D.I. shopping spree

First I want to say how out of this world excited I was last night when I went to one of my favorite craft blogs, Just A Girl, and saw that I had been featured!! This is my first time being featured, but hopefully not the last time. It's interesting; when I first got back into sewing and otherwise "creating", I didn't have any original ideas and I just copied ideas I found on other blogs (and there are a lot of great craft blogs out there). But the more I did, the more I had ideas of my own, and now I feel like I am bursting with projects to do! So head on over to Just A Girl and check out some of her amazing projects, makeovers, and decorating tips.

Yesterday I had to take the final exam for my last class of the '08-'09 school year. I can't register for new classes until August 31, so I have a little bit of a break before I get back into school work. So I decided to treat myself to a shopping spree at D.I. And I got some really great stuff!

$10 buys a lot at a thrift store. If you can't tell, there's a pair of cream and gold reindeer, a pair of heavy gold pheasants (but I'm calling them partridges because they are going to be Christmas decorations), three cream and gold candlesticks, a tin apple door hanger, a pair of apple and pear salt and pepper shakers, a cream apple, three daffodil candlesticks (cute, huh??), and what I think is an ice bucket or cooler of some sort. Some of this stuff might seem shabby, but I was really excited with my finds.

And here is my new mantle display with some of my finds.

Ahhh I love those candlesticks!

I spray painted the apple and pear salt and pepper shakers cherry red, which is quickly becoming my favorite accent color. After we have our family portrait taken in September, it's going in a cherry red frame (another D.I. and spray paint project) on this mantle. It's gonna be fabulous!!