Fashion on a Dime

FASHION ON A DIME

A while back I was feeling a little fashionably inadequate about my Fashion on a Dime posts. I enjoy dressing up and looking nice but to be honest I am really a t-shirt and jeans kinda girl. Don't get me wrong, I love fashion, I just enjoy being comfortable. I didn't know if I was assembling my outfits together in a way that showed off their potential. After expressing this to my good friend Prissy she offered to help me. She came over and we played dress up for hours and made a complete disaster of my room. It was so much fun! We came up with several great outfits. Here is one of the outfits we came up with. I will have the others up soon!

Financial statistics for this outfit are:

Coral jeans found at D.I.- $6.00

Blue pin stripe American Eagle button down found at D.I.-$5.00

Brown braided belt also found at D.I.-$2.00

Guess cowgirl boots found at Savers-$12.99

Total outfit cost- $26

DPWF- $2.60!

Surprise bathroom Reno

Every once in a while my husband gets this productive itch. He almost becomes like a tornado of energy (no he is not on drugs). It often comes on suddenly and is sometimes unstoppable. The last time he got "The Itch" he started tearing out the nasty old linoleum in our daughters bathroom. That time I managed to redirect his attention before he got too far.

Most of the time this productive itch is great but I didn't want to start on the bathroom just yet because we couldn't agree on our plans for it.

Tonight he got "The Itch" again and I couldn't stop him this time. Looks like we are headed for a bathroom reno!

He pulled out the old laminate counter top and cabinet and replaced it with this beauty. We found this granite counter top vanity at a garage sale a few months back for $40 dollars!

Here is our before picture. Such an amazing difference already! Now to tackle the rest of the bathroom....To Be Continued.....

Keeping Cost Down

If you're trying to keep the cost of your project down one thing you can do is use existing hardware. If your existing hardware is not the right color try spray painting them. If you have to buy new hardware for a project your cost can increase incredibly. Here are two projects I just recently finished that I spray painted existing hardware for.

For this project I used a metallic silver spray paint. Your local home improvement store will have something similar to this and will also have a selection of other metallic colors.

For this project (which I have yet to blog about) I just used a your average pink spray paint. I love how this turned out!

Whatever color you choose, whatever hardware you have, always rough up your hardware with sand paper. This will help your paint to stick and help it to be more durable. I used a 100 girt sand paper. Any sand paper will work. Just use whatever you have at home. Another step you can do to help your paint stick is to use a spray paint primer. I did not do this on either of these projects

After you have sanded and roughed up your hardware your ready to spray paint. When your doing this you have to be patient! This is my biggest weakness in life! You will have to do this in several thin coats.

Make sure you hold your can 8-10 inches away from your handles. You really don't want to mess up your handles because your paint dripped. You will have to spray paint a thin coat let it dry and then turn your handle in whatever directions you need to make sure you get an even coat over the entire thing. Make sure your handles are dry before you do this!!!!!!! I can't tell you how many projects I have ruined because I was not patient enough to wait for it to dry! If something happens and your handles do get messed up use some sort of Strip-Eze product to remove the paint or try looking at your local ReStore for inexpensive handles to replace the old ones. I had to do this on my teal and silver dresser and found the handles I need for $1, which was cheaper than buying the Strip-Eze.

The other thing I did to make sure my handles did not chip was to use a clear top coat.

You don't have to do this if you really need to keep cost down but it's worth it if you can. It's only a few bucks!

Final Reveal

DRESSER REVEAL

Anyone remember this dresser? I finally finished it!

I had a few friends call me and tell me they loved the dresser the way it was but I knew this dresser could be SO MUCH more!

BEFORE

AFTER

I listed it on craigslist and it sold in 3.5 hours!

MY PROCESS

Before you paint any project you should do a little bit of sanding. However, sanding can be a very time consuming and teadious step. I have always dreaded the step of sanding a project and many times haven't started or even finished a project because it needed sanding. With a liquid deglosser such as this one sanding is simple and easy. All you have to do is wipe it on and your done! I LOVE deglosser. It has honestly made my life so much easier!

After using my deglosser I primed and painted my dresser.

and primed and painted the doors

Then gave it two coats of glaze.

Glaze is a great way to give your dresser some character and make it look old. All you do is paint it on with a paint brush and then wipe it off. If you want your project heavily glazed let your coat of glaze sit of a few minutes. I let mine sit for 10 minutes. If you start wiping the glaze off and you think is too much DO NOT get your rag wet! Just continue wiping with your dry rag using a little more pressure. doing this will help you to work out some of the glaze and give you glaze a more even look. If you get your rag wet your glaze will look uneven.

DOORS

For the doors I simply cut out paintable wall paper, used a Martha Stewart metallic silver paint on it found at Home Depot and applied it right on top of the glass mirrors.

HARDWARE

I also spray painted the existing hardware of the dresser to keep my cost down.

I used a silver metallic Rust-oleum spray also found at Lowes or Home Depot.

WHAT I LEARNED

With each project I learn something new. Here is what I learned.

1. When you take off cabinet doors ALWAYS take the bottom hinge off first! I knew this before I started but ignored this piece of advice when I was taking the doors off the dresser. When I took the top hinge off my door fell forward bending the bottom hinge and ruining it. I am just happy the hinges were the wrong color anyway and I was planning on replacing them in the first place

2. You can not spray paint hinges! My hinges were gold and I needed them to be silver. I tried spray painted them like I did the hardware but every time you open the door the hinge strips the paint.

3. You can paint your paintable wall paper before applying it! I did have to go back and repaint over it a little bit because some of it came off but it was much faster than painting it, waiting for it to dry and then applying it.

What To Do With Your Garage Sale Surplus

SURPLUS

As you start garage saleing you may find that you develop a surplus of things you thought you wanted at the sale but didn't like after you brought home or used it for a few months and then found something you liked better. There are several things you can do with this surplus. You can send it to D.I. or goodwill if you don't feel like putting any work into it, you can have your own garage sale with it, you can take it to a consignment store or you can sell it on ebay or craigslist. Having your own garage sale with your surplus is nice because you get rid of it all in one day. If you are doing this try to sell things for what you bought them for that way you are not loosing any money. Taking your items to consignment stores is an option that will sometimes make you money however, in my experience, I always leave disappointed in the amount I was offered and feel like I should have gotten more. The option that will make you the most money is to try to resell it on ebay or craiglist. You wont be able to do this with all of your items but some of them could make you a good profit.

I recently took my surplus of jeans to a consignment store here in town. These three pairs of pants were included in my surplus. The camo capris are Miss Me the jeans are Holister and the brown cargo pants are Lucky Brand. I also took in a gray pair of Banana Republic pants, a pair of Aeropostale jeans and pair of my husbands MEK jeans and BKE jeans.

MEK jeans

BKE jeans

I went to two consignment stores and left completely frustrated with the offers they gave me. The first consignment store was only willing to give me $16 for my husbands MEK jeans! They were also willing to give me $6 for the Miss Me camo capris and $6 for the hollister jeans but would not take anything else. I wasn't happy with that at all so I took my pile of jeans to another consignment store. At the second store they were willing to give me 28 for the MEK jeans (more like it) and $6 dollars for my husbands BKE jeans. UGH!!! I still was not happy with that so I came home and listed my jean surplus on ebay.

A week later I am happy to say that all but one of the pants sold! My husbands MEK jeans sold for $37 dollars, his BKE's sold for $32, the Miss Me camo capris sold for 16.25, the Hollister jeans sold for 10.50, the brown cargo Lucky Brand pants sold for 4.27 and the gray Banana Republic pants sold for 4.99. The only pair of jeans that did not sell was the pair of Aeropostale jeans. My husbands two pair of jeans were not from garage sales but the other 5 pairs of pants were. I spent a total of $2.05 on the other 5 pairs of pants and made a profit of almost $35 dollars!

Here are a few other things I have sold on craigslist and made a profit on.

I bought this cradle for $15 dollars at a garage sale. Both of my babies slept in this cradle. Now 3 years later I sold it on craigslist for $45. I profited $30 dollars

I bought two of these entry way tables for $20 dollars a piece. I sold both of them on craigslist for a total of $110! I profited $70.

If you put a little work into listing some of your unwanted items you found at garage sales on craigslist and ebay you can prevent yourself from loosing money and even make money!

March 10th, 2012

3/10/2012

I didn't really buy much but here is what I found this week!

Little Barbie bike for Jaysa- $5

baby stroller-$1.50

Here is Jaysa with a little baby stroller I bought for her a few years ago. I paid .50 cents for it and it has been her favorite toy all of these years. I seriously think it's been the best .50 cents I have ever spent. Paisley and Jaysa are always fighting over it but now that we have two they can each have one!

Paisley already LOVES it!

One sheet of tin- $.50 cents! At your Home improvement store these come two in a package and are somewhere around $20! Hopefully I can use this one in a project.

cute pair of 5t skinny jeans for Jaysa next year.

OTHER AWESOME DEALS

Beautiful coffee table -$80

Still in box Leap Pad book. Too bad they didn't have the leap pad.

Oh but look! I found the leap pad at the next garage sale for $2!

Cute dressups for boys and girls are so easy to find at garage sales. They had all kids of princess dresses and batman, spiderman and even star wars costumes at this garage sale. This one was $1. Buying them at garage sales can save you a lot of money because they are incredibly expensive in the stores!

Armoire

I was so close to buying this. The guy only want $50 for it. It obviously needed a little TLC but the bones were in great condition and it was a great quality of wood. I decided I needed to finish some of my other projects before starting a new one.

Large pink plate $2. I didn't know what I would have done with it so I didn't buy it but it was very tempting!

Cute little princess bike $10

Cute skirt!

I LOVED this onesie. If I was having another baby I would have bought it!

Cutest baby bedding! It came with a skirt, bumpers and a blanket. I forgot to ask how much it was. Sorry!

Entertainment center $150!

Crib $50!

Brand new Circo shoes-$1

They had boxes and boxes of these! Most of them were still in the packaging! All were $1

Boys bike $10

Family Home evening board-$3

Cream leather couch and chair for $75

ties for $1. I love the pink and blue one!

Complete home gym $150

Cute home decor $20. Way to much in my opinion but it's always worth a try trying to talk them down!

Nice dinning room table with 4 chairs $200

cute wreath holder- $3

Wrought iron embellishment-$20 Again way too much but it was close to the end of the day and you could have asked them to go lower on it.