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I still have a nice amount of things left to share from last Monday's thrift score, but they are waiting in line to have their picture taken. Today, while transplanting a bougainvillea from one shady part of our yard to full sun, I unearthed this little glass jar. So many things I've found in this yard! Even if it is nothing special, I'm going to clean it up and find a use for it...

Speaking of found - I want to give you two updates with regards to other things found around the property...first, my portable flower box. You can hardly even see what it is now!


And remember my rescued bull frog? His bull frog fro is growing nicely (please pardon the unswept deadheads!):

...So I went a little crazy with the lavender impatiens, but they do so well in Florida during this season! I have a lot of herbs growing too; I will share them soon because some of them were planted in thrifted pots!

update

The found frog now has some hair.
I think he looks hawt.

update

One of the many found planters I finally got around to filling...
Had to drill holes in the bottom for drainage:

Ta-da!

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day!

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I say this cost $0, but in truth, the Baby Jade plant cost around $3 and the soil was a few bucks too. But the real beauty - the sink - was salvaged from a home in West Palm Beach. Steve was going to use it in his darkroom, but then he ended up building his own sink (by the by, I totally live with + love a genius). So we turned this into wall art/planter. Umm, schwing.

update

And...for the bigger picture:

Remember these? Well, they look pretty awesome hanging in a pair of windows we salvaged for free earlier this year from a home in distress. It's nice to have that big wall in our living room finally filled up with something (pretty, to boot).

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When Steve and I moved into our current residence, we had a lot of work ahead of us - the house was filthy and dated. Because of the swell deal we got in rent, the landlord gave us the go-ahead to do whatever we wanted with the place. As you can imagine, we have done a lot and our efforts have harvested some strange treasures. Meet the following picture - one of many vintage plastic ornaments we've found around the home:

We found three of these plastic ornaments, or wall hangings, rather, and I thought they might look neat spray painted. So, months later, I've finally come around to painting them shiny bright white. They aren't hanging just yet, but I'm eager to share.

All three of them:


And solo:

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Here are some recent findings around the house/yard that could be turned into planters. The most obvious would be the first actual planter that was hiding in the bushes - get a load of his personality - Steve thinks he is so tacky!:


Steve built a darkroom within the laundry room and when he did so, he unearthed this old cooler (we were half-expecting to find something really creepy inside of it, but it was empty):


I'm most excited about converting this homemade carry-all into a portable flower box:


As soon as I have some spare money, I will update what I've done with them.

update 2

I *really* wanted to plant some herbs in this planter, but in the end, I wanted red. So here's my found pot with freshly planted Impatiens:

*By the way, more adventures around the yard have yielded other potential planters - as soon as I get some sunshine, I'll be outside with my camera (and this is Florida, so you can bet that'll be soon).

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Steve pulled this rusty pot from a well-hidden place in the bushes - can't wait to put something in it! Although it is hard to tell from the photo, it's rather generous in size...Anyway, if I get around to planting something, I will update.

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There's a lot going on in this picture - what was thrifted? That armoire? No (although we didn't pay for it; it was a hand-me-down)! Do you see those speakers, resting on the two chairs? Yes. Those were thrifted. They work wonderfully. Steve is a bit of a sound system freak. If this was our house and not our rented home, you can be sure we'd have a far more intricate system coming out of the ceiling...

Also, a few years ago, I got my first solo apartment in Florida. I had a budget of about $20 for furniture. With that, I bought a wooden table (which I still have + love) and a stand-alone cabinet. The apartment was so small; there was no room for a couch - hardly my bed! I inherited a couple of bright yellow vinyl chairs from Steve (we still have one to keep our sense of humors amused), but I needed more chairs. Some seating. One night, I was coming home from the grocery store and lo and behold, those two chairs you see holding the speakers were on the curb. Garbage day in Florida yields some particularly good things. I loaded them in my little Corolla and they've been part of my things ever since. The feeling of finding them was such a high - one of my best scores.

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Sometimes you can go thrifting without ever leaving your house.

Steve and I were desperate to thrift the perfect dresser for our clothes; we spent a lot of time looking for a piece of furniture that was both functional and quality and with deep enough drawers to fit two people's clothes - we didn't necessarily want a thousand drawers, just deep ones.

We never found that perfect dresser. Anyone that donates a dresser to the Goodwill expunges it from their home for good reason: it is really, horribly ugly and made of cheap-ola materials.

The people that used to live in the house we rent were both disgusting and stupid. It is for those two reasons that we got incredibly awesome rent and a dresser. Their nastiness is a better suited tale for my other blog. But their stupidness belongs right here at the Solid Cherry.

They too must have needed drawer space. In the closets, they spaced the pine boards you see in this picture with cinder blocks, creating the function of shelves and the wobbliness of master idiots. One night, when I was watching CSI Miami or something (David Caruso creeps me out like a train wreck), Steve had the idea to take these boards and use them to make a bookshelf. When he finished, he said something like, "Wow. What do you think if we used this for a dresser?"

Voila! We now have a dresser of sorts.
It is bolted to the wall - extra sturdy-like.

Also, will you please compliment my folding skills? Can you tell I used to work in retail for seven years? And please notice the extravagant number of T-shirts - they are collected from my two years as a full-time volunteer (Solid Cherry tip! If you are poor and need T-shirts, consider volunteering at race events, city/county/state environmental clean-ups, and other community events in your area - they're always good for free T-shirts) and my days of running 5Ks.