{Thrifty} Thursday: Christmas in July, tutorials, Inspiration, and Giveaways

So, lets be honest: I am {not} rich....and most of you are not swimming in swimming pools filled with money! Crafting can be expensive and I like to combine my love of thrift stores with my passion for crafting. On Thursdays I will be bringing you gobs of delicious ideas made from, with or inspired by my thrift store finds. I had an amazing day at some thrift shops and antique stores with my mom yesterday and my husband today.

On the top are some cute finds that are just for me but wanted to share. The pillow on the bottom is adorable I bought three- {only .69 a piece!} The snail hook is where my purse will be living and those gridded borders will definitely be put to good use.

On the bottom are my finds for crafting! So many delicious things....Read on to see how I used these items in my cards for today!

{blog candy!} Since I know the bad part of thrifting is that you wont find the same things I did and vice versa I bought some extra as giveaways for you readers! At the end of the post find out how to get your hands on this {not expensive} but very cute {prize}!

The inspiration for this card was a three dimensional soft plushie ornament with super cute {beads} and {stitching.} I cut a slit in the back and pulled out all its guts first. Next I trimmed around the image in a smaller circle cutting off the beads {don't freak- I saved the little guys} Lastly I took some light blue embroidery floss and stitched the edges. I love using different hues of the traditional primary red, green, and blue holiday colors. The paper I wanted for the card {me and my big ideas Holiday specialty card-stock pad} unfortunately featured much bolder hues than I was looking for so I covered it with {the paper company silver fluorescent paper} which changed all the darks to their pastel counter parts. Add some {Martha Stewart} holiday rub ons and you are off and running!

{thrifty} thursday: card two

This card I did for CPS Sketch #176 Challenge. I loved the sketch but then today when I was thrifting I found two chintzy kitchen magnet frames {the other one is in the prize pack!} I layered a gold written overlay {making memories clear creation: travel} on top of the two pieces of teal cardstock. I used a {making memories} embellishment on the frame and {fashion naturals} hemp cord in two colors across the card. The edges and everything in between were inked with {colorbox gold ink} to pull out the gold writing on the travel overlay. Quote is from {DCWV "Quote Stack" friendship/colored}. My husband really likes this card he kept saying: "you will win for sure" and he didn't understand when I told him this one was a random drawing. {He is cute!}

Well I am going to post s'more thrifty thursday stuff later tonight... but lets get to the prize instructions. This one is easy it will be a random selection from the comments. Since there will be more than one {thrifty thursday} post tonight you will have multiple entry options. Contest ends monday at 3:00p.m.

{Good Luck!}