Sorry...Out of Candy !!!

My sweet neighbor invited me over for some crafting today!  We both had been inspired by this pin on Pinterest and decided to make our own little door Halloween signs letting trick-or-treaters know when we are done giving candy out on Halloween night. 

Last year, we experienced some very late night trick-or-treaters at our doors and I don't want that happening this year when we will have a 10 month old wanting to get her beauty sleep:)

We used basic wood boards, craft paint, scrap book paper, modge podge, hot glue gun, ribbon, stickers and sparkly spiders.  It is fun to see how we each came up with something different and fun!

My neighbor's 

 and mine

Happy Halloween blogger friends !!!

 

 

Easter Frenchie

Oh man, Valentine's Day flew by and as new parents, we were dead tired and in bed by 8 pm! I did get a little tiny bit of Valentine's day decorating done in the house, but not much!  All my time is devoted to baby now!  I'm sure I will have more time later, as she grows older but for now, I am pretty tied up meeting all of her sweet demands:)

 

The next holiday to celebrate will be Easter!  I love this picture of our French Bulldog on last year's Easter.  He was a good sport and let me put pink ears on him!  Ha!  As you can see, he looks totally thrilled!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day this year and I am looking forward to celebrating Easter with our baby girl this year!

 

 

Memory Jars

I thought I would post what I did for my co-workers this last year 2012, for Christmas gifts. It is something that I think is easy, cute and practical! I did "Memory Jars" for the year 2013. I have been collecting vintage blue canning jars and had some great finds over the summer at estate sales. There is a neat website that will help you date your blue Ball brand canning jars. Did you know that Ball brand stopped making blue canning jars in 1937? Pretty neat! So, if you find a blue Ball brand canning jar, you will know that it is from somewhere between the late 1890's and 1937. So the point of a memory jar is to collect your funny happenings or good memories throughout the year and put safely into the canning jar. One New Year's eve, at the very end of the year, you take the "memories" out and read them! Fun! Anyways, to cuten them up, I printed out the instructions and glued them to Christmas scrap book paper and used scalloped scissors to cut the tags out. I also bought some "fat quarter" fabric at Wally World and cut to fit under the jar lids. I then filled the jars with gourmet chocolates.

I also made Salted Carmel Chocolate Bark and also Cinnamon Whipped Honey. If you click on my Recipe link under the "Labels" section of the side of this blog, you can find both great and easy recipes:)

                                                                                

2012 Vintage Christmas bauble wreaths

Vintage Christmas bauble wreaths I made for the 2012 holiday season.

My Mom's, all "pinks and greens"

 

 

 

 My sister in law's, she wanted "all blue"

One of my BFF's, Emily, "multi-color"

 

 

DIY Button Bottle Brush Tree Santa Mug

Sooooo, remember awhile back when I posted about buttons and said I was working on a project that I would eventually share? I had also posted about these super neat vintage Santa mugs I had found at a local thrift store. Well, I finally finished the little project today! Whew!!! It took a little while, mainly because I was bad about just sitting down and getting it done!

 So, I had collected quite a few different kinds of bottle brush trees last year, for my crafting projects. I also have quite a bit of buttons and was not doing anything with them. It dawned on me to just hot glue the buttons to the tree and then when finished, sit in the mug!

Some of the placement of the buttons are a little caddywhompus but oh well.  It is DIY crafting so it doesn't have to be perfect right?

 

Vintage Halloween Greeting Cards

Don't you just love vintage Halloween cards? I do! They are fun to print out and craft with:) My paternal grandparents used to send us a card with a little bit of money every year for Halloween!  I loved racing to the mailbox and checking to see what the card would like, each year:) 

Lastly, a true testament to my love of the holidays (and candy)...one of my most favorite books when I was a child...

I used to borrow it from the school library yearly and in between too!

Jack O' Lantern Blow Mold & Pumpkin Patch

I found my first Halloween blow mold light this weekend! It is also my most young blow mold light only being a little over 20 years old! He was grinning at me at the back of the Goodwill store for a whopping $1.99! He did not come with his light but that is okay, I can use one of my other light fixtures for him:)

 

You know what I love about him (besides his grinning face and very large size) is that fact that he is so bright, he looks lite up even during the day!  I didn't even have him plugged in for this photos!

 

 

 

We also went to the pumpkin patch and picked out some great pumpkins this weekend.  Going to the pumpkin patch is one of my highlights of fall:)