Washing Machine for Halloween

My sweet boy loves to do laundry (please Lord let that continue), so when I asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween, he obviously said "a washing ah-chine."

Ask and you shall receive my main man.

It was super easy to make.

98% of my shopping is done online, so I have surplus of boxes. I'm a crafter, so I have about 8,029 cans of spray paint. The other "stuff" like the knob and the plastic plates were a buck each at the dollar store. The costume, in total, was $2.00.

My little buttercup was not fond of her Giraffe costume, but she rocked a ballerina costume the day after Halloween.

Halloween is the best.

Half Birthday

Today my little dude is 7 months old. I know it's cliche, but time really does fly. Each day The Hubs reminds me to live in the moment. Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about the future, we forget to appreciate what's happening right in front of us and sometimes what's in front of us goes so quickly.

But enough with the sentimental stuff, not really my thing, but this kid brings out some weird shit in me.

Last month, we celebrated 6 months of Little Dude's life with a party. I searched Pinterest and the regular ol interwebs for hours trying to make this the most adorable, quaint little party possible. The entire party was inspired by a wonderful post I found on Pinterest. Hank and Hunt shared some amazing ideas. I don't even come close to doing justice to the party this girl put on. Check it out.

Here's Little Dude waiting patiently for his family to arrive.

And the set up. I used the stairwell to the basement as my backdrop. Really for no other reason than that it was the only possible spot in the entire house to hang these friggin awesome circle thingies (i.e. construction paper hot glued on to coordinating ribbon)

The half cake...get it? Of course you do.

The Hubs decorated these Half Sized cupcakes (okay, so they're just mini cupcakes, but that doesn't go with the damn theme). If you ask me, the sprinkles really set these apart from any other mini, ahem, Half Sized cupcakes I've ever seen.

Little Dude enjoying some time with Grammy.

Those awesome little springy thingamajigs on his cake last about 2.8 seconds after this photo. Oops.

Because it was only a half birthday and the chances of Little Dude remembering any of it were slim, I didn't want to spend too much cheddah on the decorations, so I bought things from the dollar store and scoured my craft supplies to come up with everything you see. (longest run-on sentence ever? perhaps.) I bought boxed cake (to save time and my sanity...I get so nervous baking stuff from scratch. Not once has anything turned out edible). I bought tablecloths, plates, napkins, balloons, cups and straws from the DS and everything else I already had.

Such a sweet afternoon with the boy and the family. Ah, memories. Wonderful.

<3 dani

Easter Bucket

Remember back in the good ol' days when finding something with your name printed on it was like the coolest? Or maybe you were one of those kids who could never find anything with your name on it because your parents clearly didn't think that far ahead when naming you...(I am one of those parents).

Luckily for my little guy, the internet, Etsy and vinyl die cutters exists, otherwise the closest thing to a personalized item he'd get would be an off-centered, puffy painted, white t-shirt that I, most likely, wouldn't let dry long enough, so the paint would smear all over. Yeah.

Instead he gets this cool thing.

Even though in my mind it was a novel idea, apparently I'm not the first one to think of this. I went to Etsy and did a search for "easter bucket" and this is what I found. I realized two things: first, some are way overpriced; second, I could totally make one on my own with a little help.

All I had to do was buy the bucket (Dollar Store), grab the ribbon from my craft supplies (reused from a diaper cake) and search Etsy to find a shop that would make the name decal (Design Threadz -- all I did was give my dimensions and BAM I had my own listing. That's service.)  the correct size and finally order it!

I ordered the bath sticker toys here.

Love Love Love.

<3 dani

Fall Mantle

This year's fall mantle looks rather similar to last year's mantle. That's mostly because my brain is in pregnant mode and my creativity has been spent on the nursery. Nonetheless, I think it looks beautiful and it was inexpensive.

Most of the decor I had from years past, but I picked up a few things at Michael's with my 20% off coupon. Including the candles and flowers. The books were gifts from my sister-in-law. PS -- old books look great with any decor. Try it. I use the books my sis gave me in just about every room in the house. Obsessed!

Here are the dollar store pumpkins and garland I snagged last year. I should have bought all the pumpkins when I had the chance. I went back this year to get some for my momma and of course they didn't have them. We'll never see these cute little pumpkins again.

And the beautiful flower bundles i bought for 80% off.

There you have it. Simple, cheap, and purdy.

<3 dani

New Cover for a New Tushy

I'm lucky enough to have great friends that are hooking me UP with baby gear.

When I got my lovely changing table I had to do two very easy things. First, spray paint it white. Next, find a cover for the pad. Easy right? Totally.

Except pad covers are crazy expensive...at least in my frugal opinion.

So instead of buying these, I found some inexpensive fabric and made my own. I hope this tutorial does justice to the simplicity of this project.

You'll need:

1 yd fabric
pins
scissors
sewing machine
a changing pad to cover ;-)

First I laid out my yard of fabric over my pad (inside out of course).

Then I wrapped it up and pinned it down.

I literally pinned it into the pad so the pattern didn't get off-center on me. I'm all about symmetry. I'll take these pins out once I get my sewing edges pinned up nicely. Above shows the pins down the middle. Below shows the pins along the edges. 

The corners were a tad difficult, but I just pretended I was wrapping a present and bam, got it. Make sure to pin right up next to pad here because this is the part that you'll actually sew.

I trimmed off any excessive fabric to prevent bunching. 

I left the back open like a pillow sham.

Once you've got the two ends pinned snuggly, you can take out the pins on the rest of the pad. You'll have to take the fabric off using the flap you left on the bottom. It gets tricky here, but take it sloooow and steady.

Once it's off, the rest is easy. Just sew a line on either pinned end and done. Flip it so the inside is now in and finagle it back on the pad.

Nice, right?

As for the rest of the changing table fix-in's. The top baskets are from Michael's. 40% + 15% (love the teacher discount) off totaling $15. The bottom baskets were a buck each at the Dollar Store.

The rest of the nursery will be revealed soon!

<3 dani

big shout-out to my friend Tyler who subtly reminded me how much I love blogging my crafty-ness. 

What's in a Name?

I've been waiting to make this Burlap Name Meaning Sign (from Full of Great Ideas ) for quite a while. The waiting was mostly the result of not having burlap or a frame. And truthfully, I didn't know who I wanted to make one for.

I never did get any burlap and instead I put my used ground coffee on a piece of 8x11 cardstock, smeared it around and let it dry. Once it fully dried, I dusted the coffee off and here it is. Same rustic feel with a different texture. Dig it?

Next I found a website that gave detailed name explanations, copied and pasted what I wanted into Word, picked a rustic looking font and printed it out.

Then I framed 'em.

I could have made one for everyone in the family if I had realized how easy this was!

Also, for people with unusual names or spellings, these are great.

<3 dani

Linkin' Up

Bulb Ornament Wreath - Ish

I say 'ish' because I could easily add another package of ornaments, buuut it might be a while before I head back out to the madness that is the mall. Even my Dollar Store was a shopping disaster.

Is it wrong that I have a sense of ownership over the Dollar Store that I frequent? In my head, I caught myself saying to the herd of shoppers, "Don't even act like you guys love this place. I know better. I'm here all the time and I've never seen you before!" Possessive? Absolutely.

Oops, little sidetracked there. Anyway, about the wreath. I love it. And for roughly $5, it makes my crafty heart pitter patter. Check the little guy out.

Here's whatcha need:

Tons of ornaments (when you think you've got enough, get more)
Wreath Form
Ribbon
Hot Glue
Paint

And it wouldn't be Dollar Store material if it didn't have some personality

Just in case you don't know if you want to hang it from the top...or the side. That's my Dollar Store...always givin' me options.

Okay, then I painted the wreath form in case my covering wasn't sufficient. Black seemed to do the trick.

Then I just started gluing. If I was smart, I would have looked at a tutorial that one of my bloggy friends created, but nope, too cool for that.

This is about the time I discovered I didn't have enough ornaments. I pulled what I could from our tree (no ones looks at the back anyway tee hee), then ran downstairs and grabbed some old ones. Not the right color. Good thing I didn't put the black paint away.

Eventually, I came up with this.

Not quite circular. Kinda pretty though. In a non-circular kinda way.

What's the likelihood that I actually get more ornaments to fill this little guy up?

<3 dani



Loads of creativity where I LINK UP



Momma's Challenge: Cheap Ghost Wreath

The Momma bought some inexpensive ghost yard ornaments. They were inexpensive for a couple of reasons. Namely, when assembled they look like this:

Inexpensive or not, she couldn't put these up in her yard. She'd be laughed outta the neighborhood. So of course, she handed them off to me and said, "You want 'em? I mean, there's probably nothing you can do with them anyway. I'll just throw them out." Oh no she ditint! Reverse psychology definitely works on me. I took them and told her that comment was a challenge. I would definitely find something to do with these cheap ugly ghosts.

Here's what I came up with and what you'll need:

a few ghosts (you can use cheap ones from the store or make them from scratch)
black crepe paper
orange crepe paper
dollar store wreath
hot glue
black fabric scraps

I began by wrapping the DS wreath in black crepe paper. You could spray paint it black and skip this step, but I'm too cheap to buy more black spray paint.

I made up a few ugly ghosts and glued them on.

Wrapped it in scraps of black fabric.

Made and glued on some orange crepe paper flowers.

Better than the yard ornaments, yeah? High Five?!

So booyah, Momma! Challenge accepted! and won!

LINKIN' UP

The Second Life of a Book: Wreath

Book wreaths; I've seen these everywhere lately and there's no denying how gorgeous they are. But who knew they are so simple and CHEAP too?!

As you know, I'm redecorating our master bedroom. I put myself on a strict budget. Ready for this?...$30. Yes, that's right. Thirty smackeroos. Any free (or almost free) project makes me salivate. Especially when the Momma confirmed that the current display above the headboard was...how did she put it...'too much!" Hopefully, the wreath will be a little more subtle in our new master bedroom.

There are tons of tutorials out there and I've read about half of them and this is what I used:

Dollar Store Styrofoam Wreath
Book - roughly 175 pages (I took it off my book shelf. I have no idea how it got there or if it's any good and I never planned to find out. We all have one or two of these in our library, right?)
Hot Glue Gun
Pins
Paint & Brush (or paper towel, whatevs)

I started by lightly dry brushing the edges of the book with paint. You could skip this step or replace it with this step from Rachelle at Fingerprints on the Fridge. I went with white paint, I know, risky! Hey, I live on the edge, what can I say. While I waited for the edges to dry I hauled all of my supplies up to the living room and set up -- there was a football game on. I'll sacrifice using my newly refurbed craft area in order to hang with the Hubs and watch football. So romantic, right?

Start with the bottom layer, a.k.a. the layer that will be touching the wall. I rolled and slightly crimped three or four book pages at a time. I tried to mix up the pattern on my rolls and crimps to avoid making it looke too uniform.I dropped a bead of hot glue down and attached the book pages, over the glue, with pins.

Like so.

The three pages you see in the front aren't attached. That's how I stashed my on-deck pages. Also, I think I should have glued the pages a little tighter together. It would have saved me a lot of filling later. 

Here's the back, completely covered. I flipped it over and grabbed the closest heavy object to flatten it a bit. The wood pile was right next to me, so on goes a log.

Next I started with the middle row. For this row, I folded the rolled paper about 1/4 of the way up and attached it to the wreath at the fold. The point of folding is to keep the book pages semi-even. If you don't fold, I'm sure a little extra scrunching at the end will even them out.

This is when I should have made a second middle row, but instead I moved right to the top and final row. Again, I folded them about 1/4 of the way up. The purpose of this fold was to give a little curve on the inside hole of the wreath.

At this point, I was practically done. The only thing left was to fill in any gaps. I wasn't meticulous about this part. I just filled spots where I could see the wreath (which was basically an entire new middle row). Then I scrunched to open the pages a bit. 

Here's the final product. So George-Us.

mmm...fluff

You have to try this!

<3 dani

LINKIN UP

*If you can dig it, follow JDitB. There's more where this came from...until I run out of fabulous ideas...which is, at least, another three or four days ;-)