shopping – Suburban Fervor

Strike a Pose

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Katie

I know that most of the people that read this blog have blogs themselves. For that I thank you sincerely. I am more grateful than the acceptable amount of grateful because you read this blog despite the enormous lack of good pictures. I confessed here that I only have a camera phone to capture all the memories I’m making these days. Well your suffering is about to come to an end. Today I purchased this:

Target is having a big camera sale right now so I jumped at the chance to get something better than what I have. As far as phone cameras go, I have one of the best. It doesn’t hold a candle to the fancy DSLRs or even a point and shoot though. So I upgraded to the Canon A2300. It is a 16 megapixel camera with a wide angle lens. Definitely a step up from my lovely but lacking camera phone.

Here is the cost breakdown:

Original Cost: $179.99

On Sale For: $79.99

With RedCard Debit Card: $75.01

Along with the camera, case, and SD card that are included, I’ll be receiving a $10 Target gift card. Like I wasn’t already addicted to browsing.

Thank you for suffering along with my while I did my best (sometimes) to make my posts look good. Now the real challenge will be to see if I can make them look even better in Photoshop. Now go get yourself one if you need it!

Our House Has a Habit

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Katie

Ok, maybe two habits. One is buying glorious furniture from Goodwill. Seriously, I feel like something is better if someone owned it before me. I feel like they have been searching for me and now we are soulmates. I snagged this cabinet from goodwill for $10! It’s now laundry room storage.

Let’s not forget my Lamp for $25!

And our newest addition, the Bar. It is actually a sewing table and the top flips out to reveal a lower area where a sewing machine would sit. We have some exciting plans for the bar possibly including 2 new paint colors, storage, refrigeration/ice, and pizzazz. The kicker? We nabbed him for the low low price of $7! That’s a pretty sweet deal.

Stay tuned for his makeover. Let’s not talk about that fact we felt the need for a bar.

Have you customized/repurposed any of your furniture at home?

Busy Bee

Posted on January 3, 2013January 3, 2013 by Katie

I wasn’t doing a ton of posting over Christmas and New Years but that doesn’t mean I was lounging around eating cookies and letting my house turn into a disaster. Ok well it was a disaster, but I still accomplished something. I got my sew on. I haven’t done any real sewing for about 4 years to I was a little rusty but as soon as I saw this sweet fabric on Etsy from SewFreshFabrics, I knew I had to do something with it.

I made these little throw pillow covers for the living room because I was starting to get the feeling that our house was losing it’s fun factor. Solution: I made these to punch things up without blowing my budget.

Cost Breakdown:

Fabric – $10 + shipping
Stuffing – Free. One has another throw pillow inside and one is a pillow that we weren’t using in my room cut to size.
Piping – $14 after a 40% off coupon at Joann’s (from their Android app).

Total: About $25

For two fresh, custom throw pillows, that’s not too shabby. I wish my craftsmanship was a little better, but overall I’m happy with the result. We needed an update!

Taking Stock.

Posted on December 13, 2012December 13, 2012 by Katie

While I was pulling out my Christmas decorations this year, I realized that we have two new additions to our little family. Last year around this time, there were only four of us living en mi casa. Me, my man, and our two roomies. Three days before Christmas, we adopted Loki and over the summer we adopted (or took in) my sister. I pulled out our Christmas stockings and knew that it was time to craft a few new ones. Before I get into it, “craft” is a word I’m using liberally. You’ll see.

I went to Target and picked up two more of these $1 stockings they have.

I whipped out my Gold Glitter Puffy Paint from last year. (I’m shocked I found it too)

I gave it a little test run to make sure it wasn’t gummed up with any sparkly debris.

Then I carefully penned their names on the cuff just like the others.

The original four are scribed with our nicknames mostly because I thought it would be more fun that way. And it is. Hence the Becca Boo. Mine says Kuh-tee. This project was just something festive that we could do without breaking the bank. Obviously, you could do a lot more or differently depending on your taste and skill level. Maybe next year I’ll break out a new design? At $1 per stocking, that’s not a big deal.

What holiday DIY projects have you tackled/want to tackle?

Weekend Round Up

Posted on November 26, 2012December 13, 2012 by Katie

Here I am. Yes, I’m alive! I had a nice Thanksgiving that reminded me why I’m thankful for my family and thankful I moved out. We went with a non-dramatic no-one-has-to-cook option this year and headed north to this lovely resort. After a few days of gluttony, eyeing the elliptical with rancor, and laughing it up with my fam, I was ready for a quiet few days at home to unwind before the ever-looming Monday arrived.

Then I got the itch to do something productive. God knows why. So I snatched my boyfriend away from his precious football to go Christmas decoration shopping with me. I prefer to not purchase new things every year for every holiday because it’s just not practical. However, we didn’t do outside decorations last year because buying our tiny tree was about all we had the money for. So this year we got lights and a wreath. We may end up getting a few more net lights to cover some naked bushes. Check it.

We have this rickety old wooden ladder left to us by the previous tenant that my man refused to let me climb (despite the fact I’ve probably been on infinitely more ladders than he has). Adorbs. Yeah, I said adorbs, just love me. Those are supposed to be icicle lights, but they seemed to be pretty tightly wound in the box. We are hoping the icicles just fall after some time being hung = too lazy to break out the ladder to force them into the right shape.

Oh yeah, see my wreath? Here’s a close up.

I love this wreath so hard. We found the Christmas section at our local Target and I did briefly fall in love with a wreath of ornaments, but we couldn’t agree on which color(s) so when I saw this I tossed our compromise back to its shelf and snagged this little beaut. I’m going to try to bring in some cranberry garland to our house to pull the wreath and everything together.

My boyfriend did complain that we were decorating too early. Then we pulled up to our house and our neighbor was stringing lights across his garage. And our other neighbor. I don’t think it’s too early because, quite frankly, I don’t want to be out there in the snow struggling to get it done. We felt so great once it was all hung and lit. Kind of like we were going to be good adults one day. One day.