Monogram Pumpkin

To decorate my small pumpkin I got out my beads and my hot-glue gun. This one I won't be carving so it didn't matter how I decorated it.

Materials:
~ Pumpkin
~ Hot Glue Gun
~ Beads

I drew an "S" on the pumpkin with a pen and then hot-glued on my beads. Easy as pie! (by the way, why is that a saying? Pie isn't easy)



Here is my Halloween centerpiece. Now I have Halloween cheer in my kitchen :) (Or should I say Halloween fear? bwahaha!)


Total Cost:
~ Pumpkin: $2.00
~ Hot Glue Gun: $0.00
~ Beads: $0.00

Monogram Pumpkin: Total Cost ~ $2.00

Polka-Dot Pumpkin

Halloween and pumpkins

--they just go together--

Last year I just bought some small pumpkins to set on my table which was fine, but this year I wanted to do a little bit more. I bought 3 good-sized pumpkins thinking I would decorate one and we could carve the other two. But I decided I wanted to have my pumpkin and eat it too! :) So I came up with a way to decorate it while still leaving it carve-able

Materials:
~ Pumpkin
~ Pins from a pin cushion
~ Beads
~ Ribbon

This was so easy! I just stuck pins all over my pumpkin and slid a bead over the pin. I tied a ribbon around the stem and I was done!

When I'm ready to carve this baby all I have to do is take out all the pins!

Total Cost:
~ Pumpkin: $3.00
~ Pins from a pin cushion: $0.00
~ Beads: $0.00
~ Ribbon: $0.00

Polka-Dot Pumpkin: Total Cost ~ $3.00

Halloween Tree

Happy Halloween! I discovered Halloween Trees this year and love them! I think they're such a cool idea so I decided to make one.

Materials:
~ Branches
~ An old sparkling cider bottle (or wine bottle)
~ Halloween decorations
~ Dryer sheets
~ Hot glue
~ Spray paint

I went to Dollar Tree and bought some Halloween erasers and some plastic Halloween rings. These became my "ornaments"

I took some branches and tied them together with twisty-ties. When I got the shape I wanted I spray-painted it black and then did a light coat of glitter spray paint.

Don't worry about the twisty-ties showing up. They'll mostly be covered by the spray paint and whatever you can still see you can cover up with ornaments and "cobwebs"

I used my sparkling cider bottle for the stand and started hanging up my ornaments. For the erasers I took a needle and thread and created a little loop at the top.


To get the plastic rings to stay on the tree I cut off the round part that goes around your finger and just hot-glued them into place.

To add the final touch I took a used dryer sheet and tore it up to create cobwebs.

I also painted the sparkling cider bottle so that it wasn't too distracting from the tree.

Total Cost:
~ Branches: $0.00
~ An old sparkling cider bottle (or wine bottle): $0.00 (I used one from a picnic a few months ago)
~ Halloween decorations: $2.00
~ Dryer sheets: $0.00
~ Hot glue: $0.00
~ Spray paint: $0.00

Halloween Tree: Total Cost ~ $2.00

Apples in a Vase

I was in charge of decorating the tables for a dinner last night. The theme was apples so I bought some different colored apples and just stuck them in vases. I was going to add something else to it but I liked the crisp look of only the apples.

How much easier can you get? And it makes a great centerpiece for early Autumn. Use as many vases as you want.

Total Cost:

~ apples: $5.00

~ vases: $0.00

Total Cost: Apples in a Vase ~ $8.00

Ceramic Jar Labels

I'm finally posting a project! The time I spent actually sitting down working on this wasn't long at all. I just have some other things on my plate right now (an adorable little girl!!) so it took me awhile to finally finish. I'd like to thank C. for not caring about losing half our dinner table for 2 weeks while this sat there waiting to be finished.
I have ceramic jars on my counter for my baking goods. You know, flour, sugar, etc. These are so great to have so things are easily accessible, but sometimes it gets tricky remembering what ingredient is in which jar - especially which one is baking soda and which is baking powder! I had always talked about someday doing vinyl labels for them and then I realized I could do labels for free!

Thank you mod podge!

Materials:
~ ceramic jars
~ scrapbook paper (extra from a Christmas present C and I made)
~ mod podge

I simply cut out pieces of paper that would fit on the lids, wrote the labels, and mod-podged them on :) Easy!

What do you think? Now I'll always remember where everything is.

Total Cost:
~ ceramic jars: $0.00
~ scrapbook paper: $0.00

~ mod podge: $0.00

Ceramic Jar Labels: Total Cost ~ $0.00

A Splash of Fall

I know I've been bad at posting lately! I'll step it up :)

I have seen a lot of pumpkins on blogs I've looked at and I decided to jump on the bandwagon. They're so cheap and they're fun and they add a nice autumn feeling to your home. I got my 3 pumpkins at Smith's, they were only $1.00 each! (The big one was a different kind of pumpkin so I got it cheaper per pound than the small ones.)

Just a nice reminder that fall is here!


Splash of Fall:
~ large pumpkin: $1.00
~ small pumpkins (2): $2.00
~ cute table runner that goes so well with fall! (Ok, you don't need this, but don't you agree that it goes great with my pumpkins? It made me very excited! I love this table runner!): $0.00

Splash of Fall: Total Cost ~ $3.00

Table Runner

I am finished with my first quilting project! I made a 3 foot table runner and finally finished tonight. I'm very excited! I started this with my sewing teacher but had to finish on my own. It took me awhile to finish but I finally got some batting and fabric for the back as well as the binding. I don't have step-by-step pictures, sorry, but I do have a picture of the final product :)

I definitely learned a lot on this project. I got the pattern here but it was a little confusing because they want you to buy a package from them so they don't give you all the measurements. Luckily my teacher was able to help me figure them out and we actually did the hourglass blocks a little differently. The method I used saves you a lot of fabric and a lot of time! It's a little confusing to just explain so I'll put up pictures of this next time I do it.

When I bought the fabric for this I got 10 fat quarters which cost me about $20. However, it gave me enough fabric for 3 table runners. So if you decide to make one of these, you could lower the cost either by getting fewer patterns or just putting gift money towards the fabric and then giving away your two extra (or even all three). I also had to buy the batting and the fabric for the back (which is the same fabric I used to make the binding). This cost about $10 I think, but again, this was for all three. So I'm guessing my cost for this table runner was about $10, give or take.

Table Runner: Total Cost ~ $10.00

Oil Painting

This is not a craft that I made, but it sure is one that I'll enjoy! My brother-in-law is an oil painter and he recently finished a piece for me and my husband to hang in our kitchen. Thank you!!

Isn't is beautiful?!

I love the texture on the strawberries. You can literally see the seeds!


And you can see the pulp on the oranges! He's got a lot of talent!

My brother-in-law has a blog that you all NEED to check out! It's tnpaint.blogspot.com and he recently opened an ETSY shop so you can buy his paintings. He's also currently taking commissions for original paintings as well. Check out his blog and his ETSY shop! Some of my favorites are Death of an Artist, Winter Lake, and Aguacate. There's honestly nothing like having original art work in your home!

Bulletin Board

For Christmas my husband and I were on his sister's family for gifts. We are supposed to hand-make our gifts and we decided to make her and her family a bulletin board for their kitchen. I liked it so much I decided I wanted one too. So I went to DI and bought this cork board for $2.00, used some scrap fabric, ribbon and...voila!

Materials:
~ cork board
~ scrap fabric
~ hot glue gun
~ ribbon

Cut the fabric to the size you need for the board. If you don't like the edges of your board you can just place ribbon over it to cover the ugly edge (which is what I did for my sister-in-law's gift since it was just metal). If you like the edge, however, then fold down the edges of the cloth and iron them down. This will give the edges of your cloth a nice, even look instead of the raw edge you cut out. The edge of my board matched my fabric perfectly so I wanted to show it off instead of covering it with a ribbon. (I used left-over ribbon for my sister-in-law's but had to go buy some more for mine.) Tack down the cloth with some hot glue (or whatever you have). Then take ribbon and lay it across the board to create specified sections. Then make labels and place them in each section.

I ironed down the edges of the fabric to give it a nice, even look.


Doesn't the fabric match the edge perfectly!! I was so excited when I laid the fabric down and saw how well they went together!

I just wrote my labels. I did print them for my sister-in-law though.

What do you think? The four sections I have on mine are "Calendar, To-Do, Shopping, and Quote." For my sister-in-law we did six sections, "Calendar, To-Do List, Shopping List, Quote, Family Picture, and Kid's Corner (for report cards, pictures drawn by the kids, etc)."

Here's a picture of the one we gave my sister-in-law. You can't see the edges very well, but can you tell we just hot-glued the ribbon all the way around? It worked out really well.

Cost:
cork board ~ $2.00
ribbon ~ $1.00
labels ~ $0.00

Bulletin Board: Total Cost ~ $3.00

Homemade Bagels

So this isn't the cutest project but it was sure yummy! These were really easy and fun to make and lasted for about 30 minutes. They really taste like bagels too. (Oh, by the way, in the ingredient's list it calls for 2 eggs but it never even mentions eggs in the directions. Does anybody know anything about that?) I got this recipe from my mother-in-law! Try them out!

Homemade Bagels
3 C. flour
4 T. sugar
3/4 C. warm water
1 tsp. salt
1 T. yeast
3 T. cooking oil
4 Quarts boiling water

Mix flour, salt, and 2 T. sugar in bowl. Dissolve yeast in 1/4 C. warm water and add to the flour mixture. Add the oil to the remaining water and stir into the flour mixture. Feel free to add cinnamon-sugar, raisins, or anything else to change the variety of bagel. Knead for 5 minutes. Place dough into greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled. Punch the dough down and roll out to about 3/4 inches thick. Cut out 12 circles and then cut out the middle so you have created a bagel shape. (The original directions tell you to roll them out a little differently but that led to really small bagels. I like a smaller circle in the middle--more surface area to spread cream cheese!) Add the remaining 2 T. sugar to the boiling water. Drop the bagels into the water one at a time, cooing 2 or 3 at once. Simmer the bagels for 1 minute from the time they rise to teh surface of the water. Then lift them out of the water with a fork an dplace them on a towel, pat dry and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Let them cool for about 5 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

Like I said, I like smaller circles and the way I rolled these out led to big circles in the middle. But they were still yummy! Give them a try :) (Oh, and by the way--these are free!)

Materials:
Ingredients ~ $0.00

Homemade Bagels: Total Cost ~ $0.00!!