Simple & Inexpensive Halloween Pedestal Jars

These were so much fun to make!  They look great all together as a centerpiece or placed here and there around the house!

You can use any candle holders you like for bases!  Once painted you can't even tell these guys were snowmen.  Candle holders are super cheap at thrift stores and yard sales.  A lot of times the dollar store has them too!  The jars are just old glass food jars!

Paint the candle holders and lids black or whatever Halloweeny color you want.  Glue them to the jars with a heavy duty epoxy.  I like E6000.  Let the glue set overnight.

I found fun Halloween graphic online and printed them on orange paper for really inexpensive jar fillers.  A few glittered spiders and some candy corn worked great too!

This little guy is a Styrofoam ball painted orange and glued into a mini baking cup.  A bead is the "cherry".  A glittered spider is trying to catch the plastic fly under the dome!

These make great gifts too!  I love Halloween!

Getting Ready for a Halloween Market

Halloween is my favorite holiday!  I crafted my little heart away on Saturday getting ready for a booth I'm doing at the Star Mill Antique store in American Fork, Utah on Wednesday, September 18th from 10am-2pm.  If you're local come on down!  I'll be making many more witchy crafts over the next week, plus Millie, the cute pink glamper, will be there filled with all sorts of everyday vintage treasures!  The address to the Star Mill is 147 e 600 n in American Fork. Pop on in on the 18th and say hi!

Summer Porch

I'm loving my front yard this summer!  Things are coming together!  I still have a couple of things I want to do, like replace my porch light, but all in all I *heart* it!  Things have been crazy round our house, but I promise to share some recipes and crafty things soon!

The big "canisters" I planted flowers in were old metal food storage containers!  I dumped the 40 year old food out (it was dated 1965) and painted them!  I love the pastel colors and the size of them! 

Vintage Tupperware Planters

I feel like a genius!  These beautiful vintage Tupperware strainers make the BEST planters!  The color is amazing, they already have drainage holes and they're Tupperware so they won't be ruined by water or being outside.  Plus, they don't get hot like metal and they retain the moisture in the dirt well!

This small lavender strainer makes a fun planter too!  I bought the flowers from the high school greenhouse. I had no idea that high schools raise and sell garden plants!  Nina is in the plants & soil FFA science class this year (according to her, everyone else in the class are rednecks... haha) so I've had the chance to buy poinsettias, flowers and tomato plants from the school greenhouse.  I have been crazy impressed with the quality of the plants.  Even the carnation corsage she made in the class lasted three weeks in my fridge before I finally just threw it away.  I think I'll keep buying from them in years to come.

Fun New Projects with Chalk Paint and Chalkboard Paint

This is a cute little silverware project!  I've been making homemade chalk paint (and chalkboard paint) and having lots of fun with it!  These little cutting boards turned out adorable!  They're cuter in real life too!  Cutting boards and silverware can be found for super cheap at yard sales this time of year, so this is an inexpensive but really fun project!  I simply painted the cutting boards, spray painted cheap silverware and glued the two together!

If you've never made chalk paint, don't be scared!  Chalk paint is all the rage with refinishing furniture right now.  The look is very vintage and very fabulous!  I don't measure mine at all and it comes out great every time!  I simply put a couple of spoonfuls of plaster powder which is really cheap for a big tub at Hobby Lobby ($2.99 regular price, but don't forget to use your 40% off!) into a container and add roughly the equal amount of water and stir well.  Next I add paint. 

I use straight craft paint for small projects or white satin latex (regular house paint) mixed with craft paint for color for bigger projects.  It's super inexpensive and I love the finish.

If you can't tell, I'm really into the vintage light blues/teals at the moment... Of course those colors don't really match my house, but that's the beauty of selling the things I make!  I get to paint the pretty colors and don't have to find a place for the items.

For chalk BOARD paint, as in, you can write on the project with chalk, you stir about 2TBSP unsanded grout powder into like a half cup of whatever paint your heart so desires.  I bought my grout at Home Depot for about $5 for a small tub.  It totally works!  I like to do several coats to make sure it really sticks.  I even painted an old metal pizza pan with chalkboard paint for Alyssa's room and it turned out fabulously!

I like to use the cheapo craft paint so I can get fun colors!  This chalkboard was originally a "welcome" sign with an apple painted on it.  It was totally outdated and the chalkboard paint turned it into a totally cool piece!

Sugar Sack Dresser

I have a total obsession with sugar sacks.  I own several and I've done a few small projects with them.  I was given an old dresser and decided to make it over with some of my sugar sack stash.  It was my first "big" sugar sack project and it turned out fabulously!  I don't know why I haven't blogged this before!

The old wood dresser was pretty but not really my style.  It was crying out for a makeover!

The sugar sacks were easy to apply with full strength liquid starch.  I've been using the dresser for a year now and it still looks as good as the day I made it over.  The liquid starch works like magic.  The whole project cost like $5, including the dresser since it was free!  The possibilities of fabric and liquid starch are endless!  You could do a whole wall if you wanted!  If you ever want to take the fabric off, soaking it in warm water should do it!  How cool is that?

Pretty White Pumpkins & Make Your Own Pumpkin Pie Spice

I whipped these guys together in less than an hour using an old shower curtain!  Aren't they beautiful?  I'm so excited to start decorating for Halloween!

Now that we're into the fall season, so many recipes call for Pumpkin Pie Spice... A lot of people don't keep it on hand because it's so pricey, but it's very easy to make yourself!  Plus, all the ingredients can be found at the dollar store and most likely they're in your cupboard already!

Pumpkin Pie Spice

1/4 c. cinnamon
1 T nutmeg
1 T ginger
1 1/2 tsp cloves

Mix together well.

Got Milk?

I love milk in glass bottles!  I love looking at them and I love drinking from them!  I buy a yogurt drink at the Asian grocery store called Yogu-Time and my girls love them... I remove the labels and hooray... vintage-looking milk bottles.

I discovered that cupcake papers and rubber bands make great toppers for the bottles.  A lot of people used to cover their milk bottles with wax paper and rubber bands so this is a fun take on an old fashioned practice... plus it gives me an excuse to use the cute cupcake papers I collect but never bake with!

Why not fill a vintage metal basket with milks to pull out after dinner to go with brownies or cookies?  Or keep them in the fridge for kids to drink in the mornings with breakfast?  There are so many things you could do with these paper topped milks!

Why Didn't I Think of This Sooner? Fun and Stylish Ring Holder

I'm excited how cute these turned out!  Of course they don't match my room (Nina is the one with a zebra room), but they'd be perfect for craft fairs or a boutique!  All I did was take pieces of black felt, roll it up, secure the rolls with hot glue and stack them in the shoe.  Each roll was a different size, I just measured and cut as I went to match the part of the shoe the roll would be in.

I didn't glue the rolls to the bottom of the shoes because yes, I do wear these heels on occasion! Aren't they fun?  $5 at Rue 21, which is my favorite clothes store!  These would make fun gifts for teenage girls!  You could split up the pair, attach the rolls to the shoe to make it permanent and you've got a great gift for just a couple of bucks!

Think of the upcycling possibilities!  Vintage looking heels that are too small to actually fit your modern feet could become great ring holders to sit on your vanity or dresser!  You could dress them up with lace or all sorts of embellishments!  Or if you like modern then grab those high heels you'd break your ankle in and make them useful! 

Spice Shelf to Shadowbox Make-Over

During Christmas break while my kiddos were gone I decided I needed a crafting project.  I hit DI (local thrift store) looking for a project.  This is what I found for $3:

Pretty ugly, huh?  The hardest part was removing the puff paint stained glass.  It took about an hour to scrape it off the glass.  I was so worried it would break.  Once the glass was clean I painted the whole thing white and started looking around my house for little vintage goodies.

I think it came out fantastic!  I LOVE vintage shadow boxes!  I gave it to my mom for Christmas.  I think she liked it!

I may become addicted to making shadowboxes!  They are so much fun.

T-Shirt and Tank Top Bags: I *heart* them!

I've made several t-shirt and tank top bags over the last couple of years.  I use them daily!  They're super simple to make and have so many uses... dirty laundry while traveling, hauling packages to the post office, yard sale shopping, carrying craft supplies, holding food for camping or car trips, etc. etc.  They stretch HUGE and are totally machine washable so I don't mind throwing dirty things in it.  The girls love that they can keep t-shirts they outgrow and I love finding shirts for .25 at yard sales I can upcyle into bags.  I have tons and keep making them because I use them like crazy!

I've been giving Alyssa sewing lessons and one of our latest sewing adventures was t-shirt bags and a purse out of a pair of jeans she's outgrown.  She did a great job!

Here's the easy tutorial for the t-shirt bags:

Lay the t-shirt flat and cut the collar off evenly.  Cut the sleeves off as well.  If you're using a tank top you can skip this step.

Turn the shirt inside out and stitch the bottom of the shirt closed.  I like to double or even triple stitch the bottom closed because I carry tons of heavy things in my bags.  I once carried stacks of vintage books and pans in one bag!  I have never had a single bag tear or any handles break.  These things hold up!

That's it!  You can whip one up in about 5 minutes!  Oh and if you can't read Alyssa's shirt bag it says, "Blondes have more fun.  BRUNETTES CAN READ"  Bwah haha!

AND t-shirt bags aren't just for carrying stuff!  At my baby sister's wedding a couple weeks ago I had a *cough cough* mishap with the punch and the kitchen we were in had nothing to clean it up with!  Nothing... no paper towels, dish rags, towels... but I grabbed an empty t-shirt bag and it ended up being our cleaning rag all day.  At the end of the day it went right in the washer.  Ok, I won't lie.  It sat in my kitchen in a wet heap along with the hoards of wedding, ward party, cooking class and cookie decorating activity items I was supposed to put away for probably way too long as I tried to recuperate/pout about my kids being gone.  T-shirt bags rock.

Here's the purse we upcyled from a pair of jeans:

I remember making jean purses for my girls when they were like 2 and 5 years old out of adult sized jeans.  I made them into church bags to hold a notebook and the pockets held colored pencils and crayons.

These purses also whip up super fast.  Alyssa's came out so cute!  She's in love with it.  My little girly is addicted to sewing!

Quick & Easy Ribbon Hair Tie

My sister wasn't aware that it was "red day" for Red Ribbon Week, so Sadie showed up at my house in the morning not wearing any red.  I whipped together a hair tie for her to show her red ribbon spirit!

It's very easy to make a fun ribbony hair tie in any color scheme.  I did all red, but you can do any color combination you like.

If you're unsure how to attach the ribbons to the pony tail holder, here are some step by step pictures of how to tie them on.  If you'd like to add a dab of hot glue, it will be more permanent.  Hot glue the ribbon to itself, not the pony tail holder though.

Ta-da!  It's that easy!  Add lots and lots of ribbons for a full look!  You can choose the length of the ribbons depending on the look you want.

These would make fun Christmas gifts for the little girls in your life!

She loves it!