Trash to Treasure: Bathroom wall decor!

While most of my poor little apartment is filling up with fun wall decor, my bathroom has remained kind of naked. I spent a lot of time searching high and low for something to hang on the walls... but I still find it odd that I found my answer on the label of a shampoo bottle. Too much time spent laying in the bathtub? No such thing!

Anyway, once I had this grand idea it was definetely go time! The original plan was to pick up some pieces of unfinished wood at Hobby Lobby and paint them before adding the words. But I just could not justify spending that much money on something I was going to cover... so I had a great idea while walking around the store. Why not use something I already have?

My storage unit is full of boxes. I don't want to part with them because I know we will not be staying in this apartment forever (Please God Please let me be right!) so I found the box from my laptop and got to work. Each piece is probably 20 inches long and six inches wide. I cut them out with scissors (I really still need to buy a box knife by the way) and decopagued some adorable scrapbook paper I picked up during my Hobby Lobby trip. Once I was done, I cut out the words with my Cricut (of course!) and glued them into place before sealing each piece with Modge Podge. I used some leftover twine from my wreath project to connect them all with hot glue and to hang it on the wall.

I love the way it turned out! And it only cost me $1.77 (plus tax) for paper! Plus I got rid of yet another box taking up space in my storage.



How's that for reduce, reuse, recycle? :)

FIY: I linked this up onto the link party at Craft-o-Maniac... go check her out NOW! She's pretty amazing!

Wall Decor thanks to the dollar store!

I loooove me some Dollar Tree. Almost as much as Hobby Lobby in fact! I am always finding great things there on the cheap. If I have supplies to buy I ALWAYS check there first.

One weekend I hit the Dollar Tree looking for nothing in particular and ended up with an 11x14 wooden frame (just for a buck, are you serious!?) and a wooden plaque with a bird painted on it.

This is what they turned into:

First, I attacked the plaque. I simply decopagued a piece of scrapbook paper to it and added a fleur de lis from my Home Decor cricut cartridge. I cut it onto a piece of black posterboard and then sealed it all together with some modge podge! 

Dollar stores are such a great place to find wooden signs and plaques to reuse for crafts. You could spend $2 or more for an unfinished piece of wood at a craft store (depending on the size). So I always check out Dollar Tree for signs that I can repurpose!

Next was the frame. I started by painting the wood black... because I am very specific about all of my frames matching.

 I again used my Home Decor cartridge to cut out "forever" in black posterboard and laid it on top of some scrapbook paper. I used the paper that came inside the frame to make a "mat" and just put the scrapbook paper on top of it.

After sealing that into the frame I cut out the adorable heart on some black vinyl and attached it to the outside of the glass. Kind of a 3D effect I suppose?

Anyway, I love the way they both turned out. My walls are slowly filling up!

I told GI that once he gets home the house is going to filled with homemade stuff and I wasn't kidding. I think he's just happy that my supply shopping trips are less than $5 each!

No Sew Trick or Treat Bags!

I know I know.... it's a little early to be thinking Halloween, but for some reason I always start thinking Halloween around June. Weird? Yeah probably.

Anyway, I had a ton of Halloween ribbon laying around from making bows last year and thought it would be fun to make trick or treat bags for my daughters that they can use over and over again instead of cheapy bags or plastic buckets. So, I sprung into action. :)

I found a couple of medium sized black tote bags in the makeup section at Dollar Tree (love that store!). And knew they would be prefect for the job.

First, I wrapped wide green ribbon around each bag, securing it with hot glue all the way around. I put the end of the ribbon on the back of the bag so I wouldn't have to deal with the bag seams. Once that was in place I added the halloween ribbon in the same fashion. I topped it all off with a bow and ta-da! This took less than an hour to make both and no one else will have the same trick or treat bags this year!

Quote of the day! Audrey Hepburn

Just a quick image of one of my favorite quotes! Have a great day everyone!

Easy Cheesy Meatless Lasagna

I am always looking for ways to keep my grocery bill down. One of the best ways I found is by doing at least one meatless meal a week. This is a new one I tried this week. The kids LOVED it. My oldest even had seconds!

3 Lasagna noodles
jar of spaghetti sauce
1 tub of ricotta cheese
1 cup of mozzerella cheese
1/2 cup of parmesean cheese

Preheat the oven to 375.

Boil the lasagna noodles until soft. Meanwhile, mix together the ricotta cheese and 1/4 cup parm cheese.

Put 1/4 cup of spaghetti sauce on the bottom of an 8x8 pan. Cut each lasagna noodle in half and lay two of the halfs side by side on top of the spaghetti sauce. Next, take 1/2 of the cheese mixture and spread it on top of the noodles. Add 1/3 of the spaghetti sauce.

Repeat the first layer with two more noodle halves, the rest of the cheese mixture and more spaghetti sauce. 

For the third layer use the two remaining noodle halves, the rest of the spaghetti sauce and top with moz cheese until it is well covered (about a cup). Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of parm cheese. Cover with foil and bake for about 20 minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.

Yumtastic. :)

Weddin' Signs

So, I saw an idea of using barn wood to make signs for a wedding a long time ago, but my venue didn't really allow you to stick stuff in the ground, so I had let it go.... until now.

Since we have moved locations, I know that I can use them so I thought I would try a low cost approach.

I still had some cardboard left from my "R" project and cut up the rest of the box to make the signs. I painted them white, added letters and arrows that I cut out with the cricut on some white posterboard and then attached some wood dowels with hot glue. I doubled them up on the big sign since that one is a little bigger and will be by the highway. :)

DIY Twine Wreath

So shortly after I finished my pictures last weekend I got a new obsession. Wreaths! Who doesn't need a fun wreath on the their front door? Well.. this girl apparently, but we will get to that later.

Anyway, while on my weekly trip to Dollar Tree I picked up a woven craft wreath and got really excited for my new project. I also picked up some twine from Hobby Lobby ($2.99) and some daisies from Dollar General. I already had a wooden R at home that has just been waiting to be used. So I painted it black in anticipation for this. :)

I started Sunday by wrapping the twine around the wreath. I tied it in a knot at the top and started my journey around it. I used hot glue every five or so inches to keep it secure. This took me (no joke) about three hours combined. NOT an fun task. It was easy, just very time consuming and my hands hurt like heck, I started complaining on facebook after the first 1.5 hours.

Once I finally got everything wrapped up I pulled some of the daisies off of the bush that I picked up at Dollar General and glued two and my R once I was happy with their position.

To hang it I used black ribbon to make a bow and attached a daisy to the middle of the bow. I used some blue ribbon I had sitting around to loop the top and glued it place, using the daisy to hide the ugly-ness of the hot glue connection. :)

Once I was done I was sooooooo excited to hang it on my door.... but I realized that the nail in the door is about eye level to me and the wreath would hang to about my belly. :(

So, I bought a wreath hanger from Wal-mart this evening and it will not stay in place, when I shut the door the wreath sticks out about 6 inches, so it is now proudly hung in my doorway. SIGH.

Oh well, at least we can enjoy it. Total cost? $7
wreath: $1
twine: $2.99
flowers: $3
total: $6.99