Showing posts with label Fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fall. Show all posts

Monday, November 4, 2013

Mason Jar: Turkey Treat Jars

How fun is Thanksgiving?!?  I love the spirit of gratitude and of course the turkey.  Now, I don't mean eating turkey (although I do love that too).  I mean little turkey crafts.  Over the years I have made hand turkeys, feet turkeys and the like with my kids and they were so awesome.  This year, I decided to make a bit more sophisticated turkey treat jar.


They turned out amazing and were so easy.  First, I filled my jar with M&M's which gave the perfect amount of color and yummy goodness to the project.

Next, I used the feather cut out from the turkey pillow box pattern I had downloaded from Silhouette online.  The size was perfect.  I did, however feel that it needed some color so I took brown, orange/red and gold crayons to add some layers of color to the feathers.


Finally, I used my scallop circle punch to make a face.  Again, using the beak and wattle pattern from the pillow box I created a face with the addition of some googly eyes.  I used hot glue to attach the feathers to the glass and the head to the lid ring.  This allows the recipient to open the jar and still keep the cute turkey.

I just love these and while these were made for the Sunshine Committee, I plan to make some for table decorations at my house as well.


at 5:00 AM 13 comments
Labels: , ,

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Sunshine Committee Pillow Box Treats

Recently one of the teachers from our awesome school asked for a crafty parent to assist with the Sunshine Committee.  I jumped at the chance to be creative!  I love to volunteer at my kids school but I must say, I am picky what I will do!  I believe we should work to our strengths and of course, I have some creativity to share!

The Sunshine Committee is a group of teachers who have come together to offer little gifts of sunshine to teachers, staff and students who for whatever reason may need a little boost of sunshine.  They offer encouragement, cheer, a pat on the back and more. I love the idea of this committee because I know how the simplest gesture of kindness can totally make a person's day.

Each month, the committee brings me a bag of goodies and I work my magic.  Since everyone loves a little sweet treat we always have some candy.  This month I was working with M&M's and candy corn.  I decided to make some little pillow box treat holders with my Silhouette.

I downloaded this adorable turkey pillow box from the Silhouette online store.  Perfect treat for the month of November.  I added googly eyes instead of the paper eyes because, well, googly eyes are just plain fun!  Inside, I put a small plastic bag filled with M&M's.  These would work great with the fun size candy bars too as they are the perfect size.


The Silhouette website has a number of other cute Pillow Box ideas including an owl.  Of course, even though the downloads are cheap, I knew I could make my own owl using the Turkey box since it had the same "ruffles" on the chest.  For the eyes, I used a scalloped circle punch that I have used in the past.  A simple yellow beak and some larger googly eyes and there you go.


I love these pillow box owls because they can be so many different colors to fit the seasons.  I will definitely get the use out of this pillow box download. 

A few months ago I had downloaded this fun owl treat holder from the Silhouette website as well.  Using some fall colors, I created a few cute treat packets using the candy corn as well. I just love how they came out.


I sure hope that these fun projects bring some sunshine to our most deserving students, teachers and staff!  I look forward to making more creations in the future.


at 5:00 AM 2 comments
Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Cutest, Not-So Scary Haunted House

Last week I shared some of of our outdoor Halloween decorations over at Sweet Peas and Bumble Bees and I couldn't wait to share it here with you too!

Last Halloween we had just purchased our house and were too busy painting, fixing and prepping our new home to move in so we didn't get to decorate.  Not this year - this year we are having fun.  With two young kids who can be spooked easily, we decided to go with the "cute" instead of "scary"



I was inspired by a simple project we did with the kids one afternoon - googly eye wall monsters.  Who doesn't love googly eyes?  Right?  The kids and I have been a bit obsessed about googly eyes lately, as is much of blogland - do a search on Pinterest and you will see what I mean.


Using the inspiration of our googly eye wall monsters - we created our Cutest Not-So Haunted House!

 

Believe it or not, this entire project was done for $3.50!!!  HUGE IMPACT, LITTLE MONEY!!!


I picked up 3 different sizes of white Styrofoam plates and a sheet of black poster board.  Pretty simple.  I found some glasses in my kitchen to trace 3 different sized circles.  Cut them out and glued them to the plates.  Easy peasy homemade googly eyes!


Then I headed outside with a roll of duct tape and got to work.  I was going for haunted but honestly, it is way too cute to be haunted - well, maybe by Casper the Friendly Ghost!  And guess what, I have enough plates left over to have a Halloween party!!!


I hope you are enjoying my series 
31 Days to a Functional Kitchen.  
It has been a lot of fun!

at 12:00 AM 4 comments
Labels: ,

Monday, September 12, 2011

Fall Wreath

As promised, I have updated our front door for Fall.  I found an old wreath in the garage from several years ago.  It was a pre-made wreath, nothing special.  I cleaned up the leaf garland, fluffed the bow a bit and added some of the gold, red and brown sparkly wire garland from the dollar store to give it a bit of pizazz.  Simple, quick update. 




Do you have an old wreath that could use a quick and simple update?  Remember, we don't ALWAYS have to start from scratch.  We can re-energize a old favorite.

Linked up with...

DON'T FORGET -  Check out the awesome Michael's coupon at the top of my blog.  50% off one item, expires 9/17/11. 


at 1:24 PM 2 comments
Labels: ,

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Falling for Fall

I cannot deny, I am falling hard for fall this year.  Maybe it is the melancholy feel of this season, maybe the dream of cool, crisp air and the ability to be outside without melting!  Whatever it is, I love it and love to see the touches of fall in my home!

This weekend I have been working on a couple more fall decorations.  Today I want to share a couple of these projects.  Clearance and the dollar store are rampant in these projects.  I really do think I have a problem.  I swear my car just goes there on its own (oh, that and the dollar store is right next door to my grocery store).  And really, who can go shopping without checking out the clearance rack or area?  Not me!  I love a bargain.  I also love transforming something very simple, into something amazing.


My first project this weekend was this awesome mini-pumpkin topiary.  It was just $4 for the vase and 3 pumpkins.  Alone, I have to say, the pumpkins looked a bit cheap.  However, using this fun topiary idea, they really look more expensive and maybe even a bit more realistic.  I actually would love to try this with some real mini-pumpkins once I start seeing them in the grocery store.


This project started by taking a plain, footed plastic vase from the dollar store and spray painting it with oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  (I love this stuff.)  Since I was just going to use this plastic vase for a "dry" arrangement, I didn't worry about priming it with a spray paint for plastic.  I probably should have but, well frankly, I wanted to make this project and I didn't have any paint specifically for plastic.  I went for it and after a couple of light coats it turned out great.

Then I used a wood skewer and pierced it through the pumpkins and laid a few fall leafs between them to fill the space and give the topiary some depth.  Then I simply placed a small piece of Styrofoam into the vase and pushed the skewer down into it.  I love the height of the vase and the topiary.


To continue with my love of oil rubbed bronze spray paint, I transformed a summer lantern that I picked up on clearance at Lowes into a great fall centerpiece.  After a quick coat of paint, I added a candle and some candy corn. 

BEFORE
Boring and a bit dusty!

AFTER
Rich and delicious!

Tomorrow I will share the wreath I am revamping for the front door. 

DON'T MISS OUT!!!!  There is an awesome add for Michael's on my blog for the next 10 days!  Check it out for some awesome savings!!!!

Linked Up With...




at 8:01 AM 7 comments
Labels: , ,

Friday, September 2, 2011

Fall in Chocolate {Free Printable}

This week I have been working on bringing in a few Fall vignettes at my house.  I am sort of obsessed with orange right now so I have been introducing it in several places throughout my main living area.  Yesterday I shared my orange split pea trees.  Today, I have a fun, free printable for you.


I came across this awesome saying on Etsy ... "Forget love, I'd rather fall in chocolate".  Immediately I started dreaming about the Fall themed candy I have started seeing in the stores.  While the saying isn't specifically "Fall", it seemed perfect to use the Fall colored candies to make a free printable. 

I headed to the store in search of the Hershey Kisses autumn mix.  Alas, after going to two stores with none to be found, I decided that the autumn M&Ms would work just as well.  I hurried home, ripped open the bag (shoved a handful in my mouth) and poured some out onto my black flat top stove.  After doing several food photo shoots in my kitchen I found out this makes a perfect black background, just like the professionals. 

I snapped a few pictures, opened up Picnik and got to work.  I love how it turned out and am so excited to share it with you.  I created this as an 8x10, however I left ample framing so that it can easily be cropped to a 5x7 or 4x6 or even up-sized to a 9x12 or 11x16.


Click here to download.  Once in Flickr, right click on the picture.  Select the size you would like to download, I recommend at least the Medium 640.  Click Download and save to your computer.  If you use this printable in a blog post, please link back to this original post.  Thank you.

Excuse me, because I need to go hide the rest of the bag of M&Ms from my husband and kids!  Hee hee!

Linked up with...
at 5:00 AM 4 comments
Labels: ,

Thursday, September 1, 2011

A Touch of Fall

Oh, how I long for a chill in the air!  Alas, here in Arizona we can't look forward to that for at least another couple of months.  While the weather is still screaming summer, the calendar is saying fall and I decided it was time to get in the mood.  It is September after all! 




For a while now, I have felt that this little vignette on the fireplace hearth needed a little face lift.  You may remember the split pea cones.  They were so wonderful, fresh and Springy when I made them last February.


However, they have become faded, almost yellow and the kids have knocked them down a few too many times which has made more than a few hundred peas flake off.  They just did not have the "life" in them anymore.  Of course, the thrifty in me couldn't just throw away two dollar store cones covered in an 88 cent bag of split peas.  Oh no.  Not this frugal girl.  All they need is a touch of paint.  My first thought was to use some craft paint, but then as I was walking the aisles of Lowes the other day guess what caught my eye -  Valspar La Frontera Copper spray paint - the perfect harvest orange, not too bright, just right!

 

I popped them on a skewer, took them outside and gave them a nice coat of paint.  Beautiful, but it was missing something, some depth.  So I grabbed a can of oil rubbed bronze spray paint and gave it a very light dusting.  It was great, however a couple of spots got a bit thick, so I dusted it again with the copper.  Perfect.  Don't you just love the texture of the split peas.


To change up the look a bit, I pulled out some fall leaf foil garland I picked up at the dollar store a couple weeks back and made another tree.  I gave my Styrofoam cone a light coat of orange spray paint and then started wrapping the garland.  It is a wire so I simply poked the end in the cone and started wrapping - first the gold, then the brown, then the red and repeat.  After I was done, I fluffed it up a bit, pulling the leaves out from under the wire.

I only had two of the wood candle sticks so I grabbed a small glass one from my stash.  I dusted it with orange and then the ORB.  I love the speckled effect in this application.


To balance out this new display, I pulled out my orange candles and placed them on the candlesticks on the side table along with a bit more of the garland.

Have you started decorating for Fall?

Linked up to...

at 9:00 AM 15 comments
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)