One of those things was the t-shirt latch hook run tutorial over at Xoelle. I loved how her rug turned out and I stored away the idea in the back of my head. Then I forgot. But Pinterest reminded me about the run, when it popped up in a feed. My mind raced as I set my mind to making my own rug. I even told Nate about it...and he thought it was cool. That was all I needed.

We went to our local Goodwill Outlet and looked for shirts...but apparently the store felt they were worth $1.50 each. But that's okay, because we didn't leave totally empty handed.

After thinking about it, Nate and I decided that using jersey bed sheets would work just as well. Plus Target sells a set from their RE line for $25. So I grabbed a king sized sheet set and all of the other things I needed and I set off on my project. While I could have kept looking for t-shirts so that I could have dyed the rug the exact color I wanted, I like working with the sheets, because I don't have to deal with dye.

So far the the most annoying part of doing this is cutting the strips. I feel like it's the longest part of the process. Luckily, Nate is more than willing to help. So while he cuts, I can get to latching.

It's going to take awhile...and I have moments where I feel that I have totally lost my mind for doing this. Then I touch the patch I have done and I just can't wait to bury my toes in a rug that I made.

Of course after I started with the yellow, Nate and I both decided that we wanted to add in another color. So we decided to add in a dark gray.

It may take awhile to finish this, but I promise to post occasionally about how it's going. I'm really excited to finish this...I mean I'll get to say that I made a rug. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

For a whopping $7 I walked away with a lamp (that I have no place for...right now), a garlic holder and two vintage books.

The lamp is from Target and retails for $40, I got mine for $3! Yep...$3 freaking dollars. All that's wrong with it is a missing plastic covering that covers where the bulb sits. I think I can deal with that.

The garlic pot was $1 and while there's nothing wrong with it...it's going to get a healthy coat of chalkboard paint in the next few days.

The textile book came home with me, because one, it talks about all different types of textiles and how they are made. And two, because the outside of the book has an awesome pattern on it! The Bloomingdale's Book of Home Decorating came home because it's full of amazing 70's home design...and it's from Bloomingdale's. Um yes please!

How can you not love those pictures!? They are so perfectly funky!

In case those hauls weren't amazing enough, I also grabbed up an amazing deal at Target as well.

I've been smitten with gathered bedding for awhile. You see them everywhere...Anthropoligie has had some amazing ones, but I could never bring myself to fork over the money for one. Especially when we have an Emmett who likes nesting in the bed. All I could ever picture was him slowly ripping appart the gathers. Even this one from Target ran $100...and that just hurt, especially when we have a our nice gray/yellow bedding and our other $25 Target bedding. This time though I couldn't pass up the bedding.

Yes you read that right...$25. I may have done a happy dance!

So this weekend I got a lot of goodies, but on top of that I got two things from Target that would normally have put me out $140. Instead I doled out $28. I think I might need to dance again!

In the span of a few days I have found new craft ideas as well as old ones. Which means...hopefully I'll have some posts about crafts I'm doing (one of them being a rug).

If you have a Pinterest...or are interested in looking around you can find follow me over there!

And by yard I mean the tiny little fenced in area that the properties call "yards".


The older homes, which we are in, don't have large yards like a lot of the new housing does. But really it wasn't that big of a deal to us. What was annoying me though, was the mud patch that we were growing. Yes mud patch, because there was no way grass would ever grow there. Though the properties managers swear up and down that grass is supposed to grow there.

We never really messed with our back yard much. Our patio set was out there, but that was about it. We didn't even use our patio table till this past St. Patties Day when it doubled for a beer pong table. But about a month ago I walked out into our back yard and it looked like this...

Which is honestly not something I wanted to look at, but I got to because of the two windows in our kitchen. I was able to get all of the weeds pulled in about a week. Yeah, there was not enough weeds for it to have taken that long, but there was rain...lots and lots of rain.


So once it finally got to the point where the weeds were gone, I realized that I should probably figure out what I wanted to do back there. Luckily for me, the self help store that we have was offering 3 free bags of mulch to everyone who lived in the housing. I, of course, love free things. I got my free mulch and then stopped at Home Depot for some weed blocker fabric and set to work. I wanted to get this back area fixed up quickly and as easily as possible.


It wasn't the prettiest job in the world, but it only has to last us another year. After that, the next family that moves in can deal with it. Also, because this is only going to be something that we enjoy for a year, I wanted to keep it fairly cheap. No sense in investing a lot of money into something that we won't be able to enjoy for years to come.


I was only able to get half way done with the yard, because 3 bags of mulch does not cover as much as you think it would. The yard sat that way for the next week because of all of the rain. Can we say constant downpour?

Then two days ago I went back to Home Depot and got more mulch. Which meant that yesterday I was able to finish the backyard. It also helped that it was sunny out all day. The process went fairly quickly. With the hardest part being the cutting the liner down to size.

I was able to bring a lot of flowers into the back, which will hopefully help them from being eaten by those devil squirrels.

The fence along the path from our back gate to our house is shared with our neighbor who happens to have Husky. Who is outside ALL THE TIME. Who also digs along the fence, sending dirt and poo onto our sidewalk. So while that side area looks a million times better, I was worried about it getting kicked all over the place. So Nate and I ran to Home Depot...one more time...and got cement edgers to place along the fence. In homes of it keeping the Husky's mess on his side.


I also got a outdoor rug from Pier 1 to help add a different pop of color to fight the very burgundy fence we have.


It's a little smaller then what one might normally want for under a table, but I actually really liked the size of it. It peaks out just enough to catch your eye. We also moved the grill out onto the newly mulched "lawn". Which helped make the area look larger. It also allowed us to rotate the patio table so that no one has to sit up against the storage area.


I'm very happy with how the backyard turned out. All I have left on my wish list is a new umbrella and some more lighting. Though the lighting might happen today if I can con Nate into getting some solar powered lights that I found at TJ Maxx.

I'm now actually looking forward to warmer weather, because we have another place where we can hang out. Plus I am a huge fan of sitting outside in the evening.

All together I spent a little under $100 on this project and two of the things (the rug and hose) can come with us when we move!

So there is what I have been up to this week! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! Enjoy spring!