Happy Fall!

It's no secret that I LOVE fall! I love the cooler weather, the colder nights when I can snuggle up in my blankets, the great comfort foods, the beautiful landscape and of course the holidays! Today, when I drove thru the Starbucks drive-thru I was happy to discover that my Pumpkin Spice Latte was back! Oh how I missed it! (Even if it is $4! ) I know it's not quite fall yet and the tempurature outside is still 100 degrees but the site of that drink on the menu made me want to start decorating for Halloween. My husband stopped me before I brought the boxes in from the garage but I was able to start my first Halloween craft of the year.

At a trip to Dollar Tree  (There is a new one by me and it's big and beautiful!) I found these great mini baking cups. They had spiders, ghosts and pumpkins and I needed all of them! I made three topiaries and painted the wooden dowels. I put them in a bucket that I already had and added fog (or cotton balls).

 I finished each flower off with a ribbon and the whole look off with a sticker that I got from Michaels!

Yeah!!! I love the holidays!

  

I Love Hair Bows!

I found this great towel rack a few months back in Target's dollar section for $2.50. I picked it up for my nieces since their bathroom is decorated in a monkey theme.

I loved the facial expressions of the monkeys. A few weeks ago I went over to  take my niece to school for family day a knew that towel rack needed to be transformed into a BOW HOLDER! My nieces have tons of adorable bows but they are in a large basket and it's very hard to find which one you are looking for without dumping the entire basket on the floor.

This is a great solution and it's very cute too. The best part...it was so simple to make!

Here are the Supplies I used.

1 - 1 Robe/Towel Rack

2 - 1 spool of ribbon, I used 1 1/2" thick ribbon

3 - Glue Gun

4 - Staple Gun (For Extra Support)

Step 1: Glue a strip of ribbon in the center of each monkey head, I was able to use the screw as a guide. I added a single staple to each of the ribbons for extra support, but make sure not skip the glue part or the ribbon will rip.

Step 2: I added a bow to each monkey...Afterall it is a bow holder and I thought it made the monkeys a little fancy.

Step 3: Add Some Bows & Hang!

Here's a few of the bows I made to add to her collection:

  

From Trash to Treasure

With summer just about over....the flies around us are insane! We live on old dairy farm land and the cows aren't that far away so it's been a constant battle to eat outside (and sometime inside, still teaching my little one the door does not stay open!) without sharing your meal with a few flying friends.

My sister lent me some food covers she had picked up at the dollar store, which has been great and allowed us to enjoy outdoor bbqing!  One small issue they are hideous! Some had plastic flowers, some had cheap little ribbons ... all were ugly!

I knew I had to do something about those flowers and since I'm obsessed with buttons and polka dots...I tore them off and replaced them with.... BUTTONS!

Awww...Much Better!

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Little Man! Part I

After months of seriously planning ...my son turned two! This Mommy can't believe I already have a two year old! I'm very excited to be bringing you pictures from the big day. There's so much I want to show you so I decided to take a few days and show you the pictures.



Drew loves Handy Manny and all things construction these days...so we did a construction/polka dot themed birthday. I found my inspiration months ago at the Dollar Store...where I picked up these adorable truck balloons! I loved the fun summer colors and great patterns and knew they would be the perfect start to a great party. While they had them I picked up 15..which is like the price of 3 mylar balloons at the party store. Save your receipt and you can bring them back the day of your party and the store will inflate them for free!

Greeting Our Guests...

 

We lined our driveway with the cute traffic cones we made and I showed you in an earlier posts. Click Here if you missed it!

We made a Project Birthday sign to welcome guests and hung it from our front porch.  On our front door I hung my curly ribbon wreath!

 I had originally planned on using my Cricut to cut out the vinyl letters for all our signs since they were going to hang outdoors but while at Michael's one day (umm..I'm there almost everyday!) I was looking for wall stickers for the playroom and ran across these removable letter stickers from Me & My Big Ideas. The font was adorable and I love the fact that they are removable so I've been using them ever since. Usually they are quite expensive but the store had them on clearance for $5 a package so I bought ever single package they had and then went to the store by my work and bought them out too. (Yes, I have a problem... but $5...seriously..you can't buy vinyl that cheap!) They also come in pink glitter and I know I don't have a girl but I do have a niece so I bought them too. I also got adorable baseball ones for the playroom. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I run out. Good thing they are removable. I've been using them on banners, buckets and pretty much anything else I can label.  



 Ok so back to the party...Guests "Clocked In" at our Clock In Table by signing in a bucket I embellished with these mettalic letters I found at Michael's clearance aisle. At the end of the night it was a lot of fun to read all of the sweet messages our friends and family left.



  

Of course our mild California summer decided to come to an end this week and it was 105 degrees! I decided to move the photo booth inside and set it up in the playroom. The lighting wasn't the best but at least guests weren't so sweaty while they smiled for the camera. Unfortnately the only photo stand I had was a coat rack holder so it was a little shorter and narrow than I wanted but we made do. I put a bench in front of it so our taller guests could sit.

I made a bucket of props that included silly hats, road signs and mustaches. I found these great 3-D mustache stickers from Jolee's botique that were amazing. I stuck them to card board backing and added a wooden dowel. Our guests were so creative and funny in with our photos and it was a great way to ensure that we got pictures of all our guests!

Stay Tune for more pictures...Tomorrow is Indoor Decor!

  

Happy First Day of School

 

Flower Vase I made for my niece's teacher!

My niece's teacher passed out a list of supplies she needed. Here is the bucket of supplies she brought for her first day of school!

Super Simple Wreaths

Hello! I'm officially on vacation and after a roadtrip with family, I was in desparate need of craft time. My new obsession this week...  making wreaths! I've done a few before but found some great materials at the dollar store (My fav!) If only I was planning a Cars or Spongebob party I would be in business...

My first wreath...

Total Cost: $3.00
Time to Make: Approximately 30 minutes.
Materials:

• Foam Wreath ($1.00)
• Ribbon: One Spool from the Dollar Bin ($1.00)
• Polka Dot Bow (50 Cents)
• Buttons and Hanging Ribbon (From my Collection)

My Second Creation:

Total Cost: $4.00
Time to Make: Approximately 10 minutes.
Materials:

• Wooden Wreath ($1.00)
• Polka Dot Bows ($3.00)
• Ribbon & Cricut DieCut(From my Collection)

My Third Creation....

Total Cost: $1.50

Time to Make: 1 hour 

Materials:

• Wreath($1.00)
• Fabric : Left Over from My Pennants
• Polka Dot Bow (50 Cents)
• Buttons and Hanging Ribbon (From my Collection)

Brian and Me... Enjoying our vacation!!!

Love My No Sew Pennant Banners

Oh I how I love pennant banners... I found that they were so simple to make and I could make them without breaking out the sewing machine or the bank so I was in! I started by wanting to make some homemade banner's for Drew's birthday that wouldn't require sewing skills that I don't have and could be reused.  

When I visited the fabric store, they were having a half-off sale so the fabric was very inexpensive. I also found that the remnant pieces they sale will be perfect for this project and are usually sold at a discount. 

Already I've made a pennant banner for the 4th of July, one for my son's birthday party and now with my niece's birthday next week I created a Littlest Pet Shop banner.

  Total Time Per Banner... Approximately two Spongebob episodes or 30 minutes, but you can definitely split the project up into multiple projects. 

To start: Get approximately 1 yard of total fabric. 

(I got approximately 1/4 yard of each color)

Step 1: Create a cardboard template. You can also purchase a template at the craftstore, but the one I saw was over $20...so I made my own.  

Step 2: Using the template, trace out the pennants onto the backside of fabric. If the fabric is not double-sided, you will need to create a mirror sided fabric. With both sides, back-side up, spray with fabric adhesive. and stick together. 

Easy-Peasy! 

Step 3: Using a hot glue gun, attach the ribbon to the top of the banner. After each pennant, I tied a knot for extra decoration. I added some buttons for extra detail on one banner, although decorative ribbon is just as cute.


For the Littlest Pet Shop, the fabric I found wasn't exactly symmetrical enough to fit the pennant shape, so I just cut out the individual images and attached them to some other fabric.

So fun and so festive! I love it!   

I Love the USA!

How cute are these USA Blocks? I needed a new Forth of July decoration so I decided to make these cute Fourth of July blocks. They were so simple to make and I was quite happy with the way they turned out.   


To make cut or buy wood blocks.  My husband cut mine from a piece of 2 X 4 wood and I sanded them down with my new favorite toy ... the Black and Decker Mouse Sander. It's so much fun to use. Then I simply painted wood heart shape and letters as well as the blocks with tempura paint. To make the red stripes on the heart, I found some great glitter ribbon. The glitter gave it an extra pop of fun and allowed me not to have to be perfect on the blue and white painting. 

Materials Needed:

• Tempura Paint (Red, White and Blue of course) 
• 4 wooden blocks (4 inches x 4 inches )
• Glue Gun
• Wooden Letters and Wood Heart or Star Cut outs. I found unpainted ones at Michael's (Stars and Hearts were only 29 cents!)
• Glue Gun (Needed for EVERY project :)
• Red Glitter Ribbon
• Heart Stars

I linked to the following parties: