FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Anyone with a little talent can create beautiful rooms with a large budget.

But it takes someone with unlimited creativity and an artsy eye to design budget-conscious rooms that look fabulous.

One of those rare people is Tersa Agard, an artist, sculptor and decorator who has transformed her 1,802-square-foot Boca Raton, Fla., condo into a reflection of her talent and travels.

She shops at every price level -- from the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach, Fla., to consignment shops, Marshalls and Tuesday Morning.

"You have got to know when to spend and when to save," she says. "The actual value doesn't matter to me as long as I think they work together."

Her best ingredient is her imagination. She has the ability to transform old into new, mundane into marvelous. When her 40-year-old mirrored Parsons table began to tarnish, she covered the marks with painted flowers. When she didn't like a painting, she covered part of it with craft paper to make it look like a partially opened package. And gave a bland tile floor pizazz with stenciling.

Mastering high and low

The focal point of her living room is an elegant, crackled finish eight-panel screen, which she found for $900 at A Consignment Gallery in Deerfield Beach, Fla. It was a bargain because she saw a similar screen selling for $5,000 at a designer showroom.

Her sculpture of a woman's head on the coffee table was originally done in clay and then put into a mold and made in Lucite. The 48-by-60-inch glass coffee table shows off her splurge -- a Tufenkian Tibetan rug that cost $3,500.

Thinking big

Don't reject hanging a painting because the frame is too small. In the kitchen, she needed a larger frame to extend the size of an Indian painting on silk. She painted plywood black and attached it to the framed painting. To make the two pieces look like they belonged together, she repeated the designs from the artwork.

Poster child

There's no need to get rid of your bed just because it appears too big for your new bedroom. Her bed, originally a four poster with canopy, overwhelmed the downsized bedroom in Agard's condo. Her solution? Cut down the four posters and add finials. The headboard posters are now 6½ inches tall, and the footboard posters are 4½ inches tall.

Let there be light

Agard started with a contemporary light fixture that looked like a curved bar with four small lamps. Now, thanks to her imagination, it's an innovative chandelier. She attached a vase-shaped metal container she bought at Marshalls and used fishing line to attach crystals, Christmas mirrors, odd knives, forks and spoons from thrift shops.

Crowning touch

High-hat lighting is versatile but not very decorative, especially when the fixture is in the foyer. Agard came up with an attractive solution. Using stencils she bought at Michaels, she decorated around the high hat. Then she nailed a picture frame to the ceiling and added different stencils outside the frame.

Peek-a-boo painting

Sometimes you just outgrow a painting or never really loved it anywhere. Try this: Wrap it with craft paper, tie it with a string to keep it together and tear it to reveal a small portion of the painting. Agard then addressed it to make it look more like a package.