❈Sac Thrift Chick❈

There's a reason our nicknames are Lauraroni & Aaroncheese; we're the cheesiest. I laugh at my husband's cheesy jokes. I coax my husband into indulging in cheesy, sappy movies with me. And I like cheesy gifts. This is why I've held onto my collection of fabric, bendable flowers gifted from my husband. It all started when we were first dating in the summer of 2004. We went thrifting and Aaron found a fabric flower. Naturally, he bought it for me. He said it was the first flower he'd ever bought a girl. I loved it.That silly little flower made 20-year-old me smile. On a later thrifting trip, another flower was found. And so began the tradition of Aaron buying me fabric flowers.

Sometimes you just instantly fall in love with a song or musician, and that's how it was for me with Shannon Curtis. I can't recall exactly the year I first saw her, but I know it was roughly 12 years ago. I remember entering Heritage Festival on the grounds of Gibson Ranch and hearing a pop rock band with a female singer who could actually really sing. That band was Paradigm. I was immediately hooked. And because I co-ran a local music website and zine that did CD reviews, Paradigm sent us their press kit, so then my broke self had Paradigm music to listen to all the time . Eventually Paradigm parted ways and Shannon embarked on a solo career in the vein of Norah Jones and Sarah McLachlan. The first time I saw her perform with just a keyboard, I was blown away. I continued to catch shows here and there and do some press when I had a new music column.  I turned my husband onto Shannon's music, and despite his protests when we first met that he didn't really like...

This craft is an oldie but a goodie. Using tin food cans, you can illuminate your favorite outdoor space. All you need is a nail, hammer and optionally, a drill to turn soup cans into candle holders.

I refer to my back porch as my outdoor oasis, not because it's the most beautiful or detailed, but simply because the furniture is comfortable and the atmosphere is peaceful. It's where I go to unwind, relax and read. And now thanks to a recent project to turn a futon into a porch couch, I have the ultimate reading and napping spot. Last year, I wrote about getting rid of my busted up outdoor furniture, updating the salvageable and buying a futon to to use as my new outdoor couch . Shortly after I painted the $20 queen-size, solid-wood futon with outdoor white paint, I got busy getting ready for my move and never updated with the final result. I love it.

Some crafts do not go as planned. Some crafts cause curse words to fly out. Some crafts cause physical pain and even leave a mark. My seashell wind chime was one such craft. See, while browsing Big Lots one day, I came across a selection of seashell wind chimes, very reasonably priced. I exclaimed, "How cute! Wait, I could make this! It's just seashells and twine. Just drill some holes." My husband agreed. "Yea, that'd be hella easy. I could help you drill them." Ha. Since I got the idea for this craft at a store, I didn't even think to see if other people made such wind chimes. (A Pinterest search shows, yea, they're kinda popular.) I decided I could just wing it. So I pulled out my seashell collection, dating back over 20 years, gathered from the coasts of California, Hawaii and Florida, and selected 20 shells to use. And these are the steps I learned to do ... and not to do.

In my marriage, we have a little rule that too often gets broken:  Laura should listen to her instincts; Aaron should heed Laura's instincts. The first night we painted, we broke the rule. To paint the furniture, we had to move the glass table top. Aaron laid it atop three patio cushions. I questioned whether that was really a good place for it to sit. I thought it might break, but Aaron insisted it was fine. I should have protested a little louder: The next day I found this: Oops.  Sometimes things go wrong.  But sometimes they go right, too.  The white paint is really transforming my weathered furniture.  Next step: The dreaded sanding of the futon. Like this? See the finished product here !

Lying on my patio couch with a good book and an Otter Pop is one of my favorite ways to spend a summer evening. My patio couch was a killer CL steal five years ago: $50 for the couch, two chairs and a glass-top coffee table -- and it was a gift. The cushion covers my not be my style, but the cushions themselves are oh-so-comfortable. Each year the set has become more and more weathered. This past summer, my husband thought standing on the arm of the couch to reach something up high was a good idea.  It was not. And since we are moving, I agreed to let go of my beloved couch (and one of the chairs) if I could find a replacement.  A used full-size patio couch is not easy to come by, and especially not for anywhere near what we paid for my entire set! After much CL disappointment, an idea occurred to me: A futon. I already had great cushions; I just needed a frame. The futon needed to be a queen, solid wood, and it needed to be super cheap. I browsed CL...