Monster Party Part 3: The Invitations and Decorations

The invitations for this monster party were the first place I started.  I only did a Facebook event, but it was still important to me for the invitations to be cute.  I used publisher to whip up these invites in a matter of no time.  The "monster" font I used was AR Darling, which came standard with the newest version of office.  The other font was Candara.  The monsters were free clipart from Google searching.  A few clicks of the mouse later, there ya have it.

I was really happy with the way these turned out....especially considering I whipped them up in under an hour for free.

I'm sure that if you have been following along, you caught a glimpse of my food cards on Monday.  These were thrown together from a template in Publisher and more of that fantastic free Google search clip art.  Just used the AR Darling font to type in the themed food names, and I had precious little food cards to use.  Simple as that.

The first bit of decorating I did was completely on a whim.  I used some neon paper that I had originally picked up for another project to convert my china hutch into MONSTERS!  Just added some touches of other paper to make faces, and taped these up inside the glass panes.  These are so adorable, I have seriously considered leaving them up permanently.

 

Of course, I couldn't leave those little dears to fend for themselves.  I grabbed a kettle bell and a picture that already sat on top of the hutch, converted them using some paper, and tossed them back on top.


Once that was complete, I threw some plain paper in frames with paper eyeballs and drew on some smiles for a few added monster touches.

On a recent shopping trip some vinyl monsters caught my eye.  I scored a pack of around 15 of these adorable little guys in the section with the crib bedding sets of all places.   I stuck these little guys up on several of our doors.  One even made his way into my kitchen window.

Other than those few touches, our decorating was pretty plain and simple.  Brightly colored table cloths, some confetti made from leftover neon paper, and a table runner of brightly colored scrapbook paper.  Cute, but extremely easy to throw together.

I hope you have been enjoying the Monster party so far.  Stay tuned for the favors and the party recap!  You won't be sorry!

Adorable Retro Kitchen Towels

Ever since Laney turned 8, I have been starting to pull things together for her hope chest.  As I was browsing the craft section in Walmart, I saw these awesome retro dish towels just begging for me to embroider them.

It didn't take me long to find these cute little iron on templates for hand embroidery.  Of course, you could always machine embroider them or use fabric paint or whatever method you choose.  I wanted the retro feel of hand embroidery, and fell in love with these retro kitchen designs.  These are pattern SR11 "Kitch'n Stitch'n" by Stitcher's Revolution.

Then, I set out to pick my thread colors.  There is a handy color guide inside of the pattern package, but I wanted to match the towels, so I just picked whatever I felt like matched.

In addition to these supplies, you will need an ironing board, and iron, an embroidery hoop, a few straight pins, and an embroidery needle.

Once you have picked out which of the designs you would like to use, cut those out.  Ironing will transfer everything on the paper, so be careful not to cut out any stray lines.

Now iron your dish towel to remove any wrinkles and prepare the surface for the transfer.  Transfers work best on freshly ironed fabric. (for best results, you need to wash and dry the dish towels before starting this project)

Pin the iron transfer into place in whatever location you choose.

Now iron the transfers on.  You will need to use a hot iron, but without steam.  Iron over the transfer for around 5-10 seconds, moving the iron constantly. When you remove the transfer, you will be left with a dark grey transferred design.

I'll be honest.  At this point, I seriously considered grabbing a permanent fabric marker, tracing these, and leaving it at that.  It would be absolutely precious left as is...BUT I really did want a finished embroidered piece.

It is important to remember not to use your iron's steam feature.  If you do, this is what will happen. As if my ironing board cover wasn't dirty enough.

Once you have your transferred designs, toss one of your towels into an embroidery ring and pull it tight.

Now begin working on your embroidered piece.  I like to do one color at a time for the entire work.  On this piece, I chose to use my green and yellow threads.  I selected a backstitch for the outline and a satin stitch for the floral designs on the bowls.

For the Cherries print, I used red for the cherries and words, blue for the circle, and green for leaves and stems.  For the Dab'll do ya, I used blue for the measuring spoons and yellow for the words.  You can select any colors you like.  These didn't turn out perfect, as I am not a fantastic embroiderer, but they turned out with the homespun, vintage feel that I was looking for, so I am SO excited about them.

I think the Mix it up is my favorite.  What about you??

Have fun crafting!

                                                                   

Woodburned Wooden Spoons

My oldest daughter, Laney, turned 8 recently.  Eight seems pretty harmless, but it is actually a very scary birthday.  Almost to ten, halfway to driving, only ten years from leaving!  I decided that eight is the perfect age for me to start adding items to Laney's hope chest.  A hope chest is sort of a forgotten tradition these days, but I have an old-fashioned side.  Traditionally a hope chest is used to gather and store household items such as table linens, bed linens, dishes, etc in preparation for a young girl to get married or move out on her own.  Commonly these chests are constructed of cedar wood in order to prevent moths, but other materials have also been known to be used.  While Laney's hope chest is currently a theoretical one, eventually she will have an actual chest to fill.

I started by searching all over the web for ideas of things to include in her chest.  I now have a list of items to make or have Laney make to include.  These wooden spoons are what I chose to make first because they are inexpensive and easy to make.  My goal is to post about each item I make so that you can see her hope chest collection grow over time. 

Honestly, these would be great for so many purposes.  They would be good to include in a wedding gift or give as a favor for a bridal shower.  You could also just make some for yourself to add a little homespun touch to your kitchen.  You have the idea...so now for the project.

Here's what you need:
set of  wooden spoons
woodburning kit

Walmart has sets of four wooden spoons for 88 cents, so I actually ended up buying two packs and making a set for little Leah to get a jump start on her chest as well.  They also have woodburning kits for under $10, but I already had mine from my years of craft hopping.

Ready to craft?!?  Here we go....

Because the wooden spoons are made of soft wood, they tend to be a little rough when you open them.  You could spend more money and get nice, hardwood spoons....but I chose to just sand these down a bit around the rough spots.  Plus, because of how inexpensive these are, you can afford to practice, mess up, and have fun without worrying about messing up an expensive spoon.  Your choice though.  If you choose to sand, just make sure you clear the area of any dust before we get to the burning part.

Now that you have a smooth surface, you are ready to burn.  Choose and attach your wood burning tip.  I chose a cone shaped tip.  Let your wood burner heat up.  Make sure that your wood burner is securely in its stand.  You don't want to have it burning up the whole world while it heats.  For extra security, you could work over a piece of glass to prevent damage to your work surface.

Once your burning tool is heated, you can draw your chosen design onto the surface of the back of a spoon.  I chose to freehand a flower with some leaves and textural dots.  You can choose to add any design you wish.  Remember not to hold your burning tool in one place for too long.  You will end up with strange dots and spots that are more burned than others.  Most importantly...as I always say...perfection ruins a good project...so craft with confidence and don't worry about things being perfect....mine sure aren't.

Once you have finished the back design on the spoon, you can add additional designs to the front if desired.  Jazz it up a little....add a monogram like I did on the large, flat spoons...or just do something that makes you happy!

Once I finished all of the spoons, I tied them with a blue ribbon to keep them together.

Here are my results!  I hope you are as happy with yours as I am with mine.

Let me know if you have any ideas of things to add to a hope chest or if you have tried this project yourself.  I love to hear from you!

Makeover Your Chicken Salad

I like chicken salad, but I am always experimenting with it trying to find something new to add to it to keep it exciting.  Today, I decided to makeover my standard lunch chicken salad.  Typically I use some light mayo, a little squirt of mustard, and a little bit of pickle relish.  Then I just spread it on crackers and enjoy.  Today I wanted a little different flavor.  I literally dug through all of my spice drawer and the fridge....and finally the pantry.

What I ended up doing was mixing in a tablespoon or two of this....

The result was SO YUMMY!  The Salad Toppins gave the chicken salad a little extra crunch and an awesome flavor.  I was so excited about it that I just had to tell you about it.  This particular Salad Toppins blend has bacon bits, sunflower kernels, and tons of other stuff too.

What are you waiting for?  Go pick some up and makeover your lunch!

Keep Water Spots Off Your Fixtures (& Other Tips)

I'm not ticky about everything, but I cannot STAND water spots on my fixtures.  It drives me crazy to have spotty, splotchy handles and spouts.  I have tried different polishes, different cleaners, all sorts of things.  Then I started trying unconventional things....dryer sheets (did ok actually), baby oil (epic fail), and many more.

I thought the dryer sheets were going to be the best I could do...they did pretty darn well actually and would be a good use if you don't keep the winner around typically.

The winner was WAX PAPER!  I took a small scrap of wax paper and rubbed it, waxy side down, on my fixtures after they were cleaned and dried.  It created a thin, water resistant, wax coating on them and kept the water from drying in spots everywhere.

The dryer sheets do this same thing, but the residue they leave is a little different and wears off quicker.

I would not recommend using this on your stainless steel appliances.  It is such a big surface that I couldn't get the coating even and it just looked like a dull film on them.  But on smaller surfaces like fixtures...PERFECTION!

If you don't keep wax paper in the house and need to justify purchasing it, here are a few other uses for wax paper:

Loosen dirt from garden tools.  The sticky wax surface grabs dirt and pulls it right off while providing a waxy rust protectant coat to tools.

Line the area above cabinets with wax paper to catch the dust, then remove every couple months or so and replace with a new piece.

Roll up squares of wax paper to use as a funnel for putting ingredients or items into jars or other small containers.

Line drawers and cabinets.  Wax paper makes a great, disposable shelf and drawer liner.  It catches dust and dirt and then can just be thrown away.

Keep a door from jamming in the frame.  If you have a door that is sticking, you can rub it down with wax paper to keep it gliding into the frame easily rather than sticking.

Keep zippers moving smoothly and unstick zippers that are frozen by rubbing the teeth down with the waxy side of wax paper.  The coating keeps the zipper moving.

Use under wood clamps to keep clamps from sticking to wood glue.

Use to catch drips from hot glue guns.

Keep candle colors from bleeding during storage by wrapping them in wax paper first.

Use to dry candies or dipped strawberries.

Use a piece of wax paper on your swiffer sweeper head to catch dirt like a dust mop.


Do you have any other uses for wax paper or any other ideas for keeping fixtures spot free?  Let me know about them right here....

Bathroom Closet Organization

The hidden spaces in our homes are often very neglected in terms of organization as well as in terms of style.  We think that style doesn't matter since we are the only ones who see the space.  Not true, I say!  In fact, I will tell you that since I organized my bathroom cabinet area in a stylish way, I feel much more compelled to keep it organized and tidy.  Even though nobody else sees that space (until now), making it stylish makes me feel better.

Everything I used for this project, I already had in my home.

I started from the top and worked my way down so that I could clean it well as I was working.  Before starting to organize each of my bathroom spaces, toilet paper was stored in a single location in a hall closet.  It was kind of a pain to run to the hallway every time you need to get a new roll.  I relocated a stash of toilet paper to each bathroom.  Here, you see that I stored the toilet paper stash for this bathroom on the top shelf.  Don't tell my kids, but there are a few Christmas presents stashed behind there for safe keeping.  :o)

On the next shelf, I decided to store Qtips and cotton balls in glass containers so I could get to them quickly and easily.  Next to those you can see a hand carved, wooden trinket box that belonged to my grandmother.  Inside that box is a stock of feminine items.  No need to keep those awful paper boxes.  In front of the box is a jade elephant that belonged to my husband's aunt.  I think it gives the cabinet flair.  This elephant migrates through the house.  He started in the living room on the book shelves, then moved to our bedroom dresser, now he lives here.  I'm sure he'll move again before it is all said and done.

On the next shelf, you can see that I have rolled wash rags up and placed them into an enamel ware chamber pot that I purchased about 4 years ago.  Next to that is an enamel ware plate that was my grandmother's.  Inside that plate are tweezers, nail clippers and nail files (not visible).

Finally, on the bottom shelf, I grabbed a wooden basket that we had shoved into a closet somewhere.  I rolled our towels up for attractive storage and easy access.

Who says that functional storage can't also be attractive?  I hope this inspires some stylish organizing at your house.

Let me know about your organization projects!  I love to hear from you!

DVD Organization from Upcycled Kids' Shoeboxes

No matter how much storage we have in our homes, it seems to never be quite enough.  Everywhere I look, there is poorly used space.  One space that has always bothered me is the cabinets in our living room.  I love having storage there, but I feel as if we don't use it well.

Here is what our DVD/VHS storage looked like before.

It took up two drawers.  I just felt like it was a huge waste.

A few weeks ago, my kids got shoes for their birthdays from my mom.  They were precious little converse sneakers.  I hung onto the boxes thinking surely I would be able to use them for something. 

I was pondering how to fix the messy DVD area when I decided, by chance, to see if one of the DVD sleeves would fit into a shoebox.  It DID!  Of course, that set off the whole project.

Here is what you need:

One or two child size shoeboxes
Decorative duct tape
DVD sleeves
Scrapbook Paper
Alphabet Stickers

Now that you have what you need, we can get started.

Go ahead and cut the flap top lid off if the lids are not already separate.  If they are, great, you are already a step ahead.

Wrap the decorative duct tape around the box.  I just did this one time because the top portion of the box was already black.  If you want to cover the entire box or if you box isn't as pretty repeat until you get the desired amount of tape on.

Now you will make your alphabetical dividers.

I just used 12x12 scrapbook paper in black and grey.  I cut the paper into 6" x 3" rectangles.  Then I placed a letter sticker at the top of each  card.

You are now ready to start loading your DVDs into the new system.  Just remove the bulky, plastic covers, slip the movies into the sleeves, and place them behind the appropriate letter card.

When you finish filing the movies, it will look like this.

Now just pop the boxes back into your storage area and rearrange the existing drawer.

Ours was condensed to one single drawer from two overflowing ones.

I actually was able to clear half of the third drawer as well by filing all of our Wii Games behind our movies in the same way.

Did you do a project similar to this at your house?  Let me know about it.