Halloween lights

I saw this idea for these really cool Halloween lights and I just had to make them. My parent's party and having a "craft day" with my crafting bestie Gail gave the push and time I needed.

 First I needed a paper dixie cup template for the Halloween paper (provided generously by Gail from her giant Halloween paper collection lol). Then I started the arduous task of cutting all of the paper. 

 I painted the cup with mod-podge and wrapped the paper around it. 

 I alternated the cute paper and wrapped 50 cups.

 Now, my dad said that he definitely had a string of 50 lights somewhere in the garage but when we looked we could only find strings of 100. If I had 50 lights I would have just poked one light into each cup but instead of making 50 more cups I just folded the lights in half and poked two lights into each cup.

Here's what they look like when they are finished. I just {heart} them!!!!!! I think I'm going to have to make them for every holiday now. I even might have to use cups to jazz up my Christmas lights this year =)

Halloween-ing

I haven't posted in a while...but that doesn't mean I haven't been crafting!!!!
When I was growing up, we would have a huge Halloween party at our house every year. My parents would invite all of our friends and their parents and we would bob for apples and hunt for treats in the haystack. It's been years since we've had a Halloween party but this year my parents hosted our first annual "Family Halloween Dinner Party". We're all older now but it's still nice to get together, bob for apples and eat yummy treats. Not to mention....I had an excuse to do some awesome Halloween crafts!

Here are some of the recap pictures, I'll also do another post about my cool Halloween lights.

 Do you know what this pumpkin is made out of??? It's my newest paint sample project!!

 My mom made the cool candle decor above. She wedged gummy bears and worms in between two different sized glass candle holder and then put a candle inside it. It was sooo cute....I guess I owe her big time for passing down those crafting genes!!

 BATS!!!!!!!

My "wine jug pumpkins", they make me pretty happy because they remind me of Pottery Barn =)

Happy Halloween!!!!

Pumpkin Spice Cake Pops

We're going to go on a journey- this journey is called "adventures in cake popping". My mom and I have been experimenting with these little magical treats for the past two weeks. I gotta say, Bakerella makes it look so easy but I have learned that it takes a lot of practice. It's usually smooth sailing until we get to the chocolate dipping part- at which point many angry faces are made. I thought about making pumpkin cake pops and when I googled them I didn't find any. I think that EVERYONE needs to try these- they were om-nom-nomy (yeah it's a strange word, it's said as it is written).

You will need:

One box of Spice Cake mix

One can of Pumpkin

One container of cream cheese frosting

Around 2 packages of white chocolate candy melts

A package of candy / lollipop sticks

You start out by mixing the cake mix with the can of pumpkin. Mix those two ingredients and then bake in a 13x9 inch pan as per the directions on the box. To be clear- only those two ingredients get baked, don't put in the eggs the oil or the water- I don't know why but people are really skeptical about that part ( I promise you it will work!). When the cake is done, let it cool COMPLETELY. Then crumble the cake into fine pieces into a bowl so it looks like this: 

Then mix in 3/4 of the container of frosting (if you put in the whole thing then it comes out too moist). 

When it's all nice and mixed and doughy, take little clumps of the cakey-dough and roll them into little balls. Put the balls onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and put them in either the refrigerator for several hours OR the freezer for about 15 minutes. (Yeah, I know you'll opt for the second option just like I did) 

As they're getting nice and chilly, melt your chocolate. Now, Bakerella says that you should do this in a large bowl in the microwave but every time I do that I either burn the chocolate or they don't dip right. I can't even accurately describe to you how difficult it is to dip these things, it really shouldn't be. Whenever I watch a video on cake pops, they simply dip and the chocolate just pours off.......not so for me. Whenever I dip them they get stuck in the chocolate like a vat of quicksand where they fall apart or the chocolate is kinda clumped on causing me to make this face----------> (-_-) 

I have found a way to a happier face. I started using my little dipper mini crock pot.You have to stir the chocolate a lot more but it stays hot and it's a lot smoother. I've also been adding about a tablespoon of Crisco (which I hate to do but hey, we already know that cake pops are not a "healthy choice" to begin with)

When your chocolate is melted and you take your cake balls out of the freezer, it's time to put them on sticks and dip them. You just dip the stick in the chocolate and then put it just over halfway through the ball. 

Then you dip it in the chocolate..................this is the part where everyone is SILENT so that you can focus and not go into "rage mode". 

This one is actually pretty cute. To decorate them it's probably a good idea to dip them all the way. My aunt Franny surprised me with this cool, state-of-the-art, spectacular cake pop holder (aka a cardboard circle with holes in it.). 

They only take a few minutes to harden and then people will come and steal them =)

I've been told they taste like a cross between pumpkin bread / pumpkin pie / gingerbread / magical- life-giving-deliciousness. At any rate, I'm going to go out and buy up all of the cans of pumpkin before the Autumn rush. 

Paint Sample Orbs

One of the first paint chip crafts that I ever saw were these amazing orbs. They're partly responsible for me getting bit by the paint chip bug. {They are pretty UH-mazing} It's also worth mentioning that you can make them in whatever colors you want, making them seasonal.

Instead of my usually "how to" guide I figured it would just be easier post the link that gives you a video on how to do them. http://www.curbly.com/diy-maven/posts/9274-how-to-make-paint-chip-orbs

I did mine in Autumn colors and put them in a hurricane vase. They are pretty easy once you get a feel for how to glue them without breaking them. I think I might need to make a few more to fill the vase =) 

Fall Vinyl Vases

I love Seasonal Decor =) I was pretty bummed last year when we didn't get our apartment in time to decorate for Fall (I made up for it with an obscene amount of Christmas stuff). Now that I've discovered the endless wormhole of craft blogs out, I've really started to appreciate the scope of Seasonal Decor. I figure I've got until Thanksgiving to get my Fall-crafting- on! I saw some vinyl decorated vases at Homegoods the other day for about 10 bucks a pop. Ummmmmmm I can do that for wayyyy cheaper, because I love love LOVE my vinyl. So I took two of my Dollar Store vases that I had left over from my wedding and I took out my....yeah you guessed it.....my Cricut!

 I cut some branches out of vinyl, because branches can be Fall or Winter so the vase will get more spotlight time.

I put a little tea-light at the bottom and I LOVE it, so does Chris =)

 I went back to my Cricut and cut some spiders and webs for an adorable Halloween vase! I have a lot of vases left over from the tables at my wedding- which means I just might have vases to match every season ;)
Ah-mazing!

I {Heart} Paint Samples

I'm on a mission to find out just how many things I can do with paint samples. Ya know- Paint Samples, you go to pretty much anywhere with paint and you find the rows and rows of paper samples to match against your wall? Well this month I have fully come to appreciate the joys of paint samples. I found this website (http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/roundup/even-more-paint-chip-projects-roundup-157364) that inspired me and showed me a bazillion (ok maybe not a bazillion, but alot) ways to craft with paint samples.

So first step- I took a little visit to the Home Depot. I'm slightly ashamed of just how many paint samples I smuggled / liberated from the paint section. There were just so many wonderful colors and I really needed them all to come home with me.....like...immediately! They also have a Disney paint-line so I pretty much became obsessed. Anyway, after my paint-sample-finding mission, I started to think about what I could make and the possibilities were pretty overwhelming. Then I found this blog where she made a spring wreath  (http://alililly.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-flower-wreath-from-paint-chip.html). I wanted a wreath....I wanted a fall wreath. So I rolled up my sleeves, got out my Cricut and started working....

First I cut a wreath shape out a cardboard box that I had.

 Then I started punching out leaf shapes and letters with my Cricut and my paint samples. I arranged these petal paint samples first, to make my wreath seem fuller. (these are sooo cool, Behr makes the paint samples in petal shapes so you don't have to cut them or anything)

 Then it was just a matter of arranging all of the paint sample leaves and the "Autumn" sign at the top. I really wanted people to be able to tell that my wreath had been made out of paint samples so I cut my leaves out of the samples with the lines. For my Christmas wreath, I think I'm going to try the plain samples with no lines =)
So cute, and I'm sure it will look pretty awesome hanging up!

I'm not even anywhere NEAR to being done with paint samples. Home Depot is probably going to start hiding them from me....just sayin'.

Emily's Birthday frame

I LOVE crafts made from rolled magazines and newspapers like these >http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/hot-or-not/hot-or-not-recycled-accents-from-urban-outfitters-055533. I decided to start small and make a rolled magazine frame for my sister-in-law, Emily's, birthday. I started rolling small pieces of the magazines and gluing them around the frame.

Then I started gluing the "tubes" around a picture frame.

Finally I sealed all of the tubes together by mod podging over the top of them

So cute. Maybe I'll try a magazine vase or basket next ;)

Adventures in Mod Podge- That's My King!

Chris has become kind of obsessed with a sermon done by Dr. S. M. Lockridge entitled "That's My King". They showed this video at our church http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzqTFNfeDnE and it's pretty amazing and inspiring. Well, it turns out the video is a shortened version of the actual sermon, which Chris downloaded on his phone.

Rewind to a month ago when I was walking around TJ maxx and found these on sale for a dollar each.....

I decided to try to mod podge after being inspired by blogs like this one http://www.modpodgerocksblog.com/.

From what I was told, mod podging on canvas was pretty easy. I just needed something to put on them to cover up the horrible flippy floppies.

Fast Forward to "That's my King". I knew I wanted to use alot of different fonts and put as much of the sermon as I could. So I edited the fonts (took forever but Oh so fun) and printed the pages (8 of them, 2 on each canvas).

I made sure to paint A LOT of M.P. on the canvas and then position my paper. Lesson: Mod Podge dries quick so you gotta work fast. I also had a tiny rubber roller to smooth out the bubbles. Then I dipped my foam brush in the M.P. and painted the beejezus out of the top of the paper, smoothing as I went.

I put a thin strip of black paper between the two different parts and continued to paint over the entire project.

This is the finished project. When the glue dried, the paper felt as though it was part of the canvas. I need to take a close up picture and a picture of them on our wall but they're pretty UH-mazing! Love Love Love.

Sunday Banana French Toast Casserole

I love Sunday Brunch, especially now that Chris doesn't have to work on the weekends =) Today I made Banana French Toast Casserole and it was deeeelicious. This is the first recipe I've taken a picture of for the blog YAY! Our whole house smelled like Fall and it was super duper easy. I haven't gotten it down to an exact science because I kinda eyeballed it, next time I make it I will measure. The egg mixture should look like your typical french toast mixture.

You need:

1 Loaf of French Bread

5 eggs

About a Cup of Milk

2 Bananas

1 1/2 Tbs of Cinnamon

2 Tbs of Sugar

(make sure you have some maple syrup too)

Break up the bread into a casserole dish ( I used my medium one so that the bread was thick)

Beat your eggs! I'm using my beloved Quicksmart from Tupperware. It's Uh-Mazing!

Add Milk.

The Yummies. Sugar, One Banana and Cinnamon.

Then you pour the egg mix and make sure all of the bread is smothered. I sliced up the other banana at this point and threw the pieces in.

Bake at 350 for about 25-30 min.

and.............................

OMNOMNOMNOMNOM!

Well....it looked like a Pumpkin =)

I'm trying to post crafts as I finish them and a lot of them are "in the works". If it looks like I post a lot of crafts and recipes in one day, I'm just catching up on the blog =).

I feel that I should preface by saying that Chris and I {Heart} Faithfarm's thrift store. Chris likes it because, deep down, he dreams on being an "American Picker" (ya know, like the show). He likes old stuff and forgotten treasures. I like it because it's basically a "crafter's"paradise. You can get cheap frames, ceramics, glassware.....My list of places I can spend hours in = Homegoods>Michaels>Faithfarms. Anyway, I was looking through the glassware section and I found this:

Yeah I know....it looks like a pumpkin, I agree. It was also $1. I was really liking the idea of having an autumn candy dish, cue Cricut and vinyl:

Cute! It's sitting on my table waiting to be filled with candy =)