Final Touches for Halloween

Trick or Treat! Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween! I wanted to post some last minute decorating ideas. 

Below is a recycled Ikea candle holder - I sprayed candy corn with Krylon Preserve spray and put a tea light in the middle.

Mummy pumpkin - I wrapped in gauze and taped googly eyes. Toilet paper works well too!

Here I cut strips of scrap book paper and glued them to the pumpkin using a paint brush.

I recycled milk jugs and made ghosts. All you do is paint faces and cut a hole in back (puncture with sharp knife and twist in a circular motion until it begins cutting and make about a quarter sized hole). Push clear lights through backs. I put marbles inside to help weigh the jugs down. They are super cute when it's dark! Kids will love them!

I picked up paper cutouts and punched two holes in each, and threaded wire ribbon through to make staircase garland.

Here's another idea for a pumpkin. I didn't make this one. We had a pumpkin decorating contest at work and someone else made this one but I thought is was pretty wicked. 

This is a recycled Glade glass candle holder - I used acrylic paint and casually painted each color and let dry before applying next color.

Same method of gluing strips of scrap book paper as above but this pumpkin is made of Styrofoam.

Taped wire spider web to a mirror

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Knock! Knock! $1.00 Skeleton Wreath

Hope you're having a great weekend! I had a really nice day today and am excited to have finally completed the kids' Halloween costumes. My mother-in-law actually found the perfect solution for my youngster's costume today. Can't wait to go trick or treating!

Thought I'd share the front door wreath I came up with for $1.00! The actual wreath was freeeeeeee. My mom gave it to me last time I visited so I figured I could do something with it. 

 

I was in Dollar Tree one day and found a strand of little skeletons on twine. I pulled the skeletons off the twine and hot glued them to the wreath and there you have it. That is how I made this spooky wreath for a buck!

Pumpkin Jar

I made a jar pumpkin using vinyl I cut out by hand. So simple your kids can do it. I painted the lid with black spray paint and put a battery operated candle inside!

Chunky Candy Corn Wreath

Everybody has probably tried this wreath already and I may be the last to find this one but it was so fun to make. I still don't like the taste of candy corn though!

All you need is:

A wreath of some sort

Black duck tape

Three bags of candy corn

Glue gun

Ribbon

Krylon Preserve spray which can be bought 

at a craft store

Wrap your wreath in the black duck tape.

Use the glue gun and cover your wreath!

I went with a pattern and simply covered the entire wreath.

I used the Krylon Preserve spray and sprayed the wreath down to reuse and avoid bugs!

I used ribbon from Dollar Tree to hang it.

I think it's super cute!

Up To Eyeballs In Whimsical Halloween!

It's a week until Halloween and we're counting down! I think Halloween is my favorite holiday. Dressing up in costumes, decking the house in pumpkins and ghosts galore is so much fun. Really I don't have many Halloween decorations so this year I have been making a lot of my own to add some color and fun to the house! Here is one silly centerpiece I did. 

I collected sticks in the back yard and painted them black! I used craft paint and applied it using one of those craft sponges on a stick. Then I found some silly eyeball foam stickers and I scattered the eyeballs all over my wooden vase for fun.

 

It has transformed the dining room into silly Halloween! We can't be too scary because of the kids so this is fun, colorful and whimsical! 

http://swankybaby.net/2011/10/holidays-made-by-you-halloween.html

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em

How is everybody? I'm tuckered out. I was going to try and post some of my Halloween creations but have been doing three loads of laundry this weekend. Here is a nifty organizational aid for doing laundry instead. I'll just have to do a cram session of Halloween decor before the big day gets here which is only a week away! 

Oh I detest laundry! I don't really like any part of it and I am one of those who will turn the dryer back on a couple of times to "fluff" what is in the dryer just so I don't have to fold it. Oops did I actually just admit this?? Folding laundry and matching up socks are just miserable to me. Ha. Matching socks seems to be worse though. Sooooooo - I bought ALL new socks for the kiddos. I got completely different socks for each child to help tell them apart. For sanity's sake and as a time saver, I found these garment bags BELOW at Wally World AKA Wal-Mart in the laundry gadgets section for about $0.87 a piece. I think they were meant for other kinds of undergarments but hey, they work.  

"You gotta'keep'em separated" (Remember that song by The Offspring?!)! In all seriousness it cuts time to separate the socks into separate bags before washing. It makes the end of the process smoother. Less time, less fuss = thumbs up! I will never LOVE doing laundry but this at least helps. Have a great week and I can't wait to see what spooky things people are coming up with!

Bad Dye Job- Don't Quit Your Day Job!

Hello fellow decor friends! How are yous guys (and yes, I meant to say "yous") Things have been busy around here trying to keep up with every day things and trying to fit in some decoration projects. If we could afford to hire a maid for regular house dusting and bathroom scrub downs to help with some of the chores around here, that would be awesome but I think I'll have to keep on dreaming! I've been busy working on Halloween decorations but have been meaning to post this failed attempt at dyeing a night light lamp shade. I totally ruined a perfect little night light lamp shade. Leave it to me. So here it is!

I love the way mod-styled lamp shades have trim work in a solid color. I tried to use ribbon but struggled getting the ribbon just right. I thought it would be cool to dye just the top and bottom border of the lamp shade. I thought this would solve my problem of not being able to get ribbon where I wanted it. NOT!

I picked up some fabric dye and the color, so I thought, was supposed to be more of an olive green so that was one of the first fails! I made up a bowl of dye and dipped the lamp shade into it so that the shade was very level to get a nice even border of green. You can see for yourself that the dye ran and it just wasn't as crisp and fresh looking as I had hoped. 

Oh well! What kinds of projects have you tried that were total flops?

Mommy To Do List

Oh my gosh my heart is racing. I'm typing while watching the first episode of  this season's The Walking Dead. The host of Talking Dead, the after show, just took the words right out of my mouth. Holy SHITE!!!

So how was your weekend?!?! HeeeHeeee. I've been waiting for this show to start back and boy did it! As my fellow mom friends know, we are always doing more than one thing at a time. I wanted to see this show so badly that I actually ate my dinner standing up in the kitchen, doing dishes while watching the first part of it. I usually can't eat during anything gory!

My weekend was pretty B-U-S-Y. Full of sick boys from the husband all the way down to the little pooty tat. Last weekend was an awesome kid-less weekend at the beach with two girlfriends so this weekend was mostly catching up on things and I don't think I'll ever really be caught up on anything! Is anybody else with me on that? So here is the latest and greatest To Do list to try and help myself keep it together. I have a different one at work but this is the daily one for the week at home. My new little obsession is self-sealing laminating pouches and I found them pretty useful here.

I typed up a Morning and Evening list of items to hang on the fridge as a friendly reminder to self. I used Self-Sealing Laminating Pouches to laminate the page and I did it on an 8 1/2" X 11"  page. I used a cute font and used boxes so I could easily mark them off with a dry erase marker. With a child in school now, I cannot forget lunches. As you can see, I still have a lot to do before I go to bed so I need to bolt.
 

On a side note I made these bubble magnets and did a tutorial a couple of years ago. The magnet to the top right is quite fitting, dontcha think? It's pretty special to me because it's one I made for my grandfather and his late wife who is near and dear to my heart. This is a saying they used to say and it caught me off guard the first time I heard my grandfather's wife say it. I about fell out of my chair in laughter! Like everyone in the family, she had an awesome sense of humor.

Since I still have quite a bit left to do tonight,  I am signing off. Nighty night!

Decorating With Candy Corn

BOO! Did I scare you? So how was your weekend? Hopefully good! I did my yard sale on Saturday and I said this once and I'm going to say it again - NEVER AGAIN! ha ha. I'll probably eat my words again but it was a total bust and so much work for not much payoff! I made three signs to advertise, and after the whole thing was said and done, someone had removed my most important sign that pointed in the direction to our street. Boo Hoo! Don't make me cry!

So here's a quick Halloween decoration that is super cheap!

I bought a bag of candy corn at CVS for 88 or 81 cents, well under a dollar. I had some baby food jars leftover from months ago that I spray painted the lids with a "pewter" spray paint.I decided to pull out the CRICUT and cut out the word B-O-O. So I did. I used black self adhesive vinyl and used the BIRTHDAY BASH cartridge and cut out the letters in about a 1" font.

I stuck those puppies on and here you have it. You can line up your cute little jars or stack 'em up! Have fun with it! My son had a ball filling the jars! 

I'll be sharing my Halloween mantel as soon as I get the chance. Can't wait to show you how it turned out! Have a great Monday!

How The Bag Lady Organizes Paper

How was your weekend? Hopefully good and hopefully you got to do something fun! I spent time Saturday cleaning our kitchen table. For all you moms out there I know you get this or at least I hope I'm not alone, but I had to take the razor to the kitchen table and chairs and do some SCRAPING. So totally disgusting but so necessary. It's just one more thing that makes mom's job a dirty one!

No matter how much I clean up after the kids, the table and chairs get so grimy! EEWWWWWW period! (exclamation point) You get it. I know you do. Oh and my child went to two birthday parties and the one today, I think, went to his head a little. It was a "Jedi training" party and afterwards he kept telling me that he was using the "force" on his brother when his brother would fuss or fall down or something. Brotherly love!

Anyhow here is a small project that has made a difference in some of my paper clutter. Every little bit helps, am I right? It was so simple but has made a tremendous difference and that makes me especially happy. :)

I am an avid couponer and try and swap with friends and I save all receipts until they go through at the bank. Instead of letting things pile up all over the place, I keep these two bags hung on a wall rack. They stay there collecting coupons to be swapped and papers to be shredded. When it's time to take them to work or an office store to shred, then I'll carry the paper in grocery bags. These have really helped me stay more organized. 

For this little project you can pick up bags at a craft store. I got mine at Hobby Lobby. You also need to get iron on letters. You simply use an iron on the dry setting and follow the directions on the packaging. It'll tell you how long to hold the iron over the letters.

It's funny how the simplest things can make such an impact on organization and routines. What way works best for you in organizing? What kinds of things do you do?