Frugal Friday, Met Monday & an Earthquake

Updated 5/29/09: I am linking this post to Frugal Friday linky party hosted by Wendy at The Shabby Nest. Be sure to visit her as well as this weeks participants you will find linked there. I originally posted this a couple of Monday's ago for Met Monday. But it works for Frugal Friday as well. Enjoy!!!


Welcome to another edition of Metamorphosis Monday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. While I was writing this post we had a 5.0 earthquake (update: earthquake has now been downgraded to 4.7). It was centered in Inglewood, CA which is close to the Los Angeles airport. We are probably 90 miles east of where the earthquake was centered, but we felt it quite strong. Luckily no damage, everything just rattled & rolled and hubby ran for the door. I never even got up as the earthquake was over before I could even react. Now back to our regular scheduled program.

Yesterday I went to Kohl's to use my 30% off coupon. I was excited as it was my first time that I actually got the highest percentage off coupon on my sale brochure. So I looked through the kitchen items & didn't find anything I couldn't live without, so I ventured over to the frame department. Now besides having a plate addiction, I also have a frame addiction. Just ask my hubby.

While looking through the frames, I came upon this one. I liked it as you can use it vertically or horizontally. Now normally this wouldn't be a frame that I would buy, but I had a plan for some artwork & I needed a frame that would hold 6 photos.

So what do you get when you combine 1 frame,

One wall cabinet,

One Eiffel Tower garden statue, One Gothic window mirror,
One garden finial,
One french flower basket,
And one mini greenhouse.

Why you get this: Family
Have you seen letter art like this? I've been seeing more & more of it & I love it!!! I had seen one in a store just last weekend that said family for $90.00. Mine cost me $10.00. I really wanted to make mine with stuff I had around my house & yard. That made it a little harder. But it's amazing when you start how you see letters in almost everything.

Here are the close ups of the "F" and the "A". For the "F" I took a photo of the left hand side of the wall cabinet in my master bedroom. I like how the 2 Paris prints show up with this. The "A" is my Eiffel Tower garden statue.
For the "M" I used my Gothic window mirror. I originally was going to use this for the "Y", but hubby thought it made a better "M". My new garden finial from WalMart was used for the "I". I had just seen this on someone's blog on the Procrastination party last week & I went right out & splurged on one. It was on clearance, but still more than I would usually pay. I love it!
I took lots of photos of things to use for the "L", but ended up using the "L" on my french flower basket. The basket originally had succulents that had died. I got it on clearance for $6.00 at Costco at the beginning of the year. The "Y" is part of one of the windows in my mini greenhouse. I was going to use photos of this for the "M" originally, but switched them around with the Gothic window mirror. I got the mini greenhouse from Big Lots years ago. It is getting quite shabby from being out in the weather all these years.
I put the artwork on my mantel in our family room. I put a "Families are Forever" plaque in front of it. I picked this up last weekend at Deseret Book on 50% off clearance. I paid $8.00.
And one final look on my mantel. Doesn't it look good? I am so happy with how this turned out. And it will mean so much more to me since I made it myself & used my own items for the photos.

Thanks for visiting & be sure to visit all the participants for this week. You can find the list here. And I also have another post for today "Today's Thrifty Finds", so be sure to check it out as well. You can find it here.