Category Archives: crafts

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I just got back yesterday from a week long trip to Canada and am quite tired.

However, I did manage to get myself to a store today.

Our pantry was bare, the freezer empty, and a lone carton of inedible blueberries sat in the fridge.

Naturally, my first stop was to the craft store.

Eight days without a single moment of crafting is unheard of around here.

After landing, I managed to wait sixteen whole hours before I stuck my foot into my heaven on earth.

The trip started out innocent enough.

I was just going to return a few items.

Somehow this happened.

I needed them.

I had to have them.

They were on SALE.

Now you understand.

My husband not so much.

****************************************************************************

In other news, Elizabeth is featuring my Halloween party food on her Act Fast Chef blog today.

 

Go on over and check out her blog for some great recipes.

Have a great weekend!

Spooky Tree…A New Tradition

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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?

Sunny Vanilla Guest Post

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I recently discovered the blog Sunny Vanilla and am extremely glad I did. Jen’s blog is filled with original crafty projects using both fabric and paper. I love her fabric choices and only dream of bring able to sew like her. Some of my favorite projects on Sunny Vanilla are making a book with fingerprints,  how to sew a father’s day book, her summertime purse,  cocktail coasters, and how to make  a $7 skirt,  Make sure you check out Jen’s Etsy shop too.

Today Jen has been kind enough to share a craft with us using a material almost everyone has in their house. In fact, I buy four of these each week to quench the thirst of my three growing kids. Intrigued?

Take it away Jen…..

Hey everyone! I’m Jen from Sunny Vanilla and I’ll be hanging out with you all today. A tid bit about me…When I’m not sewing or crafting, I’m swatting mosquitos and sweating buckets over in the Sunshine State. I like to call this place home 😉 I married my HS sweetheart (I know, roll your eyes) and after a long, long, long time, we finally settled down and had a little girl we like to call our nugget. I’m a simple, beachy kind of girl who lives in shorts and flip flops. I think laughter is the best medicine of all, aside for maybe a really good bargain shopping spree. It’s nice “meeting” all of you!

I’ve got a little tutorial for you that I think you’re going to love. It’s simple, super inexpensive, and one that your kids may enjoy doing too! Enjoy!!!

I’m not sure about your family, but we go through milk around here like it’s going out of style.  So naturally we have tons of milk cartons {we really should just put a cow in our backyard}.  Well, I started saving the rings on the top of the carton thinking I could use them for something.  Enter the napkin ring!


To get started with your napkin rings, you will need the following {a glue gun will work too}: 

Glue two milk carton rings together like this.

Cut approximately 28 in. of ribbon.  
Once the glue has dried, add a small dab of glue to the inside of the ring and attach the end of the ribbon there. 

Begin to wrap the ribbon around the ring, making sure to keep it nice and tight.  Overlap as you go.


Once you’ve completed the ring, add another small dab of glue to the inside of the ring.  Cut your ribbon and press firmly into the glue.

Now you have a napkin ring!  You can leave it alone or embellish it however you’d like.

I took a scrap piece of fabric and made a little bow tie with it.  

Then I glued a couple of buttons to the top for a finished look.

You could also use tulle…

…or just the buttons themselves.



Now you have a set of four napkin rings ready for your next party!

Thanks Jen – Go check out Sunny Vanilla for a crafty read

Pennant Bunting

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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.

Halloween Mantle Part 2

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This is the second part of our mantle how-tos. If you would like to see part one, go here.

FYI – I don’t feel too well and my daughter didn’t nap this afternoon so this will be short and sweet. I’m sure I will be back and wordy soon.

On Monday I shared how I made the spooky books, the branches and bats, and the banner. Part one includes a free printable of the banner.

Today we’re going to start off with the glittered skull.

I saw several versions of the glittered skull in stores but couldn’t decide which one I liked best so I waited until inspiration struck.

While browsing the Habitat for Humanity store I found two candlesticks, each for $1.00. When I saw them I instantly knew they were perfect for my skull project.

I also bought a foam skull from the craft store for $3.50 (with coupon). Sliver glitter is shown but I also mixed it with equal parts orange glitter once I started. And any good crafting project always uses Mod Podge.

First step: Brush some mod podge onto the skull – I found it best to cover about a quarter of the skull at a time.

Pour glitter over the mod podge.

Once the entire skull is covered with glitter and completely dry spray with surface sealer (found at craft store).

Hot glue the skull to the never touched perfect as is when bought candlesticks. Told you I wouldn’t be wordy.

My two completed glitter skulls sit on the extreme left and right of the mantle. Smaller versions of these skulls would also be fun to attach to a Halloween wreath.

Next up, the Three Witches  stamp art in the large frame.

As with the branches, I needed some height in the middle of the display so I used a frame I had stored in my closet. The skeleton directly in front of the frame was from a candle party I went to a long time ago.

I contemplated writing the “Three Witches” but decided against it because I was worried I would slant the ends of each sentence if I used a marker. In reality using the stamps presented the same problem. I did end up slanting a bit but I think it looks fine.

I took out my stamps from when I taught in the classroom and went to work late one night. It’s really a simple project but I think the variations in ink make the paper look a little old. This stamping turned out really well when I used it in a Thanksgiving display too.

I created a printable of the same scene which you can download here.


So I think that covers the mantle and the how to’s.

(The large spider web on the left is actually an outdoor light I bought on clearance a few years ago. The “31” is just a quick print out and framed. The haunted house is from a store in Wisconsin which I bought last year during a sisters weekend. The splashes of purple are Mardi Gras beads placed in flower jars.)

So in the end I was a tad wordy.

I’ll leave you with a quick Halloween joke. Enjoy.

Why was the skeleton afraid to cross the road?
It had no guts…:)

Weekend Bloggy Reading

Halloween Mantle with a Halloween Printable

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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

Coffee Table Change

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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

Kitchen Printables

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This post was first published when I guest posted on Darling Doodles.

Today I am sharing with you three printables I made for our kitchen gallery wall.

Before I show you these prints I want you to understand that the art on my kitchen wall is on the cheesey groan inducing side. (I can hear the accolades now – “Yeah, she made us cheesey printables”). I would like to have some grown up sentimental art but it’s just not me. Instead I have prints I have bought which say, “You Are My Hot Pot,” and “You are the Syrup to my Pancakes.”

So ready or not consider yourself warned. If you are looking for Pottery Barn, you’ve come to the wrong place.

My first printable is a 4 x 6 message  – I think it speaks for itself.

My second printable is a 5 x 7 print. When I found this saying I knew it was meant for my family.

The third print is another 5 x 7 with a sweet little message but one that I always insist on exaggerating, “I luuuuurvvve you.”

Olive YouHere’s a peek at my kitchen gallery wall.

Hop on over to Big D & Me where I will soon be revealing the kitchen art wall and sharing where the other art work is from (hint: Etsy!)

Update: Here are three more kitchen printables

Give Thanks

Lettuce Turnip the Beet (Let Us Turn Up the Beat)

Cultured Yogurt


Click on the printables pictures in order to download a copy for yourself

If you decide to download a picture, please consider becoming a Big D & Me follower

Go here for the art wall revealed

Tuesday To Do Party Todays Creative BlogChic on a Shoestring Decorating Weekend Bloggy Reading

Fun with Rolls

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The last week of summer vacation was a little bit of a challenge in our family.

Everyone had been around each other just a little too long.

Arguements errupted for no reason, whining occurred at record amounts, and my patience was shot.

I knew I needed a project for the boys to work on so I scowered my house for ideas.

When I came across these fabric tubes in my guest room I was inspired.

Presenting..the Two Story Challenge

Using these tubes, get your hot wheels cars downstairs without using the steps.

And no, you may not throw your cars down.

After removing the fabric from the rolls, they got right to work.

A simple design was developed and executed using lots of duck tape

3…2…1….Go!

The tubes were taken apart at one point due to the two year stuffing objects at the top

Towels were placed at the bottom of the chute in order to protect the floor

A few hours into the challenge the basket was added

The basket was a necessary component to rest their weary legs

Eventually the picture was removed for fear of car and basket damage

If we ever need to get water from a well my kids are ready

This entertained my kids for three days! Obviously there were interuptions due to meals,  trips to the pool, and sports practices but listen to me when I say THREE DAYS!

There was even talk of adding a loop next time.

Go beg, borrow, or steal some fabric tubes from your local fabric store!