Re-Decorating

I have always loved to decorate. When I was a child, my bedrooms were always covered with posters (normally Beauty and the Beast and Audrey Hepburn- not much in my interests have changed.) When my college roommate of three semesters and I moved into our little studio apartment (as in ONE room + a bathroom,) we took hours getting movie posters and calendars and pictures of old movie actresses up. I made big collages of photos of my friends and (now) husband. I framed my bed with cards and letters. I hung artwork drawn by the kids I babysat on the walls.
While that type of decorating definitely had personality and was very appropriate for that time in my life, once I got my own home I decided I needed to start decorating a bit more like a "grown up" and a bit less like a college student. Unfortunately, I always had one major downfall: I seem to have a tendency to be majorly cluttered. Allen's and my first home (a tiny rented townhouse) had lovely pictures on the walls, but every surface was covered in knick knacks, figurines, mementos from our wedding and just...random crap! But it worked for us because we did not intend to stay there too long.
We moved in November of last year to our first home of our own, a place we intend to stay in for another several years, and I was excited to decorate...but was also about 4 months pregnant! This meant that the nursery was beautiful finished, while the rest of the rooms followed the same pattern every other place I have ever lived; lots of random stuff covering every surface.
For a while, I was content with this. We were on a budget, I tried to achieve some sort of "order" to my clutter, and if anything, my home was full of memories. But now that I am a stay home mom, I sometimes get choked with the clutter. It is just SO much to keep tidy and to keep out of reach of small children who come to visit (and soon our small child who will be mobile before we know it.) Additionally, I kept being a little bit jealous of my friends who had really cohesive rooms in their houses which looked like something out of a Real Simple magazine. Their rooms were not just full of family pictures and knick knacks; they had art and simplicity and flowers and themes. I wanted that.
However, there was still a problem; I am still on a budget (like MAJOR) and have a little one around keeping me from concentrated decorating time. So, I gave myself a good long week, and I enlisted the help of one of my best friends (Justine) and my mother. Justine has one of those apartments that I described above. She has an incredible gift for taking a bunch of random things from the dollar store or your kitchen cabinets (like for instance, a wine glass, a mirror, a candle and a couple of silk flowers,) and creating something really artistic. I knew she would be able to look at my limited resources and create something beautiful. My mom is extremely good at organizing, speed cleaning and keeping my daughter happy. The three of us made a great team.
So, here is what we did:

Budget: $20. Seriously. This is what I had to spend on decor. We spent another 20 printing some pictures and buying nails, but that does not count. For the alloted $20 we bought (at the Dollar Tree):
-1 hand towel
-3 bunches of fake roses/greenery
-2 four feet strands of fake ivy
-2 packs of votives (four total)
-3 small baskets
-2 magnetic dry erase boards (one was a weekly calendar, one was normal)
-One pack of shells
-3 bunches of plastic grapes
-1 mesh wire letter tray
-1 bottle of water (because shopping makes you thirsty!)

Here are some of the items from home that we used:

-a bunch of mismatched vases
-little glass beads
-silk roses I had laying around the house
-about a gazillion pictures and frames
-some gold lacy cloth stuff
-some greeting cards
-big books to pile things on
-a large wall shelf (actually more like 5 shelves joined together) which we took got from a pile of "trash" on the side of the road in my parents' development.
(BEST TIP EVER: Go for a walk around a nice neighborhood the night before trash day. You will be shocked at what people throw out! Lorelei also has a gorgeous wooden dollhouse as a result of this.)

Here are the rooms we tackled:
EVERY ROOM IN THE HOUSE
(3 bedrooms, 1 hall bathroom, living room, dining room, kitchen.)

Anyway, it may not make sense, but these items together created quite a beautiful decor for our home! Our rooms have "color palates" (sort of) and not every single surface is covered with a million things, but I still feel like my memories and creativity are being preserved. I will post pictures and details on what we did to each room when we are done; but for now, I am going to bed in my "new-to-me" bedroom!