Can't Wait for Halloween

Since Fall is my favorite season and Halloween my favorite holiday, it's no wonder I'm getting excited about October already. I've already started some projects to get ready for this awesome time of year. I discovered that there is a scrapbook store here, so I go there often to get paper. Last time I got some Halloween paper to cover some wooden letters I got at Hobby Lobby. They were supposed to stand up in a groove in the wood, but once I took the letters out and covered them I couldn't get them back in, so I had to compromise.


We are also planning to have Halloween party, and I wanted to have fun napkins and such for the dinner portion. I looked around and thought about just getting cheap disposable paper napkins because real ones were so expensive, but then I had an idea. At Hobby Lobby (you can tell I keep these guys in business) they had spiderweb patterned bandanas for $1.27, and so I bought one and took it home to experiment. I cut it into 4 pieces and experimented with some ribbon and other trim I had lying around. I decided lace would look best (has a spiderwebby look) and so I went back to Happy Place....I mean Hobby Lobby. All their ribbon was 50% off, so I got two spools of lace for $1.00 each, and another bandana. I sewed the cut edges under and then trimmed them in the lace ribbon. I think they turned out good, and I got 8 fun Halloween napkins for under $5.00. Not bad!

Ahhh! More Monsters!

One day Nick went to put away his combat boots, and found that there were little boot monsters living in them! Their names are Mike and Ike, although they don't even know which one is which. It's a good thing they don't have noses, living in Nick's boots and all...


When sewing patterns go on sale for $1.00 I always go and get a bunch of them. ($1.00 is ALWAYS better than $16.00!) Last time I got some stuffed animal patterns so I can learn to make better monsters. I tried an elephant one, but made the trunk longer, and then dressed her up a bit. I named her Ellie.

Random Projects

Ok, so I did these awhile ago, but man do I love to play with paper. I don't scrapbook, but I do use scrapbook paper a ton. This first one was just a blank book I got from Michael's, and I just covered it with paper. I cutout matching leaves from another place on the paper that I used for the front and mounted them over themselves with some raised, flat, wooden beads underneath so that they stick up from the cover. I used eyelets to make the threaded binding look cleaner, and used embroidery thread to bind it and for some embellishment. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it was fun to make.


This is just a random baby shower card I made for a friend's baby shower. I am obviously not a card-making master, but hey, it's a good start, right?

Great Find

So, I was at Hobby Lobby one day and was poking around in the clearance section, and I see these horribly ugly shelves. I thought, "Are you kidding me?" and checked the price just for fun, and instead of the original $50 it was marked down to $5. They weren't broken and were in perfect condition, so they must have been marked down for pure ugliness. I walked away and then kept coming back to it. What was I going to do with these ugly shelves?


Then I had an idea. I pulled out the ugly drawers, and the shelf itself was actually really nice, so I thought maybe I could use it as a shelf and take out the ugly drawers and do something with them. After walking away and coming back several times, I finally bought it and brought it home. I took out the drawers and nailed the shelf to the wall and put some cool stuff in it. I actually ended up really liking it; lucky for me everyone else had been deterred away from it due to the ugly drawers!
Next, I found some cool paper and took the nasty drawers and covered them. I want to mount them on the wall My kitchen colors are black, white, and red, so I'd like to put them in there someday when I have a kitchen that actually has walls...or even a wall. :)

Needless to say, I'm really excited that I got sweet shelves AND cool wall boxes for $5 ($5.87 if you count the paper) rather than $50. Great find!