Monogram Pumpkin

This fall Pinterest has been flooded with different ways to decorate a pumpkin without carving it.  After finding a fake pumpkin at Goodwill for $2 I decided to give one of the ideas a try. 

What You Need:

Pumpkin- real or fake

Spray Paint

Paint pen

(Optional:)

Glue

Glitter

Directions:

Spray paint your pumpkin outside or in a well-ventilated area. Make sure you cover the area around the pumpkin with a plastic tablecloth or use a cardboard box.  It took me about 3 coats to get the pumpkin covered,  

While the pumpkin was drying I used Word to find an 'A' that I liked.  After the pumpkin is dry you can hand draw the letter onto the pumpkin, which is what I did; or you can print the letter out on paper, cut it out and trace around it on the pumpkin. Then use the paint pen, or a paintbrush if your skilled J, to fill in the letter.  You can also add glitter to the letter for some added flair. 

DIY Witch Shoes

I made this super cute sign for my halloween porch decorations, and thought I needed some witch shoes to go with it.  I found a tutorial for the shoes from here.  I followed all her directions, but didn't take pictures of any of the steps.

What You Need:
1 pair of shoes, mine were $4 at Goodwill
Aluminum foil
Masking tape
Newspaper
Mod Podge
Spray paint

Directions: 

Take a section of foil and fold it to be the same width at the toe of the shoes. Make sure the foil peice is about 3-4 inches long, depending on how much of a curving toe you want. Use masking tape to secure the foil to the bottom of the shoe right under the toe. Make sure you have a section of the foil at least 2 inches long on the front, then use it to mold the curled toe of the shoe.

Once the bend of the shoe is made, cover it with maksing tape.  Continue the above steps with the other shoe.

Once both shoes have curled toes, cover each one with newspaper and mod podge. This will help the shoe look uniform, otherwise the toe will look different than the rest of the shoe when painted.

After the newspaper has dried, spray paint the shoe any color you want. You can cover it with glitter, add a buckle or jewel.  The spiders on mine were rings I found at the party store.  Since there wasn't an easy way to attach them with glue, I ended up using a ribbon to hold them on.  Not my favoite since you can see them, but they will look great on halloween.

Pearl Bracelets

Project three of catching up on blog posts. This craft was a spontaneous one that I did on Wednesday night when I realized I had all the parts for it already.

What You Need: 

Ribbon 

Pearls, any size

Fishing line or thin jewelry wire

Needle nose pliers

Directions:

Cut enough ribbon to tie around your wrist,  and tie a knot about 1 inch from the end.  Then take the wire and push it through the ribbon on the side with the knot.  Put a pearl on the end of the wire and wrap the ribbon halfway around the pearl and push the wire out the other side of the pearl. 

Continue adding pearls and ribbon until the it is long enough to wrap around your wrist. Finish with another knot on the end and curl the wire with pliers.

Quick and Easy- Mini French Dip Sandwiches

The boyfriend and I had one of those days where neither of us wanted to cook dinner, or even come up with something to eat.  So we scrolled through my Pinterest recipe board. This easy recipe, from Mama Loves Food, won in the end and we loved it so much we already have plans to do the same thing with ham and swiss, and pepperoni and mozzerella.

What You Need:
1 package of crescent rolls, 8 count
1/2 pound Roast Beef
1 package swiss cheese slices
1 Au Jus sauce packet
Horseradish sauce (optional)


Directions: 
Unroll the crescent rolls onto a cookie sheet. On each roll place a slice of roast beef and a half slice of cheese.

Roll the crescents from the wide end to the narrow end. Bake at 375 degrees for 11 to 13 minutes. While the rolls are baking, prepare the Au Jus according to the package.

Halloween- Witch Parking Sign

Project two from catching up on blog posts. I wanted to make this sign for my halloween decorations on my porch last year, and just didn't have the time.  I think it turned out great, and will look even better when I have fog from my fog machine coming out of the cauldron I bought.  Bring on the trick or treaters!

DIY Fabric Napkins

Wow! Time flies when you're having fun...or in my case working.  After a month of nonstop work events, I'm finally able to spend some time writing blog posts for some of the things I've been working on.

A few years ago for my birthday my mom got me a sewing machine because I had all these great ideas for things I wanted to make, an apron, tote bags, skirts… my list was long.  Since then I have made a few things, but the completed list is pretty short. So when I created my summer bucket list I added a few sewing projects. 

I had about a yard of fabric in different patterns for different holidays, so I decided to make 6 napkins with each design. 

What you Need:

At least 1 1/2 yards of cotton fabric of your choice  

Sewing Machine

Sewing supplies- thread, scissors, tape measure, pins etc…

Iron

Directions:

First thing to remember when sewing is always wash and iron the fabric before starting. It’s always bad if the fabric decides to shrink the first time you wash it.  Then measure the fabric, and figure out how big you can make each napkin. Mine were all cut about 14” in each direction.  

After cutting all the fabric into squares I used an iron to hold the edges I would sew. To make it easier I only did the two, opposite sides.  I folded a less than a ¼ inch of the fabric over, and then folded once more at ¼ inch.

Since the first fold is smaller, I wanted to make sure I sewed it, so I sewed very close to the edge. 

Continue with the same steps as above to fold and sew the remaining edges of your napkins, and you're done. 

The napkins were so easy to make, I decided to buy more fabric to make a few napkins to keep on hand for housewarming gifts. 

Wall Art: Canvas Maps

Hi everyone. I finally finished a craft that started a few weeks ago. I made a new art for my wall so I can put pins in all the cities I've been to. I am in love with this idea and I hope it will encourage me to travel more.

What You Need:
Canvases
Map
Staple Gun
Scissors
Ruler

I used two 12" x 24" and one 18"x 24" canvas
My map was 50" x 36" so I was able to cut the map in two 14.5 inch sections and one 20 inch section. This left enough room to fold the map around the sides of each canvas.  I purchased my map here for $10 including shipping.

Stovetop Clambake

So I've had this yearning to have a traditional East Coast clambake.  Problem is I am land locked in Colorado. Recently my grandma sent me this amazing cookbook. It has tons of recipes seperated by the region of the U.S. they came from. I will definitely be making my way around the country in recipes.

Inside was a recipe for a clambake and I decided this summer I needed to try it, so the bf and I made dinner for my parents.

What You Need:

2 Large Onions, cut into wedges
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 bottle Pale Ale of medium bodied beer
1 cup water
1 1/2 pounds small potatoes
1 pound dry cured chorizo, we used chorizo ground like hamburger meat
Coarse salt
3 Live lobsters, we used three frozen lobster tails
36 littleneck clams, we used about 20
4 ears of corn husked and halved, we used 3
2 pounds of mussels
1 1/2 pounds large shrimp, shells on
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 lemons, halved

16 quart stock pot
Steamer basket small enough to sit at the bottom of the pot


Directions:

Combine onions, garlic, ale and water in a 16-quart stock pot.  Place the steamer basket on top of the onions then add potatoes, chorizo, 1 tbs. salt and bring to a boil.  Add the lobsters, cover and cook on high heat for 15 minutes.  Add clams, corn; cook covered for 6 minutes.  Then add mussels and shrimp and continuing cooking on high heat approx. 4-8 minutes until the mussels and clams open, and the shrimp are opaque throughout.

We changed the recipe a little since there were only 4 people instead of the 6-8 it serves.  We basically just cut down all the seafood by a third.  I'd never had a clambake before but this one was amazing. It has the chorizo in it which made it so flavorful.

DIY Candle Votive

On Monday night I was watching a movie, and just playing around with my craft supplies, and before I knew it I had created another craft! The original idea come from Makezine.com. 

What You Need:

Glass vase, or votives

Rubbing alcohol

Tissue paper

Paper cut out

Mod Podge

Paper, any kind

Paint brush

Directions:

This is a super simple, and cost effective craft for decorating for all seasons.  First use the rubbing alcohol to wipe off the vase. This will help everything stick to it better; just make sure you don’t hold the vase without gloves after this step. Then cut the tissue paper you want to use with the paper cutter.  I had issues with the design I chose tearing the tissue paper. Eventually I found that taping the tissue paper to regular paper helped a lot. I made sure the tissue paper was on the top and the paper on the bottom. 

Once you have enough tissue paper to cover the whole vase, or as much of it as you want, you can start mod podging it to the vase. I found it easiest to put the mod podge on a small section of the vase and lay the tissue paper on it, then put another layer of mod podge on top of it. All the mod podge will make the glass look frosted, so any place you don't want that, use a q-tip to wipe it off. 

Fabric Covered Bulletin Board

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful Independence Day weekend!  I was so excited to have a long weekend.  I spent Thursday at the park where my family has watched almost every fireworks show for my whole life. We obviously have way too much fun with glow sticks. That my sister being handcuffed; my sister's bf, her, and my dad; and then me and the bf below. 

Saturday I planned to do two of the crafts I've wanted to try for a while. The first craft was to glue a map onto canvases to put pins in for all the places I've been. BUT it just wasn't my day and that craft is now waiting for another map to be sent in the mail.  So keep an eye out for that post and more on my crazy day.  

Second attempt at a craft went much better when I updated an old bulletin board by covering it with fabric.  The original pin was found at The Newly Wife. 

What You Need:

Bulletin Board

Enough cotton fabric to cover the bulletin board and go around the edges

Staple Gun

Nail head pins, or thumbtacks

Spray Glue for Fabric

Directions:

I found it easiest to lay the fabric down on top of the bulletin board in the way I wanted it, then flip it over and stapled one side of the fabric to the back of the wood border on one side. Then I flipped the board back over and started on the side where the fabric was stapled and in small sections sprayed the board with the spray glue and then pressed the fabric onto the board. Make sure to keep the fabric taught and start in the middle of the board and work out to smooth out all the wrinkles.

After all the fabric was glued on I flipped it over and stapled the fabric to the wood border on the opposite of the already stapled fabric.  Then I folded the edges over and stapled the two opposite sides.  Since I glued and stapled the fabric, I figured it was safe to just use thumbtacks to border around the edge.  And I liked the color of them the best.  

 (Yes my wall is neon pink, that's the color I picked when I was a teenager, and my parents never changed it)