Frugal Friday: The Best Things In Life Are Free

I hope this doesn't feel patronizing, but I've got the most Frugal Friday of all: The Great Outdoors! Hopefully you're enjoying the little heat wave we've had this week and get a chance to actually go outside and enjoy it. I've watched it through the shop windows with envy each day and can't wait to actually go outside and feel the sun on my Vitamin D

deficient skin!

If you need to work a little shopping into your weekend, at least do it frugally: Addison Endpapers in Oakland is having a studio sale, the Alameda Antique Fair is this Sunday and Borders' across the nation are closing and having sales at a store near you!

Frugal Friday: Frugal Crafting

A friend of mine who is planning her upcoming nuptials told me about this amazing crafting supply site the other week. I'm not just saying that because their main page features a cupcake tower with an "A" and "B" on the top either! Just browsing on their site for fun details for an event I found these cute rustic framed chalkboards on stands for only $3.99, these one or two inch clothes pins, 50, for $2.99 and these adorable milk bottles for 12 for $14.98 or $2.99 each. Couldn't you just see a cocktail in these little bottles with a striped straw popping out the top of it? I was honestly surprised by how inexpensive the things were on this site, along with the incredible variety of items. It's nice to see crafting sites that aren't...how to put this politely... for lack of a better word: tacky. There are of course some less than chic items, but it was easy to find things that I would actually use in my wedding/ event or one I was assisting to design. I'm excited to explore the site more and to see what other little treasures I can find, thanks for the tip J!

Frugal Friday: "Etsy On Sale"

I will admit that I am still something of an Etsy newbie when it comes to really navigating the site well. For A's Valentine's day gifts I spent far too much time entering a search then looking through hundreds of pages of results, literally, to find what I was looking for.

Today is exciting though because I found that there is a specific section that filters all of the Etsy

items that have recently been reduced or gone on sale! It's called, simply, "Etsy on Sale" and there are hundreds of pages to search through for just what you're looking for. Thankfully there are categories and price limits to help narrow down your search. Happy shopping!

Frugal Friday: Valentine's!

How is it already February?! Seriously, wasn't it just almost Christmas!? If you are way more ahead of your game then I you may be thinking about affordable Valentine's Day gift ideas. One of the easiest, and sometimes lazy or cheap looking, options are to make "Coupons" for your one and only. I have to say I have totally done them before, and I think that I did it in a cuteoriginal, non-cheesy way, but I actually found some printable/ customizable ones that look great! These ones are from Kind Over Matter which I just discovered for the first time! These are totally adorable and have a fun indie feel to them which you can claim all as your own if you're so inclined.

If you only need Valentine's cards, I found a great website that has all kinds of

vintage Valentine's Day cards available that you can print for free! There are so many hilarious puns (wow, you'll never hear me say that again!)

from the 30's/ 40's/ 50's that are so adorable but usually harder to find, and sometimes expensive, in their original forms. I think I may give this one to A....your perfect printable vintage Valentine can be found here. I'll post some of my own Valentine's I've been working on soon!

Frugal Friday, for the Craigslist Scouter!

I've, of course, preached on the amazing finds one can get for themselves on craigslist, but sometimes scouting for those items can be a challenge. Let's say for instance that you're looking for a bedside table, but you're looking for a vintage one, maybe from the 40's or 50's because you love the look of the smaller size and the original pulls on the drawers. You may think that you can just type in "vintage night stand" or something to that effect and find, well, what you searched for. Think again! Sometimes your search criteria will yield exactly what you've searched for, sometimes you'll find something like this: an actual search find. This my friends, is not vintage.

There was recently a post on Apartment Therapy that made me laugh, and finally feel validated in this irritation I've found with craigslister's definitions, that was about just this!

"Do You Suffer from Craigslist Elitist Syndrome?

I, Sarah Rae Trover am a Craigslist elitist. I can't help it. After buying everything from pets to houses and selling more home goods than I could pretend to recall, it just seems to come with the territory. It's not something I'm proud of, but I feel the green monster trying to hulk out inside of me when someone labels or tags something incorrectly just because they want it to sell and they read a home decor blog once (and obviously didn't learn anything). Now you might be thinking, wow, she's such a jerk, but more so, I'd like to consider myself honest. I can't lie, if I read the phrase "rot (or rod) iron" one more time I might scream or do more than grumble under my breath. Although spelling errors mean you have to comb

through the entire furniture section instead of searching for what you want, more annoying are home design buzz words. Now, I can no longer set my Google Reader to follow key phrases (hopefully allowing me to get the jump on those who work in an office during the day). It would seem that anything made before 1990 is considered "vintage" or "retro" and don't get me started on the word "modern." All you'll find there are horribly over-stuffed furniture that would swallow even the largest human whole.

Now one might ask why I would highlight this horrible trait, after all it's not exactly something one strives to be. To be quite honest, I still haven't decided if I'm seeking company in my annoyance or looking for a 12 step program of some sort. I'm tired of keeping a list of designers next to me because no longer can I hope to stumble upon a find where someone doesn't really know what they have, instead I'm left looking for pieces from those sellers who know exactly how much their Eames Lounger is worth.

Is it just me? Does it seem to be getting more difficult to find what you want on Craigslist without spending more and more time sifting through items that are listed incorrectly? As Walter Cronkite would say, "That's the way the cookie crumbles," and although that holds true in this situation, I still haven't learned how to deal. Have you?"

I, obviously suffer from Craigslist Elitist Syndrome as well, as least I have a diagnosis now!

Frugal Friday!

While obsessing about Le Creuset again (and no, I still haven't used them! I'm afraid, and clearly a weirdo. I'll get over it, thinking I'll cook a chicken in the round one tonight!) A friend of mine told me about the website Slickdeals.net where you can sign up for your favorite things, be it Le Creuset, a Yudu , portable margarita maker, etc. You will then get sent an alert when anything with that name gets posted. So, the other day I got an email allerting me that Le Crueset had been mentioned in a post, sadly it was only to say that it was excluded from the online 20% off sale that Macy's was having that day. But, my friend had been alerted about some Le Crueset pieces she bought in the past, as well as a crazy sale on their tv and more. I need to add more to my interest list so I can broaden my savings, but it seems like a great Frugal Friday resource (and even for stocking up on Christmas gifts as well!) and I look forward to more "slickdeals" coming my way! 

Frugal Friday!

What's that you say? A center where you can buy random items in bulk and more crafting supplies than you have inspiration for? Sounds good to B! I cannot sing the praises of The East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, or Center for Creative Reuse if you will, enough! I can, and we have, spent HOURS (and it's not a huge building!) perusing their treasures! I went this morning and they had tons of great light-colored burlap and hundreds of small glass bottles with cork tops in addition to their already amazing selection of magazines, fabric, cards, paint, you name it!

Frugal Friday!

Oh today was a good day! Not only was I ever so productive (and that would be due to the fact that I am still jet-lagged and got up at five a.m. this morning), but I also somehow managed to remember that today was the Stagecraft Studios Warehouse Sale! It's going on today and tomorrow and is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! 'A' and I went today and I got a vintage bingo ball spinner, some vintage Max Factor make-up (that I used to use at the Theater Department at OSU), an amazing 1960's jacket with mink collar and a few other lovely little items. Sales such

as these make my heart soar and make any day just a little bit better! If you're local check them out! Their prices are very affordable and there are so many different possibilities with what you could use the costumes for!