QUICK TIPS – PAGE 3
Even if you can’t afford to buy fresh flowers everyday, you can still have the beauty flowers bring to a home by scouting your local green spaces for wild flowers.
They may not be the fanciest flower in the bunch but wild daisies are beautiful in their simplicity, especially gathered by the handful and tucked into an appropriately-sized vase. They don’t need much arranging, either. Just vary the length of the stems slightly and let them do what comes naturally.
Turn a smooth switch plate into a decorative accent using the small vinyl stickers that come on the larger sheet of some repositionable window and wall stickers.
Extend the life of a floral bouquet and make a summery centerpiece with three different sizes of glass vases and some river rocks. Once your fresh flowers have started to wilt, snip the tops off of the ones that still look good and float them in water. Add a sprig of greenery from the bouquet to each vase and group them on a tray.
Push pins in fun shapes make great decorations for plain candles.
These plastic soap dishes are a cheap and sturdy way to store things such as straight pins, small craft items or a do-it-yourself sewing kit for traveling. An elastic band will keep the lid on in a suitcase.
Use an attractively packaged bar of soap as a decorative accent in your bathroom or powder room. Top a stack of towels with it or group it with a couple of complementary pieces on the countertop.
When I first saw these rolls of decorative papers, I thought dollar stores had started selling wallpaper. In reality, this is peel and stick, similar to the stuff you may be using on you kitchen shelves but wider (18″) and with prettier patterns.
Use some to dress up the back of your bookshelves or on a small wall such as in a powder room. It comes in a few different designs and costs $3 per roll at Dollarama.
This 12-inch round mirrored candle plate makes a nice place to display your favorite perfumes on a vanity table or dresser, too. I saw these with black trim and square-shaped, as well. $2.50 at Dollarama.
The bright colors and floral patterns on these table runners helped me to re-imagine them as wall hangings. This is easily accomplished by clipping one end of a table runner to a wooden pants hanger. These table runners are lined and 47-inches long. They cost $3 each at Dollarama.
You may be able to find some unfinished wooden trays in the craft section at the dollar store. They make nifty organizers for shallow drawers.
An easy decorating idea is to hang mini stockings on a wire garland strung along a wall. By adding stick-on numbers, you could easily turn a garland into an advent calendar. I found a variety of mini stockings at Dollar Tree in packages of two.
We dressed up this small plain wreath, found at Dollar Tree, by simply slipping the string of an ornament over the wreath’s hanger before suspending the wreath from a hook.
Make your everyday treasures holiday ready with the quick addition of a ready-made Christmas bow or wire-stemmed floral pick. Naturally, an oil lamp or candle should never be lit with something flammable close to a flame.
Make a cloche for any season with an inverted vase and any small object. Here we’ve used a pinecone ornament to make a pretty Christmas decoration.
Any decorator will tell you that mirrors visually enlarge a small space but if you don’t have the bucks for a large mirror to fill that wall space, try using smaller ones in a group.
Each of these 17 1/2 by 14-inch mirrors was $3, making the cost of this grouping a mere 12 bucks. You can also get them with different types of frames.
Try mounting them flush with one another to get the look of a window or add a couple more to simulate an extra large mirror.
Cork trivets grouped together make nifty mini bulletin boards. I stuck a couple on the inside of my desk’s hutch as a handy place to pin reminders, using two-sided tape. These trivets are about seven inches in diameter but I’ve seen them in different shapes. Instead of a traditional bulletin board, use a variety of shapes and sizes to create a unique place for notes, pictures and more.
Most dollar stores sell clear plastic that’s meant to protect book covers from wear and tear. It’s similar to the peel and stick decorative paper that you buy on rolls but it’s see-through. If you look at the left-hand side of the picture, you’ll see where the plastic protector ends.
As you can see, it’s practically invisible but it will protect the wall behind the boot tray from dirt and scuff marks and it’s really easy to clean.
You can buy kits to help you sort out which cord connects to what electronic from the mess of cords under your desk but here’s a cheaper alternative.
A set of four 3/4-inch rolls of different coloured electrical tape costs $1.25 at the dollar store. Simply cut a small piece of coloured tape to wrap around each end of a cord, using a different colour for each different electronic. Be sure to use the same colour tape for each separate piece of your laptop or computer cord.
For example, you could use red tape to designate the cord(s) for the computer, yellow for the printer and a piece of green tape on the telephone cord. Then put a small piece of each colour tape used on a plain piece of paper, label them accordingly and tape it to your desk. The next time you want to take your laptop on the road, you’ll know exactly which plug to pull.
