Christmas Around Our House

I love blog land during the holidays. Everyone shows all the pretty things they put up and all the creative ways they make the stuff. Here's how our house changes during the holidays...

When you walk into our house this garland is hanging in the entryway. It's just one of those cheap ones from JoAnn's and then I dressed it up by tying some strips of fabric on it (kind of like the tree garland my cute friend over here did). I added some pine cones and now complete it with Christmas cards we receive in the mail using dressed up clothespins (my oh so talented friend again) to hang them with.

These three little trees are plain and simple. No need for extra decoration - I love them just the way they are.

Can't decorate without a some wood and vinyl :)

This tin bin (Goodwill find) got put out in October to hold Halloween candy but I've loved it so much it has become a permanent fixture in the kitchen - just change out the ribbon.

Why I absolutely love Marshall's ? - because you can find cute hand towels like this one - for cheap!

Our living room is adorned with garland, berries, and lights just about everywhere. Everyday I can't wait for the sun to start setting so I can turn on all the lights!

The mantle...
The stockings...
The whole picture. I love this room during Christmas time. It's one of those rooms you really don't go in all too much - especially because ours happens to be really cold. But during Christmas time I just want to spend as much time in there as I can.

The tree...adorned with berries, ribbon, and all ornaments from the dollar store or cheaper (painted wood stars, pine cones, etc.)

All Sort of Cute Girly Hair Things

I just love a good bow or oh so cute hair thing.

One of my best friends and her partner are starting up a business. They are making all sorts of barrettes, bows, etc. for girls.

If you're interested in finding some cute one of a kind hair things to dress up you girl's hair - check them out.

(Hello Steeler's Fans?!?!)

Check them out at:

www.tootsiewootsiebows.blogspot.com

Chandelier

A few weeks ago when we went down to my parent's house my mom found the shades that went to the chandelier she gave me. After painting it black the cute little cream shades she had worked perfectly.

Even better - I didn't have to spend money buying any (I had been searching and those things are hard to find!!!). She thinks she also has some red ones so I can't wait to get those and try them out :)
Now whenever I go into Goodwill, Salvation Army, Habitat, etc. and see those ugly brass light fixtures my mind explodes with all the cute things and places you can put them - and all for oh so cheap!!!

Photo Tile Coasters

We made these little cuties last month at my church's craft day I help out with. They are super easy and way cute!

Find at tiles you like from the hardware store. Print out pictures or use ones you already have and size them down to fit the tiles. Next, adhere them to the tile with Mod Podge. Finally, spray an adhesive on top to protect the photo from any water. Lastly, stick some felt pads on the bottom.


A super cute, easy, and personalized gift! I've also seen them done all around the internet using scrapbook paper, napkins, and monograms printed from your home computer - the sky's the limit! I just might have to make some more :)

Homemade Shirts

Can I tell you how IN LOVE with Heat and Bond I am!!! If you didn't read my last post I'm thinking I just might want to become their spokesperson! I haven't tried washing anything that has it on it but for now I'm loving all the things I can make with it - I'm still using that same $1.50 piece I had leftover from the stockings - and there's still more!!!


So I took some fabric I had leftover - and bought a few more (I just went to Walmart and picked out some cute fabrics and had them cut 1/8 of a yard of all of them. So I came home with 5 different fabrics and I spent a total of a tad more than $1.00!). Then I printed some templates from the internet, adhered the Heat and Bond to my fabric, traced, cut, and ironed on.

Tada! Cute little shirts for my girlies.

Stockings

So I've had a dilemma for awhile now. We had some cute stockings and then when babies came along I wanted us all to have matching ones. But...how many do you buy? I don't know how many kids we're going to have. Do I spend a lot of money and guess? All of these questions have been running through my mind.



Then when I was out shopping (on Black Friday none the less) I found these simple felt stockings at JoAnn's. I had been debating just making some of my own so that I could replicate them when more kid's came along but I'm no seamstress. So I bought these stockings for around $1.00.

I bought some polka dot fabric (50%off) to add to them with everybody's initials. I found a font I loved, printed it out on cardstock, cut it out, and then used this: -my new best friend -

How I have not used this before I do not know - but I sure am IN LOVE!!! Heat and bond - ABSOLUTELY no sewing needed - perfect for me :)


Iron this stuff on your fabric, cut out the initials, and iron on the stocking - super easy!!!

And here's the finished product hanging on our mantle....Super easy, super cheap (less than 10 bucks for 6 of them - although I may run out and grab 2 more stockings...I don't think we really plan on having more than 4 kids but who knows!) and super cute!

Flowers

I've seen these cute little flowers floating all around the internet these days. So last time I was at my mom's house I scavenged around in her fabric and felt and created some cute flower templates. All I did was cute out the felt, fabric, and sewed a button on to hold it all together.

Then I hot glued the flower onto a clip so that they can be attached to a headband for the baby or just as is in the toddler's hair.

Now if only I had made them a tad bigger ;)

Chalkboard Frame

I adore chalkboard paint. I think it is just the cutest way to personalize your home and makes things fun!

It all began when I painted our pantry door (more about that here) and then my friend decided to use an old picture frame to make one here.



I found a large picture frame in a box in the basement, spray painted it, and then used chalkboard spray paint to spray the inside.

It now sits in our kitchen and displays the week's menu but it would look oh so cute in an entry way, kid's room, etc. Where can you find a place for it?

Shelving

I first saw rain gutter bookshelves several years ago in fellow teacher's classrooms. Now they are the hottest thing all over the internet. I think they are adorable and had wanted to put some type of shelving for pictures as well as books in my basement.

For me it seems the rain gutters were possibly going to cover too much of my picture frames and wanting the two to match I knew I had to find something else.

Who came through for me? IKEA - who else? For 20 bucks I got a 73 inch long shelf. We kept one in tact to hold the frames...

and cut the other in half to make two bookshelves...

The toddler is already so much more interested in books now that she can see all the covers!

Chore Charts

I have been wanting to make a 'chore' chart for awhile now. Mostly because I can't remember to brush my toddler's teeth and thought this would help me get on the ball. My inspiration came when I saw THESE.

Super cute. So here's my take on them.

I used a clipboard from the dollar store.

Covered it with Mod Podge and scrapbook paper.

Made their names and hot glued them to the metal clip.

Printed off chores on cardstock and stuck them under the clip (that way they can be easily switched out whenever chores change).

Then painted some stars and adhered them to the sides and bottom with tiny magnets that I painted (and hot glued on - of course :)

Finally, hot glued some magnets to the back so that they hang nicely on the side of my fridge.

Ta-da! Easy and super cute - now hopefully some chores will get done around here - I'm thinking mommy and daddy need one as well :)

holiday frames

After getting a new bookcase I soon got the urge to fill it with decorations. My friend used burlap and stamps to create cute frames here. So I took an old frame I had and sprayed it and distressed it (free).

I took her idea and decided to use the stamps (already had) as well but put mine on some fabric (79 cents for lots of it) I found. This one says fall but I also did one for Halloween using scrapbook paper I already had.

Now I have only one frame but can interchange the center to coordinate with various holidays. I love having decorations that stay in the same place all year but can be slightly altered to celebrate all year long!

how tall are you...

I want to make this

I'm going to make it!

I think it's absolutely adorable and would be the perfect addition to our basement.

Go check it out!

Taggie

This past weekend we went to my mom's house and I mentioned that I possibly wanted to try and make baby girl a taggie blanket because she is so in love with tags right now.

My mom immediately said, why don't we go downstairs and make one real quick?

I hoped on that offer and so before I knew it we were browsing through her plethora of fabrics and ribbon and came up with this:

Things you need:

- 2 pieces of fabric cut the same size (any size you want)

- enough ribbon to make as many tags as you want to fit around the edges

Directions:

1. Lay out your fabric.

2. Lay out ribbon, fold in half, and pin to one piece of fabric.

3. Sew straight across one piece of fabric adhering the ribbon to it.

4. Lay the other piece of fabric on top and sew across each side.

I love how it turned out. It was way easy, cheap, and oh so quick to make (under 15 minutes)!

Thanks mom for knowing how to sew and letting me scrounge around all your crafting supplies :)

Kid Wall

Here is the most recent update on our basement transformation. I have had this 'vision' of what I wanted this huge wall to look like forever - and now it's finally all come together. My pour hubby is hoping my project list will come to an end sometime because it always ends up being partly his 'to do' as well!


The blue wall is painted Pale Spruce from Color Place (Walmart brand). Then I bought 5 unfinished wood frames from Micheal's. I painted them brown, distressed them, added some cute scrapbook paper, and finished it off with some white wood letters (also from Micheal's which I hot glued onto the frame). All together (with all of my hundreds of 40% off coupons) it cost me a little over 30 bucks.

Under the monogrammed frames are 3 - 3ftx3ft squares.

The first one is a whiteboard. I bought shower board from Home Depot and the entire 4x8 sheet cost under 12 bucks. They cut it to size for me (love those guys!) and I finished it off with molding (that cost around 50 cents per foot) that I painted brown.

The middle square is a magnetic board. I bought two pieces of sheet metal (around 8 dollars each), used a ribbon to hide the seam, and finished it off with the molding. Here is my sweetie modeling just how she uses it!
The third and final square is a flannel board. I used leftover shower board that I purchased for the white board (free), flannel (from JoAnns that cost around 2 bucks), and spray adhesive. I finished it off to match the rest with the brown molding. As you can tell the girly loves it already!
In between each of the squares are art boards. They are 3 foot boards with 3 clips adhered to them to display the kid's artwork. Soon enough they will also have their names on them with some vinyl lettering. We're making them for our church craft day so here's my friend's cute completed ones. Just click here to see hers along with directions!

Now - on to the other 3 walls... :)

Basement Couch

First off, I have to start this post by telling you of our basement dillema. I've been slowly completing some projects down there to make it more of a place that I want to hang out in (since it's the playroom I'm down there a lot with the girls). Lately we decided there was no way a sectional or even a couch and loveseat were going to fit nicely in there. They would just be huge and really limit the playing space. Needless to say I was kind of disappointed to make this realization because I wanted some type of seating for when we're down there.

Then this past weekend one of my favorite stores (Goodwill) was having 50% off EVERYTHING! So needless to say I knew I just had to find something :) As soon as I walk into any resale place I always go straight towards the big items to check out what they've got. I immediately saw this:
A couch that was butt ugly and looked like it came straight from someone's great grandma's house. I was seriously considering buying it - I was meeting a friend there and as soon as she came I asked what she thought. She gave me the reassurance that this was a good buy - plus you can return at Goodwill (one of the main reasons I LOVE this place!) so I went for it.

Then even better - we discovered it has a hideaway bed in it!!! It was my lucky day :)

So twenty bucks later we were loading this beauty into the back of my van. One Walmart slip cover later and some throw pillows I took from our living room and VIOLA! One of my new favorite parts of our basement (it's so much nicer nursing and snuggling to watch kid shows on this than the floor!)

So stop in to your local Goodwill store! The money goes to a good cause and you just never know what you might run across :)

Photo blocks

We made these last year at a craft day and I think they are just about the cutest, cheapest, and easiest things out there! I made one for my grandma and even she loved it!

1. Have your lumber cut to whatever size you would like your photo block to be.
2. Print off a picture to whatever size is appropriate for your wood.
3. Paint, stain, sand your wood.
4. Modge Podge it and then apply your picture.
5. Let it dry.
6. Apply some Modge Podge over it.
7. Accessorize it however you want.

These are adorable and aren't just for pictures. You can add scrapbook paper, vinyl lettering, etc. - just about whatever you can think off!

ghosts

Who hasn't made one of these as a kid?



I thought my baby girl needed that same experience. They're cheap, easy, and cute - she loved them.

Wrap your sucker in a tissue, tie it off, and add a face!

Easy as can be :)

Stick Puppets

I found these cute little Halloween templates on the Family Fun website. I'm sure they have a ton more templates for a variety of seasons and holidays. We traced ours on colored paper, glued on a craft stick, and we couldn't forget the googly eyes!

Now we have fun little puppets to play with for Halloween!

Chandelier

Another lovely decoration I found at my mom's house. She was oh so nice to let me take the brass chandelier she didn't sell in her garage sale and attempt to make it into something lovely for my dining room.

The reason I wanted it most of all? - Our dining room came with a ceiling fan in it. I'm not sure why someone made that decision but for us - it just didn't work. We never used it and I had always wanted something prettier hanging above our table but never wanted to spend the money. Maybe one day.

But for now...a little spray paint later and ta da - a new chandelier. I plan on accessorizing it with those cute little shades but I'll have to post another 'after' picture when that part of the project actually gets done. For now this is what we have: