Poke Ball Ornaments

I found the ornaments at a yard sale, bought 12 for $1 I had all of the paint leftover from previous projects. 

Ive FALLen in Love again this year.

(i totally cheated and bumped this post from last year, life has been nuts lately, I do intend on getting back into blogging my life and home, soon.)

Fall is my favorite time of the year. September 1st rolls around and I pull out my fall decor. October 1st-ish (or whenever i feel like it) the Halloween stuff gets added. November 1st-ish the Halloween gets put away and any Thankgiving specific decor gets added to the decor.

here are some pictures of some of the Fall only stuff:

I had 2 little punkies and the gourd in the middle, but one of the punkies got moldy, so I had to toss it out. During my recent Gift Wrap Organization project, I found the gold/orange bow and thought it was too Fall-y to pack it away, (I love it too much to gift it anyway) the vase was from some flowers we got at our wedding, and the flowers (silk) were purchased on clearance at Walmart for .75/10 stems, intended for our orange/blue wedding, but they were too fall-looking for the wedding theme, so I didn't use many of them in the wedding. The cloth was purchased to cover an ugly air-conditioner I had in my old apartment.

COST: $1.50 for the 3 real veggies(one was tossed out). $0 for the vase I already had, $0 for the flowers (they were in the wedding budget), $0 for the reused bow, $0 for scrap fabric from before (was like $1)

This cake stand/punch bowl was my favorite bridal shower gift. Purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond (although I'm not finding on their website today) Here is a similar one from Bloomingales. Its super versatile, has a divided tray under that turns upside down to be a flat cake plate when the domed lid is also inverted. it can also be covered with the domed lid with the divided tray as it is in the picture. Since I got it, it has been a fruit bowl, a cookie/brownie tray, candy bowl, and during the glorious days of summer, tomato bowl. Hasnt been either a cake stand or punch bowl yet, go figure.

In the bowl are faux punkies, I was disappointed when one of my real ones got moldy already this year, thats never happended to me before, usually they last from beginning of September through Thanksgiving. So after Halloween, I snagged a bunch of these little moldless punkies and gourds for .75 each on clearance. They will pay for themselves next year when I don't buy real ones. There are more of those non-wedding flowers in there too. And of course, underneith, some candy, not Halloween candy, just candy, I am pregnant with a sweet tooth. This would great with a bowl of red apples, silk flowers and leaves too.

Under the bowl is a faux suede placemat bought on clearance a few years ago for $1. I have more of them in other places in the house.

COST $6 for the faux punkies, everything else was from before.

This is actually the back/top of my bedroom armoirs, covered in a blue bedsheet. I really like how it hides the back of the armoires from the living room (were in a loft, remember). I also gives a "wall"/"mantle" area for decorating. The daisy picture(free at a yardsale, $10 walmart poster frame) is hanging by a chain (hidden by the scarecrow pik) and a 3M command hook from the other side. I love the little dangly leg guys in the middle. They make me happy every year.

COST: $0, I already had everything from previous years. The scarecrow pik was, I think, $0.25 on clearance. The little dangly leg guys were under $1 each, also on clearance, The candles were in a set with 3 small ones also for, I think, $3 on sale.

BTW, The picture frame was this:
but it was out of place with all the other fall decor, so with some handy Scotch Double sided tape, a leftover wedding flower ripped from its stem, and some silk leaves it became this (temporarily):


Happy Fall!
Im linking to: It's A Blog Party's Days of Thanksgiving Holiday Party and Cottage Instincts Make it for Monday

super cheap/easy wine glass charms!

I've seen lots of wine glass charms for sale from everywhere from the Dollar Tree to The Container Store to various craft stores and K-Mart.

Although I loved the idea, I didn't think we needed them, because we rarely served wine or champagne and didn't even have wine glasses until our wedding gifts were opened.

Then, at Thanksgiving, 2 of my aunts raided my ribbon collection to tie different colored ribbon to their glasses to tell them apart, I decided I should consider getting (or making) some.

I came across this blog post showing off these gorgeous charms, and I was inspired:

Remembering the ribbon raid at Thanksgiving, and knowing we would be hosting Christmas, I decided to make something to label wine glasses this time. I didnt have the desire to make something as fancy as Tamara did at Etceroize, and wanted to make them for free (stuff I already owned).

I had come across a package of red/white/green "chenille stems" aka "pipe cleaners" when I was unpacking Christmas stuff. I had bought them for another project years ago but didn't use them. I thought cutting tags or other die cuts out with my Cricut, but I wanted this project to be even easier than that. Having just recently organized my Christmas gift wrap similarly to how I did my generic gift wrap I remembered some little card gift tags on strings mixed in with the peel and stick gift tags.

So I had the general idea in mind and got to work:

I measured the pipe cleaner and found about 1/2 is perfect for my wine glasses. cut them all in half.

I twisted the pipe cleaner around the stems and then removed them.

I tried hole-punching the tag hole bigger so it can be strung directly onto the pipe cleaner but didn't like how it looked, and it started ripping. So instead, I wound the string (that was already on the tag) around the end of the pipe cleaner a bunch of times, so it only dangled down a bit.

Then, to hold the string in place better, i folded the tip of the pipe cleaner back on itself over the string.

There were about 6 different gift tag designs in the set. While winding the pipe cleaners I found that the red white and green colors were actually 3 smaller pipecleaners twisted together, so I untwisted them to make even more design combinations. People could have written their name on the back of the tags, but this made theme easier, and re-usable.

I made 4 of each tag design, a tri-colored one and one of each color. I left one on a glass stem and put the rest inside the glass for display, so people can choose the tag they like and put it on their either wine or champange glass.

I very much enjoyed my snow man on white stem with my martinelli's sparkling cider, and made it easy to spot my glass, even from across the room.

Not a lot of people drank wine or champagne or sparkling cider at our gathering, but these were so easy and cheap to make, that I wasn't disappointed more of them didn't get used, I can pack them away and use them again next year!

this project could also be done with gift wrapping ribbon / store bought or home made tags also, if you don't have pipe cleaners. Lke Tammy at The Sweet Spot made with her new craft toy

Cost of this project:
for me: $FREE
if starting with none of the supplies: about $2
The gift tags came from the Dollar Tree a few years ago.
I estimate the pipe cleaners were about $1 / package also.
Time: maybe 30 minutes, not much time at all.

sticker storage!

During my Craft Room Overhaul, I started unpacking and organizing my papercrafting supplies. I had organized them all before, but after loaning a box full of supplies to my aunt, taking supplies to my aunts home to do a scrapbook with extended family for my late uncle, and using some supplies from storage totes, (nothing ever got put away) things werent looking very pretty. All my scrapbook supplies were mixed up. Yesterday I sorted everything, today I organized the stickers.

When I started papercrafting a few years ago, I thought this would be perfect: its a Clip-It-Up Kinda spendy at $65... I do remember seeing tuturials online to make them though...

This idea from Club CK would have been a good DIY option:

look close, its a paper towel holder, page protectors with cardstock, and binder ring clips.

ETA: Check out "Martha Stacey"s Sticker storage idea too:

I had wanted to try to find a solution using stuff I already owned, I didnt feel like gathering supplies and my new hobbie was already costing me a few pretty pennies.

When I was working on my first scrapbook, I organized pictures, paper and stickers by using the album the finished pages would go into. This gave me an idea!

Having been out of college just a few years, I had a surplus of 2 things: 3 ring binders and page protectors. Seems like every class had a "notebook/binder" assignment. Many students would put their graded binders in a free bin in the student room. I took bunches home, pulled all the school work out of the page protectors and saved them for my own future assignments. I had more than enough, and still have all my finished graded binders, in storage.

After a few years of paper crafting, I have quite the sticker collection.

This isnt all of it, just some of the stickers that werent in binders from before.

Since my binders were already labled, I laid them out to use for sorting piles.

I have a binder for "words" "letters" "items" "seasonal" and after realizing how much baby girl stuff I had (intentions of making baby books for 2 neices last summer didnt happen) that has its own binder now too.

After all the stickers were sorted, I started filling the binders.

The "Items" binder has all the stickers organized by theme. There are pages for: animals, automobiles, birthday, food, play, beach, Vegas, school, work, and sports to name a few. Also scraps of paper that fit into these categories also went into the page protectors also, like the football paper did.

For all those stickers that had been seperated from their packaging, and cut apart on the backing (for trial placement) or were just in small packages, were all stapled onto a sheet of white printer paper to go into the page protector so that they dont just puddle at the bottom of the page/slide out it tipped.

Another option to solve the tiny individual stickers problem, use trading card page protectors. Stickers can be slid into the slots. I got like 10 sheets of these at a thrift store for $0.49 there are a few in each binder, for misc stickers.

After all the "item" stickers were organized, I moved onto "Letters" organized by color

Next, came the "seasonal" binder.

SIDENOTE: One way I found to help keep my home organized is that ANYTHING specific to one holiday/season or another is seperate from the rest of the stuff and stored until the time of year theyre used. I have a nice collection of pumpkin bowls/platters that I use for decor/serving thankgiving food. They are in a box in the attic until I bring out my fall decor. They dont take up precious space in my cabinets with my other dishes. I even keep past issues of magazines in the seasonal boxes so that when i pull my decor out for that season, I can re-read those magazines, rather than them taking up space on a shelf 11 other months out of the year

The seasonal scrapbook supplies dont go in the attic, since I do use them throughout the year, but they are seperate so i dont have to search past stickers of pumpkins and Santa while looking for footballs and hula dancers.

The "seasonal binder is organized chronologically, Happy New Year at the front, Thankgiving at the end (Christmas scrapbooking has its entire own tote, with paper, stamps etc)

There are lots of great sticker storage options out there, I like this solution because the binders can be placed on a bookcase, passed from scrapper to scrapper when working together, and I can easily flip through the books looking for stickers for whatever Im crafting at the time.

Craft Room Overhaul Continues!

I'm sure all 5 of my followers are dying to know how my Craft Room Overhaul is going, no? oh well its getting better. Here are some updates...

After wanting to make a quick Thanksgiving card to go with my pumpkin cheesecakes for the nurses at the hospital, I decided unpacking and organizing all my papercrafting stuff needed to be next on the to-do list.

This is what it looked like after rummaging through boxes for the card supplies:

Remember that nicely cleaned off changing table?

Well in the last couple weeks, it became a landing spot for items that belong elsewhere when I was cleaning up before. Christmas items, Attic-bound items, and misc items that didnt belong in here.

Everything found its way home and it more resembeled the cleared off picture.

Until I used it for sorting as I unpacked the clear totes. I have bins for: Felt, Misc, Chipboard, Stamps&ink, Brads/embellies, Stickers, More stickers, Iron-0ns, Paint/glitter. and a pile for upcoming projects. Also, not pictured, i have boxes labeled: Cut, Glue, Ribbon, Keepsakes. and a box for blank cards.

Scrapbooking totes stack all gone!

most of the boxes had stacks of paper, for packing purposes, they were not all corralled so as I upacked the boxes, I filled up my new paper rack. It will not stay like this, must be more organized eventually, and i have a tote full of more various papers, so this is just a during picture:
Ok, so this post is just proof that I havent forgotten about this little project of mine while I was working on my other organizing endevors, like the Junk Drawer Clean-Up and Under Sink Re-Do

Next, I will be organizing the scrapbooking stickers!

why grannie, what a big nightgown you have.

Owoooooooo! Who's that I see walkin' in these woods? Why, it's Little Red Riding Hood. Hey there Little Red Riding Hood, You sure are looking good. You're everything a big bad wolf could want.

So I didn't take pictures as I made our costumes but wanted to share them anyway.

After much deliberation over a fun couple's costume, we decided on Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.

First I looked at a pattern to make a Little Red Riding Hood costume (couldn't find a premade maternity one at the stores), but thinking of my time, sewing skills, and budget, I decided to make the hood and apron and wear clothes I already had.


for the hood, I used a hoodie, laid it with the top of the hood on the fold of the red fabric, and cut around it, not cutting the folded side. (basically a rectangle with a curved corner) then i sewed the seam up the back, and a hem around the face.

To make the ties, I cut a strip of fabric, about 4 inches wide along one end of the fabric. i cut it in half so i had 2 22"x4" strips. folding the peices right sides together, i sewed a seam along the edge and one end and turned it right side out.


For the cape, I pressed and sewed a seam along the 2 sides and bottom of the cape.

To attatch the hood and ties to the cape, I folded and pressed a 5/8" seam along the entire top, then centered the hood on that edge of the cape. Then, right sides together, I pinned the hood and ties on and sewed a seam along the entire edge, reinforcing the stitches where the ties were attatched.

Ta-Da a hooded cape. I did not however prewash the velvety dark bright red fabric, so my hands, sewing machine and clothes I wore were tinted red. oh well.


For the apron, I followed a pattern I bought at walmart. had I thought ahead of time, I could have found an appropriate apron for less $ than the materials and pattern, but I enjoyed sewing it, and have pride in having made it myself. HS Sewing 101 was a long time ago.

For the Big Bad Wolf, originally we planned to attatch peices of faux fur (remarkably hard to find, wasn't at JoAnns or Wal-Mart) to a brown sweatsuit. Then we decided we wanted the wolf to be dresses in Grannies clothes. We scoured a thrift store for a nightgown, but ended up getting one at KMart (my hubbys a big guy, needed womens 4x size).

After putting the gown on, we found that only the hood, neck and ankles of the sweatsuit even showed, so remembering our budget and body temperature when my hubby will be drinking at the party, we decided to scrap the sweatsuit and return it for $20 back.

He had some old ratty sweat pants that I stitched, essentially faux fur leg warmers, to.


For the hood, I made a hood similar to the Red Riding Hood, only i left the seam around the face big enough for a drawstring, and made it longer so it would drape down his neck.

For the chest, I just cut a rectangle with a neck sized hole out of it, then a cut in the back. this was wrapped around his neck, laying on his shoulders and chest, and safety-pinned in the back.

I had intentions of makeing glove type things for his hands, but ran out of time.

The great thing about my costume, it was super comfertable and warm. Other girls at the party were in short skirts, as one admitted after a bunch of drinks "a lotta lycra under here" and high heels and not comfertable. Mikey lost his chest peice, then pants, and eventually his hood/make up before too long, and ran around in this nightgown most of the night. At that point he was pretty comfertable...

our door is patriotic.

so i found so many great wreaths after i found the one that inspired me to make my spring wreath when i found inspiration for this one in the July 2010 Good Housekeeping












i had to make it. but i didnt like how some of the flags were upside down. but to make it full enough without upside-down flags, i thought first of using curling ribbon like Embellished Bayou did last spring but at the dollar tree, i could get either $3 of curling ribbon, or about $6 of pre-curled ribbon, or $1 for a red white and blue tinsel garland. and well im on a budget, and i didnt want to copy my spring wreath too much. so garland it was.

i made 2, one for our home and one for my Aunt and Uncle's house, they always host a great fireworks show and bbq on the 4th.

each wreath cost $2.10 (i made 2 for $4.20)

the base is a styrofoam circle $1 dollar tree.
the garland was also from the dollar tree for $1 but only used half of the garland on each wreath
(you can raid christmas decor for the garland red, blue or silver would work)
the flag picks were from Joann Fabrics. was 40% off of $2 so $1.20 there were more than enough of them for both wreaths, extras can be used on food on the the 4th or can make it fuller.

i painted the styrofoam base with leftover paint from a previous project then wrapped the garland around the base candy-cane style. I used a regular office stapler to attatch it.
then, i just poked the picks in. i broke some of them to make them shorter to fill in better.

im linking to It’s A Blog Party 's 4th of July Party! and Centsational Girl's Stars and Stripes party

1920s Flapper dress...

So Mikey and I were invited to a murder mystery dinner party this weekend. I am supposed to play a Flapper Girl.
My first thought that was that it was going to be kinda lame and corney, but the more i think about it, this should be fun. Mikey reminded me, I get to play dress up!

After googling, "how to make a flapper costume" I thought, "hey, I can do that!" so off to thrift stores we go!
I found this straight tank dress at Value Village for $9.99 (it fit perfectly, but I forgot to take a picture of it on me)
then got some fringe and sequins at Hancock Fabrics and called my mommy. She's pretty crafty and, has an, albeit somewhat messy, sewing room and her machine isn't buried behind lord knows how much stuff and junk in storage as mine is. Gosh I cannot wait for my own hobby room to be ready... but that's another blog...

The dress was too long, so my mom hemmed it.

(see the macramé bunny? told you my mom is crafty)

We knew we wanted some of the fringe on the bottom, so a-pinning and a-sewing she went.

(my mom could totally be a hand model for Nancy Zieman)

Sewing the fringe on, we found pinning wasn't really

working because the dress was kinda stretchy...

I decided I wanted another row of fringe along the bottom. so I made a measuring card and Len got me a sharpie I marked where the next row should go...

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...and sewed it on.

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Ta Da!

Next, I put the dress on and had my dad chime in on his opinion where the next row of fringe should go, you know, because he remembers the 20s fashion... jk my dad isn't that old...

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Apparently we didn't take pictures of the middle row of fringe!

Sorry Lenna, but your boobs aren't quite big enough for you to be my mannequin yet...

After the middle was done, I had less fringe left than I thought, so we changed the plan a bit. Instead of going around the neckline, I decided on across the front, but had to scrunch the straps a bit to make it fit. I think it looks neat scrunched

And the fringe is done... next step, sequins!,

because it really wouldn't be dress-up without sequins!