Cheap ways to jazz up your home

I'm pretty thrifty, and although I hate my room right now, I must admit, I do have a nack for finding cheap ways of prettyfiying a space. So, here are my tips on how to jazz your space! Please add any that you have....



C is for cushions - cushions are great. Go to your local fabric store and pick up some fabric you like, or even a few, matching or contrasting, and some cushion inserts, Theyre cheap and changeable and the look awesome!

Frames - put frames up, put pictures of anything you like in them, you could have a big feature one or a cluster of little ones, or some sort of arangement.

I like to hang records on my walls. Some of the cover art is amazing.you can pic up second hand records for nothing in thrift stores, just slip them in a plastic sleeve and pin or blutac to a wall.

Posters - you can make your own movie, music or miscellaneous posters - its illegal, but if your not selling them who cares. Find a dvd cover, cd slick, or photo in a book or from your collection or even from the net, print it out and photocopy it at an enlarged scale at your local library or newagent, it only costs a buck or two. If your Really Fancy, laminate it.

Canvas - Get a cheap canvas and go nuts with it, you can paint it or cover it ewith a material you like, wrap it with some cute wrapping paper, anything you like.

Cheap vases and pretty bottles can be picked up from thrift stores and bargain shops and look cool as with fresh picked flowers in

Light - Cover a simple square desk lamp with some thin coloured paper or material for a cute lamp that gives good light. You could pick one up from ikea or somewhere like that and make it your own

White Walls? Grab some perspecs (clear coloured plastic) squares from your local hardware, get three in matching or clashing colours and attach them to your wall, in a modern art kinda way

thats all I got, any more would be greatly appreciated.

 

paint- use it to paint flea-market furniture.

tiles- smash them up and make mosaic tops for your coffee table, dining room table.

staple gun and fabric- re-upolster your couch/chairs (very easy!)

beads, stick and fishing line - make a beaded curtain

 

oooh.
Yes I love reupholstering stuff, so easy, so fun, so effective. I like to use craft fur to reupholster!

 

-If you like plants they are a beautiful addition to any room. If you dont have the money to go out and buy a plant then maybe you have a friend or a relative with one that you could take a trim from if that can be done to the plant LOL and grow it from there. You can take an old container of some sort to plant it in too
-Go to Garage sales YEAHHH!!! You can always find neat stuff at them.

-Try candles, they are usually cheap enough and they can bring a new sense intor your life, great for makin the mood right and makes a room smell pretty.( I dont burn all of the ones I have, I use a tart warmer or sometimes just let them set in the sunlight during the day.) I just like the look of them anyhow. I have taken a few of them and dug into them and made different designs in them too

-Recycle unused, discarded, unwanted cds on ur ceilings or as a border on ur walls

-Use old magazines or cut outs and some modge podge and paste it into picture frames and make a neat collage or even on your old dresser to doll it uP!

-Get a bowl and buy urself a betta, they are the prettiest fish and bring a calmness to ur home.

Thats all I have for now LOL

www.dawnson64.piczo.com

 

Get a good sized mirror with an ugly frame.... and decorate it! I found an ugly framed one that I covered in velvet ribbon, which looks wonderful, and I even painted a little rose in the corner of the mirror! Makes it very unique!

Places like IKEA or Home Depot sell really inexpensive yet decorative cupboard knobs... I've used a few fun ones to decorate my kitchen.

 

I made book shelves out of concrete blocks and discarded wood and they are amazing!

I just painted the blocks black (at the request of my mother, I really wanted to go funky with some chalk or glow in the dark/blacklight paint, but oh well) and kept the wood as it but you could paint or stain it too.
You can use whatever kind of block you wish, just remember that the blocks give your vertical height. I used cinder blocks, building blocks...whatever you want to call them. The grey ones with two holes in them. Face the holes outward because they are PERFECT for holding random goodies and nicknacks like CDs, candles, perfumes, and even my stash....

 

I also like to jazz up boring candles with fake tattoos or sponge painting.
It looks cool when not burning, but still burns fine.

 

:cheers2:

 

Whenever I find decorative ribbon on clearance I buy it buy the bunches. It's a great way to add flair to anything. I've used ribbon to decorate lamp shades, furniture, cupboards, pin boards etc

Cute fabrics + different sized embroidery loops = amazing wall decor

I used cool fabric and a hot glue gun to cover the front of the drawers of my boring IKEA dresser, and have seen people use wallpaper as well

Go to a thrift store, find the old paintings, buy an ugly painting with an awesome frame. Take out the canvas, take some turp or paint thinner (if the texture of the paint is thick) and rub off as much paint as possible. Then cover the canvas with whatever... an original painting of your own, a collage, a vintage poster etc

Random stud earrings make beautiful thumb tacs for your pin boards. If you have a pair you don't wear anymore or simply lost one earrings, just take out the backing and push it into your pinboard! They are not as "strong" as a regular thumb tac so I mostly use them for decoration or reinforcement... but they surely jazz up your workspace ;D

 

I like to glue leaves and decoupage old jars from the kitchen and put candles in them - really beautiful at night - especially if they get hung up with wire

 

I put lace around some candles, and made some curtains for my room and a matching foot stool. Good luck!

 

Wow such amazing ideas in here!

One of my favorite things to do is to get poster board and decorate it with all kinds of clippings, memorabilia, things that make me ME and hang them all over the place. Either that or just paint a white sheet of paper and do the same thing on a smaller scale!

I take old suitcases (the hard ones) that I bought at yard sales/thrift shops and I pull them apart and decorate them and use them as decorative wall shelves.

I try to recycle just about everything...in the past, I've painted and decorated shoe boxes and organized things in them and put them on a shelf to add some color to my room

A friend of mine once had people write all over her bedroom wall with chalk...it looked AWESOME and so colorful!

If anyone is into batiking - go to a local hotel and ask if they have any worn out flat sheets...you can double them up (or just use single ones) and dye them to create wall hangers...it looks AWESOME when you do it!

I'll add more things as I think of them...but that's a good start!

 

Love this idea.

 

i'm putting black kraft paper on my floors, adding some cut out mini heart and stars in bright colors thrown over it and polyurethaning it to the floor. overall it's cheap. look up "brown paper flooring".. i just chose black. It can be used on walls too.
Also, I decoupage anything I want covered. newpaper and paint are cheap. I staple thift store sheets to walls and ceiling. Paper cutouts. Rocks collected from outside, painted. Pieces of wood (2x4 or a thick branch) become mini shelves. I like the ideal of using dresser drawers as shelves.

 

I have put a lot of plants in wine bottles and they look great! Plants are goo for the house and I wanted to store those wine bottles so this idea served both the purposes. Also many colorful photo frames on one wall look good. You could just paint one wall in a bright green or electric blue too! These small changes make a big difference to make your house look nicer!