What do you do when you love designing and decorating, but are a college student with no steady income to support such a hobby? Well, if you're like me, you'll peruse Goodwill and ask your family and friends for donations of materials they may not be using. Next you will reuse, repurpose, and put your creative skills to good use.
My boyfriend and I found this little table at Goodwill. It was inexpensive, and is sturdy and rather cute besides the disturbingly greenish hue of the fake wood top. I briefly joked about painting it to look like a stop sign due to its octagonal shape, but in the end decided to make a table cloth for it.
Momma Cat often has pieces of fabric left over from projects, or sometimes people give her nice fabric that they are not using and she saves it until one of us has a good idea for a project. I asked her if she had anything she was willing to donate and she produced this lovely flowered print which, quite frankly, is exactly the kind of thing I would have chosen for myself. I love black, white, and red together, especially when the red is used as an accent color as it is here. The fabric is knit, which is kind of a strange fabric for a table cloth but so far it works very well. Really, as long as it is washable, I think any fabric should work.
This table cloth was incredibly easy to make. All I did was tear off the ragged edges to make an even rectangle, fold and press the edges under at about 1/4'' and then fold and press them under again at about 1 1/4'' and stitch it all the way around to keep the edges from unraveling. The candles which you see on the table were handmade by myself and a very dear friend about three Christmases ago.
I get frustrated almost to the point of throwing things and cursing when I try to put on my makeup at a bathroom sink with no counter on which to spread out my arsenal and I keep dropping eyeliner pencils all over the floor. I cannot behave that way, of course, because I am a lady, so I decided to construct this shelf out of some reclaimed wood that my sweetie had stashed in the basement. I didn't have to buy anything for this, as I just took out the screws that were already in the wood and reused them in the construction of the shelf. My amazing aunt and uncle gave me the most wonderful tool set for my birthday a few months ago, and I have enjoyed putting it to use on furniture projects such as this. I still plan to paint the shelf so that it doesn't get soggy sitting on the bathroom floor. My dad volunteered a bucket of primer he had sitting in the basement, but I keep forgetting to purchase a paintbrush and have yet to decide what color I want to paint it.
Last but not least is a project from awhile back. You know those plastic rings that are left over when you finish a roll of scotch tape? Instead of throwing them out and spending money on fancy napkin rings for your table, a bit of ribbon can transform those little plastic rings into stylish napkin rings! If you want to know how, I made a video tutorial (actually my very first ever video tutorial), which can be viewed on Youtube:
Well, that's all for this post. It is getting quite long because I tried to cram several projects into it at once. I hope you like it, and that it inspires you to get creative and save some money on your home decorating solutions!
-Baby Cat
