Vintage Dishes ... an obsession

I'll admit it.

I have an issue with dishes... China... Anything that sits on a table.

I love dishes. They're all so unique, so pretty, so fun. They can change your table in an instant.

And then when you combine a love of dishes with a love of vintage things... well vintage dishes just throw me over the edge. Like this one. Oh my...

I've noticed a distinct change in my taste this spring. I'm loving these pretty vintage florals. Not overdone, no. Simple and classic still, but flowery and girly none-the-less. My husband is overjoyed :)

*note that all images used are used with permission granted by the Creative Commons License.*

clicking on the picture will take you to the source

Bird-day Bunting

RecentlyI came across a blog with a completely awesomely cute idea for some birthday cards.  First of all, I love the blog in general, she has beautiful photos, but I just had to share this idea for cards with you because I cannot get over how cute it is.  Good thing I am going to be ordering some stamps from Stampin' Up soon - I am definitely going to try this!

{Bird-day Bunting}

How To Add A Blog Button

<center><a href="http://www.creekbedthreads.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy143/erinsue1/blogbutton1.jpg" height="125" width="125" /> </a></center>

For a while now, I had been wanting to add a button to my blog that others could grab as well.  As you see (to the right) I was finally able to do this!  It wasn't quite as easy as I thought, so I am going to explain it here so that everyone can give it a go.

1.  First, you need to design your button.  If you're an Etsy seller, you could use your avatar, or design something new!  I won't go into too much detail here, but you'll want it to be at least 125x125 pixels.

2.  Now, you need to host the image somewhere.  I normally use Flickr to host my photos, but their rules say that all images must link back to their site - but we want your button to link to your blog, not flickr!  So instead, I've used photobucket, since I didn't see any rules like that there.

3.  Once it's there, you'll notice that there are some links below or to the left of your image, giving you the location of your picture.  You want to copy the "direct link", which will look something like this "http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy143/erinsue1/blogbutton1.jpg".  I'm going to refer to this URL later as IMAGE SOURCE.

4.  Now that your button is 'hosted', you want to add it to your blog.  If you use blogger, all you need to do is go to your blogger home, and click the layout tab.  Now click "add a gadget", and choose HTML.

<center><a href="YOUR BLOG URL GOES HERE" target="_blank"><img src="IMAGE SOURCE GOES HERE" height="125" width="125" /> </a></center><center><textarea cols=”15″ rows=”4″ wrap=”virtual”><center><a href="YOUR BLOG URL GOES HERE" target="_blank"><img src="IMAGE SOURCE GOES HERE" height="125" width="125" /> </a></center></textarea></center>

5.  Now we need to format the code that you will put into this gadget.  Below is the code that you will use, and this will show your button, plus add a text box containing the code for your button that others can copy into a widget on their blog!

6.  You can customize this code if you'd like, the things you'll want to focus on are where it says height="xxx" and width="xxx".  If you want use a button size other than 125x125 you'll want to adjust these.  I would recommend the 125px square, but it's not necessary, I've seen larger ones around 150 or 175px square.  Another thing to customize, if interested, is the alignment.  I have it set to center, because that's how it looks best in most layouts, but you may want to remove the tags and everywhere they appear in order to have the text alignment to the left.

7.  Now just copy your code into the gadget, and save... it should be on your blog now!  As always you can drag the gadgets around in the blogger layout page to customize where this will show up.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to comment, and I will try to answer your questions.  I am not an expert in coding, but have figured out a few small things like this, so I will do my best!

Thursdays

Yes, I know it's Friday.

But I realized yesterday that I like Thursdays, as far as weekdays go.  Thursdays are unexpected weekdays.

On Thursdays, I can look forward to the weekend because it's close.  But I don't have to worry yet about all the things I have to get done over the weekend, or going into a cleaning frenzy because people are coming over.

On Thursdays, there's time to do unexpected things, like go out to dinner with friends who happened to stop by on a whim.

On Thursdays, we're not busy.  We can relax, do things we want to do, enjoy the sunshine that is lasting much later into the evenings now.

On Thursdays, I'm not yet antsy about getting to the weekend, just complacent working at my day job.

Thursdays are normal days.  I like normal.  Tiring, Boring, Fun, Exciting, they all have their places... on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.  

But Thursday,  

Thursday is normal.

What about you?  What's your favorite weekday?

Favorite Etsy Finds

{petitepaperie}

{FaithVintage}

{artquirk}

{GwenDelicious}

{ReclaimTheThrone}

Money Monday!

As some of you may or may not know, I am a huge bargain shopper.  I have been looking out for good deals since I was 5 and knew what money was, and that I didn't have a lot of it.  This mentality is mostly thanks to my mother, who is also an avid bargain shopper.  We love anything cheap, be it from a garage sale, someone else's garbage, Salvation Army... etc., etc.

Luckily, this bargain hunting mindset carries over into grocery shopping.  Grocery shopping is like a game... how much can you save this week?  I love looking at the bottom of my receipt and seeing how much I saved.  Is it going to be a measly $5 this week, or is this going to be a $30 week!?

Let me tell you, this week, it was a $56 week.  That's right.  $56.

MoneySavingMom  has been a large part of my inspiration, and my own mother and I will often call or email each other with the latest great deal that was posted by MoneySavingMom.  But I do not always just blindly follow her advice, usually I do my own coupon game, armed with ideas and inspiration from her site.

Normally I do my grocery shopping at Giant Eagle, but this week, I decided to do the majority of it at Target, and boy was I glad I did!  If you weren't aware already, Target will allow you to use one Target coupon PLUS one manufacturer's coupon on any item.  Stacking coupons like this gets you some REALLY great deals.

Shown below is everything that I got yesterday in my trip.  I spent a total of $56 out of pocket, and got $10 back in gift cards, making everything below a final total of $46.

Shown above is the following:

4 boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats

4 boxes of Raisin Bran Crunch

2 boxes of Corn Chex

1 gallon of milk

24 rolls of toilet paper

2 jars of Emerald nuts

2 bags of nut clusters

4 boxes of Green Giant veggies

3 bags of Steamfresh veggies

1 package of Always pads

1 box of Playtex

1 package of bacon

1 container of Airborne

1 loaf of bread

I used a total of 27 coupons.  Yup.  27.  It took me an hour and a half to find, clip, and sort all of my coupons but it was completely worth it to see the huge whopping $56 saved at the bottom of my receipt, PLUS come home with $10 in Target gift cards.

So how did I do it?  Well, I went through the coupons here (coupons.com), here (target.com), and here (redplum.com), and simply clipped what I wanted.  Most of the coupons I used were printed, and some were previous coupons that I clipped from the Sunday paper and weekly redplum.

By far the best deal that I got out of the above was the 4 boxes of Mini Wheats for a total of 50 cents.  That's 13 cents per box.  Granted, they are small boxes, but what a deal!  You'll end up paying $5.50 out of pocket, but receive a $5 gift card in return.

To do this, you need to buy 4 boxes, and print out one $1.50/2 coupon from here, one $1.50/2 coupon here, and one $1.50/3 Kellog's cereals Target coupon here.  They are on sale through the 20th for 4 for $10, plus a $5 gift card if you buy 4.  Make sure you also print the Target coupon policy to take with you to the store - sometimes clerks have given people trouble about using a Target coupon stacked with a regular manufacturers coupon, but I had no trouble doing this last night, and according to their policy it is completely  ok.

You can also do a similar deal with the Raisin Bran Crunch, although it does not work out to be quite as cheap as the Mini Wheats.  I was able to get the Chex for $1.50/box, which isn't stellar, but considering our Giant Eagle has been out of Corn Chex for months, and Target had it all along, I am quite quite happy to have Corn Chex back in stock at our house!  You can stack one $0.75/1 manufacturer coupon with one $0.75/1 Target coupon to get these for $1.50 each.

Another great deal is to print off the coupons for Nut Clusters - there is a $1/1 coupon on coupons.com as  well as a Target coupon for $1/1.  At our Target these were $2.99, making them 99 cents each after coupons.

Nuts were the theme of the night - I also got 2 Emerald jars for $3.  These are on sale at Target for 2 for $6, plus if you look, some of the jars have a Target coupon on the front for $1 off, making them $2/jar.  I also had another $1/2 coupon to use, but unfortunately I do not remember where I got it, perhaps off of a previously bought jar?  This allowed me to get a great deal on the nuts!

Does anyone else have any great Target deals to share this week?  I am definitely going to keep my eye out for more in the future!