Dollar Tree Vintage Halloween Prints

My wall was missing something and I believe yours is too, which is why you are here reading this post. The total for this project cost me $12 (but only because I broke a frame and had to buy another one and I had most of the supplies on hand but STILL, it wouldn’t cost much for this craft). Here are the supplies you’ll need to complete this spooky project…

• (8) 11×14 Dollartree Frames at $1.25 each (they come with glass so maybe buy a couple more in case one breaks like mine did, they are so cheap!)
• (8) 11×14 pieces of cardstock paper or any paper will do, really. The paper is to make frame matting or find frames that include the matte inside.
• (1) Set of Mommy with no Money Vintage Halloween Prints. FREE downloads available in Step 3
• (8) Sets of Picture Frame Command Strips (I used two medium size for each frame because the frames are glass and I didn’t want them falling off the wall and shattering)

Continue reading for steps…

Easter Quarantine Activities for All Ages

How is everyone doing being locked up in their houses during this pandemic? Besides my kids telling me they are bored every 10 minutes, I am truly loving it! If I could stay home, make crafts, diy projects, food AND GET PAID, well I would! Unfortunately I do not live an extravagant lifestyle like that and still need to go to work to pay my bills. Right now though I am taking full advantage of staying home for a few weeks or months (who knows when this will last) and finding every unfinished project I’ve left unfinished to get them completed.

Easter is coming up and that means you’ll have to find some fun things to do indoors to keep the kids occupied so I have complied a list of activities, some that we have done as a family and some from other creative bloggers. This list provides hours of fun for all ages!

1. EASTER EGG SCAVENGER HUNT: If you live in a place that’s snowing or cold like here in Canada, then you’ll most likely do your Easter egg hunt indoors. Click HERE for a free download to print a generic Easter Egg scavenger hunt that I’ve created just for you! Here’s a couple more links to other amazing blogs for age appropriate scavenger hunts….
   • Raising Little Superheros – Nursery Rhyme Easter Egg Hunt
   • Spend with Pennies – SweetTarts Scavenger Hunt
   • Fun with Mama – Editable Scavenger Hunt
   • Happiness is Homemade – Easter Scavenger Hunt
2. EASTER EGG CHALLENGE: My family and I do this every year as a friendly competition with one another. It’s a fun game to play with the eggs that get decorated the days before. Find the full instructions here on my blog
3. STAINED GLASS SUNCATCHERS: Adventure-in-a-box has a great tutorial to make some really beautiful Easter egg suncatchers. These can be achieved with clear plastic (a clear binder sheet protector would work great), black elmers glue and sharpie markers! Look at how beautiful these turned out!
4. TIE DYE SHIRTS: Have you ever wondered how to get different designs in your tie dye shirts? Over at Parents.com there is step by step guides on how to twist your shirt to achieve a different pattern. This might not be the best idea for cold weather, but if you have older kids, it should stay fairly tidy if doing it indoors.
5. DECORATING COOKIES: This is fun for any age and to get a very easy recipe, click here for my 4 ingredient shortbread cookie recipe and here for a royal icing recipe.
6. SHAVING CREAM ARTWORK: Over at Crafty Morning you can find a tutorial on how to make some funky shaving cream artwork. To make this craft more age appropriate for the older kids, cut out some egg shapes in cardstock and decorate them with painters tape before marbelizing them or do this technique on some hard boiled eggs!
7. CLAY FLOWER VASES: Oh I can’t wait to try this with my kids! Here is a really easy tutorial over at A SHADE OF teal with a cool ombre effect. This a great craft to do with your older kids and makes for a stylish decor piece in their rooms.
8. SPRING WREATH MAKING: This is another craft I can’t wait to do with my girls. Do we need three spring wreaths? No, but they could each make one for their bedroom door and it will be a cute spring decoration! Another easy, straight forward tutorial over at Rocky Mountain Bliss

I hope these activities give you some peace and quiet during your Quarantined Easter weekend. Since we are not supposed to be seeing our extended families this year, I am hoping that you still enjoy some quality time with your kids and spread as much love as you can through video chats and good ol’ fashion telephone conversation.

Hoppy Easter Everyone!

 

Pumpkin Carving Tips 101

Is anyone else’s favorite part of Halloween the carving of the jack-o-lantern?? Maybe you’re not the greaest at the little details or you simply stick with the standard triangle eyes and nose face just to get it over with (ya, I’m talking about you my dear husband). Either way, here are some tips that I can provide to your family from my family!

• Look for pumpkins that are less rounded and more flat on one side. It’s easier to use stencils on a pumpkin that has a flat surface instead of wit’ all dem’ curves. Curves are beautiful most times….just not with pumpkins (NO, I’m not a hater…. just a pumpkin realist)
• Find a stencil that is meant for your skill level. There’s nothing worse than starting with an intermediate stencil because you think you all that and a bag of chips and then carving that very last detail and DAMN! There goes all that hard work and now your spooky owl just looks like he had a few too many cocktails. Hmmm yep that’s called ‘experience’
• Before starting to carve…lay down garbage bags (cut them on the side so they spread out more) or lay down an old tablecloth from dollarama. This will help with easy cleanup after everyone ditches you because all of a sudden, “…it’s way past our bedtime” ….mmmhhmmm like you ever cared about missing bedtimes before? Figures..
• Instead of carving a round hole like a crown at the top of pumpkin, bring your knife down in the back to carve like……hmmm, I guess similar to a tail? It’s easier to show you instead of explaining…. like this…This technique has been freakin’ LIFE CHANGING for us. You have way more room for activities, like scooping all those guts out without losing space in your carving surface *GENIUS!*
• Put two bowls on the table. One large one for all the guts and one smaller one for the pumpkin seeds. Tell your kids (and husband) to take off as much of the filling as possible before they put the pumpkin seeds in the bowl. This will save you time when making them because EVERYONE always wants pumpkin seeds, but you’ll be the only one that ends up eating them because there’s much better snacks in the house than a bowl of healthy pumpkin seeds!
• Use a push pin to outline your stencil. Those tools you buy in the pumpkin carving pack work like $h!t We also use a black sharpie to trace the outline for the kids so it’s easier to see what they are carving. Don’t worry about getting all the marker carved out….once you put a candle in it at night, you won’t even notice it.

And last but not least, just remember to ENJOY yourself and have FUN with your family. Coming personally from a stress case mother, I’m always so mad when I don’t get enough time to make my pumpkin just perfect because I’m always helping everyone else out, but just remember it’s not about the best pumpkin, it’s about spending time with your family and making memories …..even though mine IS always the best ;D

Happy Carving!

 

 

 

Back to School? 5 Ways to Save

Dang, do school supplies get eeexpenssive and do stores get cccroowwded when it’s back to school! I love school supply shopping, but I always overspend on the cute and (way more expensive) crap that my kids really don’t need. Here’s 5 ways to help you with your school supply savings this year…

School Friendly (but scary) Halloween Costumes

I know it’s a little early to be thinking about Halloween, but in my family, it’s on our brains all year long…..or at least it is on mine! (*mmm brains*). I love Halloween and all the creepiness that goes with it. I think it all stemmed from my 90’s childhood, with games like the Ouija board, Bloody Mary, Candy Man or movies like “The Craft” or “Hocus Pocus“, oh memories! Halloween, Scary movies, Paranormal Activity….all these things give me a rush of adrenaline thinking that they could be real and my husband thinks I’m silly for believing in ghosts but I’m obsessed and don’t care. Lol

If you’re anything like me and you love Halloween like I do, then you must know how much it bugs you to hear how your kids want to dress up like a princess, cheerleader, Barbie doll or even a character from a tv show they watch’? What is scary about that!? Obviously sometimes it’s just unavoidable and you cave and let them do whatever, but I am fortunate that when my girls were a little younger, they loved to please their mommy and if dressing scary made me happy, then they’d put up with it. Lol I just try to make them like “cute-scary” (if you know what I mean?). I let them pick whatever they want and then I turn it into something more Halloween appropriate like ‘cheerleader zombie’ or ‘ghost princess’ —->murdered at the alter, coming back to haunt the other women who slayed her on her wedding day because they fell in love with the groom first and if she can’t have him then she’ll haunt their lives for the rest of their existence! Muhahaha Lol (I know, I took it too far) Moving on…

Here are some school friendly (but still scary) Halloween costumes.

Classic Witch —–>What’s Needed:

• Pointed Hat
• Black, Green or Purple Dress/Clothing
• Broomstick
• Witch Nose (optional)

The pointed witch hat and broomstick is a giveaway, but to make this costume more scary, adding a warty witch nose is one way to take this costume to the next level.

90’s Fortune Teller Valentine’s Day Card

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

 

I was trying to update the original post of these cards with the new version, but I thought it would be easier just to start a new post, so here it is. I have created two new designs to the 90’s fortune teller valentine’s day cards for free download. I made a boy’s version, Dusty Blue, because my girls were telling me when they handed them out on Valentine’s Day, they saw the boys playing with them the most, which was unexpected, but inspiring. Here is the Dusty Blue Fortune Teller and the Dusty Blue Valentine’s Day Card.

A Backup New Years Resolution

HAPPY NEW YEARS Everyone!

A wise man once told me his New Years resolution is: to never make another new years resolution again. I am not the kind of person to make a resolution just because it’s a new year. Why not improve on ourselves all year long? This year though, I think everyone should have the same resolution, which is to backup your photos! My photos are my memories and if I lost these I would be completely devastated, which is exactly what happened to me a few years ago. About 9 years ago, I got a new camera for Christmas and like most new moms I went trigger happy and took a ton of photos of my 2 year old daughter. One day they were just… gone, just like that. An entire year of my daughter and my memories…gone. I couldn’t even tell you what memories they were of. Did we have pictures from the park, visits from Grandma and Grandpa, birthday parties or just lazy Sunday pictures? I’ve always had a really bad memory and when I look back at photographs, they’ve always helped me remember the event or parts of the day. I don’t even know what happened….did I reformat my memory card, did I forget to copy them over, or did they get deleted from my computer somehow? Who knows. All I know, is they are gone and my daughter will never be two again.

In this post, I’ll hopefully help you with ways of backing up your photos with tips I’ve learned along the way. Let’s start with how many copies of your photos you should

My Guide to a $5,000 or Less Wedding

My husband and I got married August 2014 and we had decided together that we didn’t want to waste our money on ONE (very important, but none the less one day) when we had our whole lives to spend together. Couples roughly spend around $30,000 CAD on their wedding and to me, this is completely outrageous! Do you know what I could buy with $30,000??? My husband and I didn’t get married until we were 27, with two kids from previous relationships and knowing where we wanted our money to go, we did what we could to save costs and still have beautiful memories. We spent less than $5,000 CAD on our entire wedding and it was fabulous! I am going to tell you how we did it and hopefully this will help you save some cha-ching for more important things (like a car, education for your kids, a down payment on a house bla bla bla you know … adult things)

A Royal Tea Party Themed Birthday

This post is brought to you in part by the Queen and the Royal Wedding…. j.k, but it is the motivation I got to stop watching TV and finally post Anna’s birthday theme from 2 years ago. I really should of been on the ball with this post before the wedding occurred, but life happened and I’ve been a tad busy… so moving on….

….Isn’t it every little girls dream to become a princess; to live in a castle; marry a prince and drink a spot of tea each day? Yes, I believe so and if you say it’s not, you’re really just lying to yourself. Well, if you’ve hit reality and realized that becoming a princess won’t happen to most of us, here’s a way to make your lovely lady and her friends feel like royalty (because let’s face it, we can’t all be introduced to a prince by our best friend, live in a castle and have someone make our daily decisions for the rest of our lives #jealous #dontcare #yesido)

Food Free & Kid Friendly Apothecary Halloween Jars

It’s almost that time of year…..the time where all I do is talk/think and pin about Halloween, where everyone around me either finds my enthusiasm about the holiday really annoying & weird or adorable & fun. I just can’t help being excited for the holiday!! Who doesn’t love bringing out their dark side to create creepy and wicked things…..so it’s just me then? Lol Anyways, for all you weirdos (like myself) who are looking for a kid-friendly/less disgusting apothecary jar option, you’ve come to the right place!

Have you ever thought those apothecary jars look amazingly creepy and just really cool to incorporate for your Halloween decor? Have you ever read up on what kinds of things go into them?! Have you ever thought, “Gross, what if my crazy toddler touches one of those and breaks it onto the floor – what kinda mess would I be cleaning up and what kind of smell would go with it?”