Dollar Store Holiday Wreath Tutorial & Outdoor Holiday Decor

I love the holidays! Full disclosure, I've been chomping at the bit to decorate my house top to bottom with holiday decorations ever since returning home from Trick-O-Treating. There is just something about this time of year that brings out the uber crafty chick in me.

Holiday decorating this year is bumping heads with my teeny tiny budget and while I do have a lot of items that I've purchased in the past, these items are all for the INSIDE of my house. The usual holiday wreath I have for my outside door is looking worn down. I needed something new and fun that wouldn't break the bank. Whenever I need cheap inspiration I head to the dollar store!

Here is what I purchased:

For $3 I bought some gold & silver garland, a basic twig wreath & 12 small gold & silver ball ornaments. By wrapping the garland around the wreath and hot gluing the ornaments into place I ended up with this:

 

Not too shabby!  I like the look of the metallic gold against my brown door. The dollar store has loads of different garland and ornaments making endless possibilities to make it your own.

Now with the front door looking so spiffy I got to thinking that my pots needed some sprucing up. I took inspiration from this pin. I purchased a bag of pine cones & faux wreath from Michaels for $6 and a bucket of ornaments from Walmart for $4. The wreath sits nicely inside the pot and I pooled the ornaments in the middle. The pine cones are place around the wreath. Since the snow has started to fall it's really added another dimension. 

Next up will be our Christmas tree purchase and ornament crafting party I plan to have with the kids. Oh, and the cookie baking... should make for a busy month :)

Aaliyah's 6th Birthday

Whew, the year has just flew past it seems. Here we are towards the end of November and that means our baby girl has just turned another year older. This year has been a big one for Aaliyah. She started school, made her first best friend and this happened:

Yep, she lost her first tooth! This seemed like a long time coming. For weeks she was pushing and pulling at that tooth, willing it to break free. Of course it didn't happen until she was attempting to brush her teeth. I'm shocked it didn't get rinsed down the sink. She happily put the tooth under her pillow and was beaming when she awoke to find her $2 prize.

This year was supposed to be the year Aaliyah got the "invite people" party she has been asking for but we just didn't have time to plan it the way I wanted to so I was able to convince her to stick to our birthday tradition of doing things the birthday person wants to do for the whole day. This is how Aaliyah's day went:

First she asked to eat breakfast at Ikea and then to play in their Smaland play area. She loves the ball pit and coloring and I love the 99 cent breakfast!

 

Next we got some Jimmy Johns for lunch and headed to the "greatest park of all time" according to Aaliyah. I won't argue. They don't call it the "shoots & ladders" park for nothing. It's a pretty amazing park and both Aaliyah & Uriyah had lots of fun there. 

 

We ended the day at the Brunswick bowling alley by our house. They have an arcade and Aaliyah had lots of fun running from game to game & racking up those prize tickets. Brunswick recently changed over their whole arcade so everything is run off of a "debit card" that holds your money balance now. Aaliyah really liked pretending she had a credit card and swiping to pay for the games. With all her winnings she was able to get a monkey figurine and a bright orange slinky. 

We headed back home and cut into her Hello Kitty cake. This was a special request from Aaliyah and the first cake I have ever made and decorated for my kids. Although at first I thought it looked horrible, her smile when she looked at it made all that nonsense go away.

Next up is Uriyah's birthday and I'm sure there will be much more adventure for his special day. As the children get older I'm starting to realize more and more the differences between boys & girls.

Halloween Costumes 2012

So I'm cutting it a little close this year but with the crazies this month has brought I have plenty of excuses for not getting these costumes done before now. Also in another "how Pinterest has changed my life" news brief, this years costume choosing went so much easier than in the past. I just whipped out my Costume & Dress Up board and had the kids pick what they wanted to be. So this year the kiddos are...

 

A Lego piece and cotton candy! How cute are they?!  Uriyah's costume was inspired by this tutorial and Aaliyah's was inspired by this photo. 

Uriyah's costume was the easiest to make as it's just a cardboard box, some cut down Solo cups and some glossy red spray paint. Aaliyah's on the other hand was more challenging but fun to make. Being that there are no instructions for this costume I just had to do some guessing. I first made a pillowcase dress out of muslin & installed an extra long zipper in the back so we could get her in and out easily. Then I dyed the dress & cotton fiberfill pink by using a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket and some RIT "petal pink" dye. Her cone hat is made from poster board that I rolled into a cone and hot glued in place. I punched holes near her ears and tied thin elastic to keep the hat on her head. Then the fun part... gluing all the fiberfill into place. Making sure I had rubber gloves on and was outdoors I used spray adhesive, first around the brim of the hat and then one small area at a time on the muslin dress until is was covered. 

I still have some last minute touches to do. Uriyah would like some kind of hat (need to research that a little bit more) and Aaliyah needs to have some pieces of her cotton candy glued better in place... she has been molting all over the house. This should prove to be an interesting walk around the neighborhood come October 31st :)

I still can't believe how well they turned out. It will be hard to outdo this next year. I look forward to the challenge. Happy Halloween everyone!!

Fall Photo Shoot with Jillian Claire Photography

This month we decided it was time for a new family photo. We used to go to the big chain studios but that grew bland and tired for us so I turned to my good friend Jillian Nelson who is the extremely talented photographer behind Jillian Claire Photography. Jillian has shot our last two family photo sessions and the way she is able to work with our children is truly amazing. Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

Cheap But Adorable Care Bear Costume Tutorial

 Do you remember those cute ears and Care Bear bellies from this post? Well Halloween is just around the corner and I thought I would share the graphics I made and offer up a small tutorial just in case anyone is feeling like turning themselves or their adorable children into Care Bears this year!

First thing, you can find the tutorial for the ears here. I used cheap craft felt & embroidery thread from the craft store and it worked out very well.

Next, click on what tummy graphic you need below and a printable .pdf will open in another window for download. Please note there are two different sizes for each graphic. Large for adults and small for children.

Print this out on t-shirt transfer paper. Make sure it's for dark fabric or it will look funny and you will waste a t-shirt & transfer sheet. Because this is for a dark t-shirt you will not have to reverse your image before you print. 

Follow the printing directions on the package for best results. For the child size tummies you'll want to make sure you print it at it's actual size by choosing this option in your printer settings. For the adult sizes make sure you choose the "fit to page" option in your printer settings as the image is a tad bit larger than 8x11. 

Choose the same color shirt as the outline of the tummy graphic and make sure you are using a cotton t-shirt (long sleeve t-shirt is OK too) as anything else may burn under the heat needed to seal the graphic from the iron.

After printing carefully cut around the tummy image. Place it on the shirt where your belly is located and follow the ironing instructions on the transfer sheet package to attach it to the shirt.

And ta-da! You have an inexpensive, fairly easy to make costume for Halloween! I have also included the Care Bear butt heart graphic to download if you want to give your costume that extra touch. This would be applied in the same way as the t-shirt graphic.

Best Friend Bear (Child)

Best Friend Bear (Adult)

Bedtime Bear (Child)
Bedtime Bear (Adult)

Cheer Bear (Child)
Cheer Bear (Adult)

Wish Bear (Child)
Wish Bear (Adult)

Friend Bear (Child)
Friend Bear (Adult)

Funshine Bear (Child)
Funshine Bear (Adult)

Hopeful Heart Bear (Child)
Hopeful Heart Bear (Adult)

Perfect Panda Bear (Child)
Perfect Panda bear (Adult)

Superstar Bear (Child)
Superstar Bear (Adult)

CareBear Bottom Heart

I'm linked up to these parties:

http://onecreativemommy.com/one-creative-weekend-14/

http://www.aprettylifeinthesuburbs.com/2012/10/halloween-link-partaaaaay.html

http://www.itsybitsypaperblog.com/2012/09/2012-wickedly-creative-halloween-ideas.html

 
http://www.polishthestars.com/2012/10/halloween-link-party-week-one.html

Sever's Corn Maze 2012

I blogged about our first visit to Sever's Corn Maze right around this time last year. We went again this year and I was able to snag a Groupon that saved us a ton.

This year the corn maze was shaped like farmer Sever on a tractor and there were new attractions such as camel rides, caramel apples & new animals in the petting zoo. Fun was had by all.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the day: