New Crafts and improvising!

This fall I wanted some new decorations, but with the times I couldn't spend much money, so enter my improvising and the Dollar Store. I made this cute swag with some berry garland I already had and glitter foam leaves from my scrapbook supplies and chipboard letters hot glued to the leaves spelling out GIVE THANKS! I loved it, the picture doesn't due it justice though. I also made some wreaths for our bar stools. Again my supplies came from the dollar store and with a coupon and half-off deal at Roberts. I got the wreath forms from the $ store, and some big buckets of silk leaves that only cost me $3. I also scored some fall floral picks for only $2 for all 6 wreaths I made.
All 6 wreaths for under $20. Score, and now I have new wreaths for years to come.
I love making my own stuff. I just can't buy anything now, at least it takes a lot to get me to BUY decorations. I keep seeing stuff, looking at the price tag, rolling my eyes with "I can SO make that for cheaper" look, and then end up not buying anything but supplies to make something similar-but ending up with a way cuter decoration.

I also made Bella a Thanksgiving shirt this year. I was quite proud of myself. I am in LOVE with Heat N Bond and making my kids' shirts cuter. I can't wait to show them their Christmas shirts.

And here she is showing off her shirt and having some fun with lit'l trees just her size. Can you see the trees off to the side. They are my pride and joy this season :) ! Just kidding, but for reals, I'm quite proud of my porch trees. I have wanted 2 porch trees since... FOREVER! I just think it would be so cute to have a tree on each side of the front door on the porch. I was gonna buy some way back when, BUT... when I found out that they were like $40-$50 each(for the really nice, fluffy/full ones)I decided that was WAY too rich for my blood. So, I put it out of my mind-yeah right, well at least I thought down the road I could buy them. In enters a BRILLIANT idea- I could try and make some. So, I set off to tackle them and here's how I did it...

Bought some planters at half off, filled with some sand(so as no wind blowing over would happen), used our old tomato cages as the structure/shape of the tree, and bought some rope garland at Home Depot(75 ft for only $5). I just place the tomato cage over the planter and began wrapping my garland around it.

This is where I had to add another rope garland.

My two trees almost done, aren't they cute? I think they are WAY cuter than store bought porch trees. Now on to the last step for my cutie patootie porch trees.

Wrapping my extra strands of clear lights around them. GORGEOUS, I tell you! And Bella just couldn't stop oohing and ahhing over them. They were just her size and she loves them! I had a lot on hand, and in the end, these two beauties only cost $7 a piece. Not bad, if I do say so myself! Don't you just love when the picture you have in your head of a project outcome actually works out in the end. I LOVE it!

Here's another lit'l decoration/craft/gift you can do. We made these for the family and Eric's side as well this year. You just take 2 candy canes and wrap them with yarn around the middle. We glued on eyes and a nose, and VOILA...

Christmas reindeer! So simple, yet SO cute!

And since I made wreaths for Fall, I needed to make some for Christmas. I decided one day walking in the craft store that I really wanted to do something with bells. I have seen these bell wreaths all over the place, but holy-moly, are they ever SO expensive! Well I'm cheap, not really, but my money ALWAYS goes to the kids, so enter my need to CRAFT! I purchased 3 buckets of bells(again, half off) and went to crafting. I made a wreath shape out of some heavy duty wire I had and strung on two bells of the same color until my wreath was full. I tied a bow at the bottom with some wire ribbon I had in my stash, hung them on the bar seats again and just LOOK....

B-E-A-U-T-I- FUL!!! I love these even more than the fall ones. Every time the kids sit up at the bar they all ring the bells. I love hearing jingly bells! I made 4 of these and it only cost me $10 for all of them. I couldn't even get ONE of the store bought ones for that price, so call me Mrs. Happy!





My last new craft from this past week was another improvising decoration. Since the hubs and I moved into our first house we have had a kid tree and a nice tree. My nice tree was gold, glittery, and white. While the kids' tree had all their ornaments and mine and the hubs' on it. Then when Christian got sick a tree was done in his honor for the Festival of trees. The hubs' parents bought it and the hubs brought it home(kinda sneakily)from them and put it up in Christian's room-where it remained until he passed away. Well now, we just do the kids' tree and Christian's Peter Pan tree. I have had all the decorations from my pretty tree just sitting in a box in the storage room for the past 5 years. What a waste I thought, so I repurposed some of the ornaments into this...

A pretty ornament ball wreath. Again though, the picture doesn't do it justice. I didn't even have to spend a dime on this decoration, because I had everything already. Don't ya just love repurposing, I know I sure do!

So this is why I haven't kept up with my journaling lately. I've been busy CRAFTIN' my patootie off. I've also done a lot of other projects, but I can't post anything quite yet, 'cause they are all gifts for people that just might read this. Although, I don't think many read my rantings anymore, but that's okay. I do it for myself. It's like journaling and scrapbooking all rolled into one thing. I can't wait to publish my blog/journal into a book. It's the new way to keeping a journal. I just love it! Well, here's to wishing and hoping a very Merry Holiday Season to all!