A little Fall-ness

Since blogland is in full-out throw-those-Fall-goodies-up-on-that-mantel-and-on-that-front-door-and-craft-some-Fall-ish-stuff-NOW mode, I thought I'd throw together a little post about some Fall goodies that I made.

Last year.

And the year before.

Because I'm currently in the midst of a 3-jobs-at-once type situation, and while I'd love to be craftin' up a storm with the rest of you, the only storm I'm seeing seems to have just passed through my house. As in, parts of it are a wreck.

Blargh.

Anywho- here are a few posts from the past to hopefully get your juices flowing and your hot glue a-meltin'...

(just click the title to go straight to the post)

Fall is in the air and on the Mantel

Fall is in the air and on the front door

Halloween decor 2011



How to make an easy-shmeezy Fall wreath

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Don't forget to come and see me tomorrow from 9-1 in the gym of Holt High School for an amazing craft fair with tons of vendors and lots of handmade goodies!

Food too.

Lots of food.

mmmmmm...

Happy weekend to ya!

How to make your own custom printables

**If you missed yesterday's post, there's a fabulous giveaway going on here this week- just go to THIS POST to enter!**

Hello friends! Today's post is all about how to make your own customized printables for birthday parties, baby/wedding showers, teacher gifts, Tony Awards viewing parties, Mad Men season finale parties, ......you get the picture. As most of you know, I do NOT consider myself to be very tech savvy, so the fact that I was able to do this means that anyone could do this. You actually may already know some great tips/tricks on this subject, but I'm going to share how I made the printables for the girls Wizard of Oz party because fabric, yes fabric, was involved.

Chew on that for a sec...

Since Dorothy's dress is blue/white gingham, I knew I wanted to use tons of it in the party decor. It served as the table cloth on the food table, and I also made a couple of banners with it as well as a dress-up apron for our photo props, but I still thought, that's just not enough. I need more gingham just like Christopher Walken needed more cowbell. (SNL anyone?) I wanted to somehow incorporate it into the tags on the favor baskets as well as the labels for the food, and that's where fabric.com comes in.

I went to their website, typed 'blue and white gingham' into the search bar, and BAM. Several fabric samples to choose from, just like that. I found one that would work, enlarged the sample picture, and right-clicked on it to save it to my computer. Once you've done that, you'll have a pic that looks like this:

which is great, but I didn't really want that ruler at the bottom.

Enter Picmonkey.com

(once again, this is not a sponsored post, but I should totally be on their payroll as I tend to mention them 128 times a week.

Just sayin.)

I uploaded that pic onto picmonkey's site, used the crop tool, said buh-bye to the ruler, and added an oval in the center to provide a perfect spot to add my text. I also faded the oval out a bit so the gingham was visible behind it as well.

Now all I had to do was add the text on top.

It's just.that.simple.

Once I added words, I printed each of them out on cardstock in whatever size I needed. I used the wallet-size option to print 9 favor tags per 8.5 x 11 sheet:

 

and also printed wallet-sized labels onto adhesive paper for the

cupcakes in a jar:

For the food labels, I printed a 5 x 5 pic, glued them to a piece of cardstock folded in half, and voila!

This works with any picture/graphic you have saved on your computer-

 for example-

I used this Batman graphic I found online (from a simple google image search) for the food labels, favor tags, and even the invites for O's party back in February:

and, just in case any of you are planning a Batman shindig anytime soon, here's a blank one in black and white:

 and a blank one in black and yellow:

** one last tip **

these blank templates can also be used as custom thank you notes! I printed the blank gingham cards in a 3 x 5 size, and now we have our own *free* thank you notes that match our party theme.

So tell me-

what do you plan to make first with picmonkey?

Custom labels for your office/craft supplies/tools/makeup?

Custom invites?

Monogrammed stationary?

Do tell...

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

That's right-
this year I've envisioned lovely vignettes of white pinecones, berries, ornaments, trees, and all things Christmasy. My hubs has talked me into having a real tree this year (with the agreement that HE cleans up needles off the floor each day) and I'm actually excited about it! We've always done a faux tree, but if you've seen pics of real ones, you know they're quite pretty. No...gawgeous.
They're gawgeous.
However, I don't want to junk it up with all of the hulabaloo that I usually put on our faux tree, so....
I'm going a more handmade, rustic route with everything this year.

While searching Pinterest for 'White Christmas' inspiration, I came across and fell in love with a white berry wreath so, naturally, I had to try and re-create it. This begins my 'Week of Christmas Crafts- 2011', and I'm starting out by saving a whopping $51 bucks.

Did you hear that internets?
I SAVED $51 dollaroonies by makin' this myself.
The one I found on etsy was $70 and I was able to pick up the supplies I needed for my own at a cool $19. While they aren't identical, I'm totally in love with my own now.
Totally.

Here's my version:

**updated**
I totally added a ribbon

and here's the one I pinned from etsy:

Source: etsy.com via Mary Kathryn on Pinterest

And yes, I could totally add a bow to make them even more twin-like...

Here's what I used to make it:

14 white berry stems from Michael's at 50% off= $14

1 wired wreath form= $2.99

1 spool of floral wire= $1.99

In short, all I did was attach each of the stems to the wreath form with the floral wire, and since the wreath form started out dark green, I also used some white acrylic paint I had on hand so it would blend in.

p.s. Do you like my manicure? I call it 'taupe-with-a-tip-of-white-acrylic'

and...that's the backside of the wreath form. See how that green sticks out like a sore thumb?

Thar she is with 2 stems attached.

By the way, you'll need some of these bad boys to clip the long stems off since they're not needed-

They're called wire-stem-remover thing-a-ma-bobs.

Forgot to mention that it may also be helpful to have a 2-year old who refuses to go to sleep because she just wants to 'help'.

Even before the 2-year old goes to sleep, the wreath will be done because it was just so darntootin' easy.

For now, it's in the foyer on the Narnia closet door. I'm thinkin' I may go back and make it a bit fuller by adding in more stems, but who knows. I could grow to love it in this skinny state. And speaking of NOT skinny, I'll be dieting until I get this turkeyhamdressingcasserolepie gut off of me. I'd love to say I'm kidding when someone asked yesterday when I was due, but I'm NOT.

Someone actually asked me when I was DUE.

I know this is neither here nor there in regards to the lovely wreath above but I felt like sharing.

Anywho....

I hope you have a most excellent Monday!

I'll be back tomorrow with something else I'm creating for my 'white, light, and bright' decor.

And yes-

extra bonus points if you immediately spotted the plastic Easter egg in the pic above. It just wouldn't be right if a random toy didn't make it into at least one of the shots.

**********

I've linked this post to:



Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog,

 The Crafty Lassy Linky at Sew Stylish Boutique,Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts,Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design,Kate's Holiday Crafts linky at Centsational Girl,

Fall is in the air and on the mantel

Happy Monday friends!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

I have lots to share about ours, including an adventure with some friends to see Les Miserables on Friday night,

but first,

it's that time again:

Will any of you be joining these partays?

Can't wait to be inspired by other's creativity.

Since Layla's mantel party is tomorrow, I'm sharing mine today:

I spent zip, zero, zilch on this mantel, which makes me love it all the more.

black vase, florals + berries, pumpkins= all from hob lob in years past

black mirror from Kirklands is back after a short hiatus in the master bedroom,

large 'M' is from Jo-Ann's,

and the felt circle garland is something I whipped up Saturday morn-

I grabbed these supplies that I already had on hand:

wool felt in fall-ish shades (from hob lob),

pumpkin & white twine,

great big needle,

scissors

I free-handed several circles out of each color-

and strung them together with the twine-

and that was all she wrote.

Done.

Here's a quick reminder of what the mantel looked like

before:

Did you notice something else missing?

Besides that orange ball peeking out from underneath those logs?

Those logs that are just posers in that fake fireplace?

That's right.

Fake.

Total fakeness going on.

I removed the logs and hideous gold log holders because,

quite honestly,

I have no idea why I kept them there so long in the first place.

It was rank-nasty underneath that stack of wood, so good riddance is what Ima sayin'.

You with me?

I'm thinking that new, open space down thar would look fabulous with some pumpkins or a stack of vintage suitcases.

Yes, two completely different looks.

I know.

Of course, it means we'll no longer get to enjoy this:

but it also means no one's gettin' an eye poked out with those pointy gold hazardous could-probably-be-used-as-a-weapon log holders.

They're up for grabs now, along with Mr. Shower Bear.

Any takers?

p.s.- I'll be back later today to share something super exciting that's taking place this Saturday. It may be the reason that I've been craftin' off my bootay lately.

squee!

********************

I've linked this to:

Made by You Monday at Skip to my Lou,
Met Monday at Between Naps on the Porch,
Craftomaniac Monday at Craftomaniac,
Mad in Crafts Mad Skills Party,
Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff,
Tutorials and Tips at Home Stories A 2 Z,
Anything Goes at Type A Decorating,

Because sheets are fabric too...(part 2)

Remember back in,

oh,................I don't know,

APRIL

of this year when I posted about updates I'd made in the master bedroom?

Like new bedding and lamps?

Well, 3 days after that post,

we had a storm,

I had a bit of surgery,

we moved in with my in-laws for 10 days,

moved back into our house,

and put ALL of our attention on the kitchen,

which you can read about HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Finally, yes, FINALLY I've gotten around to completing some of the many projects I'd planned to do way back when.

The first of which was curtains.

Or drapes, if you're uppity.

You know I'm cheap, so even though IKEA sells some fantastic AND inexpesive curtain panels, I set out to find a way to make them even cheaper.

Enter sheets:

King flat sheets, to be exact, from Target.

They cost a whopping 16.99 a piece, and measure 108" x 102".

Hmmm...I says to myself-

If I cut those babies into thirds, I'd have 6 panels.

Then I gave myself a pat on the back, threw 2 flat sheets into my red buggy, and strolled straight over to Starbucks & bought myself a white mocha for being so good at math.

After finishing my white mocha, I measured my sheets and cut them into 3 equal strips.

I folded over the edges that  had been cut and pressed down a 1" seam-

then I stitched each of those rough edges.

Enter curtain hanging devices:

I picked up 3 cheap-o spring rods and some drapery rings-

(We have window boxes in the master, so I didn't need to buy decorative curtain rods since they wouldn't be seen)

Here's a 'before':

See the pretty white boxes?

They came with the house and so far I haven't hated them enough to rip them down.

I opened up the drapery rings and placed them equally (or semi-equally) along the tops of each panel, then slid two panels onto each spring rod-

and this was the result:

Before:

complete with messy pile of hangers and a stack of empty shoe boxes...

After:

No, I haven't hemmed them yet.

Yes, they desperately need to be steamed.

No, that art work above the bed no longer matches the bedding.

Yes, I already have a DIY in the works to replace it.

No, we don't have a babe sleeping in that pac-n-play every night.

Yes, we keep it in here for days when the girls would rather talk and sing to each other than nap. Seperate rooms to nap in has kept us sane.

Yes, that's an ab roller in the bottom of the pic.

No, I don't use it much, unfortunately.

So, whatcha think of my sheet curtains?

I'd already put them on my kids, so I figured,

why not the windows?

**Stay tuned for LOTS more change-a-roos in the ole' master**

********

I've linked this post to:

Craft-o-maniac Monday at Craft-o-maniac,

Pink Hippo Party at Pinkapotamus,

Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff,

Tutorials and Tips Tuesday at Home Stories A 2 Z,

Get Your Craft on at Today's Creative Blog,