My thrifty home decor #1

I think I shop at thrift shops once or twice a week when I want to change or improve my house interior. Especially this time of the year, Spring is right around the corner, I start cleaning house and thinking to add some fresh colors and interesting elements to the house. I walked through all the rooms in my house, then I found my home decor is pretty much crafty and also very THRIFTY. I wish I could spend hundreds dollars to decorate my big white living room wall. But, you know, I can't. Our budget for home improvement is usually (always! Honey!!) very low. But it is not the end of the world! If you had no money, you just use your crafty brain and imagination. I thought it would be fun to share my  thrifty home decor ideas here with you.

Collecting paint chips is a kind of my hobby. And also a part of my job. We run a small business of property investment. We renovate houses and rent or sell them out. When I am not making things and taking care of my family (that occupies 99% of my time ^o^ ) , I work as an "interior designer". I do picking paint colors, buying light fixtures, finding furniture, and some more things like those. I took out a bunch of pretty color chips from my collection box and made some easy art frames.

I got these black frames from Goodwill. I inserted three paint chips in each frame. Black paint was coming off and there were scratches as well. So I painted the frames with bright yellow acrylic paint.

I love the paint chip color combinations and my choice of the color (yellow) for the frames.

One day I found a set of five modern art frames at St.Vincent de paul. I couldn't believe my eyes one moment when I saw the prices on these. They were only 98c per each!

 

Now my boring stairway changed to a little gallery!

This is the breakfast table area in my kitchen.

I have a lot of Origami decor in my home. They are perfect for adding interesting elements to the spaces in you home.

I used recycling papers from my recycle bin for this beautiful mobile. You don't need to buy nice origami papers from stores. You can use pages from old books or magazines. 

I am going to post "My thrifty home decor #2" soon. I already prepared more pictures of my "sustainable" crafty home decor for the next post. 

By the way, tomorrow is  Good Friday and the Spring break is starting. We are planning to go to Washington DC from this weekend to see the cherry blossoms! We take the Amtrak Capitol Limited!! This is going to be an exciting trip for us. I miss seeing cherry blossoms in Japan every Spring. And I have been wishing to go to DC in the Spring to see the Cherry trees came over seas from Japan 101 years ago.

None of us has ridden a sleeping car. So that is going to be exciting for all of us! The train trip is going to take sixteen hours to DC from South Bend. I will take a book and some lace crocheting projects with me. Nina and I are making a list of things we should pack in our suits case. Fun, fun, fun! If you have any suggestions for us about places we should visit or good restaurants in DC, please let me know! I am hoping we won't miss the peak of the cherry blossoms (Actually I love to see the wind blows flower petals like snow falling, too!).

Thank you for reading! I hope you all have a Happy Easter!