Weekend Junkin Finds

We went junkin this past weekend. Rummage sales, Goodwill, you name it. Do you ever get home and wonder why did I buy that? Or you find the perfect item you picked up and purchased wasn't so perfect when you get home. A hole in something, a corner missing off of a picture frame or a big chip out of that white transferware. Hate that.


Anyways, here are a few items that we purchased without regrets this weekend.

This giant gold frame was a must have at only $6.00. I am going to have my husband cut a board for the inside and turn it into a chalk board for the dinning room.

I bought this little wicker purse for only $.50, it looks great with a posy pin and hangs in my front hallway. Thought I could use it to store little things that we might need before we leave the house.

Found a pair of buffet lamps at only $4.00 each. Not that fond of the gold, but love the black shades and think thay will look great in the dinning room with a coat of cream paint.

Last, but not least the FREE chandelier. Yep found this beauty curb side. Thought it may work on my porch with candles and a coat of paint over the gold. Thinking maybe robins egg blue??

Hopefully this coming up weekend we are heading to the 100 mile rummage sale....

The Junk Mammas

All you

While reading magazines at the checkout at Walmart, I found this one, all you. At only $2.49, it was a bargain over the others I buy on a regular basis.

To my amazement, this magazine was packed with great recipes, some good articles and the mother load of coupons over $76.00 worth of savings.

A buy one get one free Rimmel 60 second dry nail polish, this was one of our Fabulous Friday Finds. It's a great inexpensive polish. Good for wiggly little fingers and toes, lots of nice colors and it really does dry in 60 seconds.

Next time you are out take a look at this one. You can also look online @ allyou.com for a listing of coupons in each months issue.

The Junk Mammas

Frugal Friday Linky Party

Wendy at The Shabby Nest is having a Frugal Friday Party! Our chic cheap tip is to use flowers and plants!

Almost every grocery store has a floral section, some even have a reduced section. Even cheaper yet grow your own, or cut your neighors, kidding. In the summer our favorite place to get flowers is at the farmers market. In our town there is a farmer market in the parking lot of Goodwill on certain days. Lucky us.

And vases or planters can be pick up any where. Look for vases with narrow opening, so you only have to use a few blooms to get impact. Almost anything can be a vase or planter, be creative. You can also mix real with faux. I used fake lilacs in the one picture with real potted gerber daisies.

One of our favorite blogs The Pleasure of Homemaking , we love how she uses flowers in home. Check her blog for other gardening ideas.

Have a great weekend!

The Junk Mammas

Paper or Plastic-Neither

Keeping with the theme of earth day today. I thought we would blog about a great way to be green. The recyclable bag. How many of you have this bag? If you are like us you have the basic black ones, I have seen them in red and green. But figured black was the most fashionable, if you can call them that.

Little did we know fashionable ones are available, for a price of course. Check out these ones above from William Sonoma. We really heart W.S. and their fabulous stuff! And Monograms to boot.

These from Ballard designs are really cute. At $10.00 for 2 that is not to bad of a deal. Our favorite bag was a gift. The wrapsack gets folded up and zips into a small square and slips into my purse, I just used it this morning at GW. Now go and be green.

The Junk Mammas

Moss balls

I made moss balls about ten years ago for my little apartment. I loved that apartment. It had inlayed wood floors, a fireplace, high ceilings, a cute buildt in hutch and I lived there by myself. Which somedays seems like heaven, a place to call my very own. No kids, no toys, no messes I didn't create.

I was just day dreaming. Let's get back to the moss balls. I have seen how tos on various blogs, but all have used hot glue. I do tend to like my fingers, so I used some flower pins. There are 88 cents a package at Walmart, and you just stick them into the stryofoam to attach the moss. I pushed them in with a unsharped pencil and brushed my finger over the moss to cover the pin.

I proudly placed them in my thrifted soup toureen and put them on my sofa table. Took a few pictures, and wondered if my son was going to get into them. Well it only took about 4 hours and half the balls were destroyed. The only good thing was I was at work when they bit the dust and my husband got to clean up the mess. This is why I dream of my little apartment.

The Junk Mammas

Vodka, Fabulous friday finds??

While reading my MSNBC home page today I came across an article that read "Vodka: The handy household cleaner". Of course I had to read on, the only thing we remember about vodka, pre-kids day, is that it either made us sick or give us a headache in the morning.

Some of the uses that stuck out in my head, and this one was kind of funny, it cleans vomit stains. Spray vodka on the stain, rub with a brush then blot dry. Kills mold and mildrew on bathroom grout, how many of you knew that? Takes lipstick out of clothing, now that may be one I could use.

The more we read the more we were thinking, rubbing achohol would work just as good for most of these things, and it's a lot cheeper. Right?

Anyways, decide for yourself, to read more on this here is the link to Divine Caroline.

The Junk Mammas

Letters and numbers

Letters and numbers are hot right now, or have they always been? We have seen so much done lately with vintage numbers and letters. We love the look!

Check out the great things we found while browsing the web for some looks with numbers and letters.

Country Living

Pottery Barn

Watsonkennedy.com

These vintage numbers at Watson Kennedy are for sale for $1000.00, you get numbers 0-9. While they are a little out of my price range, I love these and some of them would look great in my son's room.

Do you love numbers and letters? what have you done with them in your home? Check out our Etsy shop for some great vintage letters we found at a nearby flea market a few weeks ago.

The Junk Mammas

Gingham

Who doesn't love gingham check. I have a special fondness for gingham, it comes from my childhood. My Mom use to sew a lot when I was young. She made me a purple and white gingham bedspread. With the left over fabric she made me a prairie style dress. My kindergarten picture was taken in that dress. I was stylin, wasn't I. My hair was always fixed with pigtails and set with foam rollers for special occasions. I even used gingham in my wedding. It makes me happy!

I think almost every room in my house has some gingham in it. I have gingham in curtains, pillows, lampshades, bed skirts, table runners, and the list goes on. I have a true love of gingham. It's a pattern that comes in almost any color and goes with everything. Check out the May issue of Country Living for an article on gingham. Below are some photos of mine that we adore.

The Junk Mammas

Unclutter your home

I am finally reading this book that my mother bought me a few years back. Do you think she was trying to tell me something? 7 simple steps and over 700 tips and ideas for uncluttering your home.


I am a pack rat, I admit it. I have a soft spot for my children's art work. I keep magazines for what seems like forever. I always think I will go back and tear out pages, to add to the thousands that I already have torn out. Or there's that recipe that looks so good, I was always going to make.

Anyways, on to my first useful tip from the book. I decided to start with my son's bookcase in his room and the tip about storing things on shelves vs. tossing items in totes or bins. First of all the kids can see exactly what they have, and it avoids things getting lost in the shuffle. I tend to agree with this, although I will never give up my bins and totes completely.





This is the before. Complete and total mess.

This is the after. A little less clutter, I tried to use the shelves more and not pill the baskets full of needless stuff. Now Sam can see most of his books and games. Hopefully, this will stop some of the dragging everything out to find what he is looking for.

Well back to my reading, I have a 699 more projects to conquer.

The Junk Mammas

It's a jungle out there baby

This past weekend my mother and I threw my sister in-law a baby shower. This child is really a true blessing for my brother and SIL. She has a chronic illness, Lyme disease. Pregnancy actually helps her feel better, the doctors say it's all the hormones. But after she delivers the baby, the real challenge begins. Family is ready to help.

We went with a jungle theme. They choose not to find out the sex of the baby. Does everyone find out the sex of the baby these days? I didn't know for my two, I am sure I bought less baby stuff because of it.

Since we live in a smaller town, you can't always find decorations at the store. Which really is fine by me because they are not my taste anyway. I made some vines out of paper bags, just cut out the bottom of the bags and cut into three strips and twisted. Don't have a good picture of them, but you get the idea. I cut out some tropical leaves out of green construction paper. My daughter and I made a diaper cake. I was fun and easy to make. I used this video as instructions.

And of course we had luncheon food. Chicken salad croissants, Strawberry Spinach Salad, fruit and bars (Mom's speciality). It was all yummy and I ate way too much.

And my favorite part of a party, the favor. I found boxes of chocolates marked down to 31 cents from valentines day. Borrowed this idea, and added my own signature. Placed the chocolates in cupcake liners inside small favor boxes. Wrapped and added a posy pin to each.

The Junk Mammas

And the envelope please

The winner of the first Junk Mammas give away, by random drawing is Melissa@ 320* Sycamore . Thank you to all who entered and linked us to your blogs.

Melissa please contact us at junkmammas@hotmail.com

Thank you all again, we enjoyed reading your comments and checking out yours blogs.

The Junk Mammas

The grass is always green...

Is Easter really only a little over a week away? This holiday has come up on me fast, but I did manage to plant some grass in my tray for an Easter display.

I am sure you have all seen this done, but I'll just tell you my process. Line the tray or basket with a black plastic garage bag, then potting soil then a layer of rye grass seed (the kind in the lawn and garden section) and press the seeds into the dirt and water. Keep soil moist to sprout.

Within a week I had grass. I have never used wheat grass, but that works too. The grass even has that just cut grass smell when I trim it up with scissors. I pulled out my Easter decorations, and placed a faux chocolate bunny in the middle and then added some eggs. Poked wooden skewers into them at various heights and angles into the eggs and poked the other end into dirt. I have added Easter picked eggs before but thought this year looked better because I inserted the skewers at different angles not just into the bottom of egg.

Now I best get some goodies for my kids Easter baskets and then hide them from my husband. Notorious chocolate eater.

Monday we will announce our giveaway winner, don't forget to leave a post and link back.

The Junk Mammas

Giveaway

We have been so pleased and excited with all of the readers and comments on our blog. Junk Mammas started as a dream that 2 junk loving friends came up with and it has been extremely rewarding for us, we even have a few family members that we have turned into Junk Mamma Junkies!

We love to read all of your blogs and are extremely inspired each and everyday by all of you talented people.

So enough with the sappy stuff. We want to give someone back to at least one of our blog friends. On to the rules.

1. You must leave us a comment on this post. It can be anything from Hi, to how you found our blog. We just want to hear from you all.

2. To double your chances to win all the goodies below, link us to your blog and mention our little giveaway.

Now on to the fun stuff - The giveaway

#1. One of our french provincial chalk board. A great accent to your kitchen, kids room or any other place you want to add some words of wisdom.

#2. A posy pin,

#3. Cutest brown bunnie towel

#4. 4 pack of bubble magnets in a tin.

One lucky winner with receive all the goods. You can leave a comment from April 1st-April 5th. We will announce the winner on April 6th, 2009!!!

Good Luck, tell all of your friends about our give away and please leave our post with lots of comments!!


The Junk Mammas