Category Archives: decorations

Outside Set

Posted on by

I don’t even tell my husband when I’m planning on a trip to the resale store.

It just stresses him out.

He begins envisioning long hours behind a sander and even more time with a paint brush in hand.

A few weeks ago I went and saw this for $39.99. (There were two cushions and a piece of glass,  I just forgot to take a picture before I started working on the set.)

I asked the guy if that was his final offer.

He said, “You can have it for $29.99 as long as you take it away today.”

Done.

Honestly, I have no idea if it was a decent bargain or not, I just knew I needed a place to park my rear end while my kids are playing outside. (Yes, I play with my kids outside but there are days when this mommy just wants to sit and flip through a magazine too.)

Please pardon the enormous, in your face pictures, I was having some technical difficulties (a.k.a. I wanted to hurry up and watch The Real Housewives).

Did I take the time to sand this puppy? No I did not.

I simply sprayed him with an outdoor gray spray and called it done.

I also found an outdoor fabric I loved for the chairs and placed it right over the existing green covers.

The final project on our new deck.

My rear end gives this project two cheeks up! Awful, I know.

Have you finished any recent house projects?

Thankful Turkey

Posted on by

This was originally posted last November when only 3 people read my blog – I will have our turkey ready for this Nov 1st as the kids have come to expect it now that this will be our third year sharing our thanks this way.

With the upcoming holidays I find my kids increasingly thinking about what they can get – i.e. video games or enormous toys. Therefore they have not set foot in a toy store since August and I hoard all toy catalogs that come to the house. I’ve been trying to really make it a point in the last year or two to help them think of others and be thankful for what they have.

Last year I made “Tom the Turkey” to help remind us that we are indeed lucky in many ways. I made Tom out of brown bags from the grocery store (yes I know cloth bags are important but sometimes you just need to have the brown bags for projects). Then I cut out feathers from construction paper that we had.

After dinner, everyone gets a feather and writes down what they are thankful for that day. Then we use a glue stick to put the feathers up. The boys seem to really enjoy this activity and won’t let us leave the table without filling out our feathers.

I included a picture of Tom from last year since this year’s turkey has tons of feathers covering his face.

thanksgiving turkey

A sampling of feathers from this year:

From the 8 year old:

I am thankful for….our car…having enough food on the table…going to Gramma & Grampa’s house for Thanksgiving….the Saints winning the Super Bowl.

From the 5 year old:

I am thankful for….Jesus & God…..the shepherd watching over me….going to Gramma & Grampa’s…..eating turkey (in reality he won’t touch the turkey or mashed potatoes with a 10 foot pole….Wyoming and Montana.

What can I say… the boy loves geography.

What are some of the ways your family shares what they are thankful for?

Todays Creative Blog Tuesday To Do Party

Monster Food & Mummy Wraps

Posted on by

We had our second annual Halloween party over the weekend and for the second time I forgot to take any pictures. I set up these photos after everyone had gone home and right before I crashed on the couch. In addition to the new food below, I also served the same food from last year.

Marshmallow Pops: Place stick through marshmallow, dip in chocolate, add sprinkles, thank husband for wonderful marshmallow holder he created, place in refrigerator for 20 minutes

Marshmallow Holder : spare wood with holes drilled into it

Food on a stick is always popular and these were no exception.

Chocolate Witch Fingers – Use a paint brush and melted chocolate to paint the fingernails. Allow to cool in the refrigerator for ten minutes. Fill up remaining space in the mold with different colored melted chocolate. Lay pretzel sticks into the chocolate and cover with more chocolate. Place in fridge for 20 minutes.

Chocolate Grave Stone: same idea as the fingers minus the pretzels

Halloween Cookies (known in our house as the Christmas cookies despite the shape of the cookie or the time of the year)

Alex and Andrew named and labeled all of the party food. Dracula’s Skin was banana bread slices while the Monster Teeth were Rice Krispie Treats. They had a lot of fun creating these…let’s just say the Marshmallow Pops above were labeled Frankenstein Poop. Yes, we through classy affairs around here.

Along with our party boards, there were games and crafts to keep the kids busy. A big hit with the 3 to 7 crowd was my Halloween Bingo, I gave plastic spiders to the winners.

The fourth grade crowd primarily ignored my games in favor of a football game but did decide to stop to play the “Mummy Wrap.”

Kids got into groups of two with a roll or two of toilet paper and wrapped each other as mummies.


That WRAPS up (Ha!) another edition of our Halloween party. The left over Rice Krispies have been eaten by me (about 20 in 2 days – NOT A JOKE!) and the games put away until next year. Hope your Halloween is filled with lots of sugar and dressing up.

Halloween Party Boards

Posted on by

Today I am sharing with you Party Boards I made for our Halloween party. These boards make great photo ops and the kids just love them, especially when the adults participate.


Here are the supplies you will need: wooden board, paint, tracer (although you could free hand it), chunky blocks, and a photo of the image you want to create on your board.

Place the image under your tracer and use as much of the space as possible.

I used a red sharpie here to trace my lines but a black one would be even better. You will cover up your lines with paint in the next step.

Paint the sections of the image with your desired colors. For this Super Girl board I used paints I already had in my stash.

Once the entire piece is colored you will question whether the end product will turn out well. Do not worry. Forge ahead with your black paint pen or thick Sharpie. This tool will make all the difference in the world.

Cut two large blocks for legs and cut slits into their middles.

The large board then slides into the ground blocks in order for the structure to stand.

Cut out a hole for the face and you are ready to party!

Here are some other party boards we have made for parties.

Have fun creating your own party boards!

Remember to enter the GIVEAWAY for a free personalized Christmas card design – ends Friday

Becolorful Remodelaholic

Stair Organizing

Posted on by

Our stairs probably give the impression that we designed our house without closets.

Coats, book bags, toys, art supplies, you name it, it ends up on our stairs.

I had been contemplating for awhile how I could solve our stairs dilemma when I came across these “crap baskets” at Sew Many Ways.

I decided this was the solution to our cluttered stairs.

Now all I needed were baskets. But then I thought? How many baskets?

As I began counting all the baskets I would need, I envisioned baskets halfway up my stairs. Not quite what I had in mind.

Then I stumbled upon this beauty hidden on the bottom shelf at the resale store.

$1.99 – I’ll take it.

A little spray paint and we were in action.

Added a friendly little sign and the basket was open for business.

For some reason my husband and I seem to be the only ones who are enthusiastic about the basket.

 

Back

Posted on by

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!

Halloween Party Food

Posted on by

Last year we held our first ever Halloween party and it was a ton of fun for everyone (a ton of work too but let’s focus on the fun for now).

My husband and I baked, dipped, frosted, stirred, cooled, and heated till we were on sugar overload.

Below this picture of our buffet are four of the treats and how we made them.

Witches Hats: Use Keebler Fudge Stripes cookies as the base, melted chocolate (orange colored), Hershey Kisses on top

Eyeball Cake: Boxed cake mix prepared and baked in a soccer ball cake pan, colored icing

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies: I don’t particularly love pumpkin flavor but I found these irresistible – every time I walked by the kitchen I would pick one up. I found the recipe at Relatively Reagan.

What you need:
Box spice cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup butter
1 cup pumpkin pie filling or puree
1/2 cup milk
 
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl beat the butter and pumpkin with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add all the remaining ingredients and beat on low speed until combined.
Using a small cookie schoop dop mounds of the dough onto the prepared cookie sheets, spacing them about 3 inches apart.
Bake about 10 minutes and cool completely before frosting
 
For the Filling:
Stick of butter
block (8 oz) cream cheese
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla and couple of dashes of cinnamon
Put filling on one pie and cover with another

Oreo Mummies: Dip Oreos into melted white chocolate, place on wax paper, drag a fork sideways through the chocolate, place candy eyes on top, cool in fridge – Here are some sources for candy eyes (I have never bought anything from these companies so I’m not recommeding, just listing) : One Stop Candle and The Baker’s Kitchen. I am using some I found at Michael’s this year.

Do you have any favorite Halloween treats you make?

The 36th Avenue

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?