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An Urban Explorer’s Guide to Living Cheap

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I am an urban explorer. Not the kind that sneaks into abandoned buildings or climbs through underground tunnels. The kind that loves to explore the culture of her urban environment. I don’t feel at home in a city until I have a favorite restaurant, can recommend a venue, and am a regular at a cafe.

But urban exploring comes at price, one that often exceeds the budget of a student or a struggling 20something. When I was living in Portland, I was a struggling 20something, freshly out of undergrad, and trying to support myself in a brand new city. I had only a year in Portland before moving to Eugene for graduate school and so I promised myself that I would make the best of my time and explore as much of the city as possible. This was my decree, and its success was in its limitations.

When on a mission to explore a new city, you have to decide what is possible. Can I go to every café in town? No, not in a city with 175 coffee shops per capita. Can I go to every restaurant? Again no, especially if you are living in food heaven. Can I go to as many free and cheap events as I can find? Yes, that I can do. And so I began my search for affordable activities in the hipster capital of America and aptly started a blog called Portlandia of the Free (Or Cheap).

I posted five free or cheap events to my blog every single day of the week for almost a year. All of them were $10 or less and, yes, I could always find 5 events to post. In fact, I often had to narrow down the list to my top five events for the day. How did I find all of these events? The simple answer is I looked for them, but the secret is where I looked.

Become Best Friends with your Local Magazines

I am not joking when I say I think of the Portland Mercury and Willamette Week as close friends. As I write this, I find myself smiling in memory of the times we spent together, me searching through their pages for events to post to my blog and discovering the best and weirdest activities. Like the annual Naked Shopping Spree at the Red Light Clothing Exchange, where people run out of fitting rooms naked and compete to put on as many clothes as possible in three minutes, while Portland’s fantastic Prince cover band plays music to the chaos.  Or CHAD Chats, Portland’s version of TED Talks, where people share sardonic PowerPoints and get drunk, of course. Or when I discovered that a local pie restaurant was letting the public judge which pie they would put on their menu next, immediately following a chocolate festival full of free samples. Food, drink, nudity, and sarcasm: that’s what makes Portland go ‘round.

I would not have discovered any of these events without my trusty local magazines. I seriously found most of the events for my blog through these publications, which is why, whenever I go to a new city, the first thing I look at is their weekly magazine. Not every city’s magazines are as good as my dear friends Willamette Week and Portland Mercury, but I guarantee you’ll find something unique and inexpensive to do.

Don’t be Afraid to Sign-up for Email Lists

As I started to attend all these events, I began to wean myself off depending on weekly magazines. I decided to get event announcements straight from the source: the venues themselves. So, I signed up on every mailing list I came across. I still get emails from Collage, a craft store that holds $5 classes every Friday and In Other Words, the feminist bookstore from Portlandia that hosts a range of free events. I also found that I wasn’t the only one curating cheap activities and joined mailing lists like Portland on the Cheap or Around the Sun. Now instead of searching for free activities, the entertainment was coming straight to me, and often I was getting in on sweet deals. I felt like I was “in the know,” which is exactly how you want to feel when you move to a new city.

Ask People Where to Go

Regardless of all my searching, there are some places I never would have found unless I asked. That great inexpensive Mexican restaurant in an alley behind a strip club my roommate recommended to me, or the gathering of local poets every month where you could hear people who didn’t perform at the big poetry slam. These were the places that finally started to make Portland feel like home, because you can explore a city all you want, but you don’t stop being a tourist until you find a community.

So, venture out there, but don’t just look for places, look for people. They’re the best form of free entertainment.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

DIY, Home

The Gospel of Removable Wallpaper

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I don’t want to spend more energy than I really need to decorate my current apartment. I want a well-curated space, but at the moment I’m not entirely sure that I have the energy or cash to put that together. While the lease on my apartment does permit me to paint, I am loathe at this point to start a project that will require things like primers and sanding and taping and testing various colors at different times of the day. I want a maximal change with minimal effort. This brings me to removable wallpaper.

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Removable wallpaper is one of my favorite ways to change a space because it is so versatile and so low risk. You peel off a backing and then stick it to the wall. Press out all the air bubbles, maybe trim around the edges, and you’re all set. Change your mind? Peel it down. Done and done. Removable wallpaper can be used on walls, of course, but also all over your house. Cover a refrigerator or other appliances, line the backs of shelves, refinish a blah tabletop (such as IKEA’s LACK series), spice up the inside of a tray for serving guests, even create the appearance of a grand and stately headboard. All completely possible and so easy.

So far, I’ve redone the backsplash and refrigerator in my kitchen and one wall in my apartment, and were it not for my spouse saying he’s done with patterns, I’d be covering all the rest of the flat, smooth surfaces in our apartment with bright, cheerful colors and designs. The kitchen took all of forty five minutes to get done, and the trickiest part was matching the pattern repeat.

While, at first glance, removable wallpaper may look like the more expensive option, I’ve found that after you buy all the supplies to paint walls or hang art (tarps, brushes, pans, rollers, sandpaper, painters tape, primers, and multiple buckets of paint; or frames, mats, and custom fitting), the total cost is much lower. In total, I spent about $100—shipping included. Not to mention, you won’t ruin your favorite jeans when you think to yourself “Ah, but I’ll be so careful!” The only cost is the paper itself. It is also completely possible to make temporary wallpaper yourself with contact paper.

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Don’t know where to start?

Check out the whole host of resources available online about where to buy and what to do with temporary wallpaper:

Removable wall paper can be bought at:

Feeling crazy? Try starching fabric to the wall. (I haven’t tried this, so don’t blame me if it pulls all the paint off your walls…)

And I’m not the only one who is totally into removable wallpaper! Read more on Oh Happy Day and Apartment Therapy.

Enjoy!

Enjoy!

DIY, Home

Curating Your Art Collection Without Busting Your Budget

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Decorating on a budget is not easy.  Sure, you might do some great DIY projects, maybe find some decent furniture on Craigslist, but if you really want to make your place look great without spending a whole paycheck (or five), it takes a lot of work.  Fortunately, even if you have to live with a dingy 5-year old sofa that may have at one point belonged to the mother in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (too soon?), here are four simple and affordable ways to invest in your own personal style.

1. Use your own photos.  Why spend money on art when you have plenty of your own photographs just waiting to be framed on your wall?   I remind you that photographs were invented before the Facebook photo album, and a special photo will be a great conversation starter with your guests.  If you worry your pictures aren’t ‘artsy’ enough, get them printed in black and white!  Sugarfish is a great affordable service to get photos printed, and you can even order prints of your Instagram masterpieces on Shutterfly.

2. Maps, postcards, old records, anything flat you can put in a frame.  If you’re like me, you’re always finding a cool postcard you bought on vacation but never sent, or the ticket to that epic Dashboard Confessional show you went to in high school.  Rather than sticking it back in a drawer to be rediscovered in another five years, throw it up on the wall to break up all of your fabulous photographs.  Old maps are a particular favorite—both affordable and pretty!  Never been anywhere?  Fake it with the $3.95 map wrapping paper  from Paper-Source!

3. Affordable art prints and photos are easy to come by if you’re looking in the right places.  I like to shop around, but most of the sites below feature several different mediums (prints, photos, text graphics, even actual paintings) so if you don’t have the time or patience for scrolling through 40 pages of options, you would do well at just one of these.  The more affordable pieces from these sites do in fact still cost some money (many items in the $15-40 range, depending on the size), so I try to only purchase things I really love and would want to look at every day on my wall.  Minimalist and fan-made movie posters are a personal favorite that look nice and reflect my true passions.

  • 20×200 (www.youshouldbuyart.com):  Run by a gallery owner in New York, they have a great stockpile of photos and prints by up-and-coming artists.
  • Society 6:  Not only do they deal in art, but if you find a design you like, you can get it printed on t-shirts, mugs, pillowcases, phone cases, and more.
  • The Working Proof:  Art for a cause—15% of each sale goes to the charity of the artist’s choice.
  • Etsy:  A perennial favorite for all things, art included.  Perhaps pay tribute to the cinematic classic I mentioned earlier with this!

 

4. Don’t be afraid to create an original painting yourself!  I know the canvas–and-paint section at the art store can be intimidating, but delve in, and make your own masterpiece to hang on your wall. It’s easier to splurge on something when it’s half off, so double-check for coupons before you go in to your favorite craft store. Even if you don’t see yourself as “creative,” geometric patterns in a good color scheme look just as nice as a detailed landscape—and you still get kudos for having an actual painting on your wall!  Too shy to go it alone?  Try out Painting with a Twist (or any of the similar BYOB painting classes across the country) with a couple friends and a bottle of wine, and come home with a beautiful painting as well as some new memories (aww).

In all, I think the key to curating an art collection while not over-spending is to make every piece you own individual to you.  Whether it’s meaningful because you made it yourself or just because you love it, I guarantee that a piece of art with personal meaning that also looks great will justify any cost.  Now please, just promise me you won’t hang all of your beautiful acquisitions and discoveries with painter’s tape and thumbtacks. *

*Before you even try, I direct you to Michael’s (they almost always have a coupon for 50% off on their website) or Aaron Brothers (they have a buy one, get the second for 1 cent sale on frames and canvas in January and July every year).

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White

Geekery

An Introduction to Cosplaying

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Costume play, more widely known as cosplay, is the hobby of dressing up as characters from various fandoms such as anime, video games, TV, movies or comics. Cosplaying has been gaining popularity since the 90s, but it has been around much longer (Trekkies of the 1960s, anyone?).

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Because cosplaying has been gaining pop culture’s attention so rapidly, there are many misconceptions about what the cosplay community is. We’re not all antisocial, Japanese-obsessed, overly sexualized, master seamstresses!  The community is made up of all different types of people—people with different body types, different fandoms, and different levels of craftsmanship.

All bodies welcome

Many people in the community (or outside the community) think that, in order to cosplay, the cosplayer must have a body type that exactly matches the character. While I don’t support this idea, I know there are many bigger women out there who work hard to cosplay to fit their body type, simply because they prefer to cosplay that way.

Several of my friends will take an existing character’s costume and make small adjustments in order to make themselves feel more comfortable in the costume. I’ve seen girls take a nearly thong bottom of a character such as Kitana from Mortal Kombat and change it into shorts: this method maintains the idea of the character while allowing the cosplayer to stay in their own personal comfort zone.

Clever craftsmanship

Craftsmanship is also a big area of discussion in the cosplay community. Not everyone has the skills or resources to make everything from scratch, but thankfully China exists. There are many websites that sell a variety of premade costumes from popular series for a relatively low cost, such as EZCosplay or Hello Cosplay. But, be aware: it is a cheaper costume, so it isn’t always the best quality—less money spent usually means cheaper fabric and shoddy stitching! If you are willing to spend more than $150, there are many people who do costume commissions. Commissions can be perfect for your body and style, but can easily skyrocket in price because you are paying for a person’s time and energy on top of the materials that go into making the costume.  If you’re interested in commissioning a costume, try finding a costume artist on Etsy, Storenvy, or Cosplay.com.

Those who are able to make their own costumes are able to make costumes for a lot less than even pre-bought costumes in most cases. Making your own costume doesn’t necessarily mean buying the fabric and making all the pieces from that. Depending on the costume and the complexity, it is really easy to go to a local Goodwill, Salvation Army, or any other second hand store to find pieces that will work for your specific costume. I know I’ve even pulled some random clothes out of my closet, put on a wig, and called it a Mary Jane Watson cosplay.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

There are many things that can be done to make an affordable costume depending on the series. Granted, if you are trying to make full body armor, it probably won’t be inexpensive. Several of my friends make full body armor or chainmail costumes that easily take up to several months to complete. I haven’t had the opportunity to make such a complicated costume yet, but with all the sewing I do for my costumes, I put in twenty to fifty hours of work start-to-finish per costume.

When I look to make a new cosplay, I start by choosing a series I really enjoy and then pick which character I want to make. I tend to pick characters based on my opinion of the character, as well as the character’s design—I don’t want to make anything that isn’t visually appealing! From there, it’s all about gaining as much reference material as possible: the more angles I can get of the character, the better off I am for my fabric decisions and overall construction.

The pros of cons

Cosplaying is an easy way to make friends through various events and conventions. Events and cons can range from several hundred people, such as hyper-con, to tens of thousands of people (such as San Diego Comic-Con or WonderCon). There are many events going on—it’s just a matter of finding them near you!

Events and cons are easy to find via Google or even just by talking to other people in the community. The cosplay community is a very tight-knit and strives to help one another to be successful in the hobby. To start a discussion online, try visiting Cosplay.com for tips on building your cosplay, or share pictures of your art with other cosplayers on DeviantArt.