Pants Repurposed into Purse

I love to sew and I especially love to repurpose old things into something new. A few weeks ago I was over at Made it on Monday and I saw her really cute pants transformed into a purse and I couldn't resist making one for myself. It is really not that hard. I cut a pair of pants all the way up the inseam on both sides and then used the fabric for my purse parts, and I used the old pants waistline for my purse strap. You can use an old purse as your pattern outline, or just wing it and cut as you go.

Then, to line the purse I used a shirt that I don't wear anymore. I tried to get a picture of the lining, but it came out too grainy. I know you all know what the lining of a bag looks like anyway.

For the little fabric flowers, cut strips of old tee shirt and then cut a circle in your desired flower size and just twist the flower into shape and glue it to your circle with the glue gun. You should make one of these. Its so fun to see your pants and shirt get turned into a purse!

Bean Bag Tutorial

This year I'm homeroom mom for my son's kindergarten class. We are always looking for cheap party games, and we decided to do a bean bag toss as one of the halloween party games.  The bean bags are so simple to make. I wanted to share it, because my little boy is having lots of fun playing with the bean bags just around the house. And even if you just use them for a party it only cost 75 cents for the fabric and just a little while to make the bags.

What you need to make them:
1/4 yard of fabric
a bag of beans or rice (for filling the bean bags)
thread

First, cut your fabric. I cut mine across horizontally and then cut each of those strips into rectangles. Mine turned out to be 10 rectangles- each 4.5x5.5 inches.

Put 2 rectangles right sides facing each other and sew along 2 long sides and an end, leaving one end open so that you can put in the beans.

After you have the 3 sides sewn, turn the bag inside out (or should that be right sides out?) so you can see the right side of the fabric.

Next, fill the bag with 3 tablespoons of beans. This is great part to involve a little helper.

Time to clean up the beans you spilled all over the sewing machine trying to take a picture and fill the bag at the same time.

Once the bag is filled, tuck in the raw edges on top, folding them in towards the wrong side of the fabric.

Hold or pin the edges shut and sew along all 4 sides of the bag.

All done!

We're using buckets decorated with  jack-o-lantern faces to toss the bean bags into, but  you could use boxes or anything you can think of.

{mis}adventure- Finding a Melted Crayon after Drying a Load of Clothes!

What's that old saying, boys will be boys? Well, my little boy is really a great kid, but accidents do happen. And, the other day when I went to open my dryer only to discover a load of school uniforms and jeans covered in a crayon color explosion. It was not pretty! I didn't take a picture because I figured they were ruined and I could look at the ugly stains any time I wanted.

I was just sure that money- between a hundred and two hundred dollars of clothes was down the drain. *sigh* Not to mention the fact that I had to clean my dryer so I could dry clothes in the future without destroying them. Well, after looking around online, I found an interesting discussion on Thrifty Fun's website.

So, I know you can't ever imagine it happening to you, but in case it does and it very well may if you have kids. I found an amazing solution that got all of the crayon out of the clothes (except there are a few traces on 1 pair of khaki pants- but that is not bad out of about 10 pants!)

The Amazing Recipe

2 max amounts (line 3) of concentrated Tide (I used All Free& Clear)

1 cup Oxiclean

1/2 cup 20 mule team Borax

1 cup Shout liquid

1 cup white vinegar

Run your load on hot for the longest wash cycle, and let it soak an hour. Then you're ready to check it out and if its not totally clean, just spot clean and run it again. (I only had to run my blues once! Yay!)
To clean the dryer, run it for about 5 or 10 minutes, then wipe it down with a clean wet towel and Comet. Not hard at all. Just make sure to run a load of rags before you run good clothes so that you're sure you got all the crayon. Hopefully this will never  happen to you, but just in case it does I hope this helps! Hopefully there won't be too many misadventures any time soon.

Pottery Barn Colors + 2x4 Scrap Wood = Cute Gourd and Pumpkin Trio

The other day I was looking on Pottery Barn's website and saw these. So pretty, and with such beautiful colors. I'm not looking to fork over $75, but I would like to have those pretty colors and I've also been wanting to make some 2x4 pumpkins ever since I first saw some on Sassy Sanctuary and so I came up with these. So , without further ado, Pottery Barn color inspiration, meet 2x4 scrap wood pumpkins.


Here's my favorite. The little "cinderella."

And, the whole gang:

I think they turned out pretty well considering they're made from scrap wood!

Spiderweb Cookies- DIY or Almost Homemade

These spiderweb cookies are so yummy. I found the recipe in Family Circle. The cookie recipe is a really moist and cake like type pumpkin cookie, and the icing is just the right amount of sweetness. Mmmm. Anybody can do these, no special equipment needed. And, and the great part is that if you just want spiderweb cookies you can use a store bought cookie and make the icing.
Spiderweb Cookies
Cookies-

2-2/3  cups  all-purpose flour

1  teaspoon  baking soda

3/4  teaspoon  salt

1/2  teaspoon  ground allspice

3/4  cup  canned solid-pack pumpkin

1/4  cup  milk

1  cup  granulated sugar

1/4  cup (1/2 stick)  unsalted butter, softened

2    eggs

 Icing:

3  cups  confectioners' sugar

3  tablespoons  light corn syrup

1/2  teaspoon  vanilla

3  tablespoons plus 4 teaspoons  milk

2  tablespoons  unsweetened cocoa powder

1.If you're going to make the cookies yourself, here is the directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°. Coat 2 baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray. In bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and allspice. In small bowl, stir together the pumpkin and milk. In large bowl, beat sugar and butter until blended, 1 minute. Beat in eggs. On low speed, alternately beat in flour mixture and pumpkin mixture, ending with flour mixture.
2. Drop 1/4-cupfuls of dough onto prepared sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. Spread slightly with spatula. They will not spread much during baking so try to make them pretty flat.
3. Bake 1 sheet at a time , until toothpick inserted in centers tests clean. It took 11 minutes for me. Remove cookies to rack to cool.


To make the icing:
Blend confectioners sugar, corn syrup, vanilla and 3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons milk until smooth. Remove 1/3 cup icing to small bowl and stir in cocoa and remaining 2 teaspoons milk. Make sure you get all the clumps of cocoa broken up. Transfer chocolate icing to plastic bag; snip off corner.
5. Turn cookies flat-side up (bottom of the cooking facing up). Spread white icing over one cookie. Beginning in center, pipe a spiral of chocolate icing onto cookie. Starting in center of spiral, drag a knife through spiral for spiderweb pattern. Repeat with all cookies. Let stand until set. If you get to a spot where your chocolate won't squeeze out easily then you probably have a little cocoa clump. Just squeeze it out onto a plate or whatever by pinching with your fingers.

From Coat Hangers to Cute Halloween Decoration

What all started as simple coat hangers turned into this super cute boo! I can't take the credit for this idea, as my sister-in-law came up with it, but I would love to show you how very easy it is to make one of these!

Stuff you're going to need:

• coat hangers
• old tee shirts or towels (this part will not show)
• ribbon or fabric
• glue (preferably a glue gun)
• some heavy duty tape
• wire cutters or something to cut the hangers

First get your hangers and take them apart. I used 2 to make my "Boo."

Next, bend your hanger into the "B" shape (and you'll do the other letters too) and when you get it the shape you want, then tape it in place.

Once you're done making your letters then cut your towel (or shirt) into strips and just wrap it around the hanger gluing (is that a word???) as you go. You'll come up with something like this:

Once you've got all your letters wrapped up you're ready to tape them together and put on the ribbon. Just glue the ribbon, wind it and glue ever so often.  It really helps to snack on a super yummy snack while you do it, and I'm going to share the perfect recipe in the next few days.
And there you have it, your awesome new Boo decoration. Thank you so much to my sis-in-law for finding this awesome idea and letting me share it with you all :) My head is just swimming with all the other things you could do with this idea. So I wouldn't be too surprised if you see some other spin offs of this in the future.

Happy 101 Blog Award

 Amy over at Crazy Craft Bugs awarded me the Happy 101 Blog award. Thanks so much Amy. It made my day :)

Rules for the award:

1. Post who it was that gave you the award.

2. List 10 things that you like.

3. Give this award to 10 other blogs and let them know with a comment.

10 Things I Like in no Particular Order

1. My family
2. Living closer to extended family
3. The beautiful fall weather
4. Crafting, ccooking etc..
5. Shopping
6. Going for a walk on a nice day
7. Spending time with those I love
8. Watching HGTV and TLC
9. Reading
10. Playing with my son

10 Blogs I've been Inspired by

1. Under the Table Dreaming by Stephanie
2. Stories of a House by Christa
3. Sassy Sanctuary by Krystal
4. A Soft Place to Land by Kimba
5. DIY Showoff by Roeshel
6. Madigan Made by Madigan
7. The Boy Trifecta by Emily
8. Made it on Monday by Jill
9. Me Making Do by Heather
10. Miz Helen's Country Kitchen by Miz Helen

Faux Pumpkin Facelift Tutorial

We  all have some fake pumpkins sitting around just looking so shiny and oh so very fake. Blah. Who wants a pumpkin like that sitting on their porch? So I gave mine a simple (less than) 5 minute facelift and it looks so much better now! Here it is post facelift.

And Before: Eek! Shiny plastic screaming out: Fake!

All You have to do is get some brown acrylic paint, and squirt out a tiny bit on the pumpkin (start with less as you can always add more as you go) Get a wet paper towel and rub the paint all around your pumpkin and just keep rubbing up and down going the whole way around your pumpkin until you get the desired effect.

Tempting Tuesday- Delicious Cinnamon Almonds

These are so good and they have all those great fats that are good for your body. And, your house will smell so good while cooking them.

So here's the recipe for Cinnamon Almonds:

• 4 cups of almonds
• 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1/4 cup each of brown sugar and sugar (or less to suit your tastes)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 250 and line 2 baking sheets with foil. Spray with canola cooking spray.

Beat the egg until frothy, as shown below.

Stir in the nuts and vanilla. Sprinkle with the salt,sugar and cinnamon and toss to coat and you're ready to spread them on the 2 pans and cook 'em. Here are mine, all ready to get yummy.

Bake one hour stirring occassionally (2-3 times) until golden-they'll look like this when they're ready. Hope you enjoy this tasty, simple fall snack.

Easy to Make Tin Can Luminarias

I love to make crafts that reuse stuff that I already have around the house, plus then I don't feel guilty if I send them off to goodwill after the holiday is over (I hate clutter!) So, I happened across the idea for tin can luminaries at Better Homes and Gardens Website and I thought that would be a cute way to make some little luminaries, or they could be big if you used something like a coffee can. I decided to paint them off white instead of orange. For some reason that just seemed right.
Here they are in the day:

And at night:

What you need-

• tin cans and water
• hammer and nail
• paper, marker and tape
• little tea lights or lcd luminaries
• spray paint in your color of choice

First fill your tin cans almost full of water and freeze them. That way they won't dent when you hammer in the nails. While you're waiting you can download and print templates from BHG, or just draw your own (what I did for 2 of them) Once, the cans are frozen go ahead and tape on  your templates.

Take one can out of the freezer at a time and take it outside and hammer your nail into all the marked places. If you take out of of them they start to melt and get all sweaty and the paper gets mushy. I'm just guessing on that :)

Now go ahead and remove the paper and then give it a few light coats of spray paint.

Ta da- Neat little free luminaries.

Linking to

Its So Very Cheri

Q-tip Skeleton Craft for Kids

My five year old likes to do crafts, and for some reason, he is really fascinated with skeletons. So, when I ran across the creative q-tip skeletons at Stuff by Ash I knew that he would be excited to make one. And he was. He was so happy with how it turned out that he couldn't wait for it to dry so he could chase me around the house with it. The joys of having  kids :)

Here's his version of the q-tip skeleton. Head on over to check out the tutorial on Stuff by Ash.

Coasters Tutorial- Simple but Sophisticated for only $1.65!

The other day I was thinking that I wanted new monogrammed coasters and then it occured to me that tiles are pretty much coasters and here is what I ended up with.

I am so pleased with how they turned out and it was so simple and cheap to make. My husband even thought they were store bought. Here's a close up.

Now, on to the tutorial. First thing you need is tiles. I got mine from Lowe's and they were only 34 cents each. Next, go into your favorite word editing program and use your initial and figure out which font you like and what size to make it. My font size was 200. Once I figured out the right size I printed it on old scrapbooking paper and cut out the letter using an exacto knife on top of an old picture frame.

Here is my stencil all cut out and ready to go.

For my paint I used some acrylic I had laying around the house.

Then, hold down your stencil and use a paintbrush to paint in the letters. Make it kind of thin so it won't run under the edges of your stencil. You can always do a second coat if you need to. If you get any little imperfections just use a wet q-tip to fix it.  If you accidentally mess up your stenciling you can wash if off in the sink and then dry your tile and start over, not that I am speaking from experience or anything :)

Once your stenciled letter is all dry paint over the top of the whole tile with a clear satin varnish to help protect the paint job. And, if you're feeling extra industrious you can add some little pieces of felt to the back of the tile if you are planning to set it on a surface prone to scratching.

Here are my finished coasters. I am so pleased with how they turned out. There's nothing like a thrifty project that turns out great to make a girl feel good :)