enter: You can do one or more of the following.
1) Visit Sara Tetley’s Beach House Inspired Watercolors and come back and share your favorite print.
2) If you follow my blog you will be automatically entered.
3) Sign up to follow my blog.
4) Visit my Thrifty Shopping article on examiner.com titled Affordable watercolor art and frames, where I featured Sara’s watercolors and leave a comment.
5) Post the Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway graphic (by copying the graphic or the HTML code below) on your blog either on the sidebar or in a post and let me know you have it on your blog. If you do a post and put it on the sidebar that will be worth two entries.
Giveaway ends August 30th.
Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway

<p><a href="http://cottagelifestyle.blogspot.com/%22><img title="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="237" alt="Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway" src="$Cottage Lifestyle Giveaway[11].jpg" width="244" border="0" /></a></p>

Check out my Thrifty Shopping articles on examiner.com.
Thanks for stopping by Cottage Lifestyle and examiner.com.
Renee