Category Archives: budget

Spooky Tree…A New Tradition

Posted on by

Last year as I was toodling around Goodwill I came upon this crazy looking metal tree. I had seen this piece in a magazine at some point and remembered it was an Easter decoration with decorated eggs hanging from it.

While I didn’t want an egg holder, I did want a spooky tree for Halloween. I bought the tree for $2.99 and brought it home. To say my husband was skeptical is an understatement. But as usual he gave me an unsure nod and said nothing. Thanks Derek!

I sprayed the piece black and let the kids decorate it. They spent a fair amount of time one Saturday morning working on it.

The main decorations were foam Halloween stickers – pumpkins, bats, and ghosts. They also included a mummy they printed out along with some homemade tombstones. The tombstones are made of a foam board covered with felt with letter stickers to create the R.I.P. messages.

I cut out a witch silhouette from foam board to add to the very top.

This year we were able to take out our spooky tree and redecorate it – a fun new tradition. It now sits on its new home, our dining room table…at least until Nov 1.

How’s your Halloween decorating going?

Pennant Bunting

Posted on by

These are the windows in our office / playroom/ game room. They looked a little bare so I decided to spruce them up.

So here’s what I came up with:

The bunting has some pops of turquoise in it which matches with other bits of turquoise in the room.

I chose to use fabrics I had in my stash and stayed in the blue and orange families. After ironing the fabric I was ready to cut out my triangles.

I am an impatient crafter so I wanted to make this banner as quick as possible. I initially used a piece of cardboard that I had cut into a long triangle. FAILURE – this did not work. I cannot eyeball a triangle. I kept snipping away at it, after every few triangles I cut, and finally decided I needed a new plan.

I marched upstairs to my computer, printed out this triangle on card stock, and cut it out. My new template worked great.

Her’s a sampling on my fabric pieces. This picture is actually from the first few triangles which are not shaped like I wanted.

Roughly every six inches I pinned triangles to a long pieces of think white trim.

I then sewed two simple straight (ok, curvy) lines across the top and bottom of the trim.

Simply hung it with push pins after.

I love this so much that I’m thinking of all the places I could place pennant buntings in my house…Caroline’s room, on the stairs, a Christmas bunting, a birthday bunting, ……gotta go cut some triangles.

Hair

Posted on by

Have you ever had this problem?

I’m going to get my hair colored tomorrow and I’m trying to come up with an excuse.

It’s actually worse than it looks.

I have a good two inches of brown hair followed by 8 inches of blonde hair. Oh so attractive

I know what’s going to happen when I enter the salon. A disgusted colorist will look at me repulsively while I say, “I know its been four months since I’ve been here but I was kind of busy.”

Crickets.

“I was trying to save some money so I waited to come in a little longer than usual.”

Crickets.

“I made sure to wear a hat all the time.”

Crickets.

“I actually never left the house during the last two months of this debacle.”

So I’ve been brainstorming..I think I’ll get a different look this time.

“While visiting a friend in Africa I was kidnapped and forced to marry a Zulu prince. But I escaped two weeks later when I jumped out of our canoe and battled a crocodile while getting to shore. I then came across military forces who took me into their operation and trained me to become a gunner until I met a young woman I thought I could trust. Turns out she was recruiting women to become geishas and I was just what they were looking for. I was the headline performer at the Sumo National Championships. Thankfully an audience member recognized me from a television appearance and was able to pay for my freedom. I just returned to the US this morning and this was my first stop.”

I’m betting this will get me a full highlight for the price of a partial.

Do you ever need excuses for your hair?

A Look Back at Our Halloween Costumes

Posted on by

As we are narrowing down our costume choices for this year, I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane at our past Halloween costumes.

Through the years the kids have come to expect me to make their costumes and believe I can make just about any character. While that may not be true and some of the costumes may be simple, I love making these and seeing their faces as they put them on.

2003
Kermit the Frog
 (green pants, green shirt, felt details, fabirc covered hat with half ping pong balls)
 
 
 
2004
Fireman
(pants, rain boots, raincoat, fire hat)
 
 
 2005
Winnie the Pooh & Roo
 
(Pooh: While shopping in Babies R Us one morning with the boys, Alex decided he wanted to try on the Winnie the Pooh costume. I put the one piece on him, zipped him up, and let him look in the mirror. When I went to get him out of the costume, the zipper stuck. I mean, would. not. budge! I tried and tried to get him out of the costume. I ended up getting scissors from a clerk and cutting him out. I now had to buy the costume and was now the proud of two pieces of a costume with a broken zipper. When I took the costume into Hancock Fabrics to ask if there was anyone I could pay to fix the costume, an employee took pity on me and fixed the costume for free. So that’s how Alex ended up being Winnie the Pooh for Halloween).
(Roo: Since we already had a Pooh I decided we needed a Roo. Andrew’s costume is actually a monkey costume with a blue shirt I wrote on over the costume).
 
 
 
2006
A Pirate and a Parrot
 
(Parrot: green overalls with Kermit the frog shirt from 2003, red hat, felt feathers in front and back connected by pins and elastic at the wrists)
(Pirate: shirt with iron on transfer, hat was bought, the rest of the costume (belt, hook, & pants were inherited from my sister’s college days – the pants were originally a skirt I altered from the original costume)
 
 
2007
A Saints football player & Curious George and the Man with the Yellow Hat
 
(Saints player: costume was given to Alex)
(Curious George: brown track suit, hat covered in brown felt with fabric ears I made, candy bucket was brown fabric covering the bucket with felt bananas attached)
(Man with Yellow Hat: yellow shirt from Goodwill, felt tie, felt covering a hat with rulers underneath to keep it standing up)

2008

Costume Party

Pirate & Captain Rex from Star Wars
(pirate costume with beard, store bought costume for Captain Rex – it killed me to buy this costume but I did it because he wanted it desperately)
 
 
 
Halloween Night
Captain Rex and Peter Pan
 
(Peter Pan was a store bought costume too – I caved in Party City)
 
 
 
 
2009
Night at the Museum Costumes
 
 (Sacagawea: brown material with added fringe & turquoise beads I sewed on)
(Larry Daley: regular clothes with name tag that read “Larry”)
(Fighter Pilot: not technically in the movie – consignment store costume)
(Teddy Roosevelt: brown pants, brown shirt, glasses, and belt from Goodwill, cowboy hat bought)
 
 
 
 
2010
Burger King, Dairy Queen, a Werewolf, Little Red Riding Hood, and a Ninja
 
(King & Queen: bathrobes from Goodwill with added fur trim, hat made from cardboard and silver tape, signs were made from sticky felt)
(Werewolf: regular clothes torn up with fur sewed into the clothes)
(Little Red Riding Hood: red skirt, white shirt, tights, consignment shoes, gingham fabric with red trim)
(Ninja: black pants & shirt, top shirt was fabric with hole cut out over head and tied with black fabric, black fabric wrapped around his head)

2011

??????????

What are some of your favorite Halloween costumes you remember?

Making Todays Creative Blog Weekend Bloggy Reading Tuesday To Do Party

Free Museum Day – Saturday September 24

Posted on by

Two years ago we visited the  the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas. Now a plane is a plane is a plane to me. But to the boys (including my husband) this place was wonderful because of its various aircraft and in depth aviation history section. I, on the other hand, only thought it was wonderful since it was free. We went on the national Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day.

Tomorrow it is happening again all over the US.

Each of the 50 states has one or more museums participating. Just in the Dallas area alone there are 10 museums participating.


The one catch to this program is that you have to have a ticket which was printed out from the website. You cannot show up to the museum empty handed hoping to get in for free.

Each ticket you download is good for two people. Make sure you read through the site in order to download your ticket and to receive your confirmation emails. Remember, no ticket, no free entrance.

Here’s a shot of what the form looks like in order to get your tickets.

For more information concerning free museum day visit the Smithsonian Magazine website here.

For a list of museums participating in free museum day go here.

***You must have a printed ticket that you printed at home in order to get the free admission*****

Hope some of you are able to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity!

Halloween Mantle with a Halloween Printable

Posted on by

After much pleading by our six year old, we made the trek upstairs to dig our Halloween decorations out of the storage closet. The kids spent many happy hours playing with plastic spiders and assembling a mini skeleton. I was overjoyed that I was able to have our house decorations up  in a little over an hour.

Here’s our Halloween mantle:

Today I will share with you three of the elements of the mantle – the bats & branches, the books, and the banner. Plus I have a printable, so keep reading.

First up, the bats and branches.

My challenge for the mantle each time I decorate it is to add height to the decorations. Our ceilings in this room are two stories tall so I try and have our display be on the same large scale.

The spray painted branches were used in previous holiday mantles. During Christmas they held ornaments while during Valentine’s they held hearts. Tuesday To Do Party

The bats were cut out of black construction paper last Halloween but were never used for a project so I thought they would be perfect taped to the trees.

The spooky books are simply books covered in white paper and taped together. It was frightening how many gorey words my two oldest could come up with in when faced with the task of creating titles for these books. I insisted we tone it down for the display.

Last year I created the “Trick or Treat” banner by cutting out orange triangles, pasting white circles with letters on it, and adding stickers for the symbols. After I modge podged it, poked holes in it and strung it by a ribbon, it was finally completed. Frankly, tons of work.

I wanted to create a printable for you and figured this would be easy to recreate. In fact, it was so easy, I’m going to create all my banners this way. 

The printable I created for you consist of 12 separate Halloween symbol triangles and 8 separate triangles with letters which will spell out “trick or treat“. You will need to print out the letters t and r multiple times.


I printed out the symbols on card stock, cut holes on the sides, and attached with string.

Here are five triangles which were chosen by my six year old to display by our entrance.  (Uhhh,yes…dirty mirror alert.)

If you’d like the Trick or Treat banner printable please click here.

*Please consider becoming a follower of Big D & Me if you decide to print the banner*

Wednesday I will share with you how I made the large Macbeth sign and the glittered skulls.

Do you have any favorite Halloween decorations in your home this year?

Making Todays Creative Blog Weekend Bloggy Reading

No Cost Organizing

Posted on by

I desperately want to be organized but I have one huge obstacle blocking my path toward achieving this goal.

Toys.

The amount of toys we have is mind boggling. If that’s not bad enough, there’s the fact that each of those toys comes with twelve million little pieces.

If you’ve ever been sitting at your child’s birthday party silently cursing the guest’s parents due to the gift that they brought, than you understand.

Or maybe you are more familiar with the midnight walk into your child’s room where you wince with pain due to a stray lego head or miniature cow.

Either way, cursing is involved and I needed to take action.

And this action needed to be free.

So I looked around my kitchen and settled on a recently emptied pickle jar.

I cleaned the jar with soap and water and applied Goo Gone on the remaining sticky bits. I let the Goo Gone sit for awhile and then scrapped it off using a rough sponge and water.

Two salsa jars and one pickle jar later our game pieces were organized.

Now the bouncy balls, dice, and bingo chips have a designated home in our game closet and are joyfully missing from every nook and cranny of our house.

One of those annoying birthday present were Mighty Beans. Thankfully they now have a contained place to reside on my son’s top shelf.

Not to be left out, our kitchen shelf holds our BoxTops jar. For complete disclosure I want to let you know all of these Box Tops were taken off of vegetables and fruits. Huh, never heard of Box Tops on those items? Must be only our store that does it.

Now if only my kids would hurry up and eat jelly and pickles on their eggs I could have another jar for organizing.

Do you have any cheap organizing ideas that have worked for you?

Coffee Table Change

Posted on by

Early last year I was walking around the Salvation Army when I spotted a $27.00 coffee table. The furniture caught my attention because it was quite large – 42 inches in diameter! At the time all five of us were living in an 800 sq.ft. apartment so this was not the ideal piece of furniture for me to pick up. However, I knew we would be moving into our much larger house within months and it was going to be in desperate need of a large coffee table. Hard to find for cheap. Soooooo…I bought it and it has remained as is for over a year.

Our 13 year old rug and Salvation Army coffee table

Besides just being a coffee table, this furniture is used as an ottoman, a toy holder, a cartoon watching seat, base during tag, and the origin for many leaps of faith to the couch.

Here’s the new and improved living room

Newly covered coffee table & two 5 x 8 IKEA rugs

I chose the bold graphic since it was similar to the one used in our connected kitchen

Here’s what we did to the coffee table

Took the fabric off and sanded down the wood

Stained the furniture – wore gloves for the messy job

Used the old fabric as a template for cutting the new fabric

The fabric is by Annie Selke and its called Links Indigo. I bought it through JoAnn’s fabric store when it was on sale for 60% off).

Used staple gun to secure fabric.

Sprayed scotchguard on the fabric

Hot glued the remaining edge down.

Cursed when I cut the fabric too close to the edge

Viola – this too can be yours in four short weeks

On the new IKEA carpet

Placed in its perfect spot

Perfect to jump to the couch from it

Perfect to jump to the chair from it

Just perfect

Next up – new pillows!

I have piles of fabric just waiting to be used.

Have you improved upon any old furniture lately?

******Remember to enter my giveaway which ends Thursday night******

Tuesday To Do Party Todays Creative Blog

Jewelry Holder

Posted on by

I love necklaces but never seem to wear them since they are always at the bottom of my jewelry bag.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Therefore, I decided to make a jewelry holder which allowed me to view my collection.

Several months ago I found an old spice rack at Goodwill for $2.99. I originally bought the rack with the intention of using it for storage in my craft room but eventually decided against it.

Yes, someone else attempted some lovely DIY before me.

First step – Sanded the piece down

Second step – Cut off the middle shelf and dowel to allow for the necklaces to hang

Cutting the shelf left holes so wood putty was used to fill them

Third step – Paint (primer from the garage), add hooks ($3.94), and secure to closet wall

Fourth step – Hang jewelery

The little shelves allow me to display bracelets and gives me a place for my earrings in boxes 

Before

After $6.93

Hopefully, I’ll wear more jewelry now that I will see it every day

Do you have a favorite way to display jewelry?

Todays Creative Blog Tuesday To Do Party Creations by Kara

CARS Bingo & Party

Posted on by

When Alex turned 5 four years ago he requested a CARS party.

It was tons of fun and fairly easy to put together.

Since it was a race car party we needed a race track cake. The track is made of black sugar crystals while the side boards are cardboard. We made the “start” and “finish” signs and placed some of his hot wheels on the cake.

Race Car Birthday Cake

The first activity of the party was to take some Crayola Air-Dry Clay and use it to form their own race cars. This activity didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked. Some of the kids were not satisfied with their creations and complained since it didn’t look like Lightning McQueen.

While the clay didn’t go over so well, the bean bag toss was a huge hit. We took a large piece of wood, cut 5 holes in them, and modged podged some large CARS stickers on with various point values underneath. HUGE HIT with the 5 year old crowd.

Creating Cars from Air-Dry Clay
Bean Bag Toss

Another favorite outdoor activity was “The Big Race.” Alex and I decorated 2 diaper boxes and turned them into cars. Alex put race numbers on them as well as headlights and wheels. Two at at a time the kids raced around the yard usually laughing the entire time. The plastic helmets I bought added to the excitement.

“The Big Race”
Little Brother wants to play too

After running around the backyard the kids were ready for an inside activity. I made the CARS Bingo cards, laminated them, and created call cards. I went a little over board and created 15 individual cards. All of the kids loved the bingo game and played several rounds.

CARS Bingo Game
It’s a Printable!

Would you like a copy of the CARS BINGO game?

Please go here & print a copy.

Please consider becoming a follower of Big D and Me if you decide to download the game

Having difficulty downloading? Contact me and I’ll email you a copy.

Todays Creative BlogTuesday To Do Party A Crafty Soiree Weekend Bloggy Reading