Lacy Burlap Fall Wreath

I really think that making wreaths is one of the most satisfying crafts ever. When you finish it you put it on your door and present your masterpiece. Perhaps that's a bit dramatic but I always feel accomplished putting up a great wreath. I have been using this same twig wreath for forever. I've definitely gotten my 7 bucks worth. I reused my sparkle corn cobs, feathers, leaves and beaded twigs from last year. I added some lacy burlap wire ribbon, my gold J and some gold pine cones, which I found in the Christmas section. Took about 10 minutes and I think it looks pretty fabulous.

Fun Peacock Inspired Wreath

Making wreaths is strangely fulfilling.  I don't know why, but decorating my front door gives me such satisfaction.  I was hunting down Christmas mark down deals at Hobby Lobby and got everything (except the ribbon which was 50% off) for this wreath in the Christmas Clearance at 80% off!!  I think I maybe spent 5 bucks! Thank goodness for some non-traditional peacock sprigs, green blue and gold!  I think I'm going to try and incorporate that gold letter J in every wreath this year!  Challenge accepted self!

Super Easy Fall Wreath

I think I maybe spent $5 making this wreath and its my favorite so far.  I am still super frugal and cheap when it comes to wreaths. This is the only wreath I've ever owned, I just keep dressing and redressing it.  I think I only paid $6 for it too!  I got everything from Hobby Lobby, the corn on the cobs, glittery leaves, berry beads, feathery leaves and the letter.  I have also used the same "J" I just keep spray painting it.  No hot glue, I just stuck it in or tied it on.  I spent about 20 minutes getting all put together while the kids took a cold swim in the pool.  There was no way I was getting in there, but they had a blast filling up ziploc bags and splashing each other while I got my craft on.  Who needs toys, right?

Football Wreath

It's Friday and in Oklahoma a Fall Friday night means one thing, Football.  Tonight is the big Game against Union and while there is no way I'm venturing out anywhere near where the game is (no way I'm messing with that traffic) here is my team spirit, wreath style.  Ellie is a cheerleader this year (ugh, I am really trying to embrace it) so we are going to lots of little football games.  So I decided to make a fun tiger football wreath with some stuff I already had on hand.

By now you may have figured out that I'm cheap thrifty.  I've been using the same twig wreath from Hobby Lobby since last year and I've re-spray painted the letter to match at least 3 times.  Why not right?  So this $6 wreath, that I got with a coupon too, has served me really well.

Let's Make It!

I took leftover golden yellow tulle from a game day tutu I made for Regan and wrapped it around the wreath.  I made a bow from tulle and wide black satin ribbon.  Next I cut 6 inch (approximately) strips of yellow and black ric-rac and tied the pieces on.  I attached a stuffed beanie baby tiger I had (from high school) with ribbon.  I picked up a stuffed football from the dollar store and hot glued a pipe cleaner to the back to attach it to the wreath.  I spray painted my trusty letter J gold and hung it in the middle of the wreath with a gold ribbon. Took me about 10 minutes from start to finish!  Happy Friday everyone!

Snow White Birthday Party, Regan turns 3!

I love this little girl.  When asked how old she is her reply is "28."  Which fits her personality.  She had flip flopped on what party theme she wanted but this was the main request so that's what we did.  I love celebrating with my family and friends.  Regan gave quite a birthday girl performance smiling and posing for the camera, what can I say she takes after her mother.

I made the cutest little apple cupcakes.  While they were a bit more time consuming than say frosting a cake, they were totally worth it and easy too.  I found the idea on Pinterest and a cute little blog Design Dazzle.  Seriously the best ideas.  The day before her party was Dr. Seuss's Birthday and a local bakery happened to be giving away free cupcakes to kids that told them what their favorite Seuss book was.  So I picked up some cake doughnuts to make the apple cupcakes with and birthday breakfast, making it easier on myself for the next day.

Apple Cupcake How To:

You will need:  Red cupcake liners, cake mix, red frosting, red sugar, regular tootsie rolls, green fruit tootsie rolls and doughnuts (you need 1/2 doughnut per cupcake).  You will also need a cutting board, scissors and a toothpick.

Bake your cupcakes and once cool slice the top off.  Attempt to not eat all of the cupcake tops.  While they are baking you can cut your doughnuts in half, like how you would cut a bagel, mix your red frosting.  When cooled and cut dab a bit of frosting on the cupcake to hold the doughnut half.  Frost the doughnut and then cover with red sugar.  Once they are all frosted and sugared its time to make your stems and leaves.  For the stems take a pair of scissors and cut a piece of the tootsie roll off, lengthwise.  You can bend it, twist it, roll it to get a stem look.  For the leaves you will want to roll out the tootsie roll and then cut out a leaf shape.  Use a toothpick to make patterns on the leaf.


The Decor:

I decorated our wreath with tulle and a spray painted "R" tied on with red satin ribbon.  I made a bunting from scrap vintage red and blue fabric and vintage yellow bias tape, I love being able to use up fabric scraps and upcycle something.  I hung red, blue and yellow balloons from the ceiling using push pins and clear string.  We decorated the table with a plastic blue tablecloth and red ribbon.  I also did the birthday chair with the excess tablecloth and larger ribbon (I just hot glued that ribbon on to make it stay up!)  I got some dirt and sticks from outside and hot glued some little birds on the "branches."  That along with her Snow White doll and a stuffed deer we already had were the table decoration.

Snow White couldn't walk around in just anything so I made her a yellow tutu and embellished it with a red satin bow.  I dyed one of her shirts blue and sewed some tulle onto the arms, another way to upcycle and use something we already had.  I also make her a red head band to complete the look.  I used the same ribbon for her tutu and head band on the table, chair and wreath.  The tutu was so easy to make, it was my second one ever!  I'll be giving a tutorial later this week!

It wasn't the fanciest or poshest party but it was perfect for our family and for my sweet and feisty Regan.

The back view, I love this tutu!

The Apple Cupcakes!

The decor.

The wreath.

Such a happy girl!

Room with a View

If you are like me you spend more time in the kitchen than you'd probably like.  My kitchen window, above my sink, has a view of our fence.  Not exactly what I would like it to be.  So when I change out my wreath I change out my window display to give myself a room with a view.  It makes such a difference to do this little thing just for me.  It also makes doing dishes and shining my sink not such a chore.

The fence, what a view!  Now I only see the things that make me happy!

Epsom salt, red bird and branches.  In the other jar I have coffee beans and a candle.  When the candle melts into the coffee beans it looks really neat.  Also a place to put my jewelry.

Epsom salt on pine cones to look like snow.  Epsom salt in a jar with a candle.  

Same wreath from Christmas, minus the ornaments.

I added Epsom salt snow to the pine cones and the ribbon has snow flakes on it.   Simplicity!

Decorating my house is like pampering myself.  I love a few touches of vintage and making it feel like the season inside, even if sometimes I could go outside in a t-shirt.

DIY: Easy Christmas Wreath

I've kind of finally got myself together, I'll post more on that next week because it's awesome and I want everyone to feel the piece of mind that I do, and I've actually got a wreath on my door, for the first time ever.  I have to say that I personally love it.  It makes me so happy to have a greeting for anyone who comes over.  I made this one so that everything can be easily removed and I can reuse the wreath.  Everything I used I already had on hand but you could make this for under $15 including the wreath.  I'm cheap like that!

The wreath is a basic wood one from Hobby Lobby (I used a 40% off coupon so it was around $4).  I had two packages of no break bulbs that I had got from Wal-mart on clearance last year, they only started out $1 each so I'm guessing I picked them up for $.50 each.  I also had clearance ribbon that started out $4.  I glued together the two pine cones (from my backyard) and glued the love birds to them (maybe $3 or $4 full price at Hobby Lobby.)

I wrapped the ribbon around it and used craft wire to attach the bulbs and pine cones.  Simple but pretty.  The pine cones and birds are also used in my kitchen window which kind of ties the house together.  It took me about 20 minutes to assemble.  Also I put the wreath on the door holder and hung it from the back of a kitchen chair.  Then I just sat in the floor with my "helpers" and attached everything.  It made it easy to access the back when I pushed the craft wire through.  So go and whip up a wreath!

Tangled Birthday

Ellie wanted a Tangled birthday party this year and I was more than happy to oblige her.  It was such a fun day and perhaps one of the easiest parties I've done.  The decorations were super easy and lots of fun.  Ready, set, go!

I made a bunting using yellow blanket binding, purple felt and some sun dials that I ordered on Etsy.  I decorated my outside wreath with purple tulle and and more of those sun dials.  Next I made lanterns from balloons.  I got a package of yellow balloons, blew them up and wrapped tissue paper around them.  Using clear craft string and push pins I hung them from the living room ceiling.  I used paint to put suns and names on them before putting them up.  I printed out "Wanted" posters of Flynn Rider and put one outside and a few around the house.  Decorations- done.

Her "cake" was by far the easiest cake I've ever done.  She wanted to decorate cupcakes so I purchased some Wilton flower cupcake holders, and some flower sprinkles.  For her present I got her the Tangled tower, which I put in the middle of the table, it also doubled as her "cake".  Then I surrounded it with some cupcakes that I had topped with green coconut for grass and a few flower sprinkles.  Easiest cake I've ever made.  The girls got to custom make their own cupcakes!

For activities we made Pascal Blowers, colored some printed Tangled pages and decorated hair brushes.  I also sent each girl home with their own set of water color Rapunzel paints. You can find directions for the Pascal Blowers here.  I purchased the little hair brushes at Target for $1 each and we used jewel stickers on them.  It was a lot of fun!  Here are some other great parties that gave me inspiration, Supermom and The Pleated Poppy.

Easiest "cake" ever!

Coconut grass and flowers

It was a neat view from the floor as well.

What better way to let guests know they are at the right place?

The girls got their cupcake decorations from a frying pan of course!

Okay this is really poor picture quality, but you get the idea right?

Star Wars Halloween

I know its past Thanksgiving but nonetheless its time for some costume how-to's because my dear husband configured a computer for me, as in a portable keypad, screen and mouse hooked up to the laptop with a busted screen.  Our main home computer and my notebook crashed in the same weekend and it has been slow going since then.  Thanks for sticking around!  Dale was Han Solo, I was Princess Leia, Ethan was Luke Skywalker, Ellie was C3PO, Regan was Yoda and Jack was Darth Vader or as I like to call him Vant der Baby.  I made all six costumes for about $40.

Han Solo was a comabination of 2 thrift store finds.  I found a tan turtle neck that we cut a slit down the front and then layered a black vest.  The vest I made from a black collared shirt by removing the sleeves, part of the collar and trimming the bottom to make it straight across.  The sewing took me about 15 minutes and the total cost for this one was $5.  Then Dale wore jeans and made "boots" from trash bags.

For Leia I wore jeans and my boots with a long sleeve white shirt.  Then I simply made buns on the sides of my head.  Not exactly what I had planned to wear but it was comfortable and everyone knew who I was oh and it was FREE!

Ethan as Luke skywalker was pretty simple as well.  He wore a white shirt with khaki pants.  He also had a beige cotton type shirt on that was mine.  I made "boots" for him from brown fleece.  Over that we made a utility belt with some tool belt stuff of Dale's and of course he had his light saber.  I really wanted him to be Obi Wan so I could make him a beard but he wouldn't go for it.  Total cost= maybe $1 for the brown fleece.

I'm not sure how I convinced Ellie to be C3PO but the lure of wearing gold earrings sealed the deal.  I free-handed a pattern using some stretchy pants and a long sleeved shirt she had making sure to leave room for seam allowances.  I got 40% off of my $7/yard shiny gold fabric at Hobby Lobby which was awesome because I got 2 yards.  Thanks for the coupon mom!  I made a gold circle thing for the front and for the back I cut a big rectangle and 4 small ones.  I sewed the 4 small ones onto the large one leaving one side open so that I could stuff a bit of polyfil in to give it a raised effect.  Then I sewed it to the back.  She wore gold eyeshadow on her eyes, cheeks and lips.  Which was more for fun, because you can't really tell she has it on, but don't tell her!  Total cost=$10

For Yoda I actually bought the costume from Wal-mart, pulled out the Yoda head and used it as a template.  I already had the green material, but I used an ultra soft plush fabric, pipe cleaners to make sure the ears would hold their shape and velcro for the chin strap.  I made her a brown fleece dress using one of her dresses as a pattern.  Then I used the robe as a template and made a simple hooded robe from some plain cream fabric.  And I know it has a name that starts with a B-not burlap, but I can't remember it to save my life.  I made a belt out of brown fleece to tie it all up.  She wore some fabulous green eye shadow with it. Total cost= $10

Jack's Baby Vader was so easy.  It took maybe 15 minutes to make.  I used a piece of black felt and cut shapes to resemble Vader's box on his chest. I just hot glued the pieces on. Once I got started I wished I had gotten gray instead of white and that I had used a black sharpie to create some shadowing.  I had bought his fall hoodie in black wih this purpose in mind, knowing he would be able to use it for both purposes.  I took some black fleece and sewed on a cape (which took me about 2 minutes to remove and turn the jacket back to the good side.)  I used safety pins to hold the felt square in place.  We used a little red flashlight wand as his lightsaber, which had a string to keep it around his neck. Total cost $2 ($17 if you include the cost of the jacket itself.)

That's it!  We had so much fun trick or treating this year.  We are really looking forward to next year as well.  With 4 kids we got a ton of candy.  The cool thing about so much candy was donating a huge portion of it to Blue Star Mothers.  So proud of the kids for not being selfish and not whining one bit about donating their candy.  Feel free to leave a comment if you have any costume questions.  Sorry for the poor picture quality, these are all unedited and the lighting is frankly pretty crappy!

She actually kept the ears on the whole time we were out!

Really wish I had gotten gray, but I think its cool nonetheless

Just a bit of fleece, pin and sew.  I even used the thread that was already in the machine-brown, and no one knew, until now!

Regan was my nap time Darth model

Yes Yoda has pink cowgirl boots and a Tinkerbell backpack on.  The backpack was perfect for candy collecting.  She would say Trick or Treat and then turn around!

Come on Darth Baby its time to go Trick or Treating!

Ethan took this picture, not bad for an 8 year old :)

She is showing you the back.  If she would have worn it I would have made her a head piece, but lets face it she's 6 :)

Love these boys!

Han Solo and listening to a chatty C3PO