Last Minute Christmas Stocking Stuffer Gift

Santa always has good ideas. This year instead of the usual candy and sugary treats or the little toys that will break in a day, how about stuffing that stocking with some money?

Here is an easy DIY gift idea for any age.

1. Get a roll of quarters or dimes from your bank.

2. Wrap with wrapping paper.

3. Cover with clear cellophane, twist ends and tape with clear tape.

This is a cute and easy gift for when you're scrambling at last minute. And seriously, who wouldn't want a little money for all those post-Christmas deals...

Come back on Friday for my pre-Christmas giveaway...

Christmas Decorating Trends 2013

Usually way before you are even thinking about Christmas, I've already been decorating for the season. Decorating for several of my clients, that is. Because I have many clients that are retail stores, they insist every year that Christmas go up before Thanksgiving. (I'm just the messenger people.)

And every year, as I teeter on ladders and spend hundreds of dollars on Christmas decorations, people will say, "Christmas before Thanksgiving? You've got to be kidding!"

No kidding here.

It doesn't bother me too much since Christmas is my favorite time of year. The benefit of decorating and shopping early is that I get to see what the new trends are for the season. Pinecones are still the rage and look beautiful in the above blue and white wreath.

This year, with all our DIY efforts, we've taken to getting creative, like with this simple, but tasteful twist on the advent calendar from Real Simple magazine:

Pottery Barn embraced the cloche trend and turned it into a Christmas ornament; if you like more traditional ornaments, you'll love Ballard Design's mercury glass ornaments; for us decorating fanatics who love to try new things, we'll give these adorable owl string of lights from Anthropologie a try.

As much as we're willing to try something new, we might still long for items that remind us of our own childhood Christmases like this Santa ornament from the tree (and blog) of Kelly Ash.

I remember this kind of felted Santa from when I was a kid! How adorable!

Whatever your style, there's something for everyone out there in the Christmas decorating world. And if you can't find it, then make it!

How are you going to decorate this year? What's your decorating style when it comes to Christmas?

First Annual Beer Tasting Party

Apparently rain doesn't stop a party from happening! I guess that's a good thing! We celebrated Husband's newest beer recipes with our First Annual Beer Tasting party this past weekend. I designed the invitation above.

I also made some rate cards so we could get a feel on which beers faired well. Although the majority of my work is graphic design, there must be a wannabe Martha Stewart hostess in me, because in two months, I will have planned, decorated and cooked for three parties. No, I am not a professional party planner! (Did you see our daughter's birthday/cupcake decorating party post?)

Also, most of what I do is DIY-created. Whether it be the decorations, the food, or the invitations (as seen above) we don't ever pay anyone to plan, shop, cook, decorate or clean for our parties. Oh but I wish...just kidding. Sometimes, the best part of it all is doing it yourself!

I think part of the planning is thinking about the color theme. I went with the earthy colors of browns and greens using baskets, wood frames and then a pop of sophistication with the glass and white stoneware. Again, all things we already have in our home.

We also used the hops that Husband grew this summer as decor in the three hurricane vases (Dollar Tree purchases btw, a few years back.) Who would have thought that hops could be so pretty? ;)

I did find these cool napkins we could use. Originally I was going to design my own, but why mess with that when these were available!

I also nabbed my kids' barely-used pencils from the last school year, put them in a beer glass to use with the rate cards.

Overall the party was a success! The beers and food pairing were all delicious, and nothing is better than spending a Saturday with friends and family!

(Party #3...planning a birthday/Halloween party for teenagers!)

It's A Cupcake Decorating (Birthday) Party

When you're celebrating a nine-year-old's birthday, there's nothing better than using every girly/pretty color that's out there.

Finding the theme and inspiration was easy with Pinterest and a purchase of cheap party lanterns!

And even though I'm still a believer in going big on the decor and food, I try to keep the cost down by being creative and shopping various dollar stores.

Lanterns: Originally $8, clearance $2: Family Dollar Stores. Streamers: $1 each.

Clearance glass containers for sprinkles: 25 cents each. Sprinkles from a local bulk food store: aprrox. $1.50 per container.

Girly storage/tackle box filled with gummy worms and fish candy: $1.99 on clearance at Shopko stores.

Paper goods: all $1.00; Cupcake wrappers: $1.50 (Wilton); frosting: Homemade Buttercream. Find the recipe here.

Vinyl Tablecloths (3): 25 cents each on clearance: Dollar General stores. I used three and as each one got dirty, I rolled it up and tossed it. (They made it through cupcake decorating, the girls putting on nail polish and breakfast.)

Homemade Tissue Paper Pom Poms or Flowers: tutorial here, price varied for tissue paper. Cupcake Piñata: $11.97 Walmart stores.

This was the 'Breakfast Bar,' with two cereals, cut up strawberries, chopped walnuts and mini dehydrated marshmallows. Marshmallows: $1.87 from bulk food store. Used two plastic ice cream scoops to serve cereal: $1.00 each at Dollar Tree Stores. Did I mention it was a sleepover?

Inspired by Pinterest and these lantern colors, I'd say this was a successful birthday party!

Until the next party...

Before & Afters: Garage Sale Finds

A few weeks ago our little town hosted its annual city-wide garage sale. It goes over like gangbusters. I kid you not. Even through rain, the die-hard treasure hunters will keep going in their cars.

For me and my cheapness thrifty-ness, it's better than a trip to Goodwill, and that's saying a lot!

What have I found at garage sales in the past? Well, let's have a look-see, shall we?

This pretty clock with its pretty gold and burgundy colors:



How about a little ORB spray paint? That took all of 20 minutes to makeover!



This mail organizer costed 50 cents. That's a steal!

A little white spray paint and chalkboard paint certainly gave it an updated look.

And of course the famous cheese domes and candlesticks.

From ugly to pretty with some more ORB!

Have you been to any garage sales this summer? What have you found?

Kids Artwork: A DIY Father's Day Present

Husband is not a fan of the made-up holidays. I on the other hand, want to celebrate everything. Because as the years pass and I see our three children growing up, I have a tendency to want to cling and hold on a little tighter.

This year I wanted to create a very special heartfelt Father's Day present. Husband loves to see our family photos and the kids' artwork displayed in our house. I feel the same way, why invest in pricey art when we have our own budding artists right in our house!

Our kids, like yours I'm sure, bring home a ton of artwork from school. I tried several ways to keep it all (in plastic bins, displayed in cheap garage sale frames and just plain taped to the wall as seen in these photos.)

I even tried to get fancy and use iPhone apps to archive all that creativity to one day turn into a book. But that was just like scrapbooking, and I never did that well either.

Then I picked up the book Playful Home and was inspired by this photograph and the framed art in a child's room:

How cool. A retrospective of three kids artwork, beautifully designed and framed. As usual, I wanted to make a similar version to that one, and still not spend a lot of money.

I started by taking pics of their drawings, paintings and projects from this school year. Then I cropped the photos to be approximately the same size. I created a similar design as in the inspirational photo in Adobe InDesign and inserted the photos and wrote my own text. (If you don't do graphic design work like I do and don't have this software, I was thinking that you could create something similar in Pic Monkey, which is free.)

I debated whether to print from my own printer, but I didn't want to do any cutting and gluing, I wanted it to look professional, as if you could have bought this somewhere. So I turned my design into a *jpeg file took it to Walgreens to have them print a 14x20 poster size (which was the size of an old frame I had.) With an in-store coupon, I saved a nice chunk of change.

*I had to specify the type of file because FYI, their photo machines cannot read PDFs.

I might do this every year and put them side by side along one wall to make a nice wall gallery!

Now mind you, I hung this up in the laundry room just to photograph it because that room had the best light. But Husband has yet to see this since Father's Day is still thirteen days away, on June 16th. So shhh...I'm taking it down now and hiding it in a closet.

Hopefully I've inspired you to think of a new way to preserve your kids' artwork and maybe to make a beautiful DIY Father's Day gift.

DIY After: Spray Painting The Fireplace

As many of you know, our lakehouse living room is in dire need of a makeover. We've been here just under a year and have had so much (life) going on that renovations had to put on hold.

But last week, I couldn't deal with my living room anxiety anymore, I needed to make at least one change, because with as much work as I do from home, that is the room that mocks me daily with it's screaming 70s fireplace, salmon carpeting, asymmetrical built-in bookcase and walls that need painting so badly.

So I took one baby step. I spray painted the brass surround. Is that what it's called? The ugly brass/gold thing in front that has doors? For the life of me, I can't figure out what to call those doors... (I also see fingerprints and dog drool, hi, welcome to my home.)

As usual, the prep work took the longest. All the taping etc. but it's definitely worth it, because if I had gotten spray paint on the brick, I would have died. Well, maybe not, but you know what I'm saying.

See? Do you see the "face?" I am going to take a sledge hammer to those cutouts one day! Okay, so I taped and then scratched up the surface with sandpaper.

Used the special high-heat spray paint...

And ta-dah! It's a million times better!

Up next? Husband and I are painting the walls...

DIY Organized Drawers On A Dime

It's been pretty busy lately at our house, what with new clients, our kids' sports activities and end-of-school concerts and events, I haven't had a minute to sit and blog! Husband and I keep talking about painting the living room, but we just don't have the time to do it! I did tackle one small DIY project.

Taking a cue from Pinterest, I organized a drawer that has some of my work stuff. Of course I didn't want to spend much money, so I used the cereal boxes we already had...

Cut them up to make them fit the drawer and covered them with cute wrapping paper I found at Goodwill.

It took me forever to find paper because I don't scrapbook and I won't spend a lot of $ on nice scrapbook paper. (Cheap, cheap.)

I have to admit, it turned out really well. 'Cause I'm all about making things pretty. :)

Here's a behind-the-scenes shot of what it really looks like when you're doing a DIY project!

That's not pretty at all! What have you done lately to beautify (and organize) your home office or craft room? Let me know and include a link to your blog so I can drop by!

Help! There's Carpet In My Kitchen!

Nothing like moving into a house and debating whether you really want to keep the ninties-inspired patterned carpet in your kitchen. Before we moved in, the homeowner said it was "scotchgarded."

*crickets*

With three kids and a slobbering dog, there isn't enough Scotchgard® in the world to save this carpet.

Cue kitchen of my dreams from bhg:

What to do, what to do, a quick inward scream, and then you get online to see how on earth to remedy this. Hmm...ceramic tile, vinyl tile, hardwood, laminate...oh so much to choose from. Cross off laminate, been there, done that in several homes. Hardwood? Love it, but the dog scratching her nails across it everyday? I don't think so. How about vinyl tile? Easy upkeep, comes in different sizes, looks like ceramic tile (or stone) and can be grouted, but is lighter, warmer and easier on the feet.

Three problems; 1) they glued the carpet directly to the floor boards, so it was a bumpy, nasty mess and 2) if you use vinyl tile, you may feel the bumps underneath unless you are willing to sand, etc. (which Husband and I have yet to do our own floors so we are terrified) and of course 3) cost.

Always about the bottom line.

I wish I could have said that we were brave and we DIYed it, but even after consulting other DIYers and flooring specialists on Hometalk, the job seemed incredibly daunting for us flooring-newbies.

And even though we can paint, reuse, refurbish and craiglist the crap out of most things in our home, we folded and had someone else do it. :(

Now that we decided on vinyl tile, we looked at every possible color/style option and even pinned them:

I don't know why I'm always drawn to 'travertine' which is a form of limestone, but I am. So that is the kind of tile we chose. That process only took about two weeks! (Hey, when you're spending a boat-load of money on a floor, you better love it!)

But alas! Apparently it would have costed us more to have vinyl tile installed than ceramic tile. Who woudda thunk it. So, I dished out the big bucks (because people, it isn't cheap) and hired someone to put in travertine-looking ceramic tile, because Husband wasn't about to mess with tile, being unexperienced and all.

This photo makes it look more gray, but it is more on the brown side. My saving grace about choosing ceramic tile, it will last forever.

What kind of flooring do you have in your kitchen? Are you happy with it?

Look Who I'm Writing For!

I'm so excited to announce that I am now a contributing writer for Todays Wisconsin Mama. I will be posting all my DIY projects there. Drop by and leave me a comment letting me know what you think about our master bedroom paint experience!

I'll still be posting recipes, my views on social media and family life here on my blog, so no worries! Also, if there is a DIY project on TodaysMama, I may post extra photos or tips on my personal blog, so keep stopping by! I appreciate all your comments!

A big hello and thank you to the editors at TodaysMama!