Googly eye wreath... and deals for you!

Ok, before I share my wreath I need to make sure everyone knows about No More Rack. I know there's a million and one daily deals sites out there, but this is definitely one you need to make note of! They offer 8 GREAT deals every day at noon (Eastern time) and I think this will be a great resource for me (and YOU!) as I work on marking names off of my Christmas list.   But if I'm going to be 100% honest, my favorite thing about it lately has been the deals on BOOTS! Really, ladies, you CANNOT beat the deals the have on boots and I've scooped up two pairs  within the past two weeks. The combined retail value for both pairs is around $200 and I got both of them for less than $30...total.


Another great thing is that you can earn credit by inviting friends to join in on the fun. So, use this link and help me earn credit and then you'll get your own link to share with family and friends. This is one of the main reasons I've been able to score such great deals. Friends = money. haha


Alright, now that you've all joined and are finding amazing deals... I don't decorate our home for Halloween. I don't celebrate it. Adam loves horror movies (I made this piece of art while we watched Cujo) and he always declares October "His Month" to take the horror movie-watching to new levels. That is the extent to which we participate in Halloween. I would rather decorate for fall and focus on the season with family and remembering our many blessings.

That being said, I've had this idea in my head for a while now to make a wreath using googly eyes. I thought October would be a great chance to do something a little creepy...but more silly than creepy. It is a fun way to enjoy the cute and quirky side of Halloween without getting into the evil and dark side.  I used googly eyes from Dollar Tree, ribbon from the dollar bin at Suck-Mart, and another one of those wonderful free cardboard circle forms for the base. I spray painted the cardboard with black paint and just hot-glued the eyes on top. I wish I could have found some other seasonal ribbon that would have matched without using the "Happy Halloween" one, but alas, no luck finding any. I'm not going to make a big deal about it. It's hanging up on my office door at work and everyone knows who I am an what I believe and that my intentions were good!

Love it? Hate it? How does your family have fun with costumes and parties without celebrating Halloween?

Tuesday Talent Show
Craft and Tell
What I Whipped Up Wednesday
CSI Project: Halloween Extravaganza Challenge
Delicately Constructed Friday
Frugal Friday

Gettin my Fall on!

A quick Google search tells me that the first day of fall this year was September 23, but I beg to differ. In my world, fall began this past Sunday afternoon when I wore my first scarf of the season and had my first ever pumpkin spice latte. It was sort of like the best day ever.

After an afternoon avoiding the house so my dear husband could focus on homework (and I could do a little shopping...) I came home and met up with my frenemy, the glue gun and we spent the evening together working on a new wreath for our front door to celebrate the season! This was by no means an uber creative project, but it was CHEAP and still turned out really cute, so I call it a success.

This summer when I started getting really excited about making wreaths, Adam brought home a stack of cardboard circles that are somehow used in shipping/packaging at his work but I guess eventually just get thrown away. I love that he thought of me when he saw trash :) Anyway, I used one as a base for this wreath. I had also picked up some tissue paper and wire leaves at the Dollar Tree a couple of weeks ago. So I just began hot gluing the leaves to the form...

I ended up doing one circle of leaves around the outside of the form and another in the center to cover the cardboard. I was going to use a burlap-type ribbon for hanging, but I ended up using a light green satin ribbon. It matches the stuff I have on the front porch really well and allows me to keep using my springy-green pillows and flower pots into the fall season. Here's the finished product! It's sweet and simple, and although I could definitely add to it (or bend the wires in the leaves to make the wreath more full) I kind of like just the way it is!

While I was at it, I added just a couple things to the top of our piano (which I pretty much use as our "mantle" for decorating) to make it fun for the season. I reused the yarn-wrapped dollar store vases from a recent baby shower and added some cheapo grocery store flowers (still cute, no matter how cheap!) and set up a couple of pumpkins that I scored (and totally forgot about!) at a yard sale at the beginning of summer. Again, no major redecorating here, but it does make the space feel more special. The ginormous picture of the hubs and I (I gift from my aunt/wedding photographer) is not a permanent fixture up there, but we just recently had it custom-framed and have yet to decide where to hang it. I like the "leaning" look, but I don't necessarily like to have myself staring at myself while watching TV every night...

Have you begun your fall decorating? And have you fallen in love with the pumpkin spice latte yet???

What I Whipped Up Wednesday

Delicately Constructed Friday

CSI Project Fall Wreaths Challenge

Pom Pom Wreath

This is one of the projects that I swore I would never do again (because of the time it takes and the fluffy mess it makes... and the occassional blister on my hand), but because its so darn cute I can't help myself! I've become slightly obessed with wreaths, and one of the first wreaths I ever made was this one using pom-poms that has been on my front door for months now. (Don't worry, I have plans to update for the fall!) It looks so cute on our door, and matches the color scheme I'm using for the front porch so well. I really need to get a picture of the whole porch so you can see our "newish" furniture, pillows, and rug!

Do you love that little owl on the steps as much as I do? You probably can't love it as much as I do...

A closer look. It's so retro-y and fun! And poofy!

Please understand that this is not a project you're going to finish one afternoon, but if you can work on it a little at a time I promise it's worth it! And it's time consuming but really easy. I even worked on some of the pom poms during my lunch break at work a couple of times. Interested in making one of your own? Here goes!

Supplies:

yarn (use one color or multipe colors, I just would recommend using at least three)

wreath form

scissors

patience

1. Cut a piece of yarn.... I don't know how long it is exactly but I usually did it the length of one of our toss pillows on the couch. This doesn't have to be exact, so let's say ten inches or so. Lay this piece of yarn on a flat surface.

2. Wrap yard around your hand. I wrapped it around my hand 50-60 times. You could do this same wrapping process on something smaller or bigger than your hand depending on the size pom poms you want. Cut after making your desired number of loops

3. Lay your hand on top of the cut piece of yarn and slide the looped yarn off of your hand. The loops should be at the center of the cut piece of yarn. Here I'm just doing the same thing on my white, freckly, "I promise I'm wearing shorts!" legs :)

4. Wrap the cut piece of yarn around the loops and tie a knot.

5. Using your scissors, cut all the loops, leaving you with a crazy-looking stringy creature.

6.  Trim the pom pom until it's as small as you want. This picture shows a pom pom before and after.

7. Begin attaching the pom poms to your wreath. Whenever I use these straw wreaths, I leave the plastic on to avoid getting straw everywhere.  This is what the back will look like.  I recommend leaving the back pom-pom free so it will lay flat on your door/wall. If you look closely you'll see the price tag still attached...from Goodwill! Believe it or not I even get a lot of my craft supplies from Goodwill. The wreath and two of the shades of yarn for this wreath were bought at Goodwill. Score!

Here's my finished wreath! Because I bought partially-used portions of yarn from Goodwill, I ran out of the two pinkish colors first, so that's why there's more black, but I don't think it looks bad. It's so much cuter in person, but I understand that it's not everybody's style. 

And here it is in its new home, my office door at work:

What do you think? Do you love it or would you leave it? Because of the fluffy-soft texture of this kind of wreath, I think it would be adorable in a nursery. Can't you picture it in baby blues and white?

Frugal Friday