Barn door = great backdrop for wreaths

It doesn't get easier than this! I had an old barn door laying around and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what to do with it. It was just too big. Cutting it in half was the perfect solution. In all honesty, in the left picture above, the barn door is already cut in half. I forgot to take a before picture so that's why you might be able to see some faint cut lines.

Halloween clearance update

Has anyone stocked up on Halloween clearance items yet? Here are the markdown as of today:

Target - 70% off decor and costumes, 50% off candy
Walmart - 50% off (although I've heard others have dropped to 75% off)
Shopko - 70% off
CVS - 50% off
Walgreens - 50% off
Michaels - 80% off
Hobby Lobby - 66% off
JoAnn Fabric - 60-75% off
Pier 1 - 75% off
Toys "R" Us - 75% off

These discounts are what the Lincoln, NE stores reported. Discounts may vary so don't shoot the messenger ;)

Here are some pics from Target that I took earlier this week:

Why you should sign up for Panera rewards...

Heck yeah! I just got an email saying I get free coffee everyday in September from Panera! They do this every so often for their rewards members. I also get coupons and other freebies throughout the year. You should all sign up by clicking here. Did I mention it's free to sign up?

Here's the email I received about my free hot or iced coffee:

Free haircut at Paul Mitchell for military, police, fire fighters, and paramedics

I think this is so cool! Paul Mitchell (the school) in Lincoln, NE is offering free haircuts September 8-12 for military members, fire fighters, police officers, and paramedics. Call 402-261-5322 to schedule an appointment. They are located at 5601 South 59th Street, Suite D.

Props to Paul Mitchell and thank you to all those who serve!

Landscaping for year-round color and hardy plant recommendations

I took a great landscaping class yesterday night - lord knows I need all the help I can get! It was offered through SCC and was called Mind the Gaps: Ensuring Year-Round Color. It was only $19 and was a little over two hours long.

The instructor had a ton of experience and did a nice job of identifying hardy plants that are good for our zone. I live in southeastern Nebraska so those of you in zone 5 should find this information helpful. Even if you live elsewhere, it's worth skimming over.

The instructor created a handy chart for us that lists which perennials, trees, shrubs, and vines are blooming in each month. Click on the image below to make it bigger. You may need to go to my Facebook or twitter pages, click on the photo, and then download it if it doesn't get large enough through the blog.

She only included plants that are easy to find and have a good track record.

I also listed the chart info below if you're having trouble viewing it...

March

Perennials: Crocus, snowdrops, iris reticulata, early daffodils, scilla

Trees: Maples, Magnolias

Shrubs: Forsythia, Pussy Willow

April

Perennials: bergenia, bloodroot,bluebells, columbine, crocus, daffodils,dwarf iris, forget-me-nots, groundcover phlox, hellebores, hyacinth,  iris reticulata,  merrybells, mukdenia, pulmanaria , prairie smoke,  speedwell, spring anemone, tulips, wild phlox

Trees: Magnolia, Peach, Crabapple, Buckeye, Pear, Redbud

Shrubs: Aronia, Azalea, Forsythia, Lilac, Quince, Viburnum

May

Perennials: allium,ajuga, baptisia,  bleeding heart,  brunnera, catmint, coral bell, cranesbill geranium, daisy,hespera, iris,lamium, pasque flower, prairie smoke, penstemon, peony,   poppies,  rose, salvia, speedwell, trillium

Trees: Buckeye, Crabapple, Dogwood, Horsechestnut

Shrubs: Azalea, Bridal Veil Spirea, Lilac, Rhododendron, Viburnum, Wigelia

Vines: Clematis

June

Perennials: Asiatic Lily, Allium, aruncus (goat's beard), bee balm, daisy, daylily, catmint, columbine, geramium, geum, knautia, larkspur, oriental lily, penstemon, rose, salvia,thalictrum, thermposis, trollius, veronica, yarrow

Trees: Lilac Trees, Catalpa

Shrubs: Hydrangea, Spirea

Vines: Honeysuckle

July

Perennials: Allium, Asiatic lily, bee balm, catmint, coneflower, coreopsis, daylily, geranium, gilardia, groundcover sedum, hosta, ligularia, phlox, rose, rudbeckia, russian sage, salvia, scabiosa, stokes aste

Shrubs: Bottlebrush Buckeye, Hydrangea, Spirea, St. John's Wort,  berries on Aronia

Vines: Honeysuckle

August

Perennials: Agastache, centranthus, coneflower, rudbekia, helenium, liatris, sunflower, salvia, catmint, scarlet gilia, tall sedum

Shrubs: caryopteris, hydrangea, berries on aronia and viburnum

Vines: Sweet Autumn Clematis

September

Perennials: Aster, Chrysanthemum

Trees: Seven Son Flower (she talked really highly of this tree!)

Shrubs: caryopteris, hydrangea

October

Perennials: Fall color on bluestar amsonia, hosta, fern, mukdenia, peony,  and bloodred geramium

Trees: Fall color on sugar maple, blackgum,  kousa dogwood, bald cypress, red maple, sourwood, sasssafrass, sweetgum, japanese maples

Shrubs: Fall Color on brandywine viburnum, winterthur viburnum, barberry,sumac, spicebush, chokeberry, virginia sweetspire, oak-leaf hydrangea, bottlebrush buckeye, clethra, ogon spirea, hydrangea paniculatas

November and December

Perennials: Some perennials persist into fall and winter. Coral Bells, hellebores, & wild ginger often look good for much of winter.  Another way to continue interest from your perennials is to not cut all of them all to the ground in the fall.  I like to leave plants that have strong stems like coneflowers and goldenrod.  They look great with a little frost or light dusting of snow.

Trees: Interesting bark on amur bird cherry, bald cypress, beech, birch, blackgum, kousa dogwood, lacebark elm, paperbark maple, seven son flower, stewartia, sycamore

Shrubs: Interesting bark on harry lauders walking stick, oakleaf hydrangea, yellow and redtwig dogwood.  Have berries: cotoneasters, holly,  firethorn, winterberry.  WitchHazel blooms in the winter.  Evergreens give you a spot of color and life.

Vines: Honeysuckle, wisteria and trumpet vines have a nice structure that should be left intact.

Seasonal

Extedend interest in the perennial garden regardless of blooms by focusing on foliage. Combine different leaf colors including: greens, blues, yellows, reds and silvers to have impact during the entire growing season along with different textures and sizes. Plant ferny (soft fluffy textures) foliage, big bold leaves, curly leaves, cut edges. There is even foliage with polkadots (pulminaria).  If carefully planned you could have a gorgoeus garden without a single bloom.


All credit goes to Shelley Stoltenberg (the instructor and garden advisor). If you want her contact info, please let me know and I'll get it to you. She's great!

I hope you found this useful. Happy landscaping!

Build your own bar with faux granite countertop

Good morning! Well about as good as it can get for a Monday ;) A lot of you have seen pictures of our basement bar, but I never got around to doing an actual tutorial. This post is mostly about how to create a faux granite countertop like what I did in my kitchen, but I wanted to include some pictures of the bar before as well.

4th of July savings at the home improvement stores

Even after buying close to 100 bags of mulch this year, we still need more (ridiculous). Thankfully Lowe's has marked their colored mulch down to 5 for $10 again. Now is a good time to watch for sales at home improvement stores. Lowe's, Menards, and Home Depot will all be offering special deals leading up to 4th of July. Lowe's is even doing a special buy of the day similar to what Home Depot does all year round.

Half priced shakes at Sonic today

Today, June 18th, you can get half priced shakes at Sonic all day! Click here to see their different shakes. Umm... yum!

Sonic

Another door turned corner shelf

Recently I posted about an old door turned into a corner shelf. I kept that one for myself, but have been on a mission to get rid of stuff! I grabbed another door out of my junk stockpile (that totally makes me sound like a hoarder doesn't it?) I did the same thing to this door, but distressed it and gave it to my mom.

50% off at Kaw Valley Greenhouses

Courtesy of their Facebook page

I love Kaw Valley and think their products are top notch. Starting today, you can get 50% off at many of their retail locations (not all so double check before heading out). The Lincoln, NE locations always get marked down this time of year because they have to pack up in time for the fireworks stands to move in. For a list of Kaw Valley locations, click here.

Their hours are:
Monday through Friday - 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Saturday - 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Sunday - 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

P.S. Their potting soil is hands down the best. 

National Donut Day

Super Saver

Who doesn't love donuts?! Get them for free or at a big discount today at the following places:

-Dunkin' Donuts - Free donut with beverage purchase

-Krispy Kreme - Free donut, no purchase necessary

-Lamar's - Free donut (has to have a hole), no purchase necessary

-Russ's Market - Glazed donuts marked down 4 for $1

-Super Saver - First 200 customers recieve a free glazed donut and a coupon for 50% off a dozen donuts and rolls

Have a great weekend!

Old door turned into corner shelf

You've probably seen these all over. I can't believe how popular they are! I normally see them for over $100 so here's your chance to make your own and customize it for much, much less. I actually spent $0 on this because I used up what we had on hand. If you have to go out and buy everything, I think you should easily be able to make it for less than $50.

Lowe's Memorial Day ad

Lowe's has some good savings starting tomorrow! My favorite deal is the 5/$10 colored mulch. I don't recall seeing home improvement stores ever price it lower than that. Check out the ad here.

Lowe's Memorial Day Ad

Curb find redo... staining made easy!

Good morning! I found an interesting piece of furniture on the curb a couple weeks ago and finally got around to giving it a makeover. This project is similar to the dresser redo I did a while back.

Nail string art

I've seen these projects all over pinterest for a while now and finally got around to trying it out for myself. I spent nothing on this project because I used what I had on hand and used coupons on the items I did need. If you have to go out and purchase everything, you might spend around $15.

Planting a privacy screen with arborvitaes

Since our street is somewhat new, there aren't many trees. We had zero trees on our lot when we moved in. Last year we planted two decorative trees up front and two shade trees out back. Our lot still looks bare and we need privacy from a road on the south side of our house so we're planting an arborvitae screen.

Guess I don't have any good pics of the road, but here you can see it in the top left hand corner of this pic (taken around 4th of July). The trees will be in a line to the left.

Isn't this gorgeous? We're not planting that many and I'll never have that nice of a backyard, but one can dream, right?

Tax day deals

Hopefully your taxes are done and you can celebrate with some of these deals today! Here are the ones that caught my eye because we have these companies in Lincoln, NE:

Burger King - Buy 1 Whopper, get 1 free with this coupon

McDonald's - Participating locations offering buy 1 get 1 for a penny Big Macs and Quarter Pounders

Olive Garden - $6 off dinner for tow until April 19 with this coupon

Sonic - Half priced cheeseburgers all day, no coupon necessary

Schlotzksky's - Get a free, small "The Original" sandwich when you purchase a 32-ounce drink and a bag of chips

Free 8x10 from Walgreens

Walgreens

Through April 4th, order a free 8x10 from Walgreens with code FREE2FRAME! Pick up in store to avoid shipping costs. (The code will not work on Walgreens mobile site.)

Thanks to Chick Digs Deals for the heads up!

Makeover your appliances with stainless steel paint

We had an old, white (turning almond) beer fridge that was left at our house when we bought it. We purchased new appliances for the upstairs kitchen and moved this fridge downstairs. It was too ugly to put in our bar room so Rust-Oleum Stainless Steel Paint to the rescue!

Free Redbox through March 31st

Use code 5678JJNN for a free Redbox rental through March 31st!

Image source here

Thanks to Chicks Dig Deals for the heads up!

Bar stool makeover

If you've ever shopped for quality bar stools, you know how expensive they can be. That's when Craigslist comes to the rescue! I got a pair of sturdy, solid wood, swivel bar stools for $100 ($50 each). You know what else is awesome about Craigslist? No taxes!

Free ice cream

Free ice cream cone at Dairy Queen today! No purchase necessary!

Image courtesy of DQ

Limit 1 small cone per customer. At participating locations only.

Free pastry, broth bowl, and drink at Panera Bread!

In a matter of 5 minutes, I earned a free pastry; $5 off their new broth bowls; and a free coffee, hot tea, or soda at Panera Bread! Here's how:

If you haven't already done so, sign up for their free Panera Bread Rewards Program by clicking here. (Click the "Not a Member? Join Now" link under the orange/brown Sign In button or there is another link at the very top of the page.) A free pastry reward should automatically show up in your account!

Next, click here while still logged in and watch the first three videos at the top. A $5 off a broth bowl coupon should show up after you've completed this.

Finally, watch the bottom three videos on that same web page to get a reward for a free coffee, hot tea, or soda.

To be honest, I didn't really watch the videos. I just played them through while working on other stuff. Good enough, right?

Thanks, Panera!

How to lay tile

We decided to lay tile rather than carpet in the basement bar room. Probably a smart move. I envision my husband hanging out down there a lot drinking Jack and Cokes, throwing potato chip crumbs, while lounging in his sweats. Okay, he's not that big of a slob, but I'm sure some Jack and Cokes will get knocked over. And this way company won't have to worry about spilling in this room.

Gallo wine $0.97 at Super Saver

Wine stock running low? Head to Super Saver and pick up Gallo Family Vineyard Wine for only $0.97 each after a $24 mail-in rebate!

Pay $35.64 (12 at $2.97)
-$24 rebate  
$11.64 ($.97 each)

Super Saver Ad

This deal is good through February 24th!

Painting the bedroom + adding character to brick walls

Yesterday's post was about how to texture ceilings on your own. Once the ceiling was dry in the basement bedroom, we moved onto painting. I forgot to get before pictures. Fail.

Here are the pics after one coat of Glidden primer:

I'm standing in the living room looking into the bedroom.

How to texture a ceiling (cheaply and easily)

I promised that I'd show you pics of the bedroom now that it's painted, but before I can do that I have to share how we added texture to the newly drywalled ceiling for the cost of a bucket of mud ($10). It's so much easier than I thought it would be! This needs to be done before painting the walls.

Step 1: Take regular drywall mud, add it to another bucket (we used an empty drywall bucket), and add water until it's about the consistency of brownie batter. We used the drill with the following attachment to mix.

Painting the basement living room

We have painted our little hearts out over the past week! Thank goodness the colors I chose are neutral because I am never painting again. Okay, not really. I have to paint the bar this week. My poor body is screaming "noooo"!

Anyways, here are before and after pics of the basement living room:

Before adding primer, I used the shop vac and good old fashioned sweeping to get rid of the drywall dust. I then washed all the walls twice with a damp sponge.

Painting the basement bar room

Thanks to a quiet weekend and a snow day yesterday, we were able to paint the bar room in the basement! We finished the drywall by ourselves and I am truly shocked at how well it turned out. I thought "this is an absolute disaster" while we were in the thick of it - taping, mudding, and sanding. It's amazing how much of a difference sanding makes. Back breaking work, but oh so important. The really good drywall finishers hardly have to sand because they are able to get the mud on so smooth. Yeah, that's obviously not us.

JCPenney $10 off $10 purchase coupon

This is like shopping for free! The $10 off a $10 purchase coupons at JCPenney are my favorite! I use them on clearance items and get all sorts of stuff for just a few cents (tax/overage). My husband can't argue with that, right?

Click here to sign up for their text alerts. Once you get the alert on your phone, be sure to text back FB to confirm your mobile number.

Apparently a lot of people are entering for this deal so it might take a while to get a text back and for your coupon to arrive. The coupon should be good through 2/14/15.

Free Valentine's Day photo card + free shipping

UPDATE: Word on the street is they may have recently changed the shipping to $1.99 making this less of a good deal :(

What a great deal! Cherishables.com is offering a FREE Photo Valentine’s Day Card when you use promo code VAL15C at check out. This deal is good through January 22nd or while supplies last. While the site wasn't slow when I ordered, be aware that it could become slow at anytime due to high traffic. It only took me a couple minutes to order and they didn't even ask for credit card info.

Cherishables

Plan ahead because February 14th will be here before you know it! Thanks to Chicks Dig Deals for the heads up on this promo!

Free Redbox

There's nothing I love more in the winter than snuggling on the couch with my pup, a good movie, and a cup of hot tea. Even better when I can get that movie for free. Rent a Redbox for free with code 45TH8787 through 1/18/15. I haven't had time to try this code out so let me know if it doesn't work for you.

Image source here

Thanks to Mojo Savings for the heads up on this deal!

Hobby Lobby 90% off Christmas

Christmas items at Hobby Lobby are now 90% off! They have about three aisles left of decor although it's getting picked over. If you love the deco mesh garland and wreaths off pinterest, now is the time to stock up. Lots of rolls of deco mesh, work garland and even the work wreaths left. Here are a few pics of the store:

deco mesh

90% off Christmas at Target started today!

Most Target stores should have their holiday clearance marked down to 90% off today (food 70%)! I ran to the three Lincoln, NE stores this morning.

I spent $94.26 and saved $574.35! Had I bought the items at full price I would have paid $668.61 - who does that?! Btw a reader of this blog (who I don't know) recognized me this morning in one of the stores and came up and chatted with me. How cool is that?

Anyways, here's some pics of my haul and the stores:

I'll use a good chunk of these items for gifts, stocking stuffers, etc.