Halloween Decor on a budget

I love decorating for the Holidays, but hate spending the money. This year I decided to try and come up with some fun ideas using my favorite places....my local thrift store and the dollar store. I bought these skeleton heads at the dollar store (I bought 2 bags of them) and antiqued them a bit so they looked older. The ones on the right side are before, left...after. I had plans to put these guys in my Apothecary.

I found this lovely art work at my local thrift store for $1

My mother in law had given me this mirror a while back....I think I found the perfect use for it!

I took out the mirror and mod podged some spooky green paper onto it

Then I flipped it over and put it back in the frame, and traced it so I knew how much of the actual mirror would be showing. Then using my Cricut I cut out some cute Halloween phrases to make it into a cute subway art photo.

Turned it back over, and mod podged them all onto the front. I did a few extra layers of the mod podge to add some texture since there is no glass covering the art

I also had a straw wreath laying around and decided to try and come up with a Halloween wreath....

But I have a feeling I will be taking it apart next year...not my favorite. I added a spider to the right side of it in the end, but I still don't love it yet.

I also found these beauties at the DI...$1.50 each. I bought the 3 that they had. I could see their spooky potential

Here is the finished Subway art...I {love} this piece. It is pretty much my favorite

Here is the lovely frame I found for a $1.00 with a new make-over. I love it too.

Remember these guys? I found 2 of them at the DI, and a while later, found another. Well I painted it and just couldn't find a place to hang it up, so I stashed it away. Well, it's finally found it's purpose. I cut some black vinyl and placed it on the mirror. I {love} this too.

Here is the finished product. I love the spooky sconces and I found the candles at Wal-Mart (they had the best color selection) for 88 cents each. Then I cut out some more spooky things and added them onto the candles. Love those too. I got the spooky grey cloth at the dollar store, it's HUGE and I had plenty to cover where I needed it to go.

I found the apothecary labels online and printed them out and used rubber cement to ad hear them to the jars. All the jars I've just been collecting, so I have plenty. I have yet to fill some of them though.

That sign I also found at the dollar store, I just added some brown ink to make it more interesting

Those hanging spiders we made one year for Trunk-or-Treat at the church, and a few other things I just have made throughout the years. I painted some cute pumpkins to put up there as well, they turned out cute.

Happy Halloween!

first time for everything

This was my summer project. I've been wanting to try my hand at refinishing a small piece of furniture. I have a small TV upstairs in the loft area for the kids and it's sitting pretty much just on the floor. So I thought I'd keep my eye out at the DI for a dresser or end table of some kind with drawers so I could also use it to keep kids movies in. Well I found this beauty for $8. I wanted it to have more detail since I wanted to try and glaze it, but this one was in great condition and figured it would have to do. Here it is before any sanding and painting.

After 2 coats of paint...I {love} the color

I hand sanded it after it was painted to distress it a bit, this proves to be much harder than I thought it would be. It turned out really cool though and was tempted NOT to put my black glaze on it, but I really wanted to try it out. So I did it.

And I'm glad I did. I left quite a good amount of the glaze on because the piece didn't have much detail, so I thought it would make it more interesting. I do have to say the glaze was the easiest part. It dried fast too!

My lighting was not great inside when I took the complete picture, so the color is more accurate in the outside pictures. But I'm really happy with it, Chase told me "it's pretty mom, I like it!"

more treats

My husband is the best! See while I was in AZ, he was working in California, but it just so happens that the Medford airport was the closest place for them to fly into. SO, he was able to stay and visit with friends {jealous} anyway, he brought me back some of my favorite treats! The truffles are yummy and chocolate covered bacon is divine. Don't knock it unless you've tried it, it's amazing.

treats

While in AZ I tried a new recipe. Lemon Basil Cupcakes. They are heavenly. The frosting is {perfect} not too sweet, and light. Give them a try:

1 C butter, softened

2 C sugar

3 eggs

3/4 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp lemon zest

3 1/2 C all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

2 C sour cream {I replaced this with greek yogart}

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins and set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and soda. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Beat in vanilla and lemon zest. Add the dry ingredient mixture in thirds, alternating with 2 additions of sour cream. The batter will be thick. Scoop 1/4 C batter into each liner. Bake for 16-20 minutes. Allow to cool completely.

Lemon Basil Syrup

1 C water

3/4 C sugar

1/3 C lemon juice

8 fresh basil leaves { I would double this, I did not taste any basil in final product using only 8}

1 strip lemon peel

In saucepan, combine all ingredients. Bring to a boil and continue to cook until liquid is reduced to 1 cup. Strain and discard peel and basil. Allow to cool completely. Using a toothpick, poke holes into the tops of the cooled cupcakes. Once the syrup has reached room temp. spoon 1 tsp syrup over each cupcake. Allow to soak in and repeat. Reserve 3 TBSP for frosting.

Lemon Mousse Frosting

2 C powdered sugar

3 Tbsp butter, softened

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp grated lemon zest

3 Tbsp lemon basil syrup

1 1/4 C heavy whipping cream, whipped

In large bowl, beat together powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon basil syrup until smooth. Whisk into the already whipped cream until well blended. Frost.

We also made sweet pepper jelly, but it's a family secret recipe....sorry, this one I have to keep to myself

dragonfly's and butterfly's

I was going to help out with Super Saturday in our ward, but ended up making these before I found out that I was going to be out of town. Bummer. I didn't get to teach my projects, but they turned out cute don't you think?

best parts of vacation

One of my favorite parts of visiting my family in Arizona, is getting to see all my friends. I love that they live so close to my parents, I pretty much get to see all of them, every time I visit!

Jill took me to this fun place called Pump it Up. Pretty much two big rooms full of bounce houses....I think my kids were in heaven! We had fun visiting, her kids are growing like crazy!!

This is what one of the rooms liked like

I also visited with {Monica}, one of my room mates from college, I love this girl to death!!

and I visited with the Spindles for a few days. Kardyn just {loves} baby Porter

I had so much fun, thanks all!

Sewing with Mom

Before I left for Arizona, I found this. It's a king size sheet I bought at the DI for $4! I {love} it

I looked online and found a simple pattern

and here's what we got! It was sooo easy, and my Mom is a great teacher because she makes me to EVERYTHING. She just helps me read the pattern and set up the sewing machine. It was fun and I can't wait to see Kardyn wearing it next summer!

UPDATE: I went to the Doctor on Monday to have my elbow looked at again because it was still hurting so much, and turns out it is fractured. My first broken bone ever! It's a fracture in my radial head, and they say it doesn't require a cast, but my ROM is still limited and I can't life heavy things. It's also supposed to hurt for a few months! NICE

We also made this! I bought 2 shirts for $1 each and used one to embellish the other! All I did was cut up the first shirt into strips. Sew a basting stitch and gathered the strips up. Pin them on my shirt and sew them on.

great week

We all had fun with Uncle Austin, it was sad to see them leave

Kardyn was attatched to Austin's GF, Allysa all week :)

stay tuned for more pics from our trip next week when we get home!