They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and I have never found that to be truer than it is as it applies to the kitchen. The past year I have been...well, to be honest, dirt poor. It's hard to find a job while you're in school and not exactly a picnic once you graduate, either. So I've had to learn how to combine the scant resources I had and make something useful. An example would be the perfectly delectable potato soup I made last night. We need to get groceries. I couldn't figure out what to eat. So I peeled and cut up some potatoes and boiled them. Then I added chicken broth, a box of macaroni and cheese (the cheese sauce added a nice flavor), salt, pepper, paprika, a bit of cayenne, and chives. But it still wasn't quite hearty. So I added some milk, cheese, and instant mashed potato mix. It really just takes a bit of inventiveness to make a good dish. You don't need recipes. I have to say, I'm extremely proud of my creation, which I am calling Mashed Potato Macaroni Soup. haha.
Other things I've done around the apartment were thrifty as well. I didn't have money to spend on decor, so I became a bit of a scavenger. The majority of our furnishings came from my room because I took anything people would offer. Among other things I had an old, ugly couch from my grandfather's house, my aunt's old entertainment center (which looks pretty but is kind of falling apart), a 1940s Lane Chest my mom and I bought for a very cheap price at an estate sale (which we now use as a coffee table), and a tall black table with two chairs (on which the plastic covering was ripped, exposing the foam cushions underneath). It sounds redneck and awful, right? Well, it only took a bit of work to turn it into something awesome. Years ago (before our sewing machines broke), Em and I were taking sewing classes. A fabric store in Oak Ridge was going out of business, and we bought three huge bolts of vintage fabric. The stuff never got used. When we moved out, however, I reupholstered that ugly couch with just the fabric, a staple gun, and some hot glue. Now it's a bright, warm yellow with colorful flowers on it. So are the chairs that had the ripping cushions. Then I took the remaining fabric and made some curtains. Couldn't afford a curtain rod, so I just nailed them to the wall after folding them at the top to give them a more stylized look.
This part is something terribly creative, I think, but Emily and Elise mocked me incessantly. I had these two long, black hippie skirts that I never ever wore, so I cut them up for curtains. Then, I took the red pillow shams that came with my comforter (which my pitiful skinny pillows looked pathetic in) and made valances. The resulting look was pretty neat. And I cleared some space in my closet and put the decorative pillows in my regular pillowcases so that each one had two pillows and became comfier and cushier. And I have a china cabinet that looks fairly fancy...but I got all my china from Goodwill's half-off day. Oh! We also had this dinette set that my parents bought years ago at an estate sale. We never fixed it up like we intended. I covered the filthy pea-green cushions with one of the other bolts of fabric that had just been sitting in storage, so now our dining room is super sa-weet.
Everything from magazine collages to old picture frames to mason jars can make cool decorations. Our huge entertainment center is covered in old cameras found or bought at thrift stores and jars/bottles/vases that wouldn't have been used. It looks pretty B.A. Yes, Black Angus...Not really.
All right, I'm done tooting my own horn about how fantastically inventive I can be on a small budget. haha. I'm just trying to make the point that you can do whatever it is that you want to do--with or without a lot of money. Be glad for what you have. And waste not, want not. If somebody offers you furniture, even if it's ugly, you can make something beautiful out of it. My aunt recently gave me a somewhat hideous rocking chair...I am going to make it lovely. Scavenge away, my friends. It's fun once you get used to it. I haven't quite fell into dumpster diving yet--although my mom and I picked up some cool wooden chairs from next to an apartment complex's dumpster once. We're so glamourous. But hey, free stuff is free stuff.
One thing you can always count on as an excellent resource is your own creativity. If you can look past the surface of junk and see a masterpiece waiting to happen, you can shake up your world--and I don't just mean aesthetically. The skills and dedication scavenging and reusing things are the same it takes to form good relationships. Sometimes at first glance, people seem completely unappealing. Their exterior reveals the peeling paint, rust, and scars from the difficulties they have experienced during their lives. But underneath all that is something beautiful waiting to be drawn out. Before you can see it, you've got to be willing to pour out a bit of yourself into them.
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