The mission? Collecting for a single mom and her two kiddos moving into a lovely new Habitat home. GMC, the sponsor of the event, handed us a budget of $250 each and sent us on our way.

You know I'm a junker, right?! But I also understand not everyone else is, so the choices I made reflected what I loved yet in a more upscale manner. I decorated the master bedroom and here's what I came up with!

Click the link if you'd like to see a video of the full home reveal, including a link to the other 7 parts to this amazing story.

Have you ever helped out another in need with the talents you have? I'd love to hear about it!

left-over Chalk Paint® and small-scale stencils from previous projects. After the first grouping, I could not stop. It's addictive! These make perfect gifts and decorative accents.

seem to buy houses that have no landscaping, I have learned how to do it on the cheap.

Here are some of my best tips: .

#1 - Use as many free materials in your landscape as you can. Every part of the world has at least one thing in abundance that you can use for free, be it gravel, rocks or stones; wood,pallets or pine needles; dumpsters, landfill sites or Craig's List and Freecycling networks as cheap sources for repurposed items. Find out what's in your own neighbourhood or town and use it! I've used my local freecycling network to find plants and shrubs for free. I got a whole lilac hedge that way, it really works!!

#2 - Beg for plant divisions or cuttings from family, friends and neighbours. Anyone who has perennials , bulbs or tubers will have to be dividing them up every so often and will be happy to let you have the extras.

#3 - Look for local gardening clubs, they usually have plant sales once or twice a year to raise money for the club and you can get beautiful plants for much less than gardening centers sell them. Plus you know they will survive in your climate because the local gardeners have grown them.

#4 - Watch for end-of-season sales. You can pick up loads of plants at a discount from department stores that have seasonal garden centers. That's where you can pick up your trees and shrubs for less and save big!

#5 - Grow your own plants from seed. Some plants are super simple to grow, you can even just toss the seeds out in your garden at the right time and they'll grow well. Hardy geraniums,sunflowers and pansies are easy to start from seed. Poppies and cosmos are good examples of seeds you can just sow directly in the garden. Opium poppies can even be sown while there is still snow on the garden

#6 - Grow plants that self-seed or spread easily. Examples are creeping thyme, culinary thyme, Johnny Jump-ups, Ladies' Mantle, campanula, euphorbia, lamium, bugleweed, poppies and bee balm. I don't quite understand the desire for growing borderline plants in the garden. I personally don't want to drag some plant kicking and screaming into my garden, I'd much rather have ones that are happily growing and flowering and self-seeding all over.

The best part about rampant growers and self-seeders is that every year, you can dig up the extras and sell them at a yard sale to make some extra cash for the landscaping items that you can't get for free.

Hope I've been able to give you at least one tip you can use. Happy gardening!

#landscaping #gardening #Maygarden

half old and I needed a pop of color. So I went online for a solution and I found several DIY for renter's backsplash. Saw the pictures and read the instructions and set off to find the following supplies: Table Placemats, and way to hold them in place, which I chose doublesided tape so it would be easy to remove without damaging the walls and a pair scissors. Since my kitchen is a small area I purchased 10 Benson Mills Bamboo Placement for a $1.00 each from Big Lots(I only used 8). Proceeded to apply double sided tape to placemats (make sure walls are clean) and put the mats in place on the wall. Here is my finished product. There was 1 inch gap between the cabinets. So I filled in the space with a cut down(cut to fit) version of the placemat. So far its working......

inundated with poison ivy and briars, basically an impenetrable jungle, a slope with washouts and gullies. Tackling one job at a time and finishing it before moving onto the next kept me focused. It's ever evolving but it's come along way from being a muddy mess to my little piece of heaven on earth. Hope you enjoy.

Red Pots: 27" Walmart

Lanterns: Misc stores (all were under $20 - Home Goods, Pier One, Garden Ridge)

You can learn more details about how I transformed the space from my blog.