$0 Christmas Tree Ornaments

Ok, are you guys ready for my last Christmas tree ornament tutorial?!?
"Drumroll please!"
.....
"Drumroll!"
(has anybody seen Christmas Vacation? classic :)

These stars are pretty much the most beautiful mess I have made so far in my life. I just love 'em!
I have been seeing other people make projects with aged paper and I decided to use something similar for my poor, bare tree.
First, I considered my super limited library of books I decided to bring with me down here. After some deliberation I decided to offer up A Wrinkle in Time as a sacrifice to the pagan crafting gods. I tore out a bunch of pages and brushed on some very concentrated herbal tea. (I also tried coffee but didn't get quite the color I wanted for this project) I then crumpled it up a couple times to make it look worn and then let it dry. After it was dry I used a candle to burn the edges a little.
Now... What to do with my paper...
We have excessive amounts of cereal boxes in our apartment (because I refuse to throw them away. Be-Cause I might need them for something). I free handed a bunch of stars from the cereal boxes and then covered them with the aged paper! I used modpodge to adhere the paper to the cardboard and also to glaze over the paper. I like the glossy finish that modpodge gives :)

(I love how you can kinda see me taking the picture in the silver ornament!)

I decided the ornaments needed a little more decoration, so I dug into my box-of-random-things-I-might-need-someday. I found a couple scraps of burlap (from my burlap wreath tutorial), some buttons, ribbon, and... some black and white pictures from our wedding! Score.
Now I am Super impressed with myself. Usually the messes I make are a lot more messier than this!

Only about one more week until CHRISTMAS!!!!! Enjoy it! I am looking forward to camping out in front of our tree tonight with the hubby :)
One more Christmas Vacation reference....
"Hey Clark! Where do you think you are going to put a tree that big?"
Bahahaha!

How to make your home smell like Christmas

Here is a mini tutorial to hold me over til my next big post (it's going to be great!)
I like to hang out on pinterest. Sometimes for ridiculous amounts of time. Occasionally I see something and wonder.. Would that really work?
Well yesterday I decided to try an orange candle. I saw a bunch of pictures on.. Apartment therapy? I think that's right. Anyways, the
goal is to get all of the fruit out of the orange peel, with that middle stem thing that goes all the way through the orange still attached to the peel(that didn't happen) pour in some alcohol, and voila! You have a cute little candle that makes your house smell great.
Like I said. The 'wick' did not make it through intact. And we don't drink alchohol so I transposed a tea candle into the orange peel by melting it with a lighter.
I was still really proud of myself and was able to get a few good pictures before my husband walked in and said, is something burning?
Sure nuff. The thing had caught on fire.
My apartment did not smell like oranges, and I have drips of wax all over my table.
Epic Fail.
If you are determined to have your house smell like amazing oranges, save some of your orange peels and set them on the stove to boil. Sprinkle in some cinnamon. Now my house smells like Christmas. :)

DIY star ornaments

Today is a big day!
L is presenting In a prestigious business plan competition at Rice university. I was lucky enough to get off work so I could see him!
So now here i am, listening to people talking all "businessy" and as interesting as that is, I figured now would be a good time to bust out another tutorial :)
now, the sad thing is that since I am writing this from my iPhone, all of the pictures are put at the bottom of the page. Boo.
Well you may not believe this, but these stars are made of...
Cereal boxes!
These cost me absolutely $0 to make and were pretty easy. I free handed my star(but if you have a printer I would recommend printing a star out and tracing it on the box). Use A Ruler! Strait lines are super important. When you have the outline of the star, use a pen to draw a really deep line where each fold would be. By pushing really hard with the pen it makes folding it a lot easier.
Cut out your star, paint it(I just used a rusty red acrylic paint), and fold along the pen marks!
I then glued on a loop of bakers twine to hang it on the tree!
I hope that all makes sense! If not, totally ask me questions! I don't get near enough comments on these posts!

DIY Christmas Tree Gingerbread Ornaments

Hey Yall! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! November was a crazy one for me. But I am happy to say that I am back for December in a Big way! I moved from Utah to Texas this August and am having a hard time adjusting to the weather. It's just hard to cuddle up by the Christmas tree with a cup of hot chocolate and my fuzzy socks when it's 80 degrees outside and the AC is on.
Also when we drove down here we didn't have the foresight (or the truck space) to bring any of our Christmas decorations! And on a budget as tight as ours, buying ornaments to put on our tree is not a priority. So for the next week or so I am going to show you how to decorate a tree on almost no budget! 
I'm going to kick off the season with a tutorial on gingerbread ornaments! They look like gingerbread, they smell like gingerbread, but you Can't eat them! They go on your tree to make it smell nice and look pretty :)
Here is what you need.
1 cup of Cinnamon
1/4 cup of Applesause
1/2 cup of kraft glue
and..
A little bit of time

Take 1 cup of ground cinnamon and mix it with 1/4 cup of apple sauce.

Then add 1/2 cup of kraft glue! Ta Da!
Now, you will be tempted to use whatever glue you have in your house. I warn you, Do NOT use Modpodge. I doesn't work. And it's stinky. I made that mistake and I regret it.
Now roll your "dough" out. It should be about the consistency of sugar cookie dough. Not dry, but if the dough is sticking to the rolling pin you should sprinkle some more cinnamon on it.
Grab some cute Christmasy cookie cutters and go to town! Make sure you poke some holes so you can hang them on your tree.
Let the dough sit for 24 hours, turning the ornaments every six hours. After 24 hours set your oven to 200 degrees and bake for 2 hours. Turning once.

Aaaand your Done! You have beautiful CHEAP Christmas ornaments!
I got a few colors of Stickles and am going to add some decoration to them before I put them on the tree.
BONUS- I don't know if I mentioned it a few times but these smell amAzing!
Make someone smile today! Peace!

Halloween Catch Up

Happy belated Halloween!
How did your Halloween go? Please share with us your great costume ideas! Do you want to see the one I made?
Drumroll please....
It's an owl! I love it so much! It was really easy to make too. I just took a tank top that I never wore anymore, cut a bunch of fist sized half circles out of other garbage tshirts and glued them onto the tank top. Then I cut out the face and glued that onto my jacket!

It was a fun Halloween! Now I just have to start thinking of ideas for next year!

Need a Halloween Costume?

Halloween in almost here!
Mwwhaahahaha!
Do You Have A Costume?
If you're like me, it's about this time every year that you realize you don't have a costume.Then it's a panicked me running to the costume store, realizing everything is too expensive, and finally settling on dressing up as a witch again.
I have yet to finish mine for this year, (No more witch costume for me!) But in the meantime I did a little bit of digging and came up with some cute costumes that you could DIY in a crunch!
A lot of these are kids costumes but I bet you could make it work as an adult costume too :)

Cookie Monster Tutu

Bee, Owl, and Shark

Gnome

Knight in shining armor, and Dragon

Baby Peacock

Shark Attack! 

Moose

Candy Corn

Raining Cats and Dogs

Comic girl

Smore's Family

Octopus

Kissing Booth

That adorable teenage boy in the kissing booth is my brother! Pretty cute right? 

Hopefully you found something fun to dress up as! If you already have a costume leave a comment telling us what it is! 

Love ya' people!!! Have a great day!

Tried and True Pin-spirations

I would like to share with you this delightful little recipe that I tried out today.
A week ago I was meandering around pinterest when I came across this picture.

How could I not try it out? Lucky for me, the recipe was super easy! And it was SO worth the 30 minutes I spent wandering around the grocery store looking for flax seed. (Is that sad that I have never cooked with it before? I didn't even know what it looked like!)
It's easy.
It's pretty healthy.
And it's Delicious!
Here is the recipe:
1 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/3 cup honey, 1 cup coconut flakes, 1/2 cup ground flaxseed, 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, and 1 tsp vanilla.
Mix it all up, throw it in the fridge for half an hour, roll it into balls, and enjoy!
I didn't feel like buying mini chocolate chips. I used regular ones. And it was still so great. My pictures might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but they tasted just as good!

Thanks to smashedpeasandcarrots.blogspot.com for sharing this awesome recipe! You should swing by sometime and look at that cute blog!

I wanted to share one more pin-spired cooking adventure that I went on this week. This one is a little different than anything I have ever done.
I was feeling a little needy of a really good pumpkin desert recipe to try this year. I couldn't just let Halloween pass by without making Something that tasted like pumpkin! I went to pinterest, and as usual, she delivered.
This is what I found

Pumpkin Monkey Bread. Looks good right? I wouldn't know. I pulled it out of the oven about 5 minutes before I had to go to work. I told my husband to wait until it was cool, try it, and if it was good to take it over to our friends house and share some of it.
By the time I was done with my 4 hour shift. It was gone.
I can only assume it was so good it made two grown men go a little bit crazy so that they couldn't help devouring the whole thing.
It's not a hard recipe, but it is a little lengthy. I would recommend planning to do this when you have a couple hours around the house so you can leave it to rise and then come back to it.
Pumpkin Monkey Bread
For the dough:

• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cloves
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2/3 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

For the coating:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 stick butter, melted

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and spices. In another large bowl, whisk together the milk, water, pumpkin, melted butter, sugar, and yeast. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add in the wet ingredients. Using a wooden spoon, gently stir until the dough comes together. Turn out on to a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.
Spray a clean bowl with cooking spray and place the dough inside.Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about an hour.In the meantime, mix together the cinnamon and sugar, and melt the butter for the coating. Spray a bundt pan with cooking spray.
Once the dough has risen, shape the ball into a large rectangle. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into roughly equal-sized pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Dip each ball of dough into the melted butter and then the cinnamon-sugar mixture, layering them in the bundt pan as you go.Once you’ve used all the dough, cover the bundt pan and let the dough rise again for another hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the bread until golden brown, 30-35 minutes. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before turning out on to a platter. To make the glaze, stir together the powdered sugar and maple syrup. Pour over the bread while it’s still warm.

For the glaze:

• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1-2 Tbsp pure maple syrup

Thank you sugarcrafter.net! You made two men very happy!
Do you have any great fall/holiday recipes you couldn't imagine not having? Please share! And don't forget to smile!

Fantastic Fabric Flowers

Ok, so I know I am way late, but I would like to jump on the fabric flower bandwagon please?
After pinning practically every picture and tutorial of all of those adorable fabric flowers people are making, I finally got my act together enough to try to make one.
Success! Turns out, they really are not that hard! The only problem now is that I am addicted. I have different colored fabric flowers laying around my house. Today I even cut up one of my old huge t-shirts and made a bunch of flowers. You could say I have a problem.

Yes I am still taking crappy pictures. But that will soon change. Hopefully by Monday. Just bear with me.
I firmly believe that everybody should make at least one of these flowers. They are adorable and easy and cheap and frankly, it's kind of empowering to whip a couple of these bad boys up real fast with little to no effort.
You start with a strip of fabric about an inch wide.

I have experimented with a bunch of fabrics so far. Pretty much everything works. I haven't tried felt yet though. If you try that go ahead and let us know how it worked!
Roll the edges in toward the middle. So that the frayed edges are not showing. I wasn't that careful and I think the occasional frayed edge makes it look kinda cool
Tie a knot in the end.

This is where the magic happens. Take your hot glue gun and put a dot of glue about a quarter of the way around the knot. Then take the long end of the fabric, twist it a little, and then put it in the glue.

Keep doing that until you run out of fabric! Glue the end to the bottom of your flower.

So there it is! I know there are other kinds of fabric flowers out there, these are just the ones that I have perfected. Try it! PLEASE! I know you will love it too!
Have a great day! Take a minute to think about how much you are blessed!

Burlap Wreath Tutorial

This is my first tutorial EVER so please forgive me for all of the Awful picture quality, missing steps of pictures, gross looking door, etc. 
I was inspired by this pin on pinterest. I was so excited to find something so adorable that was easy to make And affordable!
(Again, I'm sorry about the bad picture quality!)

Here is how it all came together. I made a few mistakes (just enough to give me a headache) and I will be sure to let you know what they are so you can avoid them! Life is to short to live it with headaches!
I started out with a trip to Home Depot for a length of plumbing insulation ($1.50) to be my wreath frame. However, in my crazed eagerness to get started on my project, I cut the insulation too short. Here is what it looks like when that happens.

No. Bueno. also don't try to hot glue the ends together. That was a major duh moment for me. (It's plastic... So it melts...)
And so I made another run over to Home Depot. This time I measured my insulation before cutting it to make sure the circle didn't crease.
TaDa!

Just Duct tape the ends together and you have a perfect wreath form!
The next step is to cut strips of burlap (I cut mine about two inches wide) and wrap it around your wreath frame. Make sure they overlap a bit so you can't see the foam through it.
That another mistake I made. For an unknown reason I figured I would need about three yards of burlap for this project. And then when I got to JoAnnes I decided to buy five yards. Just in case.
Really?! I have sewn before. Five yards is a ridiculous amount of fabric for a wreath. I don't know what I was thinking.
If you are going to go out and buy burlap for this project go ahead and get a yard. It's like $3 and unless you have a 50% off  coupon and then it's less. You will probably only use half a yard but burlap is so versatile. I'm sure you will figure out something fantastic to do with the scraps. 

I forgot to take a picture of the good wreath form with just the burlap. But essentially this is what it will look like.
The next step is to make flowers! You will need a hot glue gun, a few pieces of misc. fabric, and a little bit more burlap. All you do is cut out different sizes of circles in the burlap and fabrics and layer them a few different ways to make it look interesting. Glue them together and arrange it on your frame. Move stuff around until it looks right to you. You will probably want to space the different colors equally through the wreath. I also added buttons to add some dimension. You can also use scrapbooking brads or whatever else strikes your fancy!

Glue 'em on, and Hang it up!

I love it. I Love It I Love It I LOVE IT!!! Go ahead and try it. Link up your pictures when you are done!
Smile! Today is a great day!!!

Dear Stress,

I apologize for my absence in the blogging world for the past couple of weeks! I got a job at a new store and we were required to work full time for three weeks to get it all put together. Now it is the most beautiful, fun store I have ever seen! And now that the three weeks is over, I am back to part time. Which means I have time to start blogging again!
I have been wanting to do a couple projects around the house for about as long as we have lived here (which isn't really that long) and this weekend I finally got the stuff I needed to make them!!!
And then...
It all went wrong.
Have you ever had one of those days where Nothing works right? You see in your head what a project should look like but when you are done it just looks... Bad?
Today was SOOO that day.
Bad for me, but good for you! When I finish these projects I will show you all of the (many) mistakes I made and hopefully you can avoid them!
For now, take this to heart. 

I have such an on-again, off-again relationship with stress. Every time we break up I feel so liberated! But it always seems like we end up getting back together! No bueno. Kick that sucker to the curb.
And don't forget to Smile!!!

Arrrr!!! We be talkin' like Pirates this day Matey!

As I'm sure probably none of you know, today, September 19, is National Talk Like a Pirate Day! Yeah, it's legitimate. There is a web site and everything. You can check out the official site here.
Here is how this whole crazy holiday got started. So, you have two guys, John Baur and Mark Summers, and they are playing tennis right? On June 6th 1995. And as the game progressed they randomly started shouting pirate words at each other. And then the lightbulb came on. Shouldn't there be a national holiday where everybody celebrates talking like pirates? Almost definitely (Imagine that said in a Johny Depp voice)
Why celebrate it on September 19th? Because June 6 was D-day, and of course they couldn't compete with that. September 19th was Mark's ex-wife's birthday so that was how that date came to mind.
And like all great ideas, this one took a backstage to the hassles of everyday life and the creators almost forgot about the holiday they had invented. Until in 2002 they happened upon the email for journalist Dave Barry. They told him about their holiday and that the world needed to hear about it. In September of 2002, Dave Barry published his article about National Talk Like a Pirate day. And the rest is history....
So there ye be! Now get out thare ye bilge rats! There be just one day to talk like real swashbucklers. Don't let this pirate ship pass ye by!

A truely inspired dish

I love pinterest. Just love it.
I had to share this recipe with you today because it made my taste buds so happy! I know it will make yours happy too!
This week the Most-inspired-thing-i've-stolen-from-pinterest award goes to Foodgawker.com for their...

Lime Infused Honey Crusted Chicken Breast

Have you seen anything more beautiful?! And the recipe is so ridiculously easy!
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup limes plus zest (about 2 limes)
2 Tbs of honey
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp black pepper
2 lbs of chicken

Mix it all up and marinate overnight.
And that's it!
I modified this just a little and it still tasted great. I used a little less olive oil, more chicken, and used what I had already as far as spices go. My husband had no words to describe how this tasted. Just sound effects. So you know it's good.
Thank you foodgawker.com for making me feel like a culinary goddess!
Go ahead and try this. I promise you won't be disappointed.

The Real Heros

This is a time to remember.
I'm pretty sure everyone knows what tomorrow is. I just can't believe it was 10 years ago. I remember it so clearly. I was only 10 then. I remember getting ready for school and turning on the radio. The first plane had just hit. I was really confused and ran to tell my mom about it, who was in the shower. She assumed it was an accident. The second plane hit right after she joined us around the radio. I was young, but I was so sad and scared. We didn't have t.v. so I didn't see all of the footage then. I'm not sure I wish I would have.
Before we left to school we heard about the Pentagon. My mom started crying. She told us that my grandpa was supposed to be having a meeting in there that morning. We still went to school. I don't think we really did anything that day.
We got a call later that day from my grandpa. He had been across the street when the plane hit. He was ok.
My husband introduced me to this picture a few days ago. It's inspiring. For any of you who don't know, the FDNY on the little boys shirt in the right of the picture stands for Fire Department of New York.
The real heros.
Talk about inspiring.

So, this is an idea I have been playing with in my head for a long time. You know, one of those awesome ideas that you are so excited about but just never do?
I first saw this in one of my favorite books, The Guerilla Art Kit by Keri Smith (Which I will be talking about more later). I saw it today again on pinterest and decided I needed to post about it. Maybe some of you will beat me to it!

TADA! Yes this is real. Here is how you make this amazing MOSS PAINT!

• A couple handfulls of moss
• 12 oz of buttermilk (or a can of cheap beer)
• 1 tsp of sugar

Mix in a blender until it's all liquidy. Then go ahead and paint it on a wall! Moss likes shady, wet areas so make sure you spray it with water every day!
Sounds easy right? And awesome? I'm just wondering where I can find some moss... If you try it let us know how it goes!