Sign of the Times - Holiday Mantel for Less

I decided a couple things for this holiday season.
One - Continue celebrating the holidays on the cheap, without sacrificing anything.
And two - KISS! - Keep It Simple Sweetie! ;)
See how I dressed up our mantel with a few pieces of junk, clearance items and recyclables? The vintage stamp holder was a gift from my friend Kathy at Sylvia's Vintage Daughter. I added freebie glass cigar tubes to it along with a few candy canes for mere pennies. The J-O-Y stocking holders were a Target clearance item a couple years ago for just $5.00.

I found this rectangle galvanized metal crate during my travels to Minnesota for Oronoco Gold Rush Days. I paid $16.00 for it and actually bought two. I filled it with varying sizes of glassware from my recycle bin in the garage that included spaghetti sauce and salsa jars. All free, of course.

Gimme an A! Kathy from SVD once again came through for me. I purchased the cast aluminum letter A below from her and she in turn sent me the letter C to go with it! Rah! Rah! What a gal!


The vintage snowman head was purchased at a thrift store for $2.00. It is one of my all time favorite pieces! Another glass recycled salsa jar houses more candy canes for an inexpensive festive decoration.

I was thrilled to find these simple red felt stockings last year on super-duper clearance at Joann Fabrics. The detail is awesome and even appears to be trimmed by pinking shears. $1.00 each is as good as it gets, don't you think?

I hope you feel I stuck to my plan of keeping the holidays cheap and simple! I'd like to share more so please check back!

As always, take care and keep on junking!

Sue Whitney LIVE on Gorilla Glue Facebook!

Have a junk project that you're not quite sure how to complete? Well, now is your chance to receive excellent advice LIVE from one of the most well-known junk experts around! Author and President of JUNKMARKET Style, Sue Whitney, will be answering your questions on Gorilla Glue's Facebook fan page, Wednesday, December 16 at 12:00pm EST.

Sue is known for using Gorilla Glue on many of her projects. In fact, she actually made me a believer in their products as well, and my family uses the super glue, wood glue and the duct tape on a regular basis. Love them! - And no, I'm not being paid to say that. ;)

Come join the fun and bring along your photos to share! RSVP to the event and hope to see you there!

Family First

Hi all! I won't make excuses for my absence and claim how busy I've been (everybody's busy, right?), but thought it only fair I'd share with you why I've been away.

Things have finally caught up with me in my household. As some of you know, my husband is completing his MBA in addition to working full-time in his job which includes some travel. This leaves me and the girls on our own quite a bit. Let me tell you, I now have a GREAT appreciation for single parents raising their children well. Admittedly it has gotten really tough keeping up with my three children, their homework, activities, house cleaning, disciplining... well, just parenting. It's especially rough when you do not have much (any) extended family support.

Sooooo, after reviewing everything that needed to be done in my day, I decided to take a break from blogging and posting online much. My house is slowly being put back in order, my girls are happy to have more fun with mom, and I'm feeling much better about things.

Best of all...hubs graduates in about 12 weeks! Woot! I am hoping to get back in the swing of things with some junk projects so stay tuned!

So in the meantime, here are a few things we've been up to...

We had a "hands-off" Thanksgiving by traveling a few hours south to Columbus, Ohio. A waterpark hotel was in order! We stayed for three days, two nights...
enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving feast that was prepared by the hotel staff!

We attended a couple of Christmas programs...

The girls enjoyed their free-to-decorate-how-they'd-like candy-themed Christmas tree.

They did a beautiful job!
And we baked sweets for the holidays including chocolate chip bars, jumbles, hundreds and thousands, bark and Hollywood Squares.


Thank you to those that visited my blog and continued to follow during my absence. I am really looking forward to catching up with all of you as well as spend time with my family. Love to you all!

No Fuss Ceiling Tin Project

Are you looking for a project that's cheap and easy? Well, look no further. All you need is an old frame with glass, a rusty crusty ceiling tin and some leftover clear adhesive dots (from card-making or scrapbooking).

Place clear dots along the front edges of the ceiling tile making sure not to touch them with your fingertips or it may compromise the sticky factor. Only use the paper strip provided with the product. I used eight dots to ensure they could withstand the tin's weight. Press the tin against the backside of the glass allowing it to stick. Omit replacing the cardboard backing of the frame and use the wall color as your matte!

Not bad for a $2 church rummage sale frame and a $2 ceiling tin from a flea market, eh?

As always, take care and keep on junking!

A Junky Halloween Movie Festival

The Shining...Bowl (1980)
As I head into this fright-filled Halloween weekend, I leave you this list of some of the most top-rated scary junk movies out there. BEWARE!!! THEY JUST MIGHT SCARE THE JUNK OUT OF YOU!

Grindhouse (2007)

The Hound of the Bassettvilles (1959)

Invasion of the Burlap Sackers (1978)

What Ever Happened to Baby Coke? (1962)

The Lube Witch Project (1999)

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Dr. Dominos and Mr. Doorknob (1931)

JARS (1975)

Misery (1990)

What other scary junk movies have you seen? I'd love to hear about them? Have a wonderful Halloween weekend everyone!

As always, take care and keep on junking!

Emerging from the Lab-OR-atory...

Emerging from the dark, dusty Dominos & Doorknobs Lab-OR-atory, is the deranged Junk Sophisticator...waiting, just waiting, to amass all its curbside findings from YOUR home. Yes, YOUR home! BEWARE THE JUNK SOPHISTICATOR. There is no stopping it. Bwah ha ha ha....


You Have Been BOO'd!

The air is cool, the season is fall,

Soon Halloween will come to all.

Ghosts and goblins, spooks galore...

Tricky witches at your door.



The spooks are after things to do,

In fact, a spook brought this "BOO" to you.


The excitement comes when friends like you,

Copy this note and make it two.


We'll all have smiles on our faces,

When we see who Boo'd who's places.

I was Boo'd by ALVN@WhisperwoodCottage. Now...


The following 4 ladies have been officially BOO'd...

Kathy@SylviasVintageDaughter - Wonderful junking buddy and expert vintage stash and junk locator.

Marybeth@DownHomeDIY - Designer and rehab/repurposing extroidinaire!

GariAnn@TheUndomesticatedWife -Fabulous pet lover and thrifty garage-saler with a witty personality, teetering on the edge of being domestic! ;)

Janis@JunkDreams - Proprieter of pretty things, creator of lots of bling. This blogger is classy!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This BOO party was started by Toni@The Tattered Cottage. Please keep the fun going by following these instructions.


1. You have 24 hours to work your spell

2. Copy and post the Halloween Boo Poem with the instructions for playing.

3. Pick 4 blogs you enjoying visiting and tell why you enjoy visiting them, with a link to
their blog and remember to link back to me.


4. Go to the original BOO Party post at the Tattered Cottage and add your MckLinky.


5. Let's see how fast and far this spreads between now and Halloween.


This was fun! Happy Halloween to all!

As always, take care and keep on junking!

Krispy Kreme Offers a Sweet Break

With the girls having the day off from school due to NEOTA day (North East Ohio Teachers Association), I wanted something simple and fun for the them to do. As soon as I realized there was a Krispy Kreme in a nearby city, I knew that's just what our sweet teeth ordered!

This yummy donut shop was especially fun because we could actually see the workers making, decorating and packing the donuts! The manager even stepped away from all his duties to provide the girls cute retro Krispy Kreme caps, and asked if there were any questions regarding donut making. I thought that made our little trip even more fun!

A day off from school is always good, but a day off from school with a yummy, warm donut in hand is even better!


For the entire month of October, this Middleburg Heights, Ohio store is wonderfully decorated for Halloween...doing a perfect job coordinating with their donuts, don't you think?



We made sure to order enough for leftovers. Krispy Kreme even provided microwave reheating instructions on their box so we could have a warm, yummy donut at home!

Cute minis! 20 to a box and perfect for the minis in my home!

Definitely a great treat for the girls on their day off...or any day for that matter. I enjoyed it myself too, thank you very much. ;)


Have a great weekend everyone! As always, take care and keep on junking!