Gift For Your Realtor

Our realtor has been great at working with and for us and I wanted to give her something to know we appreciate it! So at first it was just going to be a framed letter but I had to do better than that!

I thought she'd like to have this in her office for her other clients to see.

Here's my supplies:

12x12 canvas

Jolees scrapbook stickers

scrapbook paper

sponge brush

brown paint

mod podge

brown trim with chocolate pearls

Directions:

Assemble. Lol

Apply THIN coats of your mod podge on the front and back of your paper to make it stick and hot glue the trim to the sides of the canvas.

Cute but expensive stickers!

But I couldn't do without and can use the other key and lock for scrapping about our first house!

So sweet, Avonlea's little hand print to go along with our signatures.
This was not as easy as I thought it would be!
I painted her hand and tried several different times on a seperate sheet of paper, cut out the one I liked and framed it with coordinating scrapbook paper.


 

Halloween Taco Salad

Who does not love taco salad? It's easy, quick and so good!

I made it for dinner tonight and was actually thinking about making Halloween themed dessert

when I had this idea..

This is great for a Halloween party or just a festive dinner with the fam. If you plan on bringing this to a party, 7 layer dip may be more appropriate.

So if I were taking this to a party, I'd definitely pull out my icing bag & tips so it doesn't look so messy. I didn't feel like putting forth that much effort since it was just for us lol. Instead, I put the sour cream in a ziplock and cut the corner. 

Sorry for the bad lighting. I just wanted to get a shot of the way I layered it. I've never done that with a taco salad before but it's definitely the way to go. From bottom up; lettuce, meat, beans, onions, doritoes, fiesta cheese, cheddar cheese and sour cream with the Catalina on the side.

Okay, doing this made me hungry again! Going to get the leftovers! (:

Christmas votives--$0

So now that I've got all my Halloween stuff up, and LOVING it, I'm ready to take on Christmas!!! I decided this late last night after the stores had closed but my mind was/is swarming with ideas and I really had to do something right that instant! So I took a look at my craft stash trying to see what I could come up with and here it is...

So cute and it didn't cost me anything! This is all left-over stuff from other projects. We use a candy tree in our dining room and these will go great with the theme. I took some baby jars(I save almost all of them!) and at first I tried covering them with sugar...no beuno. They did look neat, just not the effect I wanted. Then I remembered the tub of epsom salt I have from making Mother's Day presents earlier this year, perfect! It looks like sugar ice crystals! Here's what ya do:

Take baby jars, mason jars, jelly jars or any kind of jar and clean it out. The glue from the label is very hard to get off but if there is some leftover residue it won't matter much for this project. If you want the small jar look for votives but have no baby, find one and feed it for a day. They're everywhere! But really, they're only like .60 cents a jar from Walmart. I used Modge Podge to attatch the epsom salt. It worked but I don't recommend it. Spray adhesive would be best for this. Once your jar is covered in whatever sticky stuff you use, roll it in the salt. Let it sit until it dries and then spray it with some kind of sealant.

My 'peppermints' are red bottlecaps that I painted the white swirls on. You could use real peppermints, I would've rather done that but didn't have any. Just make sure you use a sealant on them so they're not sticky, modge podge would work great for that. 

Embellish however you'd like, put in a little votive candle and enjoy! Fast, cheap, easy and way too cute! Perfect for an early Christmas gift and an even better gift for a teacher. It doesn't take up much space and would look great on her desk.

 

P.S. these look much better in person, you'll love them! (:

Halloween inspiration..continued!

Avonlea went to bed early, so might as well finish. Lol

 The hutch in our dining room.

Pumpkins coming soon..lol 

The candy jar on the left I bought at Goodwill for $2 and washed several times! I had the orange trim leftover from a shirt I made Av. For the pumpkin face I cut out some black cardstock..btw I bought my Brachs candycorn from FD for $1. The candy dish on the right was given to us last year, I put my favorite carmel bites and a creepy spider from FD in it to discourage putting my hand in it! (; 

 

 Picture frames I bought for $1 each last year, embellished with things from Hobby Lobby.

The pictures themselves are from our first Halloween, last year. Precious!!

 These guys are my favorite out of all the stuff! I bought some cylinder-shaped glass vases, big one for $3 and little for $2 from Walmart. Check Family Dollar or Goodwill if you want to try this. I cut LONG strips of cheesecloth, about 1 1/2in. wide, then just wrapped it around the vase mummy-like, making room for the googly eyes($1 from FD). Glued everything in place, and stuck some pumpkin votive candles in them(10 for $3 at Michaels).

Other things around the house:



Love the tea stained cheesecloth to make my wall decorations look spooky!

Some Halloween poms I made with scrap tulle and my $1 lantern from Target, hanging on a coat hanger that y'all cant see yet! (; It will be on a post at the end of October with all of the other stuff I've made for our dining room! (:

Happy October!! Email/FB/text if you want more details!

Halloween Post #2

I loved making all of this stuff..Halloween is one of my favorites!

This is How I made our dining room into a witch lair, all for around 40 bucks..

Sorry for the bad pictures..I didn't want to wait for the sun to get in the right spot for them!

I found this weird looking thing at Goodwill(the best craft store EVER) for $2 back in July.

 I'm thinking it may have been a twisted looking candle holder, but it didn't come with any candles or glass to put a votive in. At the time I had NO idea what I was going to do with but decided that for $2 I'd find something!

I stuffed some spanish moss(Family Dollar $1/bag) in the cup things and put in the mini glitter skulls I got from JoAnns for $2. Added spider web and topped with a Family Dollar crow!

Love the way this turned out..creepy looking!

So yeah..I'm a little crazy and yes I have too much time on my hands but I LOVE IT!

I came up with this little rhyme back in August:

Poison #31310 (my wedding anniversary hehe!)

Find a toad or two or three,

give him this and you will see,

the Prince Charming you never knew,

kiss the frog to see it through!

I made the Ingredients list to match the potion bottles I had already made:

-Pickled arachnids

-Poison

-Bone Dust

-Zombie-n-a-bottle

-centipede

-graveyard fog

Book of Spells:

 I had this crazy idea while checking out the Goodwill. I picked up this book with a plain black cover for $1.08!!!! I stained some regular computer paper with a soaked tea bag to make it look all old, then put them in the oven on a cookie sheet for about 3 mins at 300 degrees. I then drew on the border, potion and ingredients with a fat tip and a fine tip Sharpie. I attatched the pages to the book with glue at the seem. I also stained the cheesecloth with tea and just sat it out to dry, I really loved this! It's so neat and easy. 

Bleeding Candlesticks:

I picked up these white candlesticks at Family Dollar for .50 cents each! To get the bleeding effect I lit the candles and let them melt a little, then carefully tilted them to make the wax drip down the side, and painted the wax with red after it had hardened. I had seen bleeding candles before and it didn't take very long to figure out how to do it! Luckily I had red paint on hand. I got the clear glass candle holders from Family Dollar as well for $1 each. I shot them with some black spray paint.

Black Ivy:

Another Family Dollar find, I bought an orange maple leaf garland for $1 and spray painted them black.

 The 'graveyard fog' is just some scrap yellow tulle in a mason jar with a spray painted lid and a label I happened to have in my scrapbooking stuff. The 'zombie-n-a-bottle' is brown sugar with some doodads I got last year from Hobby Lobby..I had originally planned on just making it 'graveyard dirt' until I came across the doodads in my stuff. The 'bone dust' is salt in a stage 1 baby jar with a spray painted lid. The green goo is aloe vera from this past summer. And the real potion bottle in the back I got from JoAnns for $2. It had a sticker on it that I scrubbed off and stuffed it with a centipede I got in $1 bag of creepy crawlers. The cheesecloth is tea stained.

When I bought this skull for $1 at FD he was UGLY and now he's sparkly! I spray painted him black and bedazzled with jewels I already had. The stand I bought from Goodwill for $1 and it was all scratched to heck, I also shot it with spray paint.

And that and that and that's all folks! For now! I have a lot more but this is too big of post! I will put the rest up tomorrow..or maybe later. (:


**forgot to mention the plate easel I bought at JoAnns for $3 with a coupon to use to hold the book open
& a piece of black burlap underneath for $5