Cheap Chandelier Makeover

Almost one year ago we moved into a house with great bones.  Great Bones and old style, including the house's original ugly, ugly, ugly disgusting vintage bright orange carpet from the 1970's.  Our dining room also included a very lovely chandelier...not quite my style.  And since the whole house was in need of a makeover, our budget was being worn thin. 

So in came Mr. One Dollar Can of Spray Paint.

My hubby unwired the chandelier for me and hung it in the garage so I could paint it. 

(I don't have a picture of that step.)

After two cans of spray paint, this was the result.

Our dining room is still a work in progress.

But spray painting the chandelier was a fast, inexpensive and easy step to tide us over until we're able to purchase the chandelier of our dreams!

So Simple.

Felt Flower Headband & Hair Clip Tutorial

You may have seen all kinds of different tutorials online about flower hairclips and such.  Well, here's another!

Supplies Needed:

-felt (can be found at Michaels for under 30 cents!)

- scissors

- glue gun and extra glue sticks

- brads or buttons (found my brads at Craft Warehouse)

- piece of paper

- straight pins

- hair clips (found at Sally Salon supply stores)

AND/OR

- plain headbands (I found mine at the Dollar Tree)

Freehanded, draw the shape of the kind of flower you would like to use and then cut it out (this is your pattern).  Next, pin your cut out flower pattern to your felt with a straight pin and cut it out. (You will need to do this twice so you have two flowers.)

If you are going to use a brad, you will make a tiny slit in the middle of your felt flower so that you can poke it through the flower.  I folded my flower in half and then did my tiny cut.  If you choose to just use a button for the center of your flower, you can skip this step because the button just needs to be glued on.

Then layer your two felt flowers on top of each other and insert your brad.  (If using a button, now is when you would glue it in the center of your flower.)

This is what your flower will look like from the top and from the bottom now.

The next step is to cut an oval out of felt (this will be part of the backing.)  Pinch your clip open and slide the felt oval in the middle.  Then let your clip close and put glue all around the perimeter of the felt.  -hopefully your glue gun isn't as messy as mine!-  Then place your flower right on top of the glued oval and clip.

This is what it looks like upside down when you're finished.

For the headband, you place your flower where you want it, cut an oval out of felt like you would for the clip and glue the oval and the flower together, with the headband in the middle (kind of like a headband sandwich!)  You can also add as many flowers to the headband as you want!

And there you go!  Simple, and so cute!

**Linked to: 

Skip To My Lou

The Girl Creative

Cleaning Supplies - Part 1

(Image:  Courtesy of allcleaningsupplies.info)

I'm always looking for small ways I can shave a little off my grocery budget or, frankly, just STAY WITHIN my budget!

So about a year and a half ago, I started making my own cleaner for cleaning the kitchen table and the counters in the bathroom and the kitchen.

Here is what I do:

(Supplies include a generic plastic spray bottle - approx. 24 oz.-, bleach, hot water, and a tablespoon.)

Carefully pour 2 tablespoons of bleach into the spray bottle (I do this over the sink incase I spill...cause I'm not perfect!!!).

Then fill the rest of the spray bottle up with hot water, almost all the way to the top, leaving a bit of room to mix both ingredients up.

Then put the top back on the bottle, screw it on tight, and shake well! I also like to use a permenant marker to lable what is inside the bottle. - cause it wouldn't be a good thing if I used this spray bottle for my ironing -

Remember to:  *Shake well before each use.

**Test on small surface area first before using

I love it!  It works great, smells clean, & saves me money!!!

-Have any other thrifty cleaning advice?  Leave a comment!

Target Treasures

Anyone love the dollar section at Target as much as I do???

Where everything is between $1.00 - $2.50??

I stopped by there a couple of days ago and found these babies:

White tin bucket -$2.50

Foam Alphabet Stickers - $1.00

I turned it into this:

(Perfect for a Memorial Day or 4th of July get together with family & friends!)
After the otter pops were devoured, I used it in my pantry to store other snacks.

Total cost for multifunctional tin bucket: $3.50!!!

AWESOME!


*Linked to:

 The Shabby Nest
Making the World Cuter

Popcorn Funnels

One of our family traditions is Friday Movie Night. Every Friday, the kids get to sleep out in the family room in their sleeping bags, watch Disney movies until way past their normal bedtime, and eat treats. They look forward to it all week!

So I thought this would be a fun and simple idea to start implementing on the Friday's that our treat is popcorn. (So much more fun than just tossing the popcorn in a big bowl for everyone to share.)

WHAT YOU NEED:

To make the funnel, start by flipping your paper over, then grab one corner and pull it toward the center of the paper. Then roll the whole thing away from you (or lift it up and kind of twist it until it makes a funnel shape like this). Tape the edge down so it keeps it's shape.

Then fill it with popcorn!

These are so simple to make and they could be used for a number of occasions (movie nights, play dates, birthday parties, or other holidays).

Do you have any fun family traditions???

(leave a comment)

Number Jars

I love monograms on things and I also love the simplicity of numbering things too! A few weeks ago I added a 1,2,3 to these jars. I didn't/don't have a fancy cricut or other such machine to make any vinyl. So instead I enlarged some numbers on microsoft word, printed them out, mod podged the letters onto my jars, and WALAA!

This time around I decided to monogram another jar I had with the letter H (for my last name). I enlarged the letter H on microsoft word and used a font size of 200 in Times New Roman.

Supplies used are pictured below (minus the scissors I used to cut out the H).

After the H was cut out, I decided where I wanted to place it on the jar. Then I painted mod podge onto that area.

The next step was to place the H onto the mod podge and then paint over the letter H with more mod podge and wait about 30 minutes for it to dry.

You can fill jars with just about anything... grains to cook with, loose change, little soaps...

I chose to use mine for cookies!

YUM!

Simple, easy, Cheap!

Quick French Bread

I love fresh bread hot from the oven. However until I got this recipe from my friend Kim, I rarely made homemade bread because it just took too long. I didn't have the patience to wait for hours while it raised. This Quick French Bread recipe takes just a little over an hour from start to finish! An hour! I have an hour!

The ingredients are basic and simple too. Here they are:

• 2 1/2 Cups Warm Water
• 2 T. Yeast
• 2 T. Sugar
• 1 t. Salt
• 3 T. Oil
• 5 1/2 -6 Cups Flour

First:  Add yeast and then sprinkle the sugar over the 2 1/2 cups of water.  Let it sit for about five minutes until you see the yeast get all bubbly on top.

Next:  Stir in the salt, oil, and flour.

Then:  Knead the dough for a few minutes until it is smooth and pulls away from the bowl like this...

Then cover your bowl with a warm wet towel and let the dough sit for about 15 minutes.
**Update:  Tip - put a bowl of water in your microwave and turn your microwave on for two minutes.  Then take the bowl of water out and set your bowl of bread dough in the warm microwave for the 15 minutes.  This moist, warm envirmonment makes the bread rise a lot faster.

After 15 minutes the bread dough looks like this!

Next, divide the dough into two long loaves (rolling like a jelly roll and tucking in the ends). Place both loaves side by side on a greased cookie sheet. Then take a knife and slash the tops of each loaf diagonally. Allow the loaves to sit for a few minutes while you preheat your oven to 375. Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown.

Yum! It's soft in the middle and slightly crunchy on the outside.

{...and in real life it turned out a lot more brown than it shows in the picture below.}

**Optional: For an extra cruchy crust, mix together one egg white with 1 T. cold water and brush on cooked bread and cook for another 3 minutes.

*This would also make a great neighbor gift if you wrapped it up all nice and warm and included the recipe with it, written on a cute tag.   

Warm Fuzzies

A few months back, I noticed our three children were in need of a reminder to act more kindly towards one another. So using kind of a twist on a jar of "warm fuzzies" President Monson mentioned in his talk, "What Have I Done For Someone Today," my husband and I decided this just might be the ticket we needed to reinforce the kindness that sometimes seemed to be lacking in our household. We expained to our children one night that we were going to start a warm fuzzy jar. Every time we caught them doing something nice for us or for each other, without being asked, they would get to place a warm fuzzy inside of a glass flower vase (that frankly never got much use). When it was filled to the top with warm fuzzies, we would all get to go out for ice cream as a family (Yes, we sometimes believe in bribing our children!!! LOL).

During the last few months they have filled the vase all the way to the top with warm fuzzies one time and we were able to go to an ice cream place of their choice. They are currently working on filling it up again, only this time they have asked our family treat to be Happy Meals.

This vase of warm fuzzies has served as a great reminder to my children that it's important to look for ways to be kind to each other and some days they really get into it, going out of their way to do something kind for someone. Even our youngest, who is 2, gets a chance to add warm fuzzies to the vase. She shares her favorite toys, gives hugs, and has even cleared her plate after a meal without being reminded.

Putting together a warm fuzzy jar is very simple.

Supplies Needed:

• Vase, canning jar, old mayonaise or jam jar, etc.


• Colorful Pom Pom Balls (I purchased mine at Michaels but I've seen them even cheaper at The Dollar Tree or in the dollar section at Target.)

I also added a little saying I printed off the computer and taped onto the side of my vase that says,"Kindness Begins With Me". Our children are like little sponges and I hope they are learning while they are young to be kind and to think of ways to serve one another daily.