Dress up that Dresser!

When a friend of mine moved a couple of years ago I became the new owner of her old Ikea dresser. Being the frugal lady bit that I am I gladly welcomed this new addition even though the all white color is not exactly my style. Recently I moved into a new apartment that has white walls and white carpet, so this all white dresser became disturbingly boring! Time to make a change! I ordered this contact paper by Isaac Mizrahi for sale on Amazon ($9 for 30 feet!) and went to work.  I think it turned out rather well, what do you think?

                                                                       BEFORE

                                                                       

                                                                         AFTER

Creative Decorating- On the Cheap!

I really like finding wall art and other decorating items in unlikely places.  One of my favorite finds was a French cooking book that was left in the free book exchange at Escuela Falcon, a language school I was teaching at in Guanajuato, Mexico.  (Want to learn Spanish in an immersion setting in a lovely Mexican town? visit http://escuelafalcon.com/)

I love how the images inside are simple and have a fresh but bold color palate.  Perfect for a rental apartment where I can't add any color by painting the walls.  To turn my find into usable and basically free art, I simply cut out 6 of my favorite images, put them in some $1 frames from IKEA and voila' kitchen art taken care of.  And I can easily change out the pictures if I get tired of them!

Another great find was this old scalloped window frame I found at an antique shop for $6.  All I had to do was string wire through the screen, get some picture clips from IKEA and then it became a fun way to display photos and show postcards. My former room mate even borrowed it for her wedding to display photos of the bride and groom.

So keep your eyes open, you never know where you might find items that can be turned into fun decoration.