DIY: BOO!

 This was the inspiration picture off of Pinterest. I had just bought a seasonal pack of scrapbook paper at 50% off for $9.99 and two Halloween themed cricut cartridges.

 I bought these letters at Hobby Lobby for about $2 each. Maybe that's expensive to you but I know these will never fall apart.

With black acrylic paint, I painted all of the outside edges of the letters. Perfection was not a concern because the imperfections would be covered with scrapbook paper.

I set the letters backwards on the white side of the scrapbook paper. I then traced the letters onto the paper and cut them out. Using homemade Modge Podge (half glue, half water), I attached the paper to the letters.

Then, I used my black ribbon to tie the letters together. I tied the ribbon in a bow and used some craft glue to help keep the ribbon in place.

 Hanging on the wall.

After I hung the BOO on the wall, my Halloween Cricut cartridges arrived. I cut out three 2" ghosts and used my Modge Podge to attach them.

DIY: Halloween Bat Wreath

I found this on Pinterest and thought, "I could make that!" I've seen so many cute wreath ideas and thought this would be a good one to try and build my confidence for making my own wreaths.

This is what I bought: a 0.5 inch foam PVC covering for $0.97, a package of yarn in Light Gray for $3.69, 2 piece of yellow felt & 2 pieces of black felt for $1. I had previously bought a craft hot glue gun for $5, refills for $2, and a 75 pack of popsicle sticks for $2.

I may agree with the name now.

Step 1: Prepare the foam to be a wreath.

The PVC covering was 6 feet long so I folded it in half and cut it. I removed the plastic to allow the two sides of the foam to stick together.

Then, I used duct tape to secure the foam into a circle shape. I'm gonna try and make the duct tape a little less bumpy on my next wreath.

Step 2: Wrap the wreath with yarn.

I chose a starting point on the foam circle and tied a knot with the yarn.

I then wrapped the yarn around the foam. I did not cut the yarn from its bundle. I wrapped the whole bundle of yarn around the foam circle...every time. And I wrapped around the foam 2 complete times. As you can tell, I was slightly OCD and made sure the yarn didn't overlap itself. I would throw the yarn bundle around the foam circle at least 10 times, pull it tight next to the yarn already wrapped, and repeat the process. This is what the wreath looked like wrapped twice.

Step 3: Make the moon.
I cut two pieces of yellow felt in semi-circles, hot-glued them together, and hot-glued them to the back of the wreath. I used 2 pieces of felt because 1 piece was too see-through.

Step 4: Make the bat.
I found a bat template online but it ended up looking too skinny on my wreath. I used it to help me free hand a bat shape on a piece of paper. I pinned the paper onto 2 pieces of black felt.

I then cut around the picture (through the felt) to get my felt bat cutouts.

I hot-glued a popsicle stick in the middle of the two felt bats to give it stability. Most of the bat was not going to be touching the wreath and I was worried it would fall and not look great. But the popsicle helped!

=)

This is the wreath hanging on a door in our hallway so you can see it perfectly.

Here it is on my parents front door Halloween day.

See why I took a picture on a white door?

Hope you had a safe & happy Halloween!

Work Awards

I love finding other people who are into DIY since I'm on a DIY kick right now. I am so excited to introduce a guest blogger for today's post, the HUBBY!!!! haha. Jerome has spent the last week working really hard on his own DIY project. I took photo evidence of his project and now he has agreed to share!

So...um...I am new to this but I will try. I recently, this past week, had an award show that was football-themed at work for the people I work with. We wanted to honor our top physical/occupational/speech therapists at work and this was a way to do it.  I came up with these awards weeks before hand and constructed hand made trophies to go along with a slideshow. It was fun to do and they both turned out great. (There was a lot of hot glue involved.)

-Jerome

Thanks honey! What Jerome failed to mention is that he also got up at 5:30 on the day of the awards to grill 54 hamburgers and 36 hot dogs. He loves his job! =)

DIY: Blurt Chart

This was my inspiration. One of the PreK teachers I am working with has a very chatty class. She asked me for any suggestions to keep their blurts to a minimum. Luckily, I had just pinned this picture the day before! Here is how mine turned out.

In Microsoft word, I typed up all the names of the students, the title, and one page full of 9 smiley faces. My one regret was laminating the names with the chart. If I had a redo, I would laminate & velcro them like I did the smiley faces. I printed the smileys on yellow cardstock and laminated them. After cutting them out, I put a piece of velcro on the back of each one and stuck it to the big chart (4 pieces of construction paper taped together).

How it's used:
Every student is given 3 smiley faces next to their names. If they blurt out, talk out of turn, talk over someone, etc., they have to go remove a smiley face by their name. Once all 3 are gone, they have to change their color. Then, they get all 3 back and the cycle continues. It seems to be working so far. Hopefully, after a few weeks, it will really show improvement in their behavior.

Changes...again.

So, we have officially combined all 3 blogs into one! Like our new name? New background? I thought the name it might be too cheesy but after a few trusted people gave me encouragement, I figured it could work. It was time to simplify. ALL posts (cooking, crafting, concerts, trips, everything) will be put on this blog. I can't wait to keep this up.

PS. Jerome did approve this message. =)

DIY: "Boo" Candy Jars

This is the inspiration picture of apothecary jars from the ladies at Uncommon (link to my inspiration).

Their inspiration was Shanty 2 Chic. I only used this blog for their shopping list:  Americana Lamp (Ebony) Black acrylic paint, Gorilla glue, unfinished wooden letters, unfinished wooden candle sticks, 3 unfinished wooden finials, 3 medium sized wooden base circles, and 3 medium sized glass canisters. Unfortunately, I could not find the candlesticks or finials at Hobby Lobby. =(  This caused me to use some major creative thinking, something I generally lack. Here is what I ended up pulling together for my materials.

I got just about everything half off at Hobby Lobby. I bought 3 glass canisters for $4.67 each; they weren't on sale. The letters were $2.99 each. The paint was  $0.99. The Gorilla Glue was $4.99 (& I'm sure I'll use it in many more projects to come). The black ribbon was $1.99, red gingham check ribbon was $5.99, and the black gingham check ribbon was $3.99. The beads were all things that my mom had around the house. Here's a closer look.

The candlesticks were my big splurge and thankfully they were half off. The tall one ended up costing me $15, the medium one $10, and the small one $7. They are all the same except for their heights. Here is a closer look at the detail on the candlesticks.

I understand that this project ended up costing me a lot more than I anticipated but I promise, the end result makes it soooo worth it. If you noticed the letters I bought, I can spell "BOO" or "JOY" so this is a project that will be used for 2 holidays. And if I take off the letters, I'm sure I can find plenty of uses for this as normal/seasonal decor. 

OK, now on to the steps to make the fabulous-ness that I am now obsessed with. =)

Step 1. Remove the labels from the bottom of the glass canisters. I found a pin on Pinterest that suggested rubbing alcohol and cotton balls.

Nothing happened!! Maybe I was impatient and didn't give it enough time to soak. I don't care. To me, rubbing alcohol didn't work. Then, my brother (shocker) suggested WD-40. He told me to let it soak a couple minutes then the sticker would come off with no glue residue left behind.

Don't tell him I said so but, my brother was right. Perfect removal of the price sticker and it's glue. You can see the sticker remains of my first attempt with the rubbing alcohol. So annoying. Trust me, go straight to the WD-40.

Step 2. Paint the lids of the canisters and the letters with the black acrylic paint. 

This is just a picture of everything I needed to paint. I didn't prep any of them.

The lids needed 3 coats of paint for me to be satisfied. They probably would have been ok after 2 coats but I still saw some brush strokes. There were still some lines after 3 coats but not as bad to me. 

I painted all the surfaces of the letters in case they get flipped around. Ok ok, it was because my OCD side couldn't stand to have the front & sides black but not the back. 

Step 4: Glue the canisters to the candlesticks. I put Gorilla glue around the entire top of the candlesticks and then placed the canisters on top. The glue recommends clamping your items together for 30-60 minutes to ensure full adhesion. I stuck 2 novels & a 5 or 10 pound weight on top of each of mine. =) (The novels I used were Harry Potter & Twilight books. They are wonderful & must reads.) 

Since it was midnight, I ended up just going to bed; therefore, my Gorilla Glue got 10 hours of time with the heavy weight on top. When I woke up the next morning, I used a exacto knife and trimmed the Gorilla Glue that had expanded out from under the canister.

Step 5: Glue beads together & then in place. I took the fun beads my mom had and used the Gorilla Glue to attach them on top of the normal black beads. I then glued them into the center of the canister lids. 

In this picture, you can see what I did while the beads were attaching to the lids:

Step 6: Make bows. I chose a black and white gingham checkered ribbon for the BOO jars. I bough red and white gingham checkered ribbon for when the jars will say JOY at Christmas. I made all 6 bows today and then stored the red and white ones with the J and Y. I placed the bows over the area that the candlesticks attach to the canisters. I did this to hide any imperfections that may have happened. =)

Step 7: Hang ribbon off of letters. I held the letters with some ribbon to make sure that they hung below the lid but above the bow. I then tied a knot at the letter and at the part that would hang around the bead. I stored the J and the Y for later. 

Step 8. Hang the letters from the beads.

Step 9: Fill the jars with candy corn for "BOO" Halloween jars. I will put peppermints or any other red, green or white candies for the "JOY" Christmas jars. I got my candy corn for $2.50 a bag at CVS today. Each container holds 2 bags that are 18 ozs. 

Step 10: Place the jars where everyone will see them & eat the candy!

Mom was soo excited to see this when she got home. Added to a good day with the Texans beating the Steelers!!!!! (Not fair the parents got to go.) 

I cannot wait to add more fall decor around these jars! I will update this post as that happens and look for when the jars change in future posts!