I was featured!

Amy at One Artsy Mama has so kindly featured my blog on her facebook page.  Thanks to Leslie again, for her cute costumes post!

DIY Halloween Costumes

Today, I have a special treat for you, a guest post from my awesome little sister!  Leslie and I are the two youngest in the family. We shared a room together, played Barbies for hours on end, she'd sleep on my shoulder on the hour long bus ride home from school, attempted to share clothes (but that didn't work so well, someone always stained my clothes c: ), were in high school together which meant stops for milkshakes on the way home from school and so much more.  She's even partly responsible for my husband and I getting together.  Now she's all grown up and is the mother to 3 cute boys (who are very close to the same ages of my boys) and sadly lives four hours away from me. However, they all come to visit often and we always have a great time together.  Another couple of things you need to know about Leslie is she's very creative, loves to do art and all kinds of projects with her boys, and she's an incredible sewer (she'll share more of  these talents later.)  Check out her website Cornflower Attic for super cute bags, little girl dresses, and more.  


Anyway, Leslie always comes up with super cute costumes for the whole family.  So I asked her to come and share her awesomeness with you all. Take it away, Les!



I'm all about getting creative (and cost effective) when it comes to Halloween costumes.  If I can make something from items I already have, and save $20 per costume, great!  Here are a few ideas I've used over the past few years that might get your costume-making creative juices flowing.

Incredibles Costumes:
When I made these costumes, I was pregnant with our second child and decided Halloween was the time to make our big announcement.  I didn't know at the time if I was having a boy or girl, but we were pretty sure if it was a boy, we were going to name him Jack, so that started our Jack-Jack/Incredibles theme (plus my then two-year-old was a big Incredibles fan at the time). 

 (Sorry.  These pictures are a few years old and not great quality).

We took this picture and mailed it to my parents and my in-laws telling them Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, Dash, and baby Jack-Jack were wishing them a Happy Halloween.  I even put a big arrow pointing to my belly and the mask attached to it, but they still didn't notice it.  In fact, it was my sister Kimberly that first noticed it when she looked at the picture and noticed the mask and pointed it out to my mom (right, Kim?)  (Of course I noticed first! lol)

Anyway, these were super easy to make and a fun theme.
Supplies needed:
Red shirts for adult costumes
Red sweats and sweatshirt for child costume
Orange, black, yellow and white felt
Glue gun
birthday package of Incredibles masks

For the logo, I drew an oval on scratch paper, a second oval a little bigger than the first, and then on separate pieces of paper, the "I" and dot for the "I."  I traced them a time or two until I got the proportions correct, then cut out the paper, and used it for the patterns to cut out the felt.  I used a hot glue gun to glue the pieces of the logo together and then used safety pins to secretly attach the logo to our shirts.

For my son's costume, I cut a simple black triangle from felt and glued it to an orange strip to look like a belt.  We are talking really simple here now... I attached this piece to his body with a very loose rubber band around his waist.  The band fit right at the belt line and wasn't noticeable.  If you had a black band it would work even better.  I also made black bands of felt to put around his forearms to look a little more like Dash's costume.  You could glue them to black gloves, but I knew my son wouldn't want to keep the gloves on all the time

The eye masks were a in a birthday package from Walmart.

Baby Dragon/Wilma Flintstone:
My husband and I borrowed Fred and Wilma Flintstone costumes from a friend, and I decided we needed a baby dinosaur.

I already had the green baby sleeper for the base of the costume. I cut orange felt circles and sewed them all around the costume including a big one in the center to cover up the moose graphic on the sleeper.

The sleeper came with a green hat, but I needed to spice it up a little. I bought a dog costume headpiece at Target, cut the dinosaur spikes off and glued them to my green hat.

Here is my baby dinosaur emerging from his baby sling egg.

I didn't make the Wilma costume, but it would be simple to put together.  Lots of white felt with one seam on the side.  The top  has a slanted neckline and the bottom was cut in a zigzag.  The lovely necklace is made with white pom-poms. 

For Fred, you could cut  orange fabric into a tunic shape and cut the bottom hem with a zig zag.  Then cut out black felt designs and sew or glue on the orange.  (Felt is the easiest to work with.  No fraying!) 


Mr. Potato Head:
Our theme for this year started when my oldest son deciding that he wanted to be Zurg from Toy Story  for Halloween.  I started dreaming up great costumes for the rest of us and had a whole theme going on when my son then changed his mind about 4 times between October 1st and October 31st!  He finally decided (two days before Halloween) on an army guy, which luckily still worked great into the whole Toy Story theme. 

For Mr. Potato Head, I started with brown felt.  I cut a big, boxy, potato shape that would fit my then, one-year-old.  I cut the same shape twice and sewed the two pieces together around the side edges, leaving holes for his arms and head.  I did not sew the bottom together so his feet could be free to move, walk sit, etc.  To make him a little bulkier, I turned the costume inside out, placed a handful of batting on each side seam, and glued a piece of felt around the batting to keep it in place.

Next, I found pictures of Mr. Potato Head online, copy and pasted them into Microsoft Word, enlarged them to about the right size for the costume, printed them, cut them out, and then cut the same shape out of felt.  Then, I hot glued the facial shapes right onto the brown potato shape. 

I know, I know, my kids aren't going to enjoy Mom and Dad dressing up with them for long, so I better make it good while I can!

Owl:
Last year we went with a Harry Potter theme.

You might notice an addition to the Hogwarts crew.  My middle son likes to be his own man from time to time, and this year he decided to be Luigi with his cousin who was Mario. Yea for four-year-old independence!

I got this cute owl idea from the blog U Create. I followed their instructions listed here. It was really easy and I was happy with the way it turned out.   

When my sister-in-law heard he was going to be an owl, she whipped up this little hat for him.

Well, I hope these ideas have got you thinking about things you might have on hand to make some fun costumes for this year.  I am currently trying to figure out how to get my hair to stay in cinnamon roll buns for this year's costume and how to transform my husband into Han Solo (he insists he is not wearing skinny jeans).  Have you seen any good jedi tutorials?  Thanks for reading!

See, isn't she so creative!! And that her husband, Luke, goes along with the dressing up is so cool, my husband will not. :)  Hope that gives you some great ideas for this year's festivities.  Since this is kind of just a general overview of the costumes, Leslie said she would be happy to answer any specific questions you have.  Feel free to email me (address in my profile) and I'll pass them along to her.

Linking up with:
Creations by Kara
733blog
Blue Cricket Design
Someday Crafts
The Trendy Treehouse
The Thrifty Home
Lil Luna
Women Who Do It All
We Are That Family
The Sasse Life
One Artsy Mama
House of Hepworths
Somewhat Simple
Yesterday on Tuesday
Frugalicious Me
Katies Nesting Spot
Whipperberry

I'd love it if you follow me here and on Facebook!

This post was featured by:



Cardigan with Ruching DIY

For a while now, I've been hunting for one of those long in the front, drapey kind of cardigans that seem to be so popular.  I figured anything that would hide some lumps and bumps is great for me. :)  I also wanted it to be a little more fun, not the same as everyone else around here who all seem to have bought them at the same store.  So a few months ago, while browsing through Ross's (love that store) I came across this awesome black cardigan.  It was a little different than the plain old boring because it has these cute knots down the front.  I didn't really want long sleeved (it was the beginning of summer when I found it) but it was only $7 so I went for it.  After bringing it home, I remembered I had found this tutorial for ruching the sleeves and had been waiting for something cute to try it out on. Perfect! However, after looking around the internet some more, I found an even easier way to do this - elastic thread. So here's my tutorial on ruching sleeves - great for sleeves that shrink in the wash, are stained, or just for putting a little fun into something plain.

Supplies:
Article of clothing
Elastic thread - coolest thing ever (or right now at least c: )
Matching color thread to garment
Marking utensil (tailors chalk, fabric marker, soap)
Sewing machine

Start by finding the middle of the sleeve. If your material will hold a crease, that is the easiest way.  Lay the sleeve flat and iron it.  My material was too soft, flowy thin to keep a crease, so I had to lay it on on my cutting mat, adjust the hem underneath, make sure each side was even, just make sure I was getting it in the middle.  A little more work, but really not that hard. When you find the middle, lay it out on a cutting mat, as I mentioned, and using a ruler and I actually used my mom's best trick of a pointy bar of soap, mark from the shoulder seam straight down the middle to the cuff.


Now comes the fun part, using the elastic thread. You're going to have the elastic thread in the bobbin and the matching color thread on top. You have to hand wind the bobbin, which only takes a few seconds, with just a little tension, you're not stretching the elastic out. Then just load the bobbin as normal, have your top thread in and starting at the seam on the shoulder, slowly stitch straight down the sleeve on the line you marked. Make sure to backstitch at the beginning and end. That's it! The hardest part is making sure you don't sew your sleeve shut, keep that bottom layer out of the way.

Kind of a weird picture. Not the best shirt to wear under it, but was just throwing it on for the picture. And I suppose I was trying to get a better picture of the sleeves, holding my arms out a little and that's why I look like I'm wearing football pads. lol  Anyway, there's the sleeves before and after. It was a fun simple little addition to spice up any top.

Ta Da!!

Linking up With:
House of Hepworths
Mine for the Making 
Southern Lovely 
Suzys Sitcom
Fireflies and Jelly Beans
Christinas Adventures
Yesterday on Tuesday
A Glimpse Inside
Frugalicious Me
Roca and Company
Happy Hour Projects
Ladybird Lane
Kojo Designs
The Creative Paige
Sassy Sites
Not So Simple Housewife
Creation Corner
Mommas Kinda Crafty
A Little Knick Knack
Home is Where my Story Begins
Mum of All Trades
DIY Crafts to Make

I'd love it if you follow me here and on Facebook!

Laundry Baskets

Laundry is FUN! Okay, okay, maybe it's not that much fun, but it can be cute. :) Laundry is one of those chores that I don't mind too much.  I usually do it twice a week, with my older girls doing towels on Mondays and I do sheets on Monday, also.  I'll get things started as soon as I get up in the morning and then bring up the baskets to my room to fold while I watch tv. After watching my little ones trying to balance a big pile of clothes (they'd insist on taking them all at once) while going to their rooms and seeing half the clothes fall on the floor along the way, I decided we needed some baskets to make it easier for them.  While growing up, we each had our own color of basket to distinguish whose was whose.  I'd never seen colored baskets, or any baskets like we used to have for that matter.  So when I stumbled across these plain black and white buckets in Walmart one day, I decided with a little vinyl they would work.  I let each child pick their color for their name and went to work.  The vinyl worked great, except for Cheyenne's name, for some reason that vinyl didn't stick as well and we have to keep smoothing it down. I think they turned out pretty cute and make me smile as I fold clothes.

Oh, one tip I have for making folding laundry a little easier, use a Sharpie marker and mark the bottoms of everyone's socks with an initial.  Since my little three fold all the socks, and 3/4 of our socks all look alike, as I open a new package of socks, I immediately put a letter on the bottom of each sock.  It makes it much easier for them to match letters (especially when they're watching Word Girl and not paying very close attention to the socks) and hopefully get them in the right basket.  It's also given Cheyenne and Natalie something to talk about as their friends ask "Why do you have a C (or N) on your foot?" :)

So what is your best laundry tip or what do you do to make it a little more fun? Share your best ideas with us!

Linking up with:
House of Hepworths
Fireflies and Jellybeans
Somewhat Simple
A Glimpse Inside
Thrifty Decorating
Thrifty101
Yesterday on Tuesday
Happy Hour Projects
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
504main

I'd love it if you would follow me and like me on Facebook!

Start Your Organized Day With a Plan

I love/crave/thrive on being organized.  I always have been, just ask my little sister who used to get mad at me when I had to have a "plan" before we played Barbies.  Or my daughter who makes fun of my color coordinated closet.  But it's just who I am, if I'm not organized, I get a little crazy.  When my older sister lived here, I used to go to her house quite often just to help her organize and dig out of her piles or keep her on task.  She even asked me to teach a class for her Relief Society (women's church organization) activity.  I really had fun with it and was honored she asked me.  I thought I'd share some of my ideas from that activity on being organized and what works for me in a series I call "A House of Order".  So here's my first in the series, start your organized day by having a plan.

I know, not a new concept.  Many of you probably have something you use, IPhone or something similar (I think I'm the only one is the world without one), planner, calendar, scrap of paper, but how is it working for you?  I find that if I have some sort of idea for the day, I can get a whole lot more done.  However, I still haven't found the "perfect" way for me.  I don't like electronic things, for one, I don't carry my phone with me so I wouldn't look at it much.  I have a family calendar hanging on the fridge, works great when I remember to write things on it. :)  I also have a planner/notebook thing and it's okay, but want to try something better.  So I've decided on a clipboard with a daily or weekly calendar on it.  I've found several all over the internet, and I'm testing out which one I like best.  Easy to try it all and if it doesn't work, all the new planners will be out in stores for the next few months.  Here are some of my favorites I've found.

Mine For The Making

I really like this one for a couple of reasons - 1. It's cute  2. I love the title "Today's Plan" and in the bubble, it says "Today is going to be a great day!"  3. I really like the water bottles to mark off as you drink your water for the day - great idea!  and  4.  For $3, Kara will customize it for you.  So where she has the homeschool section, something I don't need, I'll have her change it to something applicable to me. 

Here is another one I really like.

Clean Mama

This calendar comes in a kit of 4 different calendars for $8 on her etsy shop. So worth it, because they are all undated, so you can use them forever. Or you can buy just the calendar above for $5 and all the blue sections are editable, meaning I can download it to my computer and type in all my to-do things for the week. For a neat freak like me, that is awesome! (I have a problem with things looking nice and neat, I think. Starting in 6th grade, when we got our very first computer, I seriously would take notes in class and then come home and type them all up so they wouldn't have that pencil smear on them (HATE THAT!) or mistakes, or just my sloppyish handwriting from writing so fast. I know, I'm weird.) My favorite part is having my whole week visible at once. And again, the meal plan for the whole week is right there.

Another great, free one is at http://printables.yourway.net/daily-action-planner/. Sorry, I couldn't get a picture of this one. This one is also editable, type your plans in and print it up, or just use it on your computer. It is a daily calendar, but also has areas for "Calls", "Emails", and "Notes". Really useful.

Finally, I really like this free printable from Clean Mama, to use with the other calendars.

Clean Mama

It is a "This and That" printable. Sections for "phone calls", "emails", "to do now", and "to do later". So right now, I have the "Today's Plan" on my clipboard with the "This and That" list underneath. I love having the different lists right there and on-going. I can keep a running list of what projects I need to tackle around the house and just check them off as I get them done - so satisfying! Then I can organize each day by what I plan to tackle. Another great idea from Kara at Mine for the Making, is to slip your calendar in a plastic page protector or laminate so you can use a dry erase marker and use it again and again.

I like to take 5 minutes after the kids are in bed and I'm just watching tv or whatever to plan out my next day. Really easy, and makes a world of difference in the next day.

So how do you organize your day? Are you all electronic or a list maker or both? What works or doesn't work for you?

Partying with:
Not Just a Housewife
New Nostalgia
Hope Studios
I'm Topsy Turvy
Blackberry Vine
Lil Luna
Blue Cricket Design
Women Who Do It All
We Are That Family
733blog
Creations by Kara
House of Hepworths
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Tidy Mom
504main

I'd love it if you follow me and like me on Facebook!

Organizing the Freezer

It's Friday, yeah!!  So here's the best tip I've found this week, thank you Pinterest.  Use a dry erase marker to write on your freezer (or fridge.)

 

This also happen to coincide with use getting a beef this week, so it was perfect timing that I found this great post here.  Now, I have an upright freezer, so things don't get lost really, and the different cuts of beef and the chicken are in different spots, so I know when those are low.  However, I do forget what meals I've frozen and stuck out there.  Or I swear I still had some spaghetti sauce that I was going to use for lasagna, of course, I only go looking at 4 p.m. when I'm getting ready to make the lasagna and find I used it already.  So no more, when someone puts a meal in the freezer or takes something out, it WILL be added or erased. For a chest freezer, this could be a lifesaver.  No more mystery meat hiding down in the corner that you never find until the next time you defrost your freezer (or someone doesn't close it tight and everything thaws outs. :) )You could also do this with snacks for the kids in the fridge, then they wouldn't have to stand there with the door open forever trying to find something to eat.  See my handy marker with the built in eraser and magnet - gotta get you some of those!   It erases very easily and if there's any residue left, the original poster said she just wipes it down with rubbing alcohol occasionally.  What's the best tip or trick you've found this week?

Linking up with:
Fingerprints on the Fridge
Finding Fabulous
Shabby Nest
Lovely Crafty Home
A Little Knick Knack
Truly Lovely
Delicate Construction

You'd make my day if you Follow me and "Like" me on Facebook!

Last highlights of the room

So if you haven't been able to tell, we (Cheyenne, Natalie and I) had a lot of fun redecorating their room.  In case you missed it, you can see all we've done here, here, and here.  Last post in this series, easiest jewelry organization EVER, and a very cool trash redo.

What is the easiest jewelry organization ever you might ask? Well, here it is. A simple hanger.

We assessed what they needed, something separate, easy to get necklaces on and off, and something cute.  While walking through Walmart, Bam!, I saw these fuzzy covered hangers and thought those would work.  We tied a bow (with wire ribbon so it stays stiffer) and we were about done.  When we first made these, they didn't have quite as many necklaces and one sister was worried the other would use her hanger, so I made these to put on each.

I took a cardstock punch out letter I had in my scrapbook supplies, glued it onto some scrap chipboard (actually packaging from another product) and cut them out together.  I covered it all in Mod Podge and sprinkled some glitter on.  Decided it need move coverage, so did another couple of coats of Mod Podge and glitter and finished it off with a layer of Mod Podge.  Then tied it onto the hangers from the middle hook with some thread.  Easiest, cheapest, organization ever!

Finally a little trash into treasure redo. 
As a part of my sister and brother-in-laws' property management business, they clean out and secure foreclosed homes.  These homes occasionally still have "stuff" in them that no one bothered to take with them or didn't want anymore or whatever.  So a few months ago, my sister calls me and asks if I want a display rack for karate belts (they even left the belts!) they found in a house.  I told her to send me a picture, so this is a quick "before" picture from her phone.

I wasn't too sure, it's kind of ugly - notice the little writing/symbols in the middle.  But I told her sure, we'd take a look at it.  It really was pretty ugly in real life, too.  But I had just tested my hand at spray painting here and decided to give this a go, too.  Out came the high gloss black paint and after a few coats it was looking pretty good.  Of course I couldn't just leave it that way, I had to cutesify it so I added some vinyl. Just a little bit, nothing to girly for Natalie.  Then I gave it to her for her birthday.  She was excited to have a place for all her belts and bonus, Cheyenne agreed it was cool enough to go in their room.

She'll add her cool embroidered brown belt to this display when she gets her 2nd degree brown belt in Dec.

Well, that's it.  I hope you've enjoyed a little peek inside our home as I showcased our fun projects this summer.  Now that the kids are back in school, and we've about got our routines down, it's time to get a little more organized again.  So coming soon, some of my best organizing tips and tricks.

Partying with:
The Sasse Life
Domestically Speaking
Handy Man Crafty Woman
Type A Decorating
The Thrifty Home
Someday Crafts