Normally when I treasure hunt at ARC I search for items to upcycle or craft. However, there are also just things from ARC that I collect…or hoard, depending on your outlook.

One of these categories is vintage globes:

I am physically unable to walk past a vintage globe at ARC. My limit is the five above, due to space, but I can still gaze adoringly at them.

ARC is a wonderful place to build your collections, no matter what it is you collect. There are always a lot of small tchotchkes, which many of us look for, including myself…

Vintage ceramic deer figurines are also items that I can’t resist.

I have entire series of books and movies that I’ve obtained from ARC, too. These are always so much cheaper than buying them new.

But my biggest ARC collection-obsession is definitely vintage Pyrex.

This one definitely borders on hoarding, but the beauty is that the price for each piece is so cheap at ARC. Having a thrifted collection of anything is always cheaper than collecting new items. And really, hunting for the items is half of the fun!

By Julie White

Some of the items that I see consistently in ARC stores across Colorado (yes, I visit ARC stores wherever I go…) are vintage, metal trays. Lots of them are brightly colored with flowers or designs, while others are simple brass or silver-toned. I’ve used them as wall art before and as functional trays to hold items but never as functional, wall art. Until now!

Using these beauties as my base I set about making metal message boards for the wall above my desk. There’s nothing that needs to be done to the tray itself, other than a good wipe down, so the diy part came in when deciding what to use as magnets on the boards. For this project I chose to use vintage brooches, although tons of items found at ARC would work: scrabble tiles or game pieces, buttons, tiny figurines, etc.

At my favorite ARC there is a full length turnstile display next to the jewelry counter with tiny bags of earrings, brooches, and bracelets on display. The day I went was a pink tag day so naturally I only looked through the pink tags. The baggies pictured above were some of my purchases.

To prep these guys to become magnets I removed the pin backing on each one. Two of them I was able to grasp with pliers and roll to remove, while the other one I made do with just cutting the actual pin part because I wasn’t able to remove the whole backing.

Once the backings were removed or modified (in the above picture) I was ready to glue on the magnets.

I had teeny, tiny but strong magnets left from an old project so I used just a dot of super glue to affix them to the back of the brooches. And that was it! Such a simple project but I love how it turned out. It looks great above my desk and serves a very functional purpose.

By Julie White

If you’ve never taken the time to hunt through the jewelry at ARC thrift, you’re missing out. There is always a huge selection of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, everything you could possible wear. Last weekend I found this beauty:

Isn’t it pretty? It was $4.99, but on Saturday I scored it for $2.50! I love Saturdays at ARC. It has a lot going on for one necklace, but I bought it because I really like all of the different beads and pendants.

My mission? To turn these great parts from one necklace into different pieces that are a bit toned down and that I’d actually wear. Challenge accepted!

I figured the easiest place to start was with the main glass pendant.

This was such an easy fix, using pliers to separate it from the chain. I ended up with several pendants to put onto other chains.

From there I worked on the rhinestones and pearls:

Using a wire cutter I removed the attached loop from the back of the rhinestones so that they were flat.

I had some barrettes and earring posts leftover from a different project that I superglued to the rhinestones creating two sets of earrings (small and large rhinestones) and two barrettes.

There were lots of pretty pearls on the necklace, as well, that I removed with pliers.

I attached a large pearl to a small pearl with their wire loops and then glued an earring post to the side of the large pearls.

From one necklace I ended up with 3 pairs of earrings, 2 barrettes and multiple pendants to use on chains as individual necklaces.

Mission accomplished! My jewelry collection is a lot bigger now.

ARC is looking very spring-y these days. There are lots of great Easter items out and lots of fun sandals, too. This inspired me to try my hand with some actual live plants…again…hopefully keeping them alive this time. I wanted to use items from ARC, both planters and non-conventional items, to make some distinctive home décor.

I’ve collected a lot of small containers over the last few months from ARC. I found these great mini Pyrex “fridgies” last month for $1.99 each.

I saw this teacup last week and bought it along with a matching sugar bowl. I love the spring flower design.

This vintage mug I’ve had for a while; I bought it at ARC just because I loved the design.

I found these great succulent plants and decided to use them inside all of these different containers with the hope of bringing some of this spring-iness inside.

I started with some of the tiny ones, placing rocks in the bottom because succulents need space to drain when they are watered.

From there I just tucked the plant in on top and filled in some of the sides with more soil and rocks. So easy!

Some of the larger plants I put in actual planters from ARC.

This snail planter I’ve had for a while. I bought it at ARC a few months ago for $3.99 and have been using it to store different items.

The little guy below might be my favorite. It looks so cute in the vintage sugar bowl and looks very at home on my shelves. The trick with succulents, apparently, is to water them very rarely. Hopefully I can keep them alive!

I just kept planting…as long as I had creative containers from ARC I figured I’d use them!

The nice thing about making so many is that depending on the design of the containers/mugs/bowls, they look good in different parts of my house with different décor. They also make wonderful gifts. I’ll definitely be hunting for more beautiful tea cups at ARC and using them for gifts.

Overall, this was a fun and easy project. It was a great way to bring some spring into my home and a creative use of all the excellent containers I’ve thrifted at ARC.

Everybody’s got that wall space in their house that they just can’t figure out what to do with, right? I definitely do. It’s in a tiny bathroom and doesn’t always get much light so I struggle with what would work in there. I decided I needed something bright that would catch your eye even without a ton of light and I wanted something interesting and different than the other items in my home. I think I achieved all of that with this project.

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I started with a frame from ARC. There is truly no reason to ever buy a picture frame from anywhere else. ARC always has a huge selection in every size imaginable. This one was a beauty; it was deep, which I needed for the succulents, and it was a thick frame so that the actual space I’d need to fill inside it was small. It was also half off J.

I started by removing the paper backing, popping off the wooden back and pulling out the glass.

All I was left with was the great frame and space in the middle.

From there, I cut a piece of thick foam core that would fit into the open space. I hot glued it like crazy, all over the back edges so that it was strongly in place. (The hot glue gun came from ARC a long time ago-it’s been a vital part of many a project.)

I colored the foam core black so that it wouldn’t stand out as much between the faux plants (though I’d recommend painting it instead, due to the marker fumes).  Then came the fun part: I took fake succulents and started arranging them on the foam core. When I found an arrangement I liked I pushed the stem through to the back and glued or taped it into place.

I played around with a lot of different arrangements and finally found what I liked. I’d found a bag of assorted moss (apparently a real thing that people sell) that had been donated to ARC and bought it to fill in the gaps between the bigger plants.

I love how full the final product looks and how the different textures complement each other. The frame itself adds a lot of texture and interest, as well.

This will definitely look great in that hard to fill wall space. It’s far better than anything I’d buy and when it’s homemade I love it even more.

Happy New Year! January is the time to go through all of last year’s stuff and get organized for 2016. This is no easy feat for most of us. I wanted to share the many ways that I use ARC items to organize my home. These receptacles are mainly vintage, because that’s what I love, but there are tons of modern options at ARC, too.

I use a vintage pitcher from ARC to organize my kitchen utensils:

In the living room I use a vintage planter to hold coasters and bookends from ARC to organize my dvds (most of which were also bought at ARC J).

I use an ARC mug for makeup brushes in the bathroom, a mason jar for Q-tips, and a vintage tea tin for cotton balls.

This vintage candy dish is a great catch-all for chapsticks and bobby pins:

I also use lots of ARC jars and receptacles to organize art supplies and desk items:

All of these things were found at ARC and keep my home looking far more organized than I feel. Good luck with your own 2016 organization projects!

I wanted to squeeze in one last project for myself this holiday season so I went with an easy one. I see tons of great jars all the time at ARC and decided to use some to create winter scenes. I found some interesting ones at my local ARC that I thought would work well.

My next step was to round up some winter miniatures. I had a tiny ceramic deer from ARC and a toy car that I painted to cover up the racing stripes. On the miniature car I glued a small tree and then wrapped a piece of twine around it.

This went into one of my smaller jars with a little bit of fake snow and that was it—done!

The deer was slightly more complicated, but only slightly, because I wanted to use a taller jar that I found at ARC with a large cork on top. I was able to glue a taller tree to the bottom just using my hands, but to get the deer and another smaller tree glued in, I had to use tweezers.

Once everything was glued in it got a dusting of fake snow and then it was complete.

Both of these jars turned out great with my supplies from ARC and were so unbelievably simple. I hope your holiday crafting turns out just as well!

This is one of the easiest and cutest crafts that I’ve made all year. It’s a great end product for not much of a time commitment. That’s the best kind of craft, if you ask me.

I had a bunch of vintage ornament boxes leftover after making an ornament wreath and some of them had great, retro designs. I decided to create some vintage Christmas shadow boxes for further decoration.

First I removed the clear plastic from the top of the boxes and then I gutted them to get rid of the individual ornament slots:

Then I covered the back of the boxes with shiny wrapping paper in order to make it brighter when I put the items in and help make them more visible.

Finally, I added the fun stuff! One box got just a simple deer that I was lucky enough to find in a bag at ARC.

The other one got more details: a faux flower glued up high, a vintage elf from ARC (another treasure from one of their bags), and some garland.

I glued the top or front of the boxes back on and added a few finishing touches. Then it was done! I took a picture showing the sides of the box and the way things are tucked in there.

These were so, so easy and turned out great. I love the way they look tucked around my house.

The holiday season equals crafting season in my book. There are so many fun Christmas and winter crafts to make. I decided that this year, the first one on my list was a vintage ornament wreath. I’ve seen some beautiful ones online and once ARC put all of their Christmas items out, I started hunting for ornament treasures. I knew I needed tons of ornaments for a large wreath so I bought a lot of boxes of vintage glass globe ornaments in all different colors.

I found a good amount of them bagged, too. I love the ARC bags because there’s always some good stuff, you just have to hunt to find it.

It’s not hoarding if it’s for a project…right? I was lucky enough to find some great Shiny Brite ornaments and several different designs. I knew I wanted some fancy ones to go on the front of the wreath. I went through all of the ornaments at ARC that I could find and came across some really beautiful ones.

I was even lucky enough to find the wreath form at ARC. I love the crafting section in each store. I always check there first before a project because I’d much rather put my money towards a wonderful cause versus a big craft chain store.

My first step was to wrap a tinsel garland around the entire wreath form. I didn’t want any white styrofoam peeking through. Using hot glue I secured one end and then wrapped the whole thing and glued the other end to make sure it wouldn’t unravel.

After that I started gluing the larger, plain globe ornaments all around the outside edge. (Good thing I was able to find so many at ARC-this wreath took a lot of them.) This project is all about the glue gun; everything is secured with hot glue.

Once the outside border was done, it was time to start gluing onto the front of the wreath. I tried to mix and match colors and designs to get a good mix of them. This was the fun part!

Here is the wreath in stages, as I added more and more ornaments:

And finally, the finished project:

I love this wreath! I think it turned out amazing. It might be my favorite thing that I’ve ever crafted all thanks to the great ornaments that I found at ARC. And it’s only the beginning of the crafting season!