Spice Girl

First, sorry for my lack of posts last week. I had one of those weeks, where I got a lot done and never had a chance to blog about what's been going on {I even took off Friday from my day job
}  I had such a nice Friday being a mommy going for a pretty walk along the river and doing a little shopping. I'm glad to be back to share what's going on, I missed blogging. I really feel its my creative outlet and really helps my thought process and its my way to maintain my voice in my sometimes crazy busy life of being a mom to a tween and a baby about to turn one and wife to a husband I adore. I know you can all relate :) Life is busy, but fun! And now for my spicy post, lol. 


I'm a wanna be spice girl, no not the late 1990's Spice Girl kind, the all my spices are in pretty jars kind of Spice Girl. This post is sadly 7 months in the making, wow I admitting it took me 7 months to complete this simple upgrade I'm about to share. So lets go back in time seven months ago, I was getting fed-up with our spices. Everything was in mismatched spice containers and I could never find the spice I was looking for so most of the time I would buy another container. Because of that, I had three spice containers of cumin powder! which just means we were being careless and wasting money. I really wanted all of our spices jars the same, its just more pleasing to the  eye the spice jar then spice jar chaos. 


I mentioned to my friend Summer, I was in desperate need of a spice jar makeover and I wasn't loving the spice jars at Ikea. She suggested I check out the spice jars at World Market. I pulled out all my spice jars and did a count, I made sure to exclude the duplicates. Next I popped on their website, I liked the styles are the prices too! 




Before I left my house, I pretty sure I was going to buy the boxed set of four spice jars for $ 3.99.  I like the simple style of the upright ones. 



However, when I got there I decided on a different style of jars and the price was good too, only 99cents a jar! I loved them. I needed 20 jars and was only able to buy 12 at that store (I cleaned the store out!) So on my way to another Cost Plus Store where I bought the remaining 8 jars I needed. I planned on to starting my spice makeover (pun intended, lol) asap, but got delayed. So the jars I bought which I'll share in minute, sat in tow bags wrapped carefully untouched for seven months. Sad I know, but that's' life sometimes you get sidetracked a little or in my case a lot, lol. Remember when I mentioned I did a little shopping on Friday? Well I've been meaning to pop into Sur La Table forever and since Hasani had the day off and wanted to check out their BBQ stuff (they have great grill stuff) off we went. 


We spend a long time in the store looking around, I made friends with the sales person and he showed me their huge clearance section tucked in the back of the store. There I spotted the cutesiest ceramic salt  containers. I was stunned buy the awesome price of $1.99! They only had blue and purple left, I grabbed a blue one. They have them online for $ 3.99 on clearance the regular price is $ 9.99, you can check them out here


The Salt Jar Reads ' Terracotta from Tuscany Salt ' 



Back when I bought my spice jars, I also bought these little white ceramic jars for our salt. I love that I know have three separate salt containers, one for table salt, sea salt and kosher salt. 



So after our trip to Sur La Table, I decided that night I found finally give my mismatched spice containers a makeover. I used a funnel to transfer the spices into the jar. It made the process so much smoother and almost mess free. 


Here's a better view of the spice jars I bought. Simple glass jars with a twist on metal top, they come with a removable insert. For now I used simple white mailing labels and and wrote all the spice labels. In the future I want to use a heat transfer on glass and do more text. Kind of like these cute jars, I pinned a 'How To' a while back here. For now I like how they look!



I love that i can now keep my sesame seeds in a jar!




Next I want to upgrade all my baking stuff to glass jars , I'm so over bags! lol. We have some nice metal containers we keep our flour, sugar and coffee in, but I like the idea of glass because you can see how much you have left. 

Have you done in a spicy upgrades recently? What do you think of my makeover? Are you shocked it took me seven months to finally finish, what was supposed to be a quick makeover? 


Lastly, how do you keep your spice jars?


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Fabric Shopping

Yesterday evening, I decided to go fabric shopping for outdoor fabric shopping. I wanted to look local before I pulled the trigger and ordered 13 yards of outdoor fabric I found online (for our vintage sofa we are going to sue outdoors). My fabric sample arrived last Friday, I'm in LOVE with it! Hasani and I both like the color and think it will look amazing once turned into a sofa. I just wanted to be sure before I place my order there wasn't a better deal to be found. I recently discovered the best place to shop for fabric locally is Home Fabrics. They have amazing deals on fabrics, remember my floral drapes I made for my dining room? And remember I only paid $5.99 a yard and purchased 5.5 yards of fabric { I later discovered the same fabric sold elsewhere is 24 bucks and up! You can read more about that here}


Back to my shopping trip, I was on the look out for fabric that would make excellent outdoor pillows and possibly a cute table runner for our outdoor dining set. We have a pretty good size patio, so I really want to layer in many shades of color to make the space feel inviting and us. 
I came home with three yards of fabric. I've always loved the classic look of Pottery Barn's classic stripe fabric. The thought of spending $29 bucks for one outdoor pillow, is something that I could never do! 




Instead I bought a yard of striped green fabric for only $ 9.99 a yard. I can easily make two pillows with a yard of fabric. The fabric I bought it from Premier Prints, you can buy it online at fabric.com for a dollar less a yard. I was OK with spending a buck more, since the fabric came home with me that day. I didn't see any other fabric I just had to have for pillows, so I popped into the clearance section. 




They had a huge selection of clearance fabric crammed into a room all starting at $4 bucks and below. I was going to take a picture, but the space was very badly lit! I was able to unearth some pretty fabric with an interesting print. I knew instantly it would make the perfect table runner since it a color scheme of browns, blues and greens. I only paid $ 3.99 per yard! The fabric is also from Premier Prints and is called Elizabeth you can buy it here online for $ 11.99 a yard. The fabric is super heavy duty, I'm shocked its not outdoor fabric. I really like the colors and the print!




Now that I shared what I bought, its time to share all the other pretty fabric I saw. I loved all this pretty floral fabrics! 



I love all the pink fabric! Do you recognize the pretty modern pink on pink floral print? If memory serves me correctly, its Thomas Paul / Duralee Fabric. Its pretty pricey and was a bargain at Home Fabrics. I think they were selling it for $ 6.99 per yard. 


Lastly, my heart skipped a beat, when I saw Serena & Lily fabric!! I was speechless they had a whole bolt of fabric. The fabric is called Coral Diamond and its so pretty. Guess how much S&L sells this fabric? $ 50 bucks yard! Home Fabrics was selling the fabric for only $ 6.99 a yard, unbelievable! 


Here's a link for the Serena & Lily fabric. Pretty huh! 



I'm still trying to figure a way to incorporate some pink in my home, which three boys at home four if you count Mojo it can be hard to add a little pink, lol :) 


I'm going to head back to the fabric store this weekend and look around some more. I got there late and only had a 20 mins to look around. Maybe I'll discover some more Serena and Lily fabric.....insert evil laugh!


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