by Jaye Sudar
Tired of your kitchen? Frustrated by the lack of cash? Fed up with a lack of craft items? Instead of spending your hard earned cash at the big box stores, dive into your local treasures. Rehabilitating your wardrobe, craft pile or kitchen might be easier than you think.
Is your kitchen boring? Same old curtains and décor from the 70′s or 90′s? The expensive way to deal with it is to scrap everything and start over. An inexpensive way is to head to the library and get some new ideas from feng shui books, Martha Stewart or Better Homes and Gardens. Then, visit Antique Avenue, Boutique Boulevard or Collectors Corner for bits of decor treasure. Now you are armed and ready to attack that kitchen! Give it a good cleaning. Re-arrange it a bit. Take those curtains and dye them a different color. Change out that lamp for the nifty one you found for a dollar. A sheet of white melamine from Walsenburg Lumber will make four or five dry write boards. Decorate the edges and hang it next to the fridge instead of that cork board that never has any tacks. Use flower pots to hold your utensils and cracked cups to hold pencils or pens.
Then there′s your wardrobe. You′ve been wearing the same clothes since high school. Sort through your closets. Throw out or recycle things. Hit the second hand shops. See what′s available for a few dollars. A friend of mine has made a fortune restyling sweaters from second hand shops. She cuts, sews, or adds new buttons. Poof! New clothes. Find a nice long skirt and cut it shorter. Turn those jeans into a skirt. And all those bits you don′t know what to do with? That chenille sweater with a hole in it might work as a pillow. Find a silk blouse with cool buttons? Transfer them to a denim shirt. Or, be real daring and cut all the stuff to bits and make a quilt. The Scrappy Ladies Quilt Guild can always give pointers. They′re experts at cutting up perfectly good cloth and sewing it back together.
Craft items. We all look for new ways of doing things. As a quilter, I′m always on the look out for cool material. Silk blouses, velvet skirts, or denim jeans are just waiting out there. Better yet, remember those buttons? You may spend three dollars on an ugly blouse, but the buttons are beautiful, and three dollars for 8-10 buttons is a steal! Oh, and don′t forget the jewelry. If you embellish your quilts or craft items, old jewelry is just waiting to be broken down into individual beads or baubles. For those special bits, don′t forget Chipita′s or the Cowboy Connection. Treasure abounds in town! Promise yourself a treat with all the money you save.
