another $15 miracle, and yet another miracle that this post actually has an END IN SIGHT

I can really stretch $15.

I redid my kitchen for $15 in November, and used the same stuffs for my bathroom a couple of weeks ago.  My sweater pillow gift was a hit - my bff Christina ended up with it, for which I was glad that I took the time to write a special little ode to friendship. She liked them so much, she left it as I gave it to her and placed them on the bench at the foot of her bed.

That's what I like to call SUCCESS.

My recent triumph was inspired by MawMaw asking me in a panic Friday afternoon, "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THE KIDS' CLOTHES FOR EASTER?!?!?!?!?!?!"

I replied in a panic, "I FORGOT ABOUT EASTER!!!!!!!!"


Yes.  She and I speak in all caps and multiple punctuation marks.  It is our gift to each other that KEEPS ON GIVING!!!!!!!!

Anyhoo. Easter. I can't help it that the lunisolar cycle by which the powers that be determine when to spring Easter on us decided that this year's empty tomb would be celebrated on April 24. It's so late, I forgot it hadn't happened yet.  I mean, we had a weekend revival in the beginning of April.  Ordinarily we have a revival or a special speaker/evangelist on or around Easter, and we all did a bunch of cooking for it, so it stands to reason that I thought we already had Easter :)

MawMaw decided to take care of some new dress shoes for the toddlers.  Zesty lurves him some black preaching shoes, and has been complaining that the pair I bought him at Christmas were "stuck."  I have two pairs in waiting for him to grow into, but it's that pesky size between "stuck" and "flopping like a penguin" size that he needed.

But he does have two nearly-new suits, so I wasn't worried about his clothes.

And Pinky?  She already has a stash of practically new dresses that a friend at church bought for her on clearance for cheeeeeeep dollars and thrifty cents.  I decided to take her wardrobe up a notch and find an Easter hat for her.  Last year I couldn't bear to put a hat on her fluffy hair because - well - pure vanity on my part to show off how much hair she had as a 5 month old.  Remember this? HAHAHA!  Splenda's fake glasses phase - I forgot about that.

But this year her sweet ringlets will peek out from underneath a fahbulous hat.

I ran over to Babies 'R Us.  SCORE.  Everything marked as clearance was BOGO, and they allowed me to get the second item free that was closest in price to the first item.  Keep reading to see how awesome I did :)

I found a white floppy hat that was blessedly not white eyelet lace, because her dress is not the eyelet lace style.  Next to it was a matching purse.  Only thing is - they both had a large floppy pink flower stitched to them.  But what's a few stitches? I rip seams out so regularly when I sew, it's practically in the pattern instructions.  "1. Sew back and front panels together.  2. Ooops.  You sewed the wrong sides together.  3. RIP THE SEAM and start over."

I carefully removed the flowers; one of them had the satin stitching in the middle actually stitched to the purse.  Not a problem - I sewed on a bright pink flower button, and hot glued a bit of ribbon to each one to secure them to alligator clips.  Voila! a matching set of flower accessories

Then I removed the ponytail holders from two gold bows I bought at the same time, and hot glued some more ribbon to the back to attach them to more alligator clips.  Voila! a matching set of gold bow hair clips

I wrapped some 1 1/2" gold/cream ribbon around the purse and hat, hot glued and safety pinned in place, and slipped the gold bow hair clips on around the safety pins.  Voila! a matching hat and bag set

You wanna know how I spent under $15 for all that?  GOOD.  Because I'm in the mood to brag about it.

White floppy flowered hat - regularly $12.99 - marked down to $9.00
White floppy flowered bag - regularly $9.99 - marked down to $6.90 but free with the BOGO sale
Gold bow ponytail holders - regularly $3.99 each - marked down to $2.00 each, but again - one was free with the BOGO
1 1/2" x 4yd spool of gold/cream ribbon - regularly $3.99 at Michael's (conveniently next door to BRU) - the cashier thought Pinky was cute and scanned a coupon. I got the spool for $2.96.

And out of all that plus a little hot glue, I now have 2 sets of matching hair clips, and a base white bag and hat set to trim any way I like until she grows out of the hat.  For under $15.  Not too shabby!

Of course you need a picture of Her Royal Fancypantsness to reward you for all that scrolling.  I'm still not sure I can take any credit for her smiling.I had to bribe her by putting Smarties in the bag.  She was pretty ticked at me for waking her from her nap.