What is your favorite frugal

[TheyCallMeMom]

decorating idea?

I make quilts with old sheets.. simple straight stitch.. very easy... and they are useful for chilly days and cover our grungy couch... :)

[southernbird]

I use baking soda for lots of cleaning around the house . Saves money non toxic and does not scratch.

[Macaela25]

When I decorated our kitchen/breakfast area, I was going for a rustic (not cutesy country) look. I needed to put some stuff on planter shelves, so I got a flat of pint mason jars from Walmart for about $5, several sprigs of fake flowers (I stuck with some brightly colored weed-y looking flowers - kinda like what a small child would bring their mom) and some raffia. I stuck a few in the jar, tied the raffia, and voila! Looks very pretty from a distance, and they are too high to see up close. I saw something very similar a few days later selling for $15. I've had friends offer to buy them, but no way... I tell them to make them themselves! They are easy, cheap and pretty!

[Cynthiabutterfly]

I use old frames from the thrift store/garage sales, or cheap frames from the dollar store, and cut out magazine layouts and photos to make my own collages. I've also used old postcards and wrapping paper.

My favorite one is the one I made from a piece of wrapping paper I got on clearance at Target- It was too beautiful not to buy, but it was a tiny piece, and it was too beautiful to waste on a present for someone else, lol.


Instant art.

[BzyBee]

We have gotten several compliments on our rustic fireplace mantle.
It is a 2x8 from Lowes Hardware...LOL

I have woven leather pillows on my leather sofa...made from placemats.

I bought two wood frame chairs for $5 and used leather belts from thrift stores to weave new seats. Total cost is less than $5 per chair and we get lots of compliments on those as well.

[Q_ponQ]

we did this years ago, but it's a fav of ours...it's an old window (really old)
we added a shelf to the bottom. hacked it up a bit more.
it's heavy so we had to ad "heavy duty hangers on the back with heavy wire"
voila!


also I love to look for things I can use for other things, I have a magazine box that is a fruit crate, I added casters to the bottom.
another fruit crate that had two sections, i stood it on end and it's a telephone table. (I don't have a pic of these)

I love to look in magazines and get ideas....

[berlinsmommy]

I'm a painter. I love the $5 gallons of oops paint at Home Depot. For only $5 you can switch out your paint for less many than switching out a vase of flowers. I've done a lot of faux stuff too when I find it for $5. I just like to change it up.

[TheyCallMeMom]

oh I love the oops paints..

[aaahchuu]

My favorite is an old-fashioned clothesline! I use baking soda & Dawn for almost everything. The nearest Goodwill is very nice and always find practically new jeans, which I love coz they're already preshrunk.

[angelaira]

Our Goodwill is more expensive than Target and has worse selection, I never even bother anymore!!
A lot of my decor as I look around has come from World Bazaar 75% and 90% clearance at Target, lol!
I tie it all together by looking at the expensive shops around here for ideas, and then copying what I see by recovering old pillows with fabric from the cheap discount fabric store (the most recent is a nice black and white damask)... putting the same fabric in old rustic frames I have collected, and one of my favorite things that I discovered only recently is taking the cloth liners out of the Easter baskets I get at Target on 90% off day and using them year round, they look like unlined Longaberger baskets that way!
My decor right now is dark, rustic, browns and dark woods, with a hand painted red cupboard from India (from Target World Bazaar, 75% off), and several of those plug in candles from other Target clearance deals that I have plugged into a light switch outlet and use for ambiance...
I buy flowers for $5 once a week at Trader Joes and those go on the table in the dining room, and when I buy furniture I buy it to last, so much of the furniture is what I took during the divorce, things that I chose and loved... I really need a couch, I have two chairs that were previously in the sitting area of our bedroom, lol!
I also have two of the cheap laptop tables from Walgreens in my living room, it is kind of a high-tech dark Victorian library feel with fresh flowers and Longaberger-style baskets and black and white damask accents... there is an antique dark bookcase, a carved dresser that holds my plasma tv that I bought two years ago after the ex left, and the chairs and laptop tables, and a coffee table that a friend traded me for that my son uses as a puzzle table, so it has a lamp, a bunch of puzzle pieces, and a box with the puzzle picture on it...
Kind of funny to walk in here from my apartment complex, the management trips out because it is just so unexpected... but beautiful, and cozy, and mine!!