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Use those beautiful pictures from your garden catalogs to frame into botanical prints, who will know!
Use gold spray paint left over from
holidays to transform small clay pots and saucers into coasters and silverware caddies. They stack well, too, and best of all, they’re cheap!
Make and herb drying rack for your kitchen by nailing small wire brads into cheap lathing strip, or better yet, an aged piece of wood you might find, even driftwood! You can make and hang just one, or several together to make a large wall arrangement. You can gather flowers, herbs, even grasses to dry directly on rack from your own yard. I recommend using a rubber band to secure them, as plant material shrinks when it dries. You can cover rubber band with ribbon or raffia if you wish.
Save those clear bottles and fill with colored water for a bright accent in a window. Use your glue gun to dress up bottle caps with organic odds and ends…beans, lentils, dried flowers, you get idea.
Never underestimate how much impact a small container of fresh flowers can have in a room, even just a pretty cup full of roadside daisies!
A couple of packets of seeds can keep a house in cut bouquets all summer. Sunflower, cosmos, and zinnias are VERY easy to grow, and are great in arrangements.
Replace heavy window treatments with a simple drape of gauzy fabric. This type of material is very inexpensive at fabric store, or keep your eye out for tablecloths that can be pressed into service.(Watch those garage sales!)
Need more ideas for warm weather windows? Simply hang cloth napkins or placemats over rod. Experiment with overlapping, laying them on diagonal, or tying them with ribbon. Cherry valance that ties right in with your kitchen or dining area!
Make easy, virtually free ivy topiaries. Pot up your ivy cuttings (straight from yard, or a neighbors) then form a wire coat hanger into your desire shape. You may need pliers to help you with this. Insert hooked end into pot, and secure by pushing sticks, or bamboo skewers into soil on either side of wire. Secure wire to skewers with twisty ties, then cut skewers of level with wire. Wrap ivy around wire from base upwards, and continue to tuck and wrap as it grows. Very soon ivy will completely cover wire, and you’ll never know it was a free coat hanger, instead of a 20 dollar topiary form!
Kathleen Wilson is the author of "Quick Decorating Ideas Under $20: The Budget Decorator's Bible" and the editor of The Budget Decorator, a free ezine dedicated to the "budget impaired" home decorator. For more free ideas and for information on her book, please visit her at http://www.TheBudgetDecorator.com.
